Depressive symptoms during pregnancy: impact on neuroendocrine and neonatal outcomes

Objective

To explore the interplay of maternal depressive symptoms on the infant limbic-hypothalamic-pituitary axis (LHPA) and neurological development.

Design

Pregnant women were monitored for depressive symptoms using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) at 28, 32, and 37 weeks of gestation and at delivery. A mixture growth curve analysis divided the women into three risk groups: low/stable, intermediate, and high/increasing depression based on BDI scores. The infant neuroendocrine system was examined using cord blood for adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol measurements. Two-week-old infants were examined using Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS).

Results

Infants born to women of the high/increasing depression group had significant ACTH elevation at birth. On NNNS examination, these infants were more hypotonic and habituated to auditory and visual stimuli.

Conclusion

When compared to non-depressed women, maternal depressive symptoms, even in the absence of major depressive disorder, appeared to facilitate a different developmental pathway for the infant LHPA and early neurological development.     

Differentially tuned responses to restricted versus prolonged awareness of threat: a preliminary fMRI investigation

Responses to threat occur via two known independent processing routes. We propose that early, reflexive processing is predominantly tuned to the detection of congruent combinations of facial cues that signal threat, whereas later, reflective processing is predominantly tuned to incongruent combinations of threat. To test this prediction, we examined responses to threat-gaze expression pairs (anger versus fear expression by direct versus averted gaze). We report on two functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, one employing prolonged presentations (2 s) of threat-gaze pairs to allow for reflective processing (Study 1), and one employing severely restricted (33 ms), backward masked presentations of threat-gaze pairs to isolate reflexive neural responding (Study 2). Our findings offer initial support for the conclusion that early, reflexive responses to threat are predominantly tuned to congruent threat-gaze pairings, whereas later reflective responses are predominantly tuned to ambiguous threat-gaze pairings. These findings highlight a distinct dual function in threat perception.     

Later life health optimism, pessimism and realism: psychosocial contributors and health correlates

Prior research has established positive outcomes of health optimism (appraising one's health as good despite poor objective health (OH)) and negative outcomes of health pessimism (appraising health as poor despite good OH), yet little is known about their contributors. We examined the role of psychosocial factors (life event stress, depression, dispositional optimism, perceived social support) in health realism (appraising health in accordance with OH), optimism and pessimism among 489 older men and women. We then accounted for the psychosocial factors when examining multiple health correlates of health realism, optimism and pessimism. Controlling for age, gender and income, regression results indicate that depression and social support were associated with less health optimism, while dispositional optimism was associated with greater health optimism among those in poor OH. Dispositional optimism was associated with less health pessimism and life event stress was associated with greater pessimism among those in good OH. Beyond the effects of the psychosocial factors, structural equation model results indicate that health optimism was positively associated with healthy behaviours and perceived control over one's health; health pessimism was associated with poorer perceived health care management. Health optimism and pessimism have different psychosocial contributors and health correlates, validating the health congruence approach to later life well-being, health and survival.     

Interrelating Behavioral Measures of Distress Tolerance with Self-Reported Experiential Avoidance

Experiential avoidance and distress intolerance play a central role in novel behavior therapies, yet they appear to overlap considerably the REBT concept of low frustration tolerance. Using baseline data from 100 adult cigarette smokers enrolled in a clinical trial of smoking cessation therapies, the present study evaluated the convergent validity of common questionnaire measures of experiential avoidance (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire; AAQ; Hayes et al. 2004, and Avoidance and Inflexibility Scale: AIS; Gifford et al. 2004) and behavioral measures of distress tolerance (computerized Mirror Tracing Persistence Task: MTPT-C: Strong et al. 2003; computerized Paced Auditory Serial Addition Task; PASAT-C; Lejuez et al. 2003). The distress tolerance measures correlated significantly (r = .29) with one another. However, the questionnaire measures of experiential avoidance did not correlate with each other, nor with the behavioral measures. Further research is needed on the validity of measuring experiential avoidance by self-report and of the overlap versus distinctiveness of seemingly similar constructs such as experiential avoidance, distress tolerance, and frustration tolerance.     

\'Ber\ing' it all

Revealing ourselves in a psychotherapy group, as well as bearing witness to what others reveal, encourages trust among group members and increases our ability to access knowledge, our feelings, our intuitions, and our imaginations. The author, a trainee in a postgraduate group psychotherapy program, describes some of her initial experiences as a group member in a process group and as a group leader. Bearing the experience of being bare in a psychotherapy group, as a member or as a leader, is no easy task. The various meanings of bare and bear as it relates to group participation are explored in this paper through the analysis of the author's dream and through other personal and professional anecdotes.     

Factor structure of self-regulation in preschoolers: testing models of a field-based assessment for predicting early school readiness

The importance of early self-regulatory skill has seen increased focus in the applied research literature given the implications of these skills for early school success. A three-factor latent structure of self-regulation consisting of compliance, cool executive control, and hot executive control was tested against alternative models and retained as best fitting. Tests of model equivalence indicated that the model held invariant across Head Start and private child-care samples. Partial invariance was supported for age and gender. In the validity model, because of a substantial amount of shared variance among latent factors, we included a second-order factor explaining the two types of executive control. Higher order executive control positively predicted teacher report of learning behaviors and social competence in the classroom. These findings are discussed in light of their practical and theoretical significance.     

The time course of contextual influences during lexical ambiguity resolution: Evidence from distributional analyses of fixation durations

In the lexical ambiguity literature, it is well-established that readers experience processing difficulties when they encounter biased homographs in a subordinate-instantiating prior context (i.e., the subordinate bias effect). To investigate the time course of this effect, the present study examined distributional analyses of first-fixation durations on 60 biased homographs that were each read twice: once in a subordinate-instantiating context and once in a dominant-instantiating context. Ex-Gaussian fitting revealed that the subordinate context distribution was shifted to the right of the dominant context distribution, with no significant contextual differences in the degree of skew. In addition, a survival analysis technique showed a significant influence of the subordinate versus dominant contextual manipulation as early as 139?ms from the start of fixation. These results indicate that the contextual manipulation had a fast-acting influence on the majority of fixation durations, which is consistent with the reordered access model's assumption that prior context can affect the lexical access stage of reading.     

More than a feeling: discrete emotions mediate the relationship between relative deprivation and reactions to workplace furloughs

A key insight from investigations of individual relative deprivation (IRD) is that people can experience objective disadvantages differently. In this study, university faculty (N = 953) who reported greater IRD in response to a mandatory furlough (i.e., involuntary pay reductions) were more likely to (a) voice options designed to improve the university (voice), (b) consider leaving their job (exit), and (c) neglect their work responsibilities (neglect), but were (d) less likely to express loyalty to the university (loyalty). Consistent with the emotions literature, (a) anger mediated the relationship between IRD and voice, (b) fear between IRD and exit, (c) sadness between IRD and neglect, and (d) gratitude between IRD and loyalty. IRD was inversely associated with self-reported physical and mental health via these different emotional pathways. These results show how discrete emotions can explain responses to IRD and, in turn, contribute to organizational viability and the health of its members.     

If it walks like a duck: Construct validation of proverb-based personality dimensions

Previous research has investigated the personality-relevance of proverb endorsement. In this previous research, however, participants were provided with additional information to aid them in their interpretations of the proverbial phrases. Although seven proverb-based personality dimensions were revealed, it is not entirely clear whether these dimensions truly reflect dimensions encoded in the proverb domain itself, or whether they reflect, instead, meanings imposed by the definitional context. In this study, college-student participants relied on their own interpretations of proverbial wisdom to guide their endorsements. Significantly, two of the previously reported dimensions - the two that had previously seemed to be the most novel - did not replicate. Five proverb-based dimensions were replicated, however, and the relationships between these dimensions and dimensions assessed by more established personality inventories were explored. This study thus confirms that proverbial wisdom does indeed advocate behavior and beliefs relevant to important dimensions of individual difference.