A Descriptive Study of Pain and Quality of Life following Guillain-Barré Syndrome: One Year Later

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a debilitating immunopathy that afflicts approximately 5,000 patients annually in the United States, a number that represents roughly half of the incidence of spinal cord injuries (J. M., Meythaler, 1997). Of these 5,000 new cases per year, 4–15% will die, 20% will possess deficits in ambulation or require ventilator assistance more than one year later, and more than two-thirds will have persistent fatigue (J. M., Meythaler, 1997; Hughes et al., 2003). These figures suggest that GBS is currently a legitimate cause of long-term disability.Many secondary complications may follow GBS that include dysautonomia, deep vein thrombosis, anemia, immobilization, and pain and sensory involvement (J. M., Meythaler, 1997; J. M. Meythaler, M. J. De Vivo, and W. C. Braswell, 1997). These medical complications have not been studied systematically, and the psychosocial complication of pain following GBS has certainly been overlooked in the literature. The present paper utilized a limited sample of 18 patients (N = 18) with persistent motor deficits at least one year after onset of GBS. We examined their pain and perceived quality of life as part of an ongoing federally funded study which will ultimately attempt to determine if 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) significantly improves motor function in patients with residual weakness from GBS. Findings suggest that while most persons do not rate themselves as depressed one year after GBS onset, 22% of respondents did exceed the cutoff for clinical depression on the CES-D. Age and gender do not appear to be related to any component of pain in GBS; however, self-ratings of physical and mental health do appear to be significantly related to pain experience. The nature of this relationship was not determined, and merits further investigation in future studies.     

Posterior parietal cortex activity predicts individual differences in visual short-term memory capacity

Humans show a severe capacity limit in the number of objects they can store in visual short-term memory (VSTM). We recently demonstrated with functional magnetic resonance imaging that VSTM storage capacity estimated in averaged group data correlated strongly with posterior parietal/superior occipital cortex activity (Todd & Marois, 2004). However, individuals varied widely in their VSTM capacity. Here, we examined the neural basis of these individual differences. A voxelwise, individualdifferences analysis revealed a significant correlation between posterior parietal cortex (PPC) activity and individuals’ VSTM storage capacity. In addition, a region-of-interest analysis indicated that other brain regions, particularly visual occipital cortex, may contribute to individual differences in VSTM capacity. Thus, although not ruling out contributions from other brain regions, the individual-differences approach supports a key role for the PPC in VSTM by demonstrating that its activity level predicts individual differences in VSTM storage capacity.     

Examining inhibition of return with onset and offset cues in the multiple-cuing paradigm

Three experiments examined inhibition of return (IOR) with onset and offset cues in a multiple-cuing paradigm. In the first two experiments, five sequential cues either appeared and remained present (onset cues) or disappeared and remained absent (offset cues). In the third experiment, the cues were either onset cues or on-off cues (appeared and then disappeared quickly after). With placeholders present, onset and offset cues produced similar declines in IOR from the most recently cued location (Experiment 1). In contrast, onset cues produced overall more IOR than on-off cues (Experiment 3). With placeholders absent (Experiment 2), no IOR was found for either onset or offset cues. The results suggest that even in a complex multiple-cuing paradigm, onsets and offsets are treated similarly by the attentional system. Furthermore, it appears that onset cues are easier to encode as previously searched than on-off cues, suggesting a role of working memory in IOR. Finally, when multiple locations are cued sequentially by onsets and offsets they must be marked by placeholders for inhibition to occur.     

How to launch a national Internet-based panel study quickly: lessons from studying how American are coping with the tragedy of September 11, 2001?

This article reports on the planning, development, and implementation of a large national Internet-based panel study of how Americans are coping with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The study was designed to determine predictors and correlates of risk and resilience, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. In order to acquire timely and meaningful data, we developed/adapted an extensive set of measures, obtained human subjects approval, and posted a research Web site just 17 days after the attacks. This article describes the major hurdles we confronted and the guidelines we recommend regarding these topics, including the methodological trade-offs inherent in Internet-based research, information technology requirements and tribulations, human subjects issues, selection of measures and securing permission for their use, and the challenges of participant recruitment. We also discuss issues that we did not anticipate, including the survey intervention. We focus not on findings, but on the concrete procedural, administrative, technical, and scientific challenges we encountered and the solutions we devised under considerable time and resource pressures.     

An intervention strategy for children with developmental problems

In a program for primary grade children with developmental and perceptual difficulties, children met daily with a specially trained teacher in their own school to form a consistent meaningful group while they continued as members of their regular classes. To combat the destructive negative self-image of such children, the teacher and group stressed acceptance, openness, informalitym and success. This, plus the program's esteem in the eyes of the child, seemed to affect the child's sense of his own worth. Continual in-service training and sharing of teacher experiences were stressed. The teachers' facility for relating to the child was considered to be more relevant than the technique utilized.     

The psychology of hate: Moral concerns differentiate hate from dislike

We investigated whether any differences in the psychological conceptualization of hate and dislike were simply a matter of degree of negativity (i.e., hate falls on the end of the continuum of dislike) or also morality (i.e., hate is imbued with distinct moral components that distinguish it from dislike). In three lab studies in Canada and the United States, participants reported disliked and hated attitude objects and rated each on dimensions including valence, attitude strength, morality, and emotional content. Quantitative and qualitative measures revealed that hated attitude objects were more negative than disliked attitude objects and associated with moral beliefs and emotions, even after adjusting for differences in negativity. In Study 4, we analysed the rhetoric on real hate sites and complaint forums and found that the language used on prominent hate websites contained more words related to morality, but not negativity, relative to complaint forums.     

Social Exclusion Predicts Impaired Self‐Regulation: A 2‐Year Longitudinal Panel Study Including the Transition from Preschool to School

The need‐to‐belong theory stipulates that social exclusion (i.e., being rejected by peers) impairs the ability to self‐regulate, and experimental studies with adults support this contention, at least on a short‐term basis. Few studies have investigated whether social exclusion affects the development of self‐regulation of children in a more enduring manner. By using data from a community sample of 762 children, we investigated reciprocal relations between social exclusion and self‐regulation from age 4 to age 6. Social exclusion was reported by teachers, whereas self‐regulation was reported by parents. Autoregressive latent cross‐lagged analyses showed that social exclusion predicted impaired development of dispositional self‐regulation and, reciprocally, that poor self‐regulation predicted enhanced social exclusion. In other words, social exclusion undermines children's development of self‐regulation, whereas poor self‐regulation increases the likelihood of exclusion. Results illuminate the applied relevance of the need‐to‐belong theory.