Psychometric evaluation of the adolescent and parent versions of the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT)

The objective of the study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Gaming Addiction Identification Test (GAIT) and its parent version (GAIT‐P), in a representative community sample of adolescents and parents in Västmanland, Sweden. Self‐rated and parent‐rated gaming addictive symptoms identified by GAIT and GAIT‐P were analyzed for frequency of endorsement, internal consistency, concordance, factor structure, prevalence of Internet gaming disorder (IGD), concurrence with the Gaming Addiction Scale for Adolescents, 7‐item version (GAS) and the parent version of GAS (GAS‐P), and for sex differences. The 12‐month prevalence of IGD was found to be 1.3% with GAIT and 2.4% with GAIT‐P. Results also indicate promising psychometric results within this population, with high internal consistency, and high concurrent validity with GAS and GAS‐P. Concordance between adolescents and parents ratings was high, although moderate in girls. Although exploratory factor analysis indicated poor model fit, it also indicated unidimensionality and high factor loadings in all analyses. GAIT and GAIT‐P are suitable for continued use in measuring gaming addiction in adolescents, and, with the additional two items, they now cover all nine IGD criteria.     

Descartes' Dualism and Contemporary Dualism

After drawing a distinction between two kinds of dualism—numerical dualism (defined in terms of identity) and modal dualism (defined in terms of supervenience)—we argue that Descartes is a numerical dualist, but not a modal dualist. Since most contemporary dualists advocate modal dualism, the relation of Descartes' views to the contemporary philosophy of mind are more complex than is commonly assumed.     

Automatic imitation of intransitive actions

Previous research has indicated a potential discontinuity between monkey and human ventral premotor-parietal mirror systems, namely that monkey mirror systems process only transitive (object-directed) actions, whereas human mirror systems may also process intransitive (non-object-directed) actions. The present study investigated this discontinuity by seeking evidence of automatic imitation of intransitive actions--hand opening and closing--in humans using a simple reaction time (RT), stimulus-response compatibility paradigm. Left-right and up-down spatial compatibility were controlled by ensuring that stimuli were presented and responses executed in orthogonal planes, and automatic imitation was isolated from simple and complex orthogonal spatial compatibility by varying the anatomical identity of the stimulus hand and response hemispace, respectively. In all conditions, action compatible responding was faster than action incompatible responding, and no effects of spatial compatibility were observed. This experiment therefore provides evidence of automatic imitation of intransitive actions, and support for the hypothesis that human and monkey mirror systems differ with respect to the processing of intransitive actions.     

Mortality of geriatric and younger patients with schizophrenia in the community

Little is known about the differences in mortality among non-institutionalized geriatric and younger patients with schizophrenia. In this study long-term mortality and suicidal behavior of all the geriatric (age > or = 65 years), middle-age (age 41-64 years), and young (age 15-40 years) subjects with schizophrenia living in a Chinese rural community were compared. A 10 year follow-up investigation among a 1994 cohort (n = 510) of patients with schizophrenia was conducted in Xinjin County, Chengdu, China. Compared with young subjects, geriatric subjects with schizophrenia were more likely to be female, have more previous physical illness, never accepted treatment, and practice religious (p < or = 0.01). There were no significant differences of suicide attempts among the three groups. Young subjects had a higher rate of suicide (1,033.8 per 100,000 person-years), and geriatric subjects had a higher rate of deaths due to other causes (accident and natural causes) (4,314.2 per 100,000 person-years). Standardized mortality ratios for both suicide and deaths due to other causes were highest in young subjects and the lowest in geriatric subjects. Patients with schizophrenia in all age groups had a marked increase in mortality and suicide. Specific intervention strategies for decreasing mortality and suicide should be developed for patients with schizophrenia in different age groups.     

Social Concern and Delinquency: An Empirical Assessment of a Novel Theory

Using the Pathways to Desistance data, this study provides a test of Agnew’s social concern theory. Social concern is hypothesized to reduce criminality through four components: care about the welfare of others, desire for close ties, moral intuitions, and desire to conform. The analyses provide support for the theory’s core contentions. Care about others and moral intuitions are negatively associated with delinquency. Further, social concern partly mediates the effects of social learning, strain, social bond, self-control, and social support on delinquency. Findings indicate that social concern theory is a promising approach that merits continued theoretical refinement and empirical assessment.     

‘In human shape to become the very beast!’ – Henry More on animals

ABSTRACT

Animals – both tame and wild, as metaphors and as real presences – populate many of More’s works. In this essay, I show that, from the early Psychodia Platonica to the Divine Dialogues, animals are at the core of key metaphysical issues that reverberate on the levels of psychology and ethics. In particular I discuss three main aspects: (1) the role of animals in More’s critique of atheism, both as safeguard for the body–soul interaction and as proofs of divine providence in nature; (2) the problem of evil in the universe, and how to justify the existence of ‘evil’ animals in particular; (3) the differentiation between animals and humans, especially on the basis of their respective possibility of attaining happiness. In all three cases, I argue that More attempts to ‘tame’ the nature of animals, and yet that he is aware that ‘animality’ remains partly untamed.     

Automatic imitation

"Automatic imitation" is a type of stimulus-response compatibility effect in which the topographical features of task-irrelevant action stimuli facilitate similar, and interfere with dissimilar, responses. This article reviews behavioral, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging research on automatic imitation, asking in what sense it is "automatic" and whether it is "imitation." This body of research reveals that automatic imitation is a covert form of imitation, distinct from spatial compatibility. It also indicates that, although automatic imitation is subject to input modulation by attentional processes, and output modulation by inhibitory processes, it is mediated by learned, long-term sensorimotor associations that cannot be altered directly by intentional processes. Automatic imitation provides an important tool for the investigation of the mirror neuron system, motor mimicry, and complex forms of imitation. It is a new behavioral phenomenon, comparable with the Stroop and Simon effects, providing strong evidence that even healthy adult humans are prone, in an unwilled and unreasoned way, to copy the actions of others.     

The effect of zolpidem on targeted memory reactivation during sleep

According to the active system consolidation theory, memory consolidation during sleep relies on the reactivation of newly encoded memory representations. This reactivation is orchestrated by the interplay of sleep slow oscillations, spindles, and theta, which are in turn modulated by certain neurotransmitters like GABA to enable long-lasting plastic changes in the memory store. Here we asked whether the GABAergic system and associated changes in sleep oscillations are functionally related to memory reactivation during sleep. We administered the GABA_A agonist zolpidem (10 mg) in a double-blind placebo-controlled study. To specifically focus on the effects on memory reactivation during sleep, we experimentally induced such reactivations by targeted memory reactivation (TMR) with learning-associated reminder cues presented during post-learning slow-wave sleep (SWS). Zolpidem significantly enhanced memory performance with TMR during sleep compared with placebo. Zolpidem also increased the coupling of fast spindles and theta to slow oscillations, although overall the power of slow spindles and theta was reduced compared with placebo. In an uncorrected exploratory analysis, memory performance was associated with slow spindle responses to TMR in the zolpidem condition, whereas it was associated with fast spindle responses in placebo. These findings provide tentative first evidence that GABAergic activity may be functionally implicated in memory reactivation processes during sleep, possibly via its effects on slow oscillations, spindles and theta as well as their interplay.

Sleep supports the consolidation of newly acquired memories (Mednick et al. 2011; Klinzing et al. 2019). According to the active system consolidation theory, new memories and their associated neuronal activation patterns become spontaneously reactivated (replayed) following learning in the sleeping brain (Wilson and McNaughton 1994; Diekelmann and Born 2010). These reactivations allow for the redistribution and integration of the memory representations from hippocampal to neocortical sites for long-term storage (Rasch and Born 2007; Klinzing et al. 2019). Memory reactivation during sleep has been proposed to rely on the synchronized interplay of electrophysiological oscillations characteristic of non–rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, mainly neocortical slow oscillations (SOs, <1 Hz), thalamocortical spindles (9–15 Hz), and hippocampal ripples (80–200 Hz) (Mölle et al. 2009; Staresina et al. 2015; Helfrich et al. 2018; Ngo et al. 2020). Particularly, sleep spindles and their intricate phase coupling to SO have been suggested to be mechanistically involved in memory consolidation processes during sleep (Ulrich 2016; Antony et al. 2019). It has been proposed that memories become reinstated by spindle events, specifically during the up-state of slow oscillations, allowing for the flow of information between different brain sites as well as the induction of lasting structural and functional plastic changes in the learning-associated neuronal networks (Rosanova and Ulrich 2005; Peyrache and Seibt 2020). In addition to sleep spindles, neocortical and hippocampal theta activity (4–8 Hz) is also phase-locked to SO during NREM sleep (Gonzalez et al. 2018; Cox et al. 2019; Krugliakova et al. 2020), and this coupling has been related to memory consolidation during sleep (Schreiner et al. 2018).A number of neuromodulators seem to be involved in the generation of sleep spindles, SO and associated memory processing, most notably GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid), which is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter (Lancel 1999; Ulrich et al. 2018). Sleep spindles and sleep-dependent memory processing can be boosted by targeting the GABAergic system pharmacologically (Mednick et al. 2013). Zolpidem is one of the most frequently used drugs in this regard, binding to GABA_A receptors at the same location as benzodiazepines, thereby acting as a GABA_A receptor agonist (Lemmer 2007). Zolpidem increases the time spent in slow-wave sleep (SWS) and reduces the amount of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep (Kanno et al. 2000; Uchimura et al. 2006; Zhang et al. 2020). Zolpidem also increases the density and power of sleep spindles (Dijk et al. 2010; Lundahl et al. 2012; Mednick et al. 2013; Niknazar et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2020) as well as the coupling of spindles to SO (Niknazar et al. 2015; Zhang et al. 2020), and it was further found to enhance declarative memory consolidation during sleep, with postsleep performance improvements being associated with higher spindle density and spindle power as well as with SO–spindle coupling (Kaestner et al. 2013; Mednick et al. 2013; Zhang et al. 2020).However, it remains unclear whether the changes in sleep stages, sleep spindles, and SO–spindle coupling after pharmacological manipulation with zolpidem are functionally related to the mechanisms underlying sleep-dependent memory consolidation such as memory reactivation. Over the last few years, targeted memory reactivation (TMR) has been increasingly applied to manipulate memory reactivation during sleep experimentally by presenting learning-associated reminder cues like odors or sounds (Oudiette and Paller 2013; Hu et al. 2020; Klinzing and Diekelmann 2020). TMR biases sleep-related neuronal replay events toward the reactivated memory contents (Lewis and Bendor 2019) and enhances subsequent recall performance (Rudoy et al. 2009; Diekelmann et al. 2011; Schreiner et al. 2015; Cairney et al. 2018). Although a few studies observed modulations of SOs (Rihm et al. 2014), sleep spindles (Cox et al. 2014), and SO–spindle coupling (Bar et al. 2020) with TMR during sleep, studies on the role of specific neurotransmitters and particularly on the role of GABAergic neurotransmission and associated changes in sleep oscillations for targeted memory reactivation are entirely lacking. One previous study tested the effect of pharmacologically increased GABAergic activity by administering the benzodiazepine clonazepam after cued reactivation of a declarative memory during wakefulness (Rodríguez et al. 2013). Clonazepam increased memory performance when it was administered after reactivation with an incomplete reminder cue, suggesting that increasing GABAergic neurotransmission may enhance the restabilization of reactivated declarative memories in humans during wakefulness.In the present study, we tested the effect of modulating GABAergic activity with zolpidem on targeted memory reactivation during sleep and associated changes in sleep spindles as well as SO–spindle and SO–theta coupling. We hypothesized that zolpidem enhances the beneficial effects of targeted memory reactivation on memory performance and that this enhancement is associated with increases in spindle density, spindle power, SO–spindle coupling, and possibly SO–theta coupling, and the amount of SWS. Participants were trained on a memory task including 30 sound–word associations in the evening (Forcato et al. 2020) and received an oral dose of 10 mg zolpidem (n = 11) or placebo (n = 11) after training before a full night of sleep in the sleep lab (Fig. 1). During the night, incomplete reminder cues (sounds + first syllable of the associated words) were played again via in-ear headphones during SWS. The next morning, participants were trained on an interference memory task to probe the stability of the original memory, which was tested 30 min later.Open in a separate windowFigure 1.Experimental design and memory task. (A) All subjects took part in a training session at ∼22.30, were administered with placebo (n = 11) or 10 mg of zolpidem (n = 11) before going to bed at 23:00, and received targeted memory reactivation during the first SWS period. After ∼8 h of sleep, in the morning, subjects learned an interference task and were tested on the original memory task in a testing session 30 min after the interference task. (B) Training: First, subjects were presented with 30 sound–word associations for learning. For each association, the sound was presented first for 2900 msec. The sound then continued accompanied by the word written on the screen and spoken aloud for 1500 msec. After a 4000-msec break, the next association was presented in the same way. After all associations were presented once, participants completed an immediate cued recall test. For each association, the sound was presented for 2900 msec. The sound then continued accompanied by the first syllable of the associated word for 1500 msec. Participants were then given 5000 msec to say the complete word aloud (sound continued during the entire period). Independently of their response, the correct answer was then presented on the screen and via headphones for 1500 msec. Reactivation: Each sound was first presented alone for an average of 2900 msec; the sound then continued accompanied by the first syllable of each word for another 1500 msec. After a 7000-msec break, the next sound–syllable pair was presented until all 30 pairs had been presented once. Testing: Each sound was presented for 500 msec and then the sound continued and subjects had 5000 msec to say the associated word aloud. After a break of 4000 msec, the procedure continued for the rest of the 30 associations. Adapted from Forcato et al. (2020).