MTHFR and ACE gene polymorphisms and risk of vascular and degenerative dementias in the elderly

Focal lacunar infarctions due to cerebral small vessel atherosclerosis or single/multiple large cortical infarcts lead to vascular dementia, and different genes and environmental factors have been implicated in causation or aggravation of the disease. Previous reports suggest that some of the risk factors may be common to both vascular as well as degenerative dementia. Among genetic factors, role of angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) and methylene-tetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) genes as putative risk factors has been examined but the outcome of these studies remain inconclusive. Present study attempted to see the importance of ACE alu insertion/deletion and MTHFR C677T polymorphisms as genetic predisposers to dementia. The study comprised of 80 vascular dementia patients, 90 degenerative dementia patients and 170 age matched controls. All were genotyped for ACE, MTHFR and APOE polymorphisms using PCR-RFLP method. Frequency of ACE D allele was seemingly high in dementia cases (26.7%) when compared to controls (11.2%). However, after adjusting for age and APOE E4^*, none of the ACE alleles showed good correlation. MTHFR genotypes or alleles also did not show any correlation. Our study suggests no true correlation of ACE or MTHR genes with dementia in elderly.     

Hindus' Evaluations of Hindus and Muslims: Religious Leaders and Pilgrims at the Magh Mela

Two studies examined religious and political predictors of Hindus' attitudes toward Hindus and Muslims. In the first study, data came from interviews with 311 leaders of religious groups encamped at the Magh Mela , an annual religious gathering held at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna Rivers in northern India. Results indicated that most of the indicators of religious involvement were positively related to favoritism of the ingroup (Hindus) rather than devaluation of the outgroup (Muslims). In contrast, affiliation with the Hindu-nationalist political party (Bharatiya Janata Party) was related to devaluation of Muslims rather than favoritism of Hindus. In the second study, which involved interviews with 107 kalpavasis (pilgrims) who visited a subsequent Mela , results indicated, consistent with the first study, that religious beliefs were positively related to favoritism of Hindus. A religious behavior, frequency of worship, was related to negative evaluations of Muslims. Overall, religious leaders and kalpavasis did not differ in their ratings of Muslims, but, congruent with the notion that the more strongly one identifies with the ingroup, the more impact it will have, religious leaders evaluated Hindus significantly more positively than did kalpavasis .     

Affect and Performance on Cognitive Task as a Function of Crowding and Noise1

Sixty undergraduate males participated in an experiment with a 2 × 3 factorial design involving two levels of density and three levels of noise to demonstrate effects of the independent variables (density, noise) on cognitive task performance and affect. As predicted, it was found that crowding and noise lead to deterioration of subject's performance on cognitively complex tasks but not on simple (cognitive) task. Also, density and noise generated a negative feeling in the subjects. Significant two-way interaction for complex task, showed variation in performance of Ss of high and low density under low and high noise conditions. In addition, crowded-condition subjects reported more dissatisfaction about their performance and evaluated the presence of the experimenter as significantly less pleasant than their noncrowded-condition counterparts.     

The Effects of Residential Crowding Experience on Reactivity to Laboratory Crowding and Noise1

Sixty male and 60 female subjects previously classified as high and low on a residential crowding experience scale participated in an experiment involving a 2 × 3 × 2 × 2 (density, noise, crowding experience, gender) factorial design. The research was undertaken primarily to determine the influence of previous residential crowding experience as tapped by the Crowding Experience Scale (CES) on reactivity to the environmental stressors of noise and crowding. The results indicated that exposure to environmental stressors produced a deleterious effect on complex task performance and generated negative affect in the respondents. Interestingly, respondents who had reported high levels of experience with crowding showed relatively more crowding tolerance by performing significantly better on cognitively complex tasks (complex anagrams and story comprehension) and exhibiting more positive affect in conditions of high density as compared to low experience of crowding respondents. Reactions to noise were not influenced by crowding experience. Thus, prior experience of crowding as measured by the CES appears to influence reactivity to density in other settings.     

Crowding,Perceived Control,and Relative Power: An Analysis of Households in India1

Data from rural villagers in India suggested that the perception of control was related to physical health but that household density (persons per room) had few effects. In a second study, separate interviews were conducted with the husband and wife in each of 167 households, which varied greatly in terms of number of household members and number of rooms. Results indicated that, once socio-economic status and demographic factors were statistically held constant, household density had no effects. However, the density of the household in which respondents were raised did significantly affect several measures, with people who were raised in more crowded homes generally experiencing more negative outcomes in their present homes. Although number of persons in the household had few effects on respondents, the number of children in the home had several negative outcomes, particularly for women. Results also showed that, even when other variables were held constant, the perception of control over the environment was a significant predictor for both men and women on almost all dependent measures and that other perceived ways of dealing with problems (control over self and acceptance of things as they are) were much less important. At the bivariate level, the greater the difference between husbands and wives in perceived control over the environment, the more negative were the wives' reactions and experiences. However, when all other variables were held constant, this difference added no significant explanatory power for women but did explain some measures for men, with men suffering more mental distress and reacting more negatively to their home the greater their relative power.     

Poor emotional responsiveness in clinical hypertension: Reduced accuracy in the labelling and matching of emotional faces amongst individuals with hypertension and prehypertension

Psychological factors are known to play an important part in the origin of many medical conditions including hypertension. Recent studies have reported elevated blood pressure (even in the normal range of variation) to be associated with a reduced responsiveness to emotions or ‘emotional dampening’. Our aim was to assess emotional dampening in individuals with more extreme blood pressure levels including prehypertensives (N = 58) and hypertensives (N = 60) by comparing their emotion recognition ability with normotensives (N = 57). Participants completed novel facial emotion matching and facial emotion labelling tasks following blood pressure measurement and their accuracy of emotion recognition and average response times were compared. The normotensives demonstrated a significantly higher accuracy of emotion recognition than the prehypertensives and the hypertensives in labelling of facial emotions. This difference generalised to the task where two facial halves (upper & lower) had to be matched on the basis of emotions. In neither the labelling nor matching emotion conditions did the groups differ in their speed of emotion processing. Findings of the present study extend reports of ‘emotional dampening’ to hypertensives as well as to those at-risk for developing hypertension (i.e. prehypertensives) and have important implications for understanding the psychological component of such medical conditions as hypertension.     

Perceived justice of available opportunities and self-esteem,collective esteem and social exclusion: A study of three religious groups in India

Groups have their own social realities which determine their perceptions of justice having impact on their well- being and consequent integration with the mainstream society. The objective of the present study was to understand variations in perceived justice in terms of opportunities existing in five different domains, i.e. social prestige, economic, educational, employment and political by the Hindu Majority (N = 100) and Muslim (N = 100) and Christian (N = 76) minorities in India. In addition, the study also aimed to understand the relationship of perceived justice with self-esteem, collective esteem and social exclusion. Male and female participants (N = 276) of the study were either of high or low caste, and were of employed or unemployed status from a north Indian city. The results indicate that justice perception is determined by religion and caste not by gender and employment status. The majority Hindus perceived significantly higher perceptions of justice than Christians and Muslims minorities on all four domains except education. For education the minority Muslim group had lower justice perceptions than Hindus and Christians who did not differ significantly. The three groups differed significantly in their ratings of social exclusion with maximum exclusion perceived by Christians and minimum by Hindus. Results have implications for development initiatives.     

Social support as a moderator of the relationship between poverty and coping behavior

This study examined the relationship between poverty and coping and defense behaviors and the way social support moderates this relationship. One hundred fifty Indian adults responded to scales of income, perceived economic status, coping, defense and social support. In addition, physical quality of living was rated on the basis of observation and a short interview. Results showed that income and physical quality of living were positively associated with perceived economic status. Income, physical quality of living, and perceived economic status were negatively related to coping and defense behaviors. Finally, social support did not moderate the impact of poverty on coping and defense behaviors.