Co-occurrence of non-suicidal self-injury and impulsivity in extreme weight conditions

The aims of the present study were to determine the prevalence of non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) in different eating disorder (ED) groups and morbid obesity, and to investigate whether NSSI in different ED/obesity groups co-occur with impulsivity. We assessed 535 individuals (365 ED and 170 obese patients) by means of a single item assessing lifetime NSSI and the Barratt Impulsivity Scale, which measures different dimensions of impulsivity. The results showed that 19.1% of the ED patients engaged in at least one act of NSSI during their life-time. NSSI was more prevalent in Bulimia Nervosa, Binge Eating Disorder, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified compared to Anorexia Nervosa, Restrictive type and morbid obesity. Finally, ED/obese patients who engaged in NSSI scored significantly higher on the attentional, motor and non-planning subscales than patients without NSSI. The implications of these findings for the treatment of NSSI in binge/purging ED patients are discussed.     

A Peculiarity in Pearl’s Logic of Interventionist Counterfactuals

We examine a formal semantics for counterfactual conditionals due to Judea Pearl, which formalizes the interventionist interpretation of counterfactuals central to the interventionist accounts of causation and explanation. We show that a characteristic principle validated by Pearl’s semantics, known as the principle of reversibility, states a kind of irreversibility: counterfactual dependence (in David Lewis’s sense) between two distinct events is irreversible. Moreover, we show that Pearl’s semantics rules out only mutual counterfactual dependence, not cyclic dependence in general. This, we argue, suggests that Pearl’s logic is either too weak or too strong.     

In search of information that confirms a desired self-perception: motivated processing of social feedback and choice of social interactions

The present studies examined how the motivation to see oneself as characterized by desirable attributes may influence feedback seeking and social preferences. In Study 1, participants were first led to believe that extraversion or introversion is conducive of success. Next, they received false feedback about themselves, related to extraversion and to introversion. In a surprise recall, extraversion-success participants remembered extraversion feedback more accurately and introversion feedback less, compared to introversion-success participants. Study 2 examined preferences for others as potential sources of feedback. The findings revealed that extraversion-success participants preferred others who perceived them as extraverted, whereas introversion-success participants preferred others who perceived them as introverted. Thus, people appear to rely on how others regard them to realize a desired self-perception. These processes, oriented more toward social and interpersonal aspects of the self, complement the more intrapersonal processes of motivated self-perception studied in the past.     

The Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory: development and validation of a short version

This article reports on the development of a revised version of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI; E. B. Foa, M. J. Kozak, P. Salkovskis, M. E. Coles, & N. Amir, 1998), a psychometrically sound, theoretically driven, self-report measure. The revised OCI (OCI-R) improves on the parent version in 3 ways: It eliminates the redundant frequency scale, simplifies the scoring of the subscales, and reduces overlap across subscales. The reliability and validity of the OCI-R were examined in 215 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 243 patients with other anxiety disorders, and 677 nonanxious individuals. The OCI-R, which contains 18 items and 6 subscales, has retained excellent psychometric properties. The OCI-R and its subscales differentiated well between individuals with and without OCD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses demonstrated the usefulness of the OCI-R as a diagnostic tool for screening patients with OCD, utilizing empirically derived cutscores.     

The systems approach — A. Bogdanov and L. von Bertalanffy

We undertake the comparison between Ludwig von Bertalanffy's General Systems Theory and Alexandr Bodganov's Tektology as two theories proposing a holistic interpretation of reality and claiming to solve problems which are unsolvable via conventional philosophic and scientific theories and methodologies. Basic misunderstandings by some Soviet authors regarding the nature of these theories — especially in the case of Tektology — are pointed out. The comparison is made in what concerns the general origins and purposes of the theories, their approaches to the problem of organization, their treatment of mathematics and their understanding of the cybernetic concept of regulation.We contend that Tektologycontains — some 15 years earlier — all the basic concepts which will be later developed by the General Theory of Systems. As we shall see, Tektology is the ultimate expansion of any theory of systems. This fact is widely ignored in contemporary specialized literature.We finally contend that both Tektology and the General Systems Theory are a sign of the times. A holistic secular monism is a respectable alternative to the failure of contemporary science and philosophy in guiding the life of men, in providing araison d'être for human existence. However, we do not explore the soundness of this alternative.     

L-Type Voltage-Dependent Calcium Channel Blocker Nifedipine Enhances Memory Retention When Infused into the Hippocampus

Wistar rats with cannulae bilaterally implanted in the CA1 region of the dorsal hippocampus were trained in a step-down inhibitory avoidance task. Through these cannulae they received an infusion of 28 or 280 ng per side of the L-type voltage-dependent calcium channel antagonist nifedipine, or of its vehicle (20% dimethyl sulfoxide in saline). The two doses of the drug were studied by administration 0 or 30 min after training; in addition, the higher dose was studied by infusion 10 min before training. A retention test was carried out 24 h after the training session. The highest dose of nifedipine administered 0 min post-training enhanced test session performance of the animals compared to the control group; the effect of the lower dose was not statistically significant. There was no effect of the drug given 30 min post-training or 10 min pretraining. Despite the inability to discriminate direct neural from indirect vascular effects, these results are consistent with previous reports on nootropic actions of the dihydropyridine class of calcium channel blockers. The data are at variance with the amnestic effect of intrahippocampal nifedipine described by Lee and Lin (1991,Life Sciences,48,1333–1340), which may be attibuted to the different range of doses studied here. This might resemble the inverted U-shaped dose–response curve observed with another dihydropyridine, nimodipine, by other authors.