A pilot study of women’s affective responses to common and uncommon forms of aerobic exercise

Objective: To test the extent to which participants exposed to an uncommon versus common exercise stimulus would result in more favourable affect at post-task.

Design: Experimental design. Participants (N = 120), American women aged 18–45 years, were randomly assigned to complete 30-min of either the uncommon (HOOP; n = 58) or common (WALK; n = 62) exercise stimulus.

Main outcome measures: Self-reported affect and intentions for future exercise were measured before and after the 30-min exercise bout.

Results: Analyses of covariance were run to compare post-task affect across the HOOP and WALK conditions. At post-task, participants assigned to HOOP reported more positively valenced affect, higher ratings of positive activated affect, lower ratings of negative deactivated affect, and stronger intentions for future aerobic exercise compared to participants assigned to WALK.

Conclusions: Participants who completed an uncommon bout of aerobic exercise (HOOP) reported more favourable affect post-exercise, as well as stronger intentions for future exercise, compared to participants who completed a common bout of aerobic exercise (WALK). Future work using a longitudinal design is needed to understand the relationships between familiarity with an exercise stimulus, affective responses to exercise, motivation for future exercise behaviour and exercise maintenance over time.     

Executive and attentional contributions to Theory of Mind deficit in attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children has been associated with attentional and executive problems, but also with socioemotional difficulties possibly associated with deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM). Socioemotional problems in ADHD are associated with more negative prognoses, notably interpersonal, educational problems, and an increased risk of developing other psychiatric disorders that emphasize the need to clarify the nature of their ToM deficits. In this study, we hypothesized that ToM dysfunction in children with ADHD is largely attributable to their attentional and/or executive deficits. Thirty-one children with ADHD (8–12 years, IQ > 85) and 31 typically developing (TD) children were assessed using executive functions (inhibition, planning, and flexibility) and attentional tasks, as well as two advanced ToM tasks (Reading the Mind in the Eyes and Faux Pas) involving different levels of executive control. Children with ADHD performed more poorly than TD children in attentional, executive function, and ToM tasks. Linear regression analyses conducted in the ADHD group indicated that inhibition scores predicted performance on the “Faux Pas” task the best, while attention scores were the best for predicting performance on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes task. When controlled for inhibition and attentional variables, ToM performance in children with ADHD was actually similar to TD children. Contrarily, controlling for ToM scores did not normalize performance for inhibition and attentional tasks in children with ADHD. This unidirectional relationship suggests that deficits in the EF and attentional domains are responsible for ToM deficits in ADHD, which therefore may contribute to their socioemotional difficulties.     

The Relative Contribution of a Typological versus a Dimensional Approach for Understanding Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Adolescents

In order to better understand the heterogeneous nature of Obsessive-Compulsive (OC) symptoms, a typological or a dimensional approach can be used to structure the variety of symptoms into a set of core components. However, there is still no consensus on which approach is the most robust to predict several OC-related criterion measures, especially in adolescents. From this perspective, the current study empirically identified OC classes (i.e., types), and explored whether types or dimensions are the strongest predictors of adolescent OC-related criterion variables. To identify OC classes, we conducted latent class analysis on the Youth Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms Scale (YOCSS; De Caluwé and De Clercq 2014) that was completed by 682 community and referred adolescents (71.4 % girls, 12–18 years old, mean age = 15.67, SD = 1.53), and we also computed OC dimension scores as outlined in De Caluwé and De Clercq (2014). We subsequently used hierarchical regression analysis to examine the incremental validity of the OC classes beyond the OC domains, and vice versa, in predicting several OC-related criterion variables that were completed by the adolescents or their mothers (N = 325). The results indicated that the two identified OC classes only differed quantitatively but not qualitatively, hence reflecting severity classes, and also showed that OC domains have significant effects beyond the effects of the OC classes, whereas the reverse did not hold. The dimensional approach appears to have the strongest predictive value for OC symptomatology in adolescents, leading to clinical implications for conceptualization and assessment of obsessive and compulsive problems in younger age groups.     

Of mice and marbles: Novel perspectives on burying behavior as a screening test for psychiatric illness

Burying forms part of the normal behavioral routine of rodents, although its expression is species-specific. However, it has been suggested that aberrant burying behavior, of which marble-burying (MB) is an example, may represent neophobic and/or compulsive-like behavior. In the present investigation, we assessed MB in an established animal model of obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD)—namely, spontaneous stereotypy in the deer mouse—to establish whether high (H) stereotypy is associated with neophobia and/or another compulsive endophenotype, i.e. MB, as compared to nonstereotypical (N) controls. A three-trial, one-zone MB test was performed over three consecutive evenings both before and after chronic treatment with high-dose (50 mg/kg/day) oral escitalopram. Neophobia was measured via the number of marbles buried during the first pre- and posttreatment MB trials, and compulsive-like behavior via the number of marbles buried over all pre- and posttreatment MB trials. The data from the present study support earlier findings that burying is a normal behavioral routine (inherent burying behavior, IBB) that is expressed by all deer mice, irrespective of stereotypical cohort, and is not associated with either neophobia or compulsiveness. Indeed, chronic escitalopram treatment, which is similarly effective in treating clinical anxiety and OCD, as well as in attenuating H behavior, failed to influence IBB. Although 11 % of the animals presented with a unique burying endophenotype (high burying behavior), escitalopram also failed to attenuate said behavior, necessitating further investigation as to its relevance. In conclusion, MB cannot be regarded as a measure of anxiety-like or compulsive behavior in the deer mouse model of OCD.     

The fate of unattended stimuli and emotional habituation: Behavioral interference and cortical changes

The interference produced by the viewing of emotional distractors has been interpreted as evidence that emotional cues are processed in a fairly mandatory fashion, and that they divert attention from the primary ongoing task. However, few studies have examined how behavioral emotional interference varies with repeated presentation of the same emotional distractors. In two experiments, while participants were engaged in a parity judgment task, we investigated the effects of repetition of task-irrelevant emotional pictures, as reflected in both behavioral interference (Experiments 1 and 2) and neural activity (Experiment 2). Both experiments showed that the slowing of reaction times that was observed when viewing emotional, compared to neutral, scenes disappeared after only a few repetitions, suggesting diminished attention allocation to repeated emotional pictures. Conversely, in Experiment 2, neural correlates of picture processing revealed that the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude continued to be enhanced for emotional, compared to neutral, distractors despite picture repetition and the presence of a concurrent task. Altogether, these findings suggest that while evaluative processes are mandatory, and continue to engage cortico-limbic appetitive and defensive systems even after massive repetition, as suggested by the affective modulation of the LPP, attentional processes are not necessary after several repetitions of the same stimulus, as indicated by the rapid decline of behavioral emotional interference.     

Fetal Risks,Relative Risks,and Relatives' Risks

Several factors related to fetal risk render it more or less acceptable in justifying constraints on the behavior of pregnant women. Risk is an unavoidable part of pregnancy and childbirth, one that women must balance against other vital personal and family interests. Two particular issues relate to the fairness of claims that pregnant women are never entitled to put their fetuses at risk: relative risks and relatives' risks. The former have been used—often spuriously—to advance arguments against activities, such as home birth, that may incur risk; the latter implicate the nature of relationships in determining the acceptability of coercing or precluding activities. Motivated reasoning by clinicians and judges leads to inaccurate risk assessments, and judgments based on false claims to objectivity. Such judgments undermine the moral and legal standing of pregnant women and do not advance the interests of fetuses, pregnant women, families, or states.     

The Ontogeny of Long‐Term Retention During the Second Year of Life

Developmental changes in retention were assessed in two experiments with 18‐ and 24‐month‐old infants. In both experiments, infants were tested in a deferred imitation paradigm. In Experiment 1, independent groups of infants were tested either immediately or after delays of 1, 14, 28 or 56 days. There was no age‐related difference in the spontaneous production of target actions (baseline) or in immediate imitation. There were age‐related changes in retention after longer delays. Eighteen‐month‐olds exhibited retention for 14 days and 24‐month‐olds exhibited retention for at least 56 days. In Experiment 2, the maximum duration of retention by 24‐month‐olds was assessed. Independent groups of infants were tested after 3 or 6 months. Infants exhibited some evidence of retention after 3 months; however, forgetting was complete after 6 months.     

Metaphorical Mapping: The Arts in Graduate Theological Education

Doctoral students in Bible, theology, ethics, history, preaching, worship, pastoral care, and Christian education come together for a required seminar in teaching. Assignments include reading and discussion, student‐led teaching demonstrations, and the ‘metaphorical mapping’ of each student's field of study. In developing their ‘metaphorical maps’ students use artistic and expressive media to demonstrate their understanding of their field. The assignment has been successful in establishing an open and mutually respectful climate in the classroom, in fostering a pattern of critical reflection on teaching, and in demonstrating appropriate inclusion of personal experience in the academic classroom.     

Quantification of swim patterns in the morris water maze

Spatial learning and memory in rodents is most often assessed in the Morris water maze. Neurobiologists have to distinguish behavioral patterns to unravel underlying neuronal systems. We analyzed swim patterns of mice videotaped before and after training with a multitrial procedure in the water maze. In addition to traditional parameters, the animals’ position in relation to trained and other possible platform locations was estimated five times per second by an image analysis system. This parameter,cumulative distance to platform, was correlated with time spent in the platform quadrant but not with latency to and crossings of the platform location. We detected a subgroup of animals with concentric patterns within the group of spatial/persistent patterns. Random patterns were classified as well. Swim patterns before training were not predictive for the one after training. In summary, image analysis systems have made it very convenient to quantify behavior. Using their capacity, we have further improved the analysis of swim patterns, revealing animals’ different approaches to solve a problem.