Neuropharmacological treatment of mental dysfunction in Parkinson's disease

Many patients with Parkinson's Disease (PD) experience significant cognitive and mood impairment -even early in the course of the disease. These mental impairments are only partially responsive to levodopa treatment and are often as disabling as the motor impairment, particularly in mid and late stages of the disease. Investigators have recently begun a search for new agents that can effectively treat mental dysfunction of PD. Although there have been only a handful of properly controlled clinical trials of interventions targeted at amelioration of mental dysfunction in PD, progress has been made. Based on the available evidence, targeting catecholaminergic and cholinergic function may be an effective strategy for amelioration of cognitve, mood and psychiatric disturbances in PD.     

A "Jekyll and Hyde" within: aggressive versus friendly interactions in REM and non-REM dreams

We hypothesized that representations of social interactions in REM and non-REM (NREM) dreams would reflect differing regional brain activation patterns associated with the two sleep states, and that levels of aggressive interactions would be higher in REM than in NREM dreams. One hundred REM, 100 NREM, and 100 wake reports were collected in the home from 8 men and 7 women using the Nightcap sleep-wake mentation-monitoring system and scored for number and variety of social interactions. We found that (a) social interactions were more likely to be depicted in dream than in wake reports, (b) aggressive social interactions were more characteristic of REM than NREM or wake reports, and (c) dreamer-initiated friendliness was more characteristic of NREM than REM reports. We conclude that processing of, or simulations about, selected social interactions is preferentially performed while "off-line" during the dream state, with the REM state specializing in simulation of aggressive interactions and the NREM state specializing in simulation of friendly interactions.     

Randomized,placebo-controlled trial of cognitive-behavioral therapy alone or combined with sertraline in the treatment of pediatric obsessive–compulsive disorder

Background

To examine the efficacy of sequential sertraline and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) treatment relative to CBT with pill placebo over 18 weeks in children and adolescents with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).

Methods

Forty-seven children and adolescents with OCD (Range = 7–17 years) were randomized to 18-weeks of treatment in one of three arms: 1) sertraline at standard dosing + CBT (RegSert + CBT); 2) sertraline titrated slowly but achieving at least 8 weeks on the maximally tolerated daily dose + CBT (SloSert + CBT); or 3) pill placebo + CBT (PBO + CBT). Assessments were conducted at screening, baseline, weeks 1–9, 13, and 17, and post-treatment. Raters and clinicians were blinded to sertraline (but not CBT) randomization status. Primary outcomes included the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale, and response and remission status. Secondary outcomes included the Child Obsessive Compulsive Impact Scale–Parent/Child, Children's Depression Rating Scale-Revised, Multidimensional Anxiety Scale for Children, and Clinical-Global Impressions-Severity.

Results

All groups exhibited large within-group effects across outcomes. There was no group by time interaction across all outcomes suggesting that group changes over time were comparable.

Conclusions

Among youth with OCD, there was no evidence that sequentially provided sertraline with CBT differed from those receiving placebo with CBT.

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier

NCT00382291.     

Quality of college students' same-sex friendships as a function of personality and interpersonal competence

The aim of the current study was to investigate personality traits and interpersonal competencies as predictors of the quality of same-sex friendships in young adulthood. Undergraduate students (N = 176), who attended a mid-Atlantic U.S., medium-sized university, completed self-report surveys on their personality, interpersonal competence, and friendship quality. Sex, class status, extraversion, agreeableness, and interpersonal competencies were associated with higher friendship quality, but only the interpersonal competence of self-disclosure significantly predicted friendship quality after controlling for sex, class status, and the five personality factors.     

Physical attractiveness in preschoolers: Relationships with power, status, aggression and social skills

Several lines of theory and research suggest that power (e.g., social dominance) and status (e.g., social prominence and positive peer regard) are enjoyed by those blessed with good looks. The present work addresses the relations among physical attractiveness, power, status, and aggression from a resource control theoretic perspective that suggests that group members find power holders physically attractive, even if they are aggressive. Teacher ratings of physical attractiveness, social dominance, peer reception, aggression, and social skills were collected on 153 preschoolers (3-6 years) from a Midwestern city. Positive peer regard was derived via sociometric nominations. Raters unfamiliar with the children assessed their physical attractiveness from photographs. Results show that teachers' perceptions of physical attractiveness are a function of power, status, and social skills. Additionally, teachers rated aggressive children who employ both prosocial and coercive strategies of resource control (bistrategic controllers) to be among the most physically attractive. These relations did not emerge for raters unbiased by children's behavior. Results suggest social dominance achieved via prosocial means begets attractiveness ratings, even if accompanied by high levels of aggression. The implications for intervention are discussed.     

Coh-metrix: analysis of text on cohesion and language.

Advances in computational linguistics and discourse processing have made it possible to automate many language- and text-processing mechanisms. We have developed a computer tool called Coh-Metrix, which analyzes texts on over 200 measures of cohesion, language, and readability. Its modules use lexicons, part-of-speech classifiers, syntactic parsers, templates, corpora, latent semantic analysis, and other components that are widely used in computational linguistics. After the user enters an English text, CohMetrix returns measures requested by the user. In addition, a facility allows the user to store the results of these analyses in data files (such as Text, Excel, and SPSS). Standard text readability formulas scale texts on difficulty by relying on word length and sentence length, whereas Coh-Metrix is sensitive to cohesion relations, world knowledge, and language and discourse characteristics.     

Friend influence on prosocial behavior: The role of motivational factors and friendship characteristics

This study examined motivation (prosocial goals), individual characteristics (sex, ethnicity, and grade), and friendship characteristics (affective quality, interaction frequency, and friendship stability) in relation to middle adolescents' prosocial behavior over time. Ninth- and 10th-grade students (N = 208) attending a suburban, mid-Atlantic public high school and having at least 1 reciprocated friendship were followed for 1 year. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that a friend's behavior is related to an individual's prosocial goal pursuit, which in turn, is related to an individual's prosocial behavior. Further, the affective quality of a friendship and the frequency with which friends interact moderate relations of a friend's prosocial behavior to an individual's prosocial goal pursuit.     

Selective attention to threat: A test of two cognitive models of anxiety

Two experiments evaluated differential predictions from two cognitive formulations of anxiety. According to one view, attentional biases for threat reflect vulnerability to anxiety; and as threat inputs increase, high trait anxious individuals should become more vigilant, and low trait individuals more avoidant, of threat (Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1988, 1997). However, according to a “cognitive-motivational” view, trait anxiety influences the appraisal of stimulus threat value, rather than the direction of attentional bias, and both high and low trait anxious individuals should exhibit greater vigilance for high rather than mild threat stimuli (Mogg & Bradley, 1998). To test these predictions, two experiments examined the effect of manipulating stimulus threat value on the direction of attentional bias. The stimuli included high threat and mild threat pictorial scenes presented in a probe detection task. Results from both studies indicated a significant main effect of stimulus threat value on attentional bias, as there was increased vigilance or reduced avoidance of threat, as threat value increased. This effect was found even within low trait anxious individuals, consistent with the “cognitive-motivational” view. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed.