Interparental Interactions and Adolescent Mood: A Daily Diary Approach

The literature assessing relations between interparental functioning and youth adjustment is extensive. Most of this literature used a between subjects approach and examines youth responses to conflict reported by parents. The current study used a daily diary approach to complement the existing literature by assessing relations between aspects of marital interactions and adolescent reported daily mood using a within-family approach. We hypothesized that parents’ emotionality during interactions, the severity of their marital conflicts, and the degree to which their conflicts were resolved would be associated with their adolescents’ daily moods. To test these hypotheses a diverse sample (N?=?86; 27% Black, 33% White, 26% Hispanic, and 14% another race or families members differed in race) of mothers, fathers, and adolescents drawn from the Supporting Healthy Marriage project completed 15 days of daily diaries. Multilevel modeling results suggested differential associations between mother and father reports of their own emotions during interactions, conflict severity, and conflict resolution and adolescents’ daily moods. Overall, there were more significant results indicating fathers’ compared to mothers’ associations with adolescents’ daily moods, providing support for the need to continue efforts to engage fathers in family strengthening programs.     

Patient Perceptions of Telephone vs. In-Person <Emphasis Type="Italic">BRCA1/BRCA2</Emphasis> Genetic Counseling

Telephone genetic counseling (TC) for hereditary breast/ovarian cancer risk has been associated with positive outcomes in high risk women. However, little is known about how patients perceive TC. As part of a randomized trial of TC versus usual care (UC; in-person genetic counseling), we compared high risk women’s perceptions of: (1) overall satisfaction with genetic counseling; (2) convenience; (3) attentiveness during the session; (4) counselor effectiveness in providing support; and (5) counselor ability to recognize emotional responses during the session. Among the 554 participants (TC, N?=?272; UC, N?=?282), delivery mode was not associated with self-reported satisfaction. However, TC participants found counseling significantly more convenient than UC participants (OR?=?4.78, 95 % CI?=?3.32, 6.89) while also perceiving lower levels of support (OR?=?0.56, 95 % CI?=?0.40–0.80) and emotional recognition (OR?=?0.53, 95 % CI?=?0.37–0.76). In exploratory analyses, we found that non-Hispanic white participants reported higher counselor support in UC than in TC (69.4 % vs. 52.8 %; OR?=?3.06, 95 % CI?=?1.39–6.74), while minority women perceived less support in UC vs. TC (58.3 % vs. 38.7 %; OR?=?0.80, 95 % CI?=?0.39–1.65). We discuss potential research and practice implications of these findings which may further improve the effectiveness and utilization of TC.     

Stimulus Parameters Underlying Sound-Symbolic Mapping of Auditory Pseudowords to Visual Shapes

Sound symbolism refers to non-arbitrary mappings between the sounds of words and their meanings and is often studied by pairing auditory pseudowords such as “maluma” and “takete” with rounded and pointed visual shapes, respectively. However, it is unclear what auditory properties of pseudowords contribute to their perception as rounded or pointed. Here, we compared perceptual ratings of the roundedness/pointedness of large sets of pseudowords and shapes to their acoustic and visual properties using a novel application of representational similarity analysis (RSA). Representational dissimilarity matrices (RDMs) of the auditory and visual ratings of roundedness/pointedness were significantly correlated crossmodally. The auditory perceptual RDM correlated significantly with RDMs of spectral tilt, the temporal fast Fourier transform (FFT), and the speech envelope. Conventional correlational analyses showed that ratings of pseudowords transitioned from rounded to pointed as vocal roughness (as measured by the harmonics-to-noise ratio, pulse number, fraction of unvoiced frames, mean autocorrelation, shimmer, and jitter) increased. The visual perceptual RDM correlated significantly with RDMs of global indices of visual shape (the simple matching coefficient, image silhouette, image outlines, and Jaccard distance). Crossmodally, the RDMs of the auditory spectral parameters correlated weakly but significantly with those of the global indices of visual shape. Our work establishes the utility of RSA for analysis of large stimulus sets and offers novel insights into the stimulus parameters underlying sound symbolism, showing that sound-to-shape mapping is driven by acoustic properties of pseudowords and suggesting audiovisual cross-modal correspondence as a basis for language users' sensitivity to this type of sound symbolism.     

Androgens are neuroprotective in the dentate gyrus of adrenalectomized female rats

Neuroprotective effects of androgens have not been well-characterized, but there is evidence that 5 alpha-androstane-3 alpha, 17 beta-diol (3 alpha-diol) has anti-seizure effects. To further examine androgens' neuroprotective effects, testosterone (T), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), 3 alpha-diol (1.0 mg/kg SC daily), or sesame oil vehicle was administered to adrenalectomized or sham-operated, young, female Long Evans rats (N = 52). After seven days, animals were perfused and trunk blood was collected for radioimmunoassay of plasma corticosterone and androgens. No pyknotic cells were seen in the dentate of the sham-operated animals or those animals that had incomplete adrenalectomies (n = 20); however, cresyl violet and TUNEL stains revealed pyknotic cells in the granule layer of the dentate gyrus of adrenalectomized rats (n = 28). Testosterone, DHT, or 3 alpha-diol significantly reduced the number of pyknotic cells in the dentate gyrus compared to vehicle administered, adrenalectomized rats. Steroid-administered animals had levels of T, DHT, or 3 alpha-diol within physiological concentrations. These findings suggest that T, DHT, or 3 alpha-diol may have neuroprotective effects via a common mechanism of action.     

Case vignette: genetic secrets

Mrs. Thomas, age 50, became concerned after experiencing intermittent uncontrollable jerky body movements. She contacted her family physician and, following a full diagnostic evaluation, learned that she is experiencing early symptons of Huntington's disease. This illness is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system, which will ultimately lead-to physical incapacity, dementia, and death. The disease is known to be transmitted genetically as an autosomal dominant trait, with the first onset of symptoms usually occurring in middle age. For example, the child of an affected person has a 50% chance of inheriting the gene, and thus the illness, and a 50% chance of passing it on to their children. Mrs. Thomas is unaware of any history of the disease among others in her family; however, her father was an adopted child, who died in an automobile accident at the age of 37 and may well have been a carrier of the gene. It is highly likely that other members of her family, including her siblings and children, may be carriers of the gene and ultimately transmit it to their children before clinical symptoms of the disease develop. Her own son married last year, and her two brothers have children of childbearing age. Genetic screening and counseling are available for those at risk for Huntington's disease; however, Mrs. Thomas does not want to discuss her diagnosis with family members, fearing that they may blame her and that she may lose her job and friends if the information becomes public knowledge. What advice would you give to the health-care providers caring for Mrs. Thomas regarding the assorted rights, duties, and obligations surrounding this situation?