Muscarinic suppression in stratum radiatum of CA1 shows dependence on presynaptic M1 receptors and is not dependent on effects at GABA(B) receptors

Cholinergic modulation of synaptic transmission is vital to memory processes and may be responsible for setting network dynamics in the hippocampus appropriate for encoding of information. found evidence suggesting M1 receptors cause presynaptic inhibition of glutamatergic transmission, while research supports a role of the M2 receptor. We examined muscarinic inhibition of fEPSPs in stratum radiatum of mice lacking m1 subtype receptors (KO) compared to wild type (WT) controls. WT mice exhibit greater suppression of transmission by muscarine as compared to KO in a dose dependent fashion. Oxotremorine shows no significant difference in suppression between WT and KO, while MCN-A-343, an M1 agonist, exhibits a significant difference between KO and WT, with KO showing no suppression. One hundred micromolar SGS-742, a selective GABA(B) antagonist, fails to affect either normal transmission or muscarinic suppression in either WT or KO suggesting that differences in suppression between the groups is not attributable to differences in GABA(B) receptor activation due to muscarinic activation of GABAergic interneurons. These findings support a role for presynaptic m1 mAChRs in modulation of synaptic transmission in CA1, but indicate that other muscarinic receptor subtypes, such as M2, are also involved in suppression of synaptic potentials.     

Childhood intelligence and adult health: The mediating roles of education and socioeconomic status

The longitudinal relation between childhood intelligence and various health outcomes in adulthood is now well-established. One mediational model that accounts for this relation proposes that intelligence has cumulative indirect effects on adult health via subsequent educational attainment and adult socioeconomic status (SES). The aim of the present study was to examine whether and the extent to which educational attainment and SES mediate the impact of childhood intelligence on three dimensions of adult health in Luxembourg, a country with high-quality universal public health care. We used data from 745 participants in the Luxembourgish MAGRIP study. At the age of 12, participants completed a comprehensive intelligence test. At the age of 52, they reported their educational careers, SES, and functional, subjective, and physical health status. Using structural equation modeling, we investigated the direct and indirect effects (via educational attainment and adult SES) of childhood intelligence on adult health. We found that higher childhood intelligence predicted better functional, subjective, and physical health in adulthood. These effects were entirely mediated via educational attainment and SES. The mediational processes differed depending on the health dimension under investigation: Whereas SES was crucial in mediating the effect of intelligence on functional and subjective health, educational attainment was crucial in mediating the effect on physical health. These findings held up when considering adult intelligence and were similar for women and men. Our results suggest that even excellent public health care cannot fully offset the cumulative effects of childhood intelligence on adult health. Further studies are needed to investigate the relative importance of different mediators in the intelligence–health relation while including a broader set of objective health measures.     

Social Acceptability of Hypothetical Married Couples and Their Relationships

The present experiment tested whether the physical attractiveness attributed to members of married couples would vary according to the social acceptability associated with their interconnected leader-follower roles. American college students rated female and male hypothetical stimulus persons who were described as married to each other. As predicted, both partners who were described as being in a traditional relationship with the husband as leader were stereotyped as being highly attractive. Partners in relationships that deviated from this pattern were stereotyped as being less attractive: Those enacting equal leadership roles were intermediate in attractiveness, and those with the wife as leader were least attractive. Gender identity also varied according to the social acceptability of the couple's roles, with the wife and husband in the traditional relationship being stereotyped as most highly sex typed. The personal attributes of self-esteem and social status were not affected by the social acceptability of the couple's relationship. Regardless of sex, these attributes varied according to the strength of the individual's leadership role. As a consequence, the husband's characteristics were either consistently positive or negative for the different leadership conditions; the wife's attributes were inconsistent.     

The development of an evidence-based treatment: Regulation-Focused Psychotherapy for Children with externalising behaviours (RFP-C)

There is a critical need for the development, evaluation and implementation of evidence-based psychodynamic treatments for children and adolescents. Currently, there are no empirically supported, manualised psychodynamic treatments for children and adolescents with disruptive behaviour problems. The field of manualised psychodynamic treatments with measurable equivalence or superiority to other established forms of psychotherapy is in its nascent stage. This paper details a novel, manualised, time-limited psychodynamic treatment approach for children who manifest disruptive behaviours and emotional dysregulation. Regulation-Focused Psychotherapy for Children (RFP-C) conceptualises children’s disruptive and acting out behaviours as expressions of maladaptive emotion regulation. Externalising symptoms are conceptualised as attempts to defend against painful emotions and thus protect the child from disturbing feelings such as sadness, shame and guilt. This paper provides the theoretical basis for the treatment approach and through the use of a clinical example demonstrates the systematic application of RFP-C in a single case.     

Cellular site and molecular mode of synapsin action in associative learning

Synapsin is an evolutionarily conserved, presynaptic vesicular phosphoprotein. Here, we ask where and how synapsin functions in associative behavioral plasticity. Upon loss or reduction of synapsin in a deletion mutant or via RNAi, respectively, Drosophila larvae are impaired in odor-sugar associative learning. Acute global expression of synapsin and local expression in only the mushroom body, a third-order "cortical" brain region, fully restores associative ability in the mutant. No rescue is found by synapsin expression in mushroom body input neurons or by expression excluding the mushroom bodies. On the molecular level, we find that a transgenically expressed synapsin with dysfunctional PKA-consensus sites cannot rescue the defect of the mutant in associative function, thus assigning synapsin as a behaviorally relevant effector of the AC-cAMP-PKA cascade. We therefore suggest that synapsin acts in associative memory trace formation in the mushroom bodies, as a downstream element of AC-cAMP-PKA signaling. These analyses provide a comprehensive chain of explanation from the molecular level to an associative behavioral change.     

Fantasized recipient-donor relationships following lung transplantations: a qualitative case analysis based on patient narratives

The present study examines the relationships between lung transplant recipients and their unknown, deceased donors. Out of 20 semi-structured interviews, eight narratives, by three female and three male recipients respectively, were identified in which the figure of the donor played a role. These narratives were examined using JAKOB, a qualitative research tool that analyses relational configurations and diagnoses psychodynamic conflicts. Analysis revealed a broad range of varying themes and relationships with equally varying wish and fear themes. All the narrators dealt either explicitly or implicitly with whether and how they are connected to their donors. In five narratives, specific personality traits were attributed to the figure of the donor; in four narratives, latent feelings of guilt concerning the donor's death were expressed. Indeed, the figure of the donor was not always perceived as an independent person, separate from the narrator's self: in two cases, the donor appears as part of the recipient's self, while in another case, the donor is presented as a transitional object for the recipient. The findings of the narrative analysis are discussed within a theoretical model of psychical organ integration.