Inhibitory avoidance deficit following short-term adrenalectomy in the rat: the role of adrenal catecholamines

Impaired retention of an inhibitory avoidance response was observed in rats subjected to adrenalectomy (ADX) up to 120 hr before the single learning trial. Corticosterone substitution failed to normalize this behavioral deficit. Rats ADX 240 hr prior to the learning trial showed a normalized behavior. Adrenomedullectomy (ADXM) 48 or 240 hr before learning caused a similar impairment as in short-term ADX rats. The 240-hr ADX rats subjected to corticosterone substitution showed the same behavioral deficit as short-term ADX rats or ADXM ones. Immediate postlearning subcutaneous injection of adrenaline in a dose range of 0.005-5.0 micrograms/kg or of noradrenaline (0.005-0.5 microgram/kg) to 48-hr ADX rats resulted in a dose-related improvement of later retention behavior. Higher doses of catecholamines were less or ineffective. Postlearning treatment of 48-hr ADXM rats with adrenaline (0.5-500 micrograms/kg) caused a similar pattern of behavioral changes. It is concluded that adrenal catecholamines play an important role in the modulation of consolidation of memory. In addition, the high circulating ACTH levels that follow long-term ADX may correct for the behaviorial deficit induced by the absence of adrenomedullary catecholamines.     

Overt and covert parental conflict and adolescent problems: observed marital interaction in clinic and nonclinic families.

When adolescents behave in socially unacceptable ways, overt interparental conflict is widely held to be the cause. Empirical studies, however, have been inconsistent in supporting this assumption. Some researchers therefore have speculated that covert conflict also plays a role. In the current observational study, evidence was found that both overt parental conflict and some forms of covert conflict play roles. During problem-solving family discussions, parents of adolescents whom they had brought into an outpatient clinic for treatment overtly disagreed with each other significantly more often than did parents with adolescents who did not require treatment. Families of clinic adolescents also exhibited significantly more silence during their discussions, and mothers spent significantly less time talking than did their nonclinic counterparts. The implications that both the overt and covert conflict may have for adolescent behavior are discussed.     

On methods of reporting clinical material.

The members of the Committee on Scientific Activities of the American Psychoanalytic Association are concerned about the paucity of clinical data in psychoanalytic reports and by the quality of what does exist. We have proposed a few standards for clinical reports that we believe will be reliable and clear and will have enduring usefulness. We recognize the need for maintaining confidentiality and, at times, for disguise; we also recognize the need to balance these requirements against the dangers of misleading the reader (or listener). These conflicting requirements have resulted in our concentrating on some general principles for clinical reporting. We have appended a tentative form, and examples, to be considered for that purpose.     

Prospective study of postpartum depression: 4 1/2-year follow-up of women and children

The consequences of maternal postpartum depression for mothers and children were investigated in a 4 1/2-year follow-up study, which included 70 of 99 women who had participated in an earlier study of postpartum depression. Information about maternal adjustment and depression during the follow-up period and child adjustment at age 4 1/2 years was obtained. Women who had experienced a postpartum depression were predicted to be at increased risk for subsequent depression and poor adjustment of their child. Postpartum depression was directly related to subsequent depression but not child problems. Later depression was related to child problems at 4 1/2 years. We concluded that postpartum depression may increase risk for later maternal depression and in turn increases risk for child behavior problems. Intervening with women who have experienced a postpartum depression may reduce likelihood of future depressions and child behavior problems.     

Group treatment of the hyperventilation syndrome

Hyperventilation (hv) is increasingly recognized as being significant in a number of psychological and medical conditions. The core of treatment for hv is breathing retraining, usually on an individual basis. This article describes a group therapy for breathing retraining for patients with hv-induced panic reactions. An analysis of group process suggests that such treatment is helpful in ways impossible for individual retraining and that further exploration of this modality is warranted.     

Insides and essences: early understandings of the non-obvious

Insides and essences are both critical concepts for appreciating the importance of non-obvious entities: neither are observable, both contrast with external appearances, and both can be more important than external appearances. The present research examined understandings of insides and essences in 3- to 5-year-old children. In Study 1, children were asked questions requiring them to think about both the insides and the outer appearances of a series of objects. In Study 2, children were tested on their understanding that insides are typically more important than outer surfaces for an object's identity and functioning. In Studies 3, 4, and 5, children were tested on their understanding of innate potential, a concept that reflects understanding of an inborn essence. Contrary to the traditional view of children as externalists (cf. Piaget, 1951), these studies demonstrate that by age 4 children have a firm grasp of the importance of both insides and essences. Even by age 3 children reason clearly about the inside-outside distinction. These results suggest that preschool children attend to non-obvious features and realize their privileged status. They may also indicate a more basic predisposition toward psychological essentialism in young children.     

On the semantic content of subcategorization frames

This paper investigates relations between the meanings of verbs and the syntactic structures in which they appear. This investigation is motivated by the enigmas as to how children discover verb meanings. Well-known problems with unconstrained induction of word meanings from observation of world circumstances suggest that additional constraints or sources of information are required. If there exist strong and reliable parallels between the structural and semantic properties of verbs, then an additional source of information about verb meanings is reliably present in each verb's linguistic context. Five experiments are presented which investigate the following hypothesis regarding the scope of these relations: The closer any two verbs in their semantic structure, the greater the overlap should be in their licensed syntactic structures. To investigate this hypothesis, data of two kinds were collected from different groups of subjects: (a) One group of subjects was asked to judge the semantic relatedness of verbs by selecting the semantic outlier in triads presented to them. (b) A second group of subjects was asked to judge the grammaticality of these same verbs in a large range of syntactic environments. These two types of data were then compared to assess the degree of correspondence in the two partitionings (syntactic and semantic) of the verb set. The findings, overall, support the view that the syntax of verbs is a quite regular, although complex, projection from their semantics. In conclusion, we discuss the kinds of features that are formally marked in syntactic structure and relate these to the problem of verb-vocabulary acquisition in young children.