Alzheimer's Disease Does Not Selectively Impair Decisions About Word Meaning

Patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal young and older participants were asked to make decisions about the orthography, phonology and semantics of visually presented stimulus words. Whereas AD patients were slower than normals in making decisions, there was no evidence that they were any more impaired in making one type of decision than another. Specifically, they did not show a disproportionate slowing for decisions requiring access to word meaning. These results are not consistent with a degradation of semantic knowledge in AD, but rather suggest the presence of a relatively generalized slowing of information processing.     

The effect of semantic and syntactic structure on verbal memory in Alzheimer's disease

This study examined the ability of 17 patients with Alzheimer's disease and 17 normal-old subjects to recall short sentences that were normal, or had a disruption in either their semantic structure, their syntactic structure, or both their semantic and syntactic structure. Results showed that sentence recall performance was affected similarly in the demented and normal-old subjects by both the syntactic and semantic structure of the sentences. The presence of either type of language structure appeared to allow both normal and demented subjects to organize strings of words into multiword chunks for more efficient memory encoding.     

The ontogeny of defensive reactions in the rat: Influence of the monoamine transmission systems

The effects of neonatal treatment of rats with the neurotoxins 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine and 6-hydroxydopamine on the ontogeny of the ultra sound vocalization and the immobility response were studied. The 5,7-dihydroxytryptamine treated rats showed reduced strength of both reactions indicating involvement of the serotonin system in their ontogeny. This hypothesis was supported by experiments with depletion of serotonin by para-chlorophenylalanine followed by replenishment with 5-hydroxytryptophan. The 6-hydroxydopamine treated rats showed normal defensive reactions, but displayed hyperactivity from their second week of age. The role of the dopamine system in the defensive reactions was studied by variations of the dopamine activity level by traditional tools: depletion by α-methyl-tyrosin followed by replenishment by l -DOPA; stimulation or inhibition of the dopamine receptors by apomorphine or haloperidol. The results suggested an inhibitory function of the dopamine system in both defensive reactions, antagonistic to that of the serotonin system.     

Parent training for young Norwegian children with ODD and CD problems: Predictors and mediators of treatment outcome

Participants were 121 children, aged 4–8 years referred for conduct problems, and their mothers. A parent training intervention was implemented in two outpatient clinics in Norway. Treatment responders were defined as children scoring below a cut-off on the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory, a score below an optimal cut-off for children in day-care and school as reported by teachers, in addition to a 30% reduction or greater in observed negative parenting. Self-reported parenting practices were explored as potential mediators. The results of logistic regression analyses showed that high levels of maternal stress, clinical levels of ADHD, and being a girl predicted a poorer outcome in conduct problems at home, while pretreatment clinical levels of ADHD predicted a poorer outcome as perceived by the teachers. Harsh and inconsistent parental disciplining emerged as significant partial mediators of changes in conduct problems, highlighting the importance of altering parenting practices to modify young children's conduct problems.     

Body Mass Index Is an Important Predictor for Suicide: Results from a Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

Public health concerns for the independent management of obesity and suicidal behavior are rising. Emerging evidence suggests body weight plays an important role in quantifying the risk of suicide. In light of these findings, we aimed to clarify the association between body mass index (BMI) and suicidal behavior by systematically reviewing and evaluating the literature. Studies were identified by searching MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and CINAHL from inception to January 2015, supplemented by hand and grey literature searches. Study screening, data extraction, and risk of bias assessment were conducted in duplicate. We included 38 observational studies. Meta‐analyses supported an inverse association between BMI and completed suicide. Pooled summary estimates demonstrated that underweight was significantly associated with an increased risk of completed suicide (HR = 1.21, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.36, p = .002), and obesity (HR = 0.71, 95% CI 0.56 to 0.89, p = .003) and overweight (HR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.75 to 0.82, p < .0001) were significantly associated with a decreased risk of completed suicide relative to normal weight. A qualitative summary of the literature demonstrated conflicting evidence regarding the association between BMI and attempted suicide and revealed no association between BMI and suicidal ideation. BMI may be used to aid the assessment of suicide risk, especially that of completed suicide. However, unmeasured confounders and systematic biases of individual studies limit the quality of evidence.