Psychoeducational Psychotherapy and Omega-3 Supplementation Improve Co-Occurring Behavioral Problems in Youth with Depression: Results from a Pilot RCT

This pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT) investigated benefits of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation and Individual-Family Psychoeducational Psychotherapy (PEP; a family-focused, cognitive-behavioral therapy) for behavior problems among youth with depression. Participants aged 7–14 with DSM-IV-TR depressive disorders (N = 72; 56.9 % male) were randomized to 1 of 4 treatment conditions: PEP + omega-3, PEP monotherapy (with pill placebo), omega-3 monotherapy, or placebo (without active intervention). At screen, baseline, and 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 weeks post-baseline, parents completed the SNAP-IV, which assesses attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, oppositional defiant disorder symptoms, and overall behavior problems. At screen, baseline (randomization), 6 and 12 weeks, parents completed the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI), which includes Intensity and Problem scales for child behavior problems. Youth who had a completed SNAP-IV or ECBI for at least two assessments during treatment (n = 48 and 38, respectively) were included in analyses of the respective outcome. ClinicalTrials.gov.:NCT01341925. Linear mixed effects models indicated a significant effect of combined PEP + omega-3 on SNAP-IV Total (p = 0.022, d = 0.80) and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity trajectories (p = 0.008, d = 0.80), such that youth in the combined group saw greater behavioral improvement than those receiving only placebo. Similarly, youth in combined treatment had more favorable ECBI Intensity trajectories than youth who received no active treatment (p = 0.012, d = 1.07). Results from this pilot RCT suggest that combined PEP + omega-3 is a promising treatment for co-occurring behavior symptoms in youth with depression.     

The Effects of Alcohol Intoxication on Accuracy and the Confidence–Accuracy Relationship in Photographic Simultaneous Line‐ups

Acute alcohol intoxication during encoding can impair subsequent identification accuracy, but results across studies have been inconsistent, with studies often finding no effect. Little is also known about how alcohol intoxication affects the identification confidence–accuracy relationship. We randomly assigned women (N = 153) to consume alcohol (dosed to achieve a 0.08% blood alcohol content) or tonic water, controlling for alcohol expectancy. Women then participated in an interactive hypothetical sexual assault scenario and, 24 hours or 7 days later, attempted to identify the assailant from a perpetrator present or a perpetrator absent simultaneous line‐up and reported their decision confidence. Overall, levels of identification accuracy were similar across the alcohol and tonic water groups. However, women who had consumed tonic water as opposed to alcohol identified the assailant with higher confidence on average. Further, calibration analyses suggested that confidence is predictive of accuracy regardless of alcohol consumption. The theoretical and applied implications of our results are discussed.© 2017 The Authors Applied Cognitive Psychology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Over‐selective Responding in a Diagnostic Judgment Task

Medical diagnoses are often made on the basis of the presence of multiple symptoms. However, little is known about how the presence of multiple simultaneous symptoms may influence a bias in determining which symptoms are identified, in part due to a lack of an experimental analogue of this process. The current article presents a laboratory analogue of this process and explores whether over‐selectivity influences the ability to identify symptoms indicative of particular illnesses. In two experiments, participants completed a diagnosis task that required them to rate the degree to which symptoms predicted illnesses, with predictor symptoms being presented either singly or in compound. In both experiments, over‐selectivity was observed; one symptom of the compound received lower ratings, compared to the other element of the compound and the single predictor, while the other component received comparable ratings with the element. These findings are discussed in relation to associative accounts of over‐selectivity and as a procedure to study biases in medical decision making.Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Qualitative Study of Factors Influencing Decision-Making after Prenatal Diagnosis of down Syndrome

Previous research has identified twenty-six factors that may affect pregnancy management decisions following prenatal diagnosis of DS; however, there is no consensus about the relative importance or effects of these factors. In order to better understand patient decision-making, we conducted expansive cognitive interviews with nine former patients who received a prenatal diagnosis of DS. Our results suggest that patients attached unique meanings to factors influencing decision-making regardless of the pregnancy outcome. Nineteen of the twenty-six factors previously studied and four novel factors (rationale for testing, information quality, pregnancy experience, and perception of parenting abilities and goals) were found to be important to decision-making. We argue that qualitative studies can help characterize the complexity of decision-making following prenatal diagnosis of DS.     

Parents’ Reports of Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: Associations with Parents’ Mental Health Symptoms and Substance Use Disorder

This brief report examined the unique associations between parents’ ratings of child internalizing symptoms and their own depression and anxiety in families with parental substance use disorder (SUD). Further, we examined whether parental SUD (father only, mother only, both parents) was related to discrepancy in mothers’ and fathers’ reports of children’s internalizing symptoms. Participants were 97 triads (fathers, mothers) in which one or both parents met criteria for SUD. Polynomial regression analyses were conducted to examine whether father-mother reports of child internalizing symptoms had unique associations with parents’ own symptoms of depression and anxiety while controlling for child gender, child age, and SUD diagnoses. Controlling for fathers’ symptoms and other covariates, mothers experiencing more depression and anxiety symptoms reported more symptoms of child internalizing symptoms than did fathers. Mothers’ and fathers’ SUD was associated with higher anxiety symptoms among mothers after controlling for other variables. A second set of polynomial regressions examined whether father-mother reports of child internalizing symptoms had unique associations with parents’ SUD diagnoses while controlling for child gender and child age. After controlling for mothers’ symptoms and other covariates, parents’ reports of children’s internalizing symptoms were not significantly associated with either parent’s SUD or parental SUD interactions (i.e., both parents have SUD diagnoses). Taken together, mothers’ ratings of children’s internalizing symptoms may be accounted for, in part, by her reports of depression and anxiety symptoms.     

Confirmation of correlation between brain nerve conduction velocity and intelligence level in normal adults

In 1992, Reed and Jensen [Intelligence 16 (1992) 259–272] reported a positive correlation (.26; p=.002; .37 after correcting for restricted intelligence range) between a brain nerve conduction velocity (NCV) and intelligence level in 147 normal male students. In the first follow-up of their study, we report on a study using similar NCV methodologies, but testing both male and female students and using more extensive measures of cognitive abilities. One-hundred eighty-six males and 201 females, aged 18–25 years, were tested in three different NCV conditions and with nine cognitive tests, including Raven Progressive Matrices as used by Reed and Jensen. None of the 27 independent correlations in either the males or in the females are significant at Bonferroni-corrected probability levels, but 25 of 27 correlations in males and 20 of 27 correlations in females have positive signs. The exact binomial probabilities for these results are 5.6×10⁻⁶ and .002, respectively. We discuss possible reasons for the differences between the results of Reed and Jensen and our results. We also find that males have four percent faster NCVs than females with each of the three test conditions, probably due to their faster increase of white matter in the brain during adolescence.