Right-posterior face processing anomaly in depression

Evidence of a right-posterior brain anomaly was found in a study of 19 individuals with major depression and 15 controls. Participants performed a recognition-memory task involving positive, neutral, and negative face and word stimuli. Scalp brain wave topography suggested a region-specific anomaly in the depressed group. Individuals with major depression demonstrated a reduction in the N200 component of the event-related brain potential to faces and not words. Furthermore, results indicate that the regional anomaly is specific to positive facial stimuli. Findings are interpreted in light of a model of regional brain specialization in emotion and psychopathology.     

A longitudinal study of high scorers on the hypomanic personality scale

Former college students (n = 36) identified by high scores on the Hypomanic Personality Scale (HYP; Eckblad & Chapman, 1986) were compared with control participants (n = 31) at a 13-year follow-up assessment. As hypothesized, the HYP group reported more bipolar disorders and major depressive episodes than the control group. The HYP group also exceeded the control group on the severity of psychotic-like experiences, symptoms of borderline personality disorder, and rates of substance use disorders. HYP group members with elevated scores on the Impulsive-Nonconformity Scale (Chapman et al., 1984) experienced greater rates of bipolar mood disorders, poorer overall adjustment, and higher rates of arrest than the remaining HYP or control participants.     

Longitudinal changes in the contribution of genetic and environmental influences to symptoms of depression in older male twins

Genetically informative longitudinal data on self-reported symptoms of depression allow for an investigation of the causes of stability and change in depression symptoms throughout adult life. In this report, the authors investigated the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences to symptoms of depression in 83 monozygotic and 84 dizygotic male twin pairs from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Twin Study. Participants first completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression (CES-D) scale in 1985-1986 and again during 1995-1997. Mean age of twins at baseline was 63 years, range 59 to 70. From cross-sectional genetic analyses we estimated the heritability of CES-D to be 25% (95% confidence interval [CI], 11%-39%) at baseline and 55% (95% CI, 40%-71%) at follow-up. Fitting longitudinal genetic models to the two-wave data, we found that stability of symptoms over the 10-year follow-up was due primarily to continuity of genetic influences.     

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Neural mechanisms of affective interference in schizotypy

Negatively valenced stimuli foster cognitive impairment in schizotypy and schizophrenia. To identify relevant brain mechanisms, the authors had 16 positive-schizotypy and 16 control participants perform an emotional Stroop task, judging the ink color of negative and neutral words during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of regional brain activity. Schizotypy individuals showed increased right and decreased left activity in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, indicating a deficit in maintenance of attentional set in the presence of negative emotional distractors. They also showed abnormal activity in ventral limbic areas, including decreased activity in nucleus accumbens and increased activity in hippocampus and amygdala, a circuit involved in the integration of cognitive and affective processes. These results indicate that aspects of emotion-cognition processes and the brain mechanisms that implement them are similar in schizotypy and schizophrenia.     

Timing variability in circle drawing and tapping: probing the relationship between event and emergent timing

R. Ivry, R. M. Spencer, H. N. Zelaznik, and J. Diedrichsen (2002) have proposed a distinction between timed movements in which a temporal representation is part of the task goal (event timing) and those in which timing properties are emergent. The issue addressed in the present experiment was how timing in conditions conducive to emergent timing becomes established. According to what the authors term the transformation hypothesis, timing initially requires an event-based representation when the temporal goal is defined externally (e.g., by a metronome), but over the first few movement cycles, control processes become established that allow timing to become emergent. Different groups of participants (N = 84) executed either 1 timed interval, 4 timed intervals, or 2 timed intervals separated by a pause. They produced the intervals by either circle drawing, a task associated with emergent timing, or tapping, a task associated with event timing. Analyses of movement variability suggested that similar timing processes were used in the 2 tasks only during the 1st interval. Those results are consistent with the transformation hypothesis and lead to the inference that the transition from event-based control to emergent timing can occur rapidly during continuous movements.     

Gender differences in social support: a question of skill or responsiveness?

Spouses often report that wives provide better social support than husbands. Yet studies observing spouses' supportive interactions challenge this perception, finding no differences between husbands' and wives' supportive behaviors. This article offers reconciliation by suggesting that husbands and wives may differ, not in their skill at providing support, but in their responsiveness to their partners' changing needs over time. Observational and diary data from couples confirmed that, whereas husbands and wives did not differ on average in the support they provided each other, they did differ in the timing of that support. Wives tended to provide better support on days that their husbands experienced greater stress. However, when wives experienced greater stress, their husbands displayed both support and negativity.     

Learning from Communities: Overcoming Difficulties in Dissemination of Prevention and Promotion Efforts

The model of prevention science advocated by the Institute of Medicine (P. J. Mrazek & R. J. Haggerty, 1994) has not lead to widespread adoption of prevention and promotion programs for four reasons. The model of dissemination of programs to communities fails to consider community and organizational capacity to implement programs, ignores the need for congruence in values between programs and host sites, displays a pro-innovation bias that undervalues indigenous practices, and assumes a simplistic model of how community organizations adopt innovations. To address these faults, researchers should locate, study, and help disseminate successful indigenous programs that fit community capacity and values. In addition, they should build on theoretical models of how locally developed programs work to make existing programs and polices more effective.