A common mechanism in verb and noun naming deficits in Alzheimer’s patients

We tested the ability of Alzheimer’s patients and elderly controls to name living and non-living nouns, and manner and instrument verbs. Patients’ error patterns and relative performance with different categories showed evidence of graceful degradation for both nouns and verbs, with particular domain-specific impairments for living nouns and instrument verbs. Our results support feature-based, semantic representations for nouns and verbs and support the role of inter-correlated features in noun impairment, and the role of noun knowledge in instrument verb impairment.     

Developmental dyslexia and widespread activation across the cerebellar hemispheres

Developmental dyslexia is the most common learning disability in school-aged children with an estimated incidence of five to ten percent. The cause and pathophysiological substrate of this developmental disorder is unclear. Recently, a possible involvement of the cerebellum in the pathogenesis of dyslexia has been postulated. In this study, 15 dyslexic children and 7 age-matched control subjects were investigated by means of functional neuroimaging (fMRI) using a noun-verb association paradigm. Comparison of activation patterns between dyslexic and control subjects revealed distinct and significant differences in cerebral and cerebellar activation. Control subjects showed bilaterally well-defined and focal activation patterns in the frontal and parietal lobes and the posterior regions of the cerebellar hemispheres. The dyslexic children, however, presented widespread and diffuse activations on the cerebral and cerebellar level. Cerebral activations were found in frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital regions. Activations in the cerebellum were found predominantly in the cerebellar cortex, including Crus I, Crus II, hemispheric lobule VI, VII and vermal lobules I, II, III, IV and VII. This preliminary study is the first to reveal a significant difference in cerebellar functioning between dyslexic children and controls during a semantic association task. As a result, we propose a new hypothesis regarding the pathophysiological mechanisms of developmental dyslexia. Given the sites of activation in the cerebellum in the dyslexic group, a defect of the intra-cerebellar distribution of activity is suspected, suggesting a disorder of the processing or transfer of information within the cerebellar cortex.     

Kuhn's Account Of Family Resemblance: A Solution To The Problem Of Wide-Open Texture

It is a commonly raised argument against thefamily resemblance account of concepts that, on thisaccount, there is no limit to a concept's extension.An account of family resemblance which attempts toprovide a solution to this problem by including bothsimilarity among instances and dissimilarity tonon-instances has been developed by the philosopher ofscience Thomas Kuhn. Similar solutions have beenhinted at in the literature on family resemblanceconcepts, but the solution has never received adetailed investigation. I shall provide areconstruction of Kuhn's theory and argue that hissolution necessitates a developmental perspective withbuilds on both the transmission of taxonomies betweengenerations and a progressive development throughhistory.     

Optimism, perceived risk of breast cancer, and cancer worry among a community-based sample of women.

Optimism is frequently inversely associated with distress; however, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Optimism can be defined as having a generalized positive expectancy about the future. The authors hypothesized that a specific expectancy might mediate the relationship between optimism and distress. That model was tested using perceived risk of breast cancer as a specific measure of expectancy and cancer worry as a measure of distress in a community-based sample of 1,366 women. It was hypothesized that optimism would be inversely associated with cancer worry and that perceived risk of breast cancer would mediate the relationship between optimism and cancer worry. Multiple regression analyses revealed that perceived risk partially mediated the relationship between optimism and cancer worry.     

Typology,the eight-function model,and archetypal complexes

This clinical presentation shows what insights a typology-conscious analysis of clients and their families may lead to and points out what is added by applying John Beebe’s eight-function, eight-archetype model. To reflect on the inner balance between archetypal complexes in the eight-function structure that holds our psyche, the author invites clients to do a typological analysis, including an analysis of their archetypal patterns, which may, itself, provoke anxiety. This article includes a presentation of ideas and experiences sparked when confronting these complexes in clinical work. Clients are introduced to six stages of coping with stress that may allow them to be more conscious of their complexes when triggered. These stages are Faint, Freeze, Flight, Fidget, Fight, and Flow. To identify whether the stress is physiological, emotional, or intellectual, the idea of the Triune Brain is introduced. The therapeutic work may lead to redemption from opposites, which is an ethical task.     

Brooding and Reflection as Subtypes of Rumination: Evidence from Confirmatory Factor Analysis in Nonclinical Samples using the Dutch Ruminative Response Scale

Previous research has shown that depressive rumination is an important vulnerability factor for experiencing depressive symptoms. The most widely used measure to assess depressive rumination is the Ruminative Response Scale (RRS). According to Treynor et al. (Cognitive Therapy and Research 27:247–259, 2003), the RRS contains two subscales, reflecting two different rumination subcomponents: brooding and reflection. The present study examined the psychometric properties of the RRS in two samples (N = 432 and N = 407). Based on a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), results confirmed that a two-dimensional model with brooding and reflection factors provided an adequate fit to the data. Reliability, convergent and discriminant validity of the rumination subcomponents were appropriate. Furthermore, brooding but not reflection predicted depressive symptoms prospectively, even when accounting for concurrent depressive feelings. The results provide the first confirmatory factor-analytical support for the widely assumed two-factor model of the RRS and add to the accumulating body of evidence supporting the multidimensional nature of depressive rumination.