Augmenting Visual Search Performance With Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS)

Military personnel endure rigorous and demanding man-hours designated to monitoring and locating targets in tasks such as cyber defense and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operators. These tasks are monotonous and repetitive, which can result in vigilance decrement. The objective of the study was to implement a form of noninvasive brain stimulation known as transcranial DC stimulation (tDCS) over the left frontal eye field (LFEF) region of the scalp to improve cognitive performance. The participants received anodal and cathodal stimulation of 2 mA for 30 min as well as placebo stimulation on 3 separate days while performing the task. The findings suggest that anodal and cathodal stimulation significantly improves detection accuracy. Also, a correlation was detected between percent of eye closure (PERCLOS) and blinking frequency in relation to stimulation condition. Our data suggest that tDCS over the LFEF would be a beneficial countermeasure to mitigate the vigilance decrement and improve visual search performance.     

Conceptualising mental health in the United Arab Emirates: the perspective of traditional healers

Substantial investments in health-care have ensured the widespread availability of allopathic medical services across the United Arab Emirates (UAE). However, in spite of this accessibility traditional healers (Mutawa) continue to play a significant, albeit, unofficial role in the UAE's health sector. Citizens routinely consult traditional healers for problems that might, from a western biomedical perspective, be considered psychiatric conditions. This qualitative study explores traditional healers' conceptualisations of mental health problems, discussing their perspectives on phenomenology, aetiology, intervention and outcome. Notably, traditional healers distinguished between biomedical illness and states they attributed to demonological or metaphysical causes. The Islamic spiritual narrative was central to discussions of aetiology, intervention and outcome. Greater integration of traditional healers within the UAE's mental health-care services would, in many cases, improve patient experience and outcomes.     

The Effects of Stress on the Lives of Emerging Adult College Students: An Exploratory Analysis

This study systematically analyzed the personal reports of 20 emerging adult college students with regard to how stress affects their lives. Qualitative analyses revealed that stress influenced students' lives in both positive and negative ways. Implications of these findings for physical and mental health are discussed. Recommendations for counseling practice are provided.     

Predicting traumatic stress using emotional intelligence

The study investigated whether emotional intelligence (EI) can predict how individuals respond to traumatic experiences. A random sample of 414 participants (181 male, 233 female) were administered a measure of EI along with the Impact of Event Scale--revised [IES-R; Weiss, D. S. & Marmar, C. R. (1997). The Impact of Events Scale--revised. In J.P. Wilson & T.M. Keane (Eds.), Assessing psychological trauma and PTSD (pp. 399-411). New York: Guilford Press], and the monitoring and blunting questionnaire [MBQ, Anxiety Stress Coping 7 (1994) 53]. The results showed that participants with higher NEIS scores report fewer psychological symptoms relating to their traumatic experiences, that monitors are more likely to have higher NEIS scores than blunters. Traumatic events had a greater impact on females than males, and males had higher EI than females. The implications of these findings for using EI as a predictor for individuals who may experience traumatic stress are discussed.