Assessment of executive functions in a Brazilian sample of bipolar subjects

Research has demonstrated impairments in executive functions in Bipolar Mood Disorder patients. Evidence shows that this impairment is present in both periods of active symptoms of the disorder, as well as euthymic stages, and is compounded by mood episodes, especially manic phases. The purpose of this study was to compare the executive performance of a sample of Brazilian bipolar patients in depressive episodes, (44 participants), euthymia (37 participants), and in controls (43 participants). The main instrument for evaluation was the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. Significant differences were found in performance on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test between Bipolar subjects (Type I) (both in depression and euthymia) and the controls. No significant correlations were found between the number of manic episodes and the performance on execute measurement variables. The findings suggest that the executive dysfunctions in Bipolar Disorder may be related to both transitory and permanent deficits.     

The Catholic Church, moral doctrine, and HIV prevention in Recife, Brazil: Negotiating the contradictions between religious belief and the realities of everyday life

Religious beliefs have had a key role in shaping local responses to HIV and AIDS. As the world's largest Catholic country, Brazil is no exception. Yet little research has been conducted to document how the religious doctrine is enacted in practice among its lay leaders and followers. In this article, we present ethnographic research from Recife, Brazil, conducted to understand the way in which religious doctrines are interpreted on a local level. Contextualized within the sociology of contemporary Brazilian Catholicism, we draw on interviews with clergy members, lay leaders and parishioners in order to discuss how the Catholic Church's vision of sexuality translates into the everyday lives of its followers by. We explore the disjuncture between the Catholic ideals of fidelity and delaying sex until marriage with the everyday reality of the Church's followers, highlighting the role that gender plays in defining sexual roles and expectations. We conclude posing questions for future research and HIV prevention strategies considering the formal institutional response of the Brazilian Catholic Church to AIDS on one hand, and the social and cultural contexts in which Catholics live their daily lives on the other.     

Using the model statement to elicit verbal differences between truth tellers and liars amongst Arab interviewees: A partial replication of Leal,Vrij, Deeb,and Jupe (2018)

Leal, Vrij, Deeb, and Jupe (2018) found—with British participants—that a model statement elicited (a) more information and (b) a cue to deceit: After exposure to a model statement, liars reported significantly more peripheral information than truth tellers. We sought to replicate these findings with Arabs living in Israel. Truth tellers and liars reported a stand‐out event that they had (truth tellers) or pretended to have (liars) experienced in the last 2 years. Half of the participants were given a model statement in the second phase of the interview. Replicating Leal et al. (2018a), (a) truth tellers reported more core details than liars initially and (b) a model statement resulted in more additional core and peripheral details in the second phase of the interview. Unlike in Leal et al. (2018a), a model statement did not have a differential effect on truth tellers in the current experiment.     

Violence and Latin‐American preadolescents: A study of social brain function and cortisol levels

The present study investigated exposure to violence and its association with brain function and hair cortisol concentrations in Latin‐American preadolescents. Self‐reported victimization scores (JVQ‐R2), brain imaging (fMRI) indices for a social cognition task (the ‘eyes test’), and hair cortisol concentrations were investigated, for the first time, in this population. The eyes test is based on two conditions: attributing mental state or sex to pictures of pairs of eyes (Baron‐Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001). The results showed an association among higher victimization scores and (a) less activation of posterior temporoparietal right‐hemisphere areas, in the mental state condition only (including right temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus); (b) higher functional connectivity indices for the Amygdala and Right Fusiform Gyrus (RFFG) pair of brain regions, also in the mental state condition only; (c) higher hair cortisol concentrations. The results suggest more exposure to violence is associated with significant differences in brain function and connectivity. A putative mechanism of less activation in posterior right‐hemisphere regions and of synchronized Amygdala: RFFG time series was identified in the mental state condition only. The results also suggest measurable effects of exposure to violence in hair cortisol concentrations, which contribute to the reliability of self‐reported scores by young adolescents. The findings are discussed in light of the effects of exposure to violence on brain function and on social‐cognitive development in the adolescent brain. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHcXq7Y9PBk     

Load-dependent modulation of affective picture processing

Because of the biological significance of emotional stimuli, their processing is considered largely automatic. In the study reported herein, we tested the alternative hypothesis—namely, that the processing of emotional stimuli requires some level of attention. Our experiments utilized highly negative and arousing visual stimuli comprising mutilated bodies. All experiments employed a single task, which consisted of determining whether two peripheral bars were like oriented or not, thereby eliminating potential task-difference confounds that may have contaminated prior studies. Our results revealed that task-irrelevant unpleasant images slowed reaction time during the performance of the main task. Such interference was modulated by task difficulty as well as by alcohol consumption, showing that the processing of emotional visual stimuli is not immune to attentional manipulations. These results suggest that it is essential to utilize attentional manipulations that more fully consume attentional resources in order to demonstrate that the processing of emotional stimuli is resource limited.     

The neuronal basis of bimanual coordination: recent neurophysiological evidence and functional models

Recent physiological studies of the neuronal processes underlying bimanual movements provide new tests for earlier functional models of bimanual coordination. The recently acquired data address three conceptual areas: the generalized motor program (GMP), intermanual crosstalk and dynamic systems models. To varying degrees, each of these concepts has aspects that can be reconciled with experimental evidence. The idea of a GMP is supported by the demonstration of abstract neuronal motor codes, e.g. bimanual-specific activity in motor cortex. The crosstalk model is consistent with the facts that hand-specific coding also exists and that interactions occur between the motor commands for each arm. Uncrossed efferent projections may underlie crosstalk on an executional level. Dynamic interhemispheric interactions through the corpus callosum may provide a high-level link at the parametric programming level, allowing flexible coupling and de-coupling. Flexible neuronal interactions could also underlie adaptive large-scale systems dynamics that can be formalized within the dynamic systems theory approach.

The correspondence of identified neuronal processes with functions of abstract models encourages the development of realistic computational models that can predict bimanual behavior on the basis of neuronal activity.     

Effects of the selective M1 muscarinic receptor antagonist dicyclomine on emotional memory

The nonselective muscarinic antagonist scopolamine is known to impair the acquisition of some learning tasks such as inhibitory avoidance. There has been recent research into the effects of this drug in contextual fear conditioning and tone fear conditioning paradigms. The purpose of the present study was to assess the role of the selective M1 muscarinic antagonist dicyclomine in these paradigms and in the inhibitory avoidance test. Rats were administered different doses of dicyclomine or saline 30 min before acquisition training. The animals were tested 24 hr later, and it was observed that 16 mg/kg of dicyclomine impaired both contextual fear conditioning and inhibitory avoidance. However, dicyclomine (up to 64 mg/kg) did not affect tone fear conditioning. These results suggest that the selective M1 muscarinic antagonist dicyclomine differentially affects aversively motivated tasks known to be dependent on hippocampal integrity (such as contextual fear conditioning and inhibitory avoidance) but does not affect similar hippocampus-independent tasks.