Effects of neonatal treatment with 1-(2,5-dimethoxy-4-lodophenyl)-2 aminopropane HCI (DOI) and ritanserin on agonistic behavior in adult male and female rats

The role played by the neonatal 5-hydroxytryptamine (5HT) system in the organization and sexual differentiation of adult agonistic behavior was investigated in rats. Focus was on the 5HT2 receptor subtype, which has been demonstrated to be involved in agonism control in the adult. 5HT2 activity was experimentally manipulated by administration of a specific agonist [1-(2, 5-dimethoxy-4-iodophenyl)-2-aminopropane HCl (DOI)] or antagonist (ritanserin) during the second week of life, when serotonin is known to concur to anatomical and behavioral sexual differentiation. Interactions between early 5HT2 activity, genetic sex, and neonatal circulating testosterone (T) were studied by administering the ligands to males, females, and androgenized females. At adulthood, the animals were tested for both aspects of agonism, i. e., aggression and defense, in a 20-min confrontation with an unfamiliar conspecific of the same sex, age, body weight, and social experience. Neonatal administration of the 5HT2 antagonist ritanserin increased aggression independently of sex; it also increased defense, but this effect was confined to males. The agonist DOI had no effect on aggression, but enhanced defense in males and androgenized females, with an effect which depended therefore more on neonatal T than genetic sex. Females appeared in general less sensitive to neonatal 5HT2 manipulation than both androgenized females and males; this suggests that neonatal T is crucial for experimental modifications of neonatal 5HT2 activity to have any consistent effect on adult agonistic behavior. On the other hand, effects observed in males and androgenized females were dependent on the behavior considered and the drug administered. This was especially evident for defense, enhanced by ritanserin in males only, and in both males and androgenized females by DOI. Neonatal 5HT2 activity seems therefore to play a role in the modulation of adult agonistic behaviors, which depends on the behavior considered and is under multiple control of genetic sex and hormonal neonatal substrate. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Reaching the Champions of Social Justice

Since the formation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948, the ecumenical voice against social injustice in the church and society has been strengthening. As one expression of unity among the fellowship, the WCC embarked in 2013 on a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace to work, pray, and walk together for life-affirming economies, climate change, nonviolent peace building, and reconciliation and human dignity. Champions of these issues exist within the ecumenical movement. Yet one also finds that champions of one theme are pushing back on another theme. Sometimes it is due to diversity of contexts and biblical and theological interpretations. At other times it is due to unconscious bias about the holistic nature of God's mission of justice for all God's people and creation. This paper grapples with this question: Why are people who are so alive to economic and ecological injustice sometimes blind to racial and gender injustice? To answer this, I explore the existence of conscious and unconscious bias despite the many powerful ecumenical statements that have been issued on racial justice.     

“We believe,we feel,we act”: Testing the BIAS Map predictions during adolescence

The present study examined the relation between adolescents’ beliefs, emotions, and intentional behaviors toward two immigrant groups from the Spanish context: Moroccans and Ecuadorians. For this purpose, we tested the SCM/BIAS Map predictions considering the three-dimensional perspective of stereotype content, which distinguishes between morality, sociability, and competence. Spanish adolescents (N = 231, M_age = 15.39, SD = 1.09) evaluated either Moroccans (n = 114, 55.3% girls) or Ecuadorians (n = 117, 59% girls) on the SCM/BIAS Map variables. Our results confirmed, for both groups, the validity of the three-dimensional model of stereotype content and showed that adolescents differentiate between the two subdimensions of warmth and treat them as independent in intergroup evaluations. Furthermore, the mediating role of emotions in the stereotype content-behavior link was also confirmed but only for the univalent emotions in both groups. Finally, only morality acted as a consistent predictor of adolescents active behavioral intentions. The higher perceived morality of the immigrants increased adolescents’ admiration toward them, which in turn led adolescents to manifest more active facilitation intentions. Likewise, the perceived morality of the immigrants negatively affected adolescents’ contempt toward them, which in turn decreased adolescent's active harm intentions toward Ecuadorians and Moroccans. These findings indicate that the perceived morality of the outgroup is the key aspect in order to simultaneously promote helping behavior and decrease harmful one toward immigrant groups during adolescence.     

Low-income African American women's attempts to convince their main partner to use condoms

In this cross-sectional study the authors examine condom use attempts and condom use among 305 high-risk, low-income African American women who reported having a main partner. Women who had recently attempted to convince their main partner to use condoms were almost 10 times more likely to have recently used condoms with their partner than women who had not made an attempt. Among the subsample of 116 women who had recently made a condom use attempt with their main partner, having a history of childhood abuse and having one's main partner raise infidelity questions in response to the condom use attempt were negatively associated with recent condom use with this partner. Findings provide initial insights into the importance of women's condom use attempts, as well as subgroups of women who may encounter special challenges convincing their main partner to use condoms.     

Work-related stress and well-being: the roles of direct action coping and palliative coping

The purpose of the present study is to analyze the roles of direct action coping and palliative coping in the relationship between work stressors and psychological well-being, as well as their possible interactions, in a sample of 464 bank employees. Hierarchical regression analyses showed main effects of direct action coping on well-being. Palliative coping predicts higher levels of psychological distress. Contrary to what was expected, the interactions between work stressors and direct action coping were not significant. Palliative coping interacted with work stressors when predicting psychosomatic complaints. The interaction between the two types of coping was significant on psychosomatic complaints and psychological distress, but not on job satisfaction. The paper discusses theoretical and practical implications of these results, in order to design intervention strategies to prevent and manage job stress.     

When we like what we know – A parametric fMRI analysis of beauty and familiarity

This paper presents a neuroscientific study of aesthetic judgments on written texts. In an fMRI experiment participants read a number of proverbs without explicitly evaluating them. In a post-scan rating they rated each item for familiarity and beauty. These individual ratings were correlated with the functional data to investigate the neural correlates of implicit aesthetic judgments. We identified clusters in which BOLD activity was correlated with individual post-scan beauty ratings. This indicates that some spontaneous aesthetic evaluation takes place during reading, even if not required by the task. Positive correlations were found in the ventral striatum and in medial prefrontal cortex, likely reflecting the rewarding nature of sentences that are aesthetically pleasing. On the contrary, negative correlations were observed in the classic left frontotemporal reading network. Midline structures and bilateral temporo-parietal regions correlated positively with familiarity, suggesting a shift from the task-network towards the default network with increasing familiarity.     

Intervallbehandlung statt disziplinarischer Entlassung

Background

Conduct disorder is a frequent mental health problem in children and adolescents characterized by high functional impairment and a poor prognosis. Different types of interventions have been established but only few have proven effective. Relevant effect sizes could only be shown for family centred interventions. Inpatient treatment is not the first line treatment even though children, adolescents and their families often present with a query for inpatient admission when outpatient resources are at their limits.

Aim

The effectiveness of a newly developed interval treatment for adolescents with conduct disorder, which focuses on motivation of the adolescent, involvement of the family in the therapy and the avoidance of disciplinary discharge, was evaluated.

Material and methods

A total of 19 adolescents aged between 16 and 18 years with conduct disorder was treated and assessed within the new interval treatment. The key symptoms of conduct disorder, sociodemographic data, psychosocial functioning (children global assessment of functioning scale, CGAS) as well as the severity of impairment of behavior (health of the nation outcome scales for children and adolescents, HoNOSCA) were recorded before treatment (T1). After completion of treatment (T2) the frequency of participation in the three possible treatment intervals, as well as psychosocial functioning and severity of impairment of behavior were documented.

Results

Interval treatment leads to a reduction of disciplinary discharges. Engagement in and motivation for treatment was enhanced. At the end of treatment a significant effect on psychosocial functioning, behavior and severity of symptoms could be shown for interval treatment.

Conclusion

Inpatient interval treatment for adolescents with conduct disorder is an innovative and effective concept, when outpatient treatment has reached its limits.     

Glucocorticoid involvement in memory formation in a rat model for traumatic memory

Contextual fear conditioning under training conditions involving high stressor intensities has been proposed as an animal model for traumatic memories. The strength of memory for this task has been related to the intensity of the conditioning stressor and post-training corticosterone values. However, administration of a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist only attenuated memory for this task in rats conditioned at a moderate shock intensity (0.4 mA), but failed to influence conditioning in rats trained at a high shock intensity (1 mA). Here, we further questioned whether interfering with glucocorticoid action at the time of training might be effective in influencing contextual fear conditioning in rats trained under different shock intensities. Rats were subcutaneously injected with the glucocorticoid synthesis inhibitor metyrapone (50, 100 mg/kg) 90 min before being trained in the contextual fear conditioning task, at either 0.4 or 1 mA shock intensities. The results showed that metyrapone, in a dose-dependent manner: (i) attenuated long-term expression of contextual fear conditioning, both in 0.4- and 1 mA-trained rats; and (ii) efficiently prevented increased plasma corticosterone concentration. In addition to further supporting a facilitating role of glucocorticoids in memory consolidation, these findings suggest a critical involvement of these hormones in the formation of traumatic memories.     

Initial Testing Does Not Necessarily Affect Eyewitness Recall Assessed by Specific Questioning

In eyewitness situations, open recall is followed by specific questioning about the witnessed event. We examined whether initial testing affects later recall of actions and specific details. After watching a video of a bank robbery, participants completed an initial testing phase that involved free recall, specific questions about the actions or details of the event or a control condition with no initial testing. In the final test, correct and incorrect answers, accuracy and response confidence for actions and details were analysed. Initial testing affected neither recall nor confidence. The participants were more accurate for actions than details. Response confidence was higher for correct than incorrect answers and higher for details than actions in correct answers. The results showed that specific questioning affects differently the recall of event actions and details and that remembering details increased confidence. Investigative interviewers can use this evidence when questioning information not reported in initial testing.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Looking at the actor's face: Identity cues and attentional focus in false memories of action performance from observation

Observing another's actions can induce false memories of self-performance. We investigated whether such observation inflation depends on the discriminability between the self and the observed actor. Discriminability was manipulated by presenting actions either with or without a key visual identity cue, i.e., the actor's face. We also examined whether self–other confusions in the face-visible condition depend on attentional focus (directed to the observed action vs. the actor's face). In the action-only condition, observation inflation was significant and greater than in the face-visible conditions, in which the effect was moderated by attentional focus: It persisted under an action focus but was eliminated under a face focus. Findings for correct memories of self-performance suggest that the reduced effect is not merely due to weaker encoding of the actions themselves. We conclude that self–other confusions in action memory are constrained by the availability of distinctive non-self cues during observation, and sustained by a visual focus on observed actions.