Conditioned taste aversion with sucrose and tactile stimuli in the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis

A new form of taste aversion conditioning was established in the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis. An associative memory, lasting 24h, was produced in the pond snail with 20 pairings of 100 mM sucrose as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and mechanical stimulation to the head as the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Animals exposed to reverse pairings of the CS and UCS failed to learn the association. The learning was characterized by a shift in the response to the UCS from a whole-body withdrawal response to the cessation of feeding behavior.     

Importance of treatment efficacy research on language comprehension in MR/DD research

The purpose of this review is to discuss the importance of treatment efficacy research in language comprehension in MR/DD populations. Although receptive language deficit is an integral part of most MR/DD typologies, there have been relatively few studies evaluating the effectiveness or efficacy of treatment for this condition. Recently, there has been increased attention placed on auditory processing in children with disabilities, an aspect of cognition related to receptive language, but there have also been few studies investigating the effectiveness or efficacy of training designed to improve auditory processing. In addition to arguing that additional studies in this area are needed, the review includes several theoretical frameworks for addressing the treatment of receptive language deficits in MR/DD.     

Processing polarity items: contrastive licensing costs

We describe an experiment that investigated the failure to license polarity items in German using event-related brain potentials (ERPs). The results reveal distinct processing reflexes associated with failure to license positive polarity items in comparison to failure to license negative polarity items. Failure to license both negative and positive polarity items elicited an N400 component reflecting semantic integration cost. Failure to license positive polarity items, however, also elicited a P600 component. The additional P600 in the positive polarity violations may reflect higher processing complexity associated with a negative operator. This difference between the two types of violation suggests that the processing of negative and positive polarity items does not involve identical mechanisms.     

Age differences in the effect of physical activity on depressive symptoms

This study examined associations between physical activity and depressive symptoms in 1,151 community-dwelling adults in Japan. Physical activity was measured using a pedometer, whereas depressive symptoms were assessed with the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale. A structural equation modeling with a cross-lagged panel design revealed that for the older adults (65-79 years of age), daily walking at baseline predicted fewer depressive symptoms at the 2-year follow-up, even after adjusting for confounders. In contrast, the association was not confirmed for the middle-aged adults (40-64 years of age). Findings suggest that age should be considered when estimating the effect of physical activity on psychological well-being.     

The Effects of Early English Learning on Auditory Perception of English Minimal Pairs by Taiwan University Students

Auditory perception of English minimal pairs was tested with or without noise background. Each subject was interviewed after the test to collect information regarding their early experience on learning English as a foreign language. This study was designed to examine the differential effects of learning English at three age-starting points and two learning durations. This study hopes to determine how childhood experience of English learning (which is not mandatory in public elementary schools) has affected the auditory competence of university students in distinguishing English minimal pairs. Results showed that age effects were salient only under condition of noise background. Without the interference of background noise, most subjects performed well enough to obliterate any potential differences.     

Antipsychotic medication adherence, cocaine use, and recidivism among a parolee sample

This study examined the independent and interactive associations between cocaine use and antipsychotic medication adherence in predicting 12 month criminal recidivism among a sample of mentally ill parolees (N = 200). Consistent with prior research, cocaine use (based on hair assays) was associated with more than a threefold increase (relative to non-cocaine users) in the likelihood of a parolee being returned to custody during the follow-up period. Although medication adherence (based on urine specimens) was not independently associated with a significant reduction in recidivism risk, the interaction between cocaine use and medication adherence was significant, revealing a disproportionate impact of medication adherence specific to cocaine users. Prediction models of recidivism based on self-reported measures of medication adherence and cocaine use revealed only marginally significant trends for cocaine use, no effect for adherence, and no significant interaction between these two predictors.     

Watson's behaviorism: a comparison of the two editions (1925 and 1930)

J.B. Watson's Behaviorism, a complete presentation of the mature psychological points of view of its author, had 2 editions, in 1925 and 1930, which presented significant differences in their texts. Although Watson maximized such variations, to the point of considering the 2nd edition as nearly a brand-new book, both suppressions and additions reveal his feelings when presenting his ideas to a general audience. Such variations are here presented through an in-depth analysis.     

Therapy of treatment resistant depression: focus on the management of TRD with atypical antipsychotics

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) represents a significant challenge for physicians. About one third of patients with major depressive disorder fail to experience sufficient symptom improvement despite adequate treatment. Despite this high occurrence of TRD there was no general consensus on diagnosis criteria for TRD until 1997 when researchers proposed a model of defining and staging TRD. In 1999, others defined operational criteria for the definition of TRD. Treatment of TRD is commonly separated into pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic methods. This review gives a short overview of these two methods. The nonpharmacologic methods include psychotherapy, electroconvulsive therapy, and vagus nerve stimulation. Pharmacologic methods include switching to another antidepressant monotherapy, and augmentation or combination with two or more antidepressants or other agents. This review especially focuses on the augmentation of the antidepressant therapy with atypical antipsychotics.