Adverse childhood experiences in substance use disorder outpatients of a Lebanese addiction center

Childhood adversities (CAs) are well reviewed in mental health and addiction research internationally. However, these variables have not been studied within the framework of addiction in the Middle East region. The present study reports the prevalence of Childhood Adversities in a sample of outpatients seeking treatment for Substance Use Disorder. We used the Adverse Childhood Experiences – International Questionnaire (ACE-IQ) to map out the prevalence of childhood adversities. The studied population was composed of a clinical outpatient sample that met criteria for substance use disorder (N = 144). Results indicated that almost all the sample reported having experienced at least 1 CA, whereby three quarters of the clinical sample reported experiencing 6 or more adversities. Childhood adversities are highly prevalent in a Lebanese substance use disorder population which raises the need for better screening strategies and more understanding of Adverse Childhood Experiences in this specific population     

Rule-based learning impairment in rats with lesions to the dorsal striatum.

The present study examined the effects of lesions to the dorsal striatum (DS) in Sprague-Dawley rats, when tested on the acquisition and successive shifts in the position of a goal arm in an eight-arm radial maze. In the procedure we used, rats had to retrieve the location of one baited arm among the eight arms of the maze after it had just been presented as a sample during a forced trial. After attainment of a fixed learning criterion, rats were submitted to five successive shifts in the goal location. Results showed that DS rats were able to learn the position of the goal arm during the acquisition phase as efficiently as sham-operated rats. In contrast, when the position of the goal arm was shifted, although DS rats were able to learn its new position, they made significantly more errors and required more sessions to reach criterion than sham-operated rats. These results suggested that both groups did not solve the task using the same behavioral strategy. The analysis of responses made suggested that sham-operated rats solved the task using the pairing rule between the forced and the free run (matching-to-sample rule), while DS rats solved the task using only visuo-spatial processing. These data therefore suggest that the dorsal striatum plays an important role in rule-learning ability.     

Social representations of educability

In the framework of the theory of social representations, the study set out to examine how Finnish parents and teachers have received a major change in educational policy. Surveys on parents' and comprehensive school teachers' views of ongoing school reforms indicated that current educational discourse is structured by two different representations — a “selective” one and a “comprehensive” one-which contain two different notions of intelligence — “natural” and “sociorelativistic”. The subjects' sociai position (socioeducational status and expertise) in the educational hierarchy tended to organize their representations. The findings indicated that the different groups have different relationships to official educational policy and to the ethos of educability embodied by the school. University of Joensuu     

Spontaneous play in two-year-olds born to substance-abusing mothers

The aim of the study was to determine if spontaneous play was altered in 2-year-olds born to polysubstance-abusing mothers. The study is part of a longitudinal research project of chronic substance-abusing mothers and their children living in poverty in the inner city of Los Angeles, identified in the hospital at birth by positive urine-toxicology screens, and compared to non-substance-abusing mothers and their children living in the same geographic area, of similar ethnic group and socioeconomic and marital status. The behavior of the 31 target and 21 comparison children in the 16-minute procedure was measured by frequency counts of manipulative, functional, and symbolic acts as well as by ratings of the quality of play. The play of the prenatally drug-exposed children differed from the comparison group by demonstrating significantly more immature play strategies, less sustained attention, more deviant behaviors, and fewer positive social interactions with their caregivers.