General software for an on-line eye-movement recording system

A general on-line eye-movement recording system is described which consists basically of (a) some on-line instrument capable of displaying a visual scene, (b) a device to measure eye position and output position information in the form of electrical signals (c) an analogue-to-digital converter, and (d) a computer. General software for such a system is discussed with emphasis on subroutines which perform calibration and which continuously monitor eye position.     

Effects of priming and suppression of worry

High and low worriers were primed by a short period of worry, suppression of worry, or the same period of non-worrying thought. Analysis of thoughts during the period following showed that worriers had more than twice as many unpleasant thoughts as did controls, across all prior conditions. Priming condition had little effect on this difference, although worry suppression was associated with a slight increase in the frequency of neutral or pleasant thoughts in high worriers, and a slight decrease in controls. These results are taken as evidence against the hypothesis that suppression of upsetting thoughts increases their intrusive quality, and thereby contributes to anxiety disorders.     

Using public feedback to increase contributions to a multipurpose senior center

Multipurpose senior centers are expanding their services to meet the demands of a growing population. Unfortunately, federal agencies have not matched this expansion with monetary support. Many senior centers hold fund-raisers to supplement their budgets, but the impact of these projects is rarely evaluated. This study assessed the effectiveness of a public posting strategy designed to increase donations to an ongoing fund-raiser for a multipurpose senior center. The fund-raiser, "Coupons for Caring," consisted of senior volunteers clipping grocery coupons from newspapers, sorting them, and attaching them to their respective products in local grocery stores. Grocery store customers were given the option of donating the coupons to the senior center or redeeming them when they purchased the products to which the coupons were attached. In the experimental condition, signs were posted that included visual and written instructions, feedback on the value of coupons donated by customers the previous week, and feedback on the overall amount of money donated to the senior center. The signs were posted near each cashier stand and at the front entrances of the grocery stores in a multiple baseline across grocery stores. The percentage of coupons donated to the senior center increased at each store after the signs were posted.     

Biased cognitive operations in anxiety: Accessibility of information or assignment of processing priorities?

There is considerable evidence that anxiety is associated with a cognitive bias favouring the processing of threat-related information. Bower's (1981) network model attributes this bias to the enhanced availability of mood congruent information from memory. However, certain experimental tasks do not reveal such a bias, when this effect is strongly predicted by the model. We note that all tasks which have demonstrated such mood congruent processing effects in anxious subjects share the requirement that these subjects must assign priorities to simultaneously available, and differentially valenced, alternative processing options. This feature has been consistently lacking in those paradigms we have found insensitive to the influence of anxiety. It is therefore suggested that anxiety is associated with the assignment of high processing priorities to threat-related options, rather than with the facilitated availability of threat-related information from memory. This proposal was experimentally tested using a lexical decision task, which is sensitive to the accessibility of information from memory, under conditions which either do or do not introduce the requirement to assign priorities to alternative processing options. The results indicate that the facilitated processing of threat related stimulus words, shown by generalised anxiety patients, does indeed appear to reflect a bias in the assignment of processing priorities, rather than the enhanced availability of this information from memory.     

Inflammation Causes a Long-Term Hyperexcitability in the Nociceptive Sensory Neurons of Aplysia

Nerve injury, tissue damage, and inflammation all cause hyperalgesia. A factor contributing to this increased sensitivity is a long-term (>24 hr) hyperexcitability (LTH) in the sensory neurons that mediate the responses. Using the cluster of nociceptive sensory neurons in Aplysia californica as a model, we are examining how inflammation induces LTH. A general inflammatory response was induced by inserting a gauze pad into the animal. Within 4 days, the gauze is enmeshed in an amorphous material that contains hemocytes, which comprise a cellular immune system. Concurrently, LTH appears in both ipsilateral and contralateral sensory neurons. The LTH is manifest as increased action potential discharge to a normalized stimulus. Immunocytochemistry revealed that hemocytes have antigens recognized by antibodies to TGFβ1, IL-6, and 5HT. When a localized inflammation was elicited on a nerve, hemocytes containing the TGFβ1 antigen were present near axons within the nerve and those containing the IL-6 were on the surface. Western blots of hemocytes, or of gauze that had induced a foreign body response, contained a 28-kD polypeptide recognized by the anti-TGFβ1 antibody. Exposure of the nervous system to recombinant human TGFβ1 elicited increased firing of the nociceptive neurons and a decrease in threshold. The TGFβ1 also caused an activation of protein kinase C (PKC) in axons but did not affect a kinase that is activated in axons after injury. Our findings, in conjunction with previous results, indicate that a TGFβ1-homolog can modulate the activity of neurons that respond to noxious stimuli. This system could also contribute to interactions between the immune and nervous systems via regulation of PKC.     

PROMPTED VOIDING TO REDUCE INCONTINENCE IN COMMUNITY-DWELLING OLDER ADULTS

In-home caregivers were taught to implement a prompted voiding procedure with 2 older adults with cognitive impairments and urinary incontinence. Results suggested that the procedures can be implemented by family caregivers, and the intervention reduced incontinence for both participants.