The transactional model of early home intervention

This article describes a developmental model for early home intervention and treatment of environmentally and biologically at-risk infants and their parents: The Transactional Model of Home Intervention. The model identifies the development of both infants and parents as targets of intervention and considers their ongoing interactions or transactions within the family context as the vehicle of intervention. The child and his physical/social environment are conceptualized as actively influencing one another in their reciprocal transactions. An early intervention program based on this transactional model is described. The intervention is tailored to suit the needs of both child and parents and, more generally, the needs of the family. The intervention process involves a problem-solving model of education by which parents acquire cognitive strategies that will enable them to assess the needs of their child and to design a program to fulfill these needs.     

The neural basis of syntactic deficits in primary progressive aphasia

Patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA) vary considerably in terms of which brain regions are impacted, as well as in the extent to which syntactic processing is impaired. Here we review the literature on the neural basis of syntactic deficits in PPA. Structural and functional imaging studies have most consistently associated syntactic deficits with damage to left inferior frontal cortex. Posterior perisylvian regions have been implicated in some studies. Damage to the superior longitudinal fasciculus, including its arcuate component, has been linked with syntactic deficits, even after gray matter atrophy is taken into account. These findings suggest that syntactic processing depends on left frontal and posterior perisylvian regions, as well as intact connectivity between them. In contrast, anterior temporal regions, and the ventral tracts that link frontal and temporal language regions, appear to be less important for syntax, since they are damaged in many PPA patients with spared syntactic processing.     

Observational learning in mice can be prevented by medial prefrontal cortex stimulation and enhanced by nucleus accumbens stimulation

The neural structures involved in ongoing appetitive and/or observational learning behaviors remain largely unknown. Operant conditioning and observational learning were evoked and recorded in a modified Skinner box provided with an on-line video recording system. Mice improved their acquisition of a simple operant conditioning task by observational learning. Electrical stimulation of the observer's medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) at a key moment of the demonstration (when the demonstrator presses a lever in order to obtain a reward) cancels out the benefits of observation. In contrast, electrical stimulation of the observer's nucleus accumbens (NAc) enhances observational learning. Ongoing cognitive processes in the demonstrator could also be driven by electrical stimulation of these two structures, preventing the proper execution of the ongoing instrumental task (mPFC) or stopping pellet intake (NAc). Long-term potentiation (LTP) evoked in these two cortical structures did not prevent the acquisition or retrieval process--namely, mPFC and/or NAc stimulation only prevented, or modified, the ongoing behavioral process. The dorsal hippocampus was not involved in either of these two behavioral processes. Thus, both ongoing observational learning and performance of an instrumental task require the active contribution of the mPFC and/or the NAc.     

Conditioned fear is modulated by D2 receptor pathway connecting the ventral tegmental area and basolateral amygdala

Excitation of the mesocorticolimbic pathway, originating from dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), may be important for the development of exaggerated fear responding. Among the forebrain regions innervated by this pathway, the amygdala is an essential component of the neural circuitry of conditioned fear. The functional role of the dopaminergic pathway connecting the VTA to the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in fear and anxiety has received little attention. In vivo microdialysis was performed to measure dopamine levels in the BLA of Wistar rats that received the dopamine D(2) agonist quinpirole (1 μg/0.2 μl) into the VTA and were subjected to a fear conditioning test using a light as the conditioned stimulus (CS). The effects of intra-BLA injections of the D(1) antagonist SCH 23390 (1 and 2 μg/0.2 μl) and D(2) antagonist sulpiride (1 and 2 μg/0.2 μl) on fear-potentiated startle (FPS) to a light-CS were also assessed. Locomotor performance was evaluated by use of open-field and rotarod tests. Freezing and increased dopamine levels in the BLA in response to the CS were both inhibited by intra-VTA quinpirole. Whereas intra-BLA SCH 23390 did not affect FPS, intra-BLA sulpiride (2 μg) inhibited FPS. Sulpiride's ability to decrease FPS cannot be attributed to nonspecific effects because this drug did not affect motor performance. These findings indicate that the dopamine D(2) receptor pathway connecting the ventral tegmental area and the basolateral amygdala modulates fear and anxiety and may be a novel pharmacological target for the treatment of anxiety.     

Female intimate partner violence perpetration: stability and predictors of mutual and nonmutual aggression across the first year of college

Cross-sectional and longitudinal predictors of mutual and nonmutual intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration were identified in a sample of female college freshmen (N = 499). Using female reports, couples were classified as to whether the relationship included no IPV, female-only IPV, or mutual IPV (male-only IPV was too rare to analyze). Mutual IPV was more common than asymmetrical IPV, and women in mutually violent relationships perpetrated more frequent acts of physical aggression than those in female-only violent relationships. In cross-sectional analyses of IPV in the first semester of college, only partner antisocial behavior and psychological aggression distinguished female-only IPV from no IPV; witnessing mother-to-father aggression, higher psychological aggression, more frequent partner marijuana use, partner antisocial behavior, and, surprisingly, higher relationship satisfaction, discriminated mutual IPV from no IPV. Contrary to hypothesis, first semester (T1) IPV did not predict having a new partner in the second semester (T2); however, women who reported more frequent heavy episodic drinking and lower relationship satisfaction at T1 were more likely to be in a different relationship at T2. Prospective prediction of T2 IPV category failed to support the hypothesis that female-only IPV would escalate to mutual IPV. The majority of couples with female-only IPV reported no IPV at T2. After accounting for T1 IPV, the only significant predictor of T2 IPV category was T1 psychological aggression, suggesting that this may be an appropriate target for IPV prevention efforts among college dating couples.     

Ambiguous emotion recognition in temporal lobe epilepsy: The role of expression intensity

The lateralization of emotion processing is currently debated and may be further explored by examining facial expression recognition (FER) impairments in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Furthermore, there is also debate in the literature whether FER deficits in individuals with TLE are more pronounced in the right than in the left hemisphere. Individuals with TLE were tested with an FER task designed to be more sensitive than those classically used to shed light on this issue. A total of 25 right- and 32 left-TLE patients, candidates for surgery, along with controls, underwent an FER task composed of stimuli shown not only at full-blown intensities (100 %), but also morphed to lower-intensity display levels (35 %, 50 %, and 75 %). The results showed that, as compared to controls, right-TLE patients showed deficits in the recognition of all emotional categories. Furthermore, when considering valence, right-TLE patients were impaired only in negative emotion recognition, but no deficits for positive emotions were highlighted in left-TLE patients. Finally, only the right-TLE patients’ impairment was found to be related to the age of epilepsy onset. Our work demonstrates that the FER deficits in TLE span multiple emotional categories and show manifestations dependent on the laterality of the epileptic focus. Taken together, our findings provide the strongest evidence for the right-hemisphere model, but they also partially support the valence model. We suggest that current models are not exhaustive at explaining emotional-processing cerebral control, and further that multistep models should be developed.