Relationship Between Posturography,Clinical Balance and Executive Function in Parkinson´s Disease

This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between posturography, clinical balance, and executive function tests in Parkinson´s disease (PD). Seventy-one people participated in the study. Static posturography evaluated the center of pressure fluctuations in quiet standing and dynamic posturography assessed sit-to-stand, tandem walk, and step over an obstacle. Functional balance was evaluated by Berg Balance Scale, MiniBESTest, and Timed Up and Go test. Executive function was assessed by Trail Making Test (TMT) and semantic verbal fluency test. Step over obstacle measures (percentage of body weight transfer and movement time) were moderately correlated to Timed Up and Go, part B of TMT and semantic verbal fluency (r > 0.40; p < 0.05 in all relationships). Stepping over an obstacle assesses the responses to internal perturbations. Participants with shorter movement times and higher percentage of body weight transfer (higher lift up index) on this task were also faster in Timed Up and Go, part B of TMT, and semantic verbal fluency. All these tasks require executive function (problem solving, sequencing, shifting attention), which is affected by PD and contribute to postural assessment.     

Spirituality in Counseling: What Do Counseling Students Think About It?

The author discusses students' reactions to 4 seminars. 1‐hour each, on the topic of spirituality in counseling. Students were enrolled in a master's‐level counseling program, Several issues emerged that have implications for the training of counselors on spiritual issues, including students' level of comfort with discussing spiritual issues, the difficulty of defining spirituality, client and counselor readiness to explore spirituality, and training issues in the area of spirituality.     

Rules and Self-Rules: Effects of Variation Upon Behavioral Sensitivity to Change

The Psychological Record - Four experiments compared the effects of self-rules and rules, and varied and specific schedules of reinforcement. Participants were first exposed to either several...     

Wistar rats show episodic-like memory for unique experiences

Human episodic memory refers to the recollection of an unique past experience in terms of its details, its locale, and temporal occurrence. Episodic memory, even in principle, has been difficult to demonstrate in non-verbal mammals. Previously, we provided evidence that mice are able to form an integrated memory for "what," "where," and "when" aspects of single experiences by combining different versions of the novelty-preference paradigm, i.e., object recognition memory, the memory for locations in which objects were explored, and the temporal order memory for objects presented at distinct time points. In the present series of experiments we evaluated whether this paradigm, with minor modifications, also works with rats. We found that rats spent more time exploring an "old familiar" object relative to a "recent familiar" object, suggesting that they recognized objects previously explored during separate trials and remembered their order of presentation. Concurrently, the rats responded differentially to spatial object displacement dependent on whether an "old familiar" or "recent familiar" object was shifted to a location, where it was not encountered previously. These results provide strong evidence that the rats established an integrated memory for "what," "where," and "when." We also found that acute stress impaired the animal's performance in the episodic-like memory task, which, however, could be partially reversed by the N-Methyl-D-aspartate-receptors agonist D-cycloserine.     

Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity is reduced in hippocampus of rats submitted to an experimental model of depression: effect of chronic lithium treatment and possible involvement in learning deficits

This study was undertaken to verify the effects of chronic stress and lithium treatments on the hippocampal Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity of rats, as well as to investigate the effects of stress interruption and post-stress lithium treatment on this enzyme activity and on spatial memory. Two experiments were carried out; in the first experiment, adult male Wistar rats were divided into two groups: control and submitted to a chronic variate stress paradigm, and subdivided into treated or not with LiCl. After 40 days of treatment, rats were killed, and Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity was determined. In the second experiment, rats were stressed during 40 days, and their performance was evaluated in the Water Maze task. The stressed group was then subdivided into four groups, with continued or interrupted stress treatment and treated or not with lithium for 30 additional days. After a second evaluation of performance in the Water Maze, rats were killed and Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity was also measured. Results showed an impairment in Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity and in Water Maze performance of chronically stressed rats, which were prevented by lithium treatment and reversed by lithium treatment and by stress interruption. These results suggest that the modulation of Na+,K(+)-ATPase activity may be one of the mechanisms of action of lithium in the treatment of mood disorders.     

Teaching reading and spelling: exclusion and stimulus equivalence

In Experiment 1, 7 nonreading children were exposed to a program designed to teach reading of 51 training words. The program featured an exclusion-based procedure in which the children (a) matched printed to dictated words and (b) constructed (copied) printed words with movable letters and named them. All children learned to read the training words. Five children also read generalization words and showed progress in spelling. Experiment 2 applied the program to 4 different children, omitting the word-construction task. They also learned to read the training words, but only 1 participant read generalization words. The data support a stimulus equivalence account of reading acquisition and suggest that reading generalization may be obtained, especially when the teaching program includes word construction.     

Advancing Creativity Theory and Research: A Socio-cultural Manifesto

This manifesto, discussed by 20 scholars, representing diverse lines of creativity research, marks a conceptual shift within the field. Socio-cultural approaches have made substantial contributions to the concept of creativity over recent decades and today can provide a set of propositions to guide our understanding of past research and to generate new directions of inquiry and practice. These propositions are urgently needed in response to the transition from the Information Society to the Post-Information Society. Through the propositions outlined here, we aim to build common ground and invite the community of creativity researchers and practitioners to reflect up, study, and cultivate creativity as a socio-cultural phenomenon.     

Reorganization of Equivalence Classes After Reversal of Baseline Relations

The Psychological Record - Pilgrim and Galizio (1995) reversed baseline conditional discriminations after the emergence of equivalence classes. College students’ performance was consistent...     

Physical activity and determinants of sedentary behavior in Brazilian adolescents from an underdeveloped region

The purpose of the study was to analyze the physical activity and the determinants of sedentary behavior in 1,268 Brazilian adolescents (638 girls, 630 boys) between the ages of 15 and 18 years, randomly selected from a relatively underdeveloped region. Data were collected from a community-based survey in the city of Jo?o Pessoa, Paraiba, Brazil. Information related to physical activity was derived on the short version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire. The prevalence of sedentary behavior was 28.2% for girls and 19.1% for boys, whilst 28.9% of the girls and 36.7% of the boys showed high physical activity. The sedentary behavior varied by sociodemographic and environmental determinants studied. Parents' education, socioeconomic status, school's characteristics, transport to school, paid work, smoking, alcohol use, and BMI scores were significantly related to sedentary behavior for boys and girls.     

Affiliative stimuli as primers to prosocial predispositions

Affiliative stimuli are pleasant and highly biologically relevant. Affiliative cues are thought to elicit a prosocial predisposition. Here affiliative and neutral pictures were exposed prior to a reaction time task which consisted in responding to a visual target. Half the participants responded with finger-flexion, a movement frequently involved in prosocial activities. The other half responded with finger extension, a less prosocially compatible movement. Results showed that under the exposure to affiliative pictures, as compared to neutral ones, participants who used finger flexion were faster, while those using finger extension were slower. Performance benefits to the task, when flexing the finger, together with performance costs, when extending it, indicate the relevance of movement compatibility to the context. These findings put forward a possible link between affiliative primers and motor preparation to facilitate a repertoire of movements related to prosocial predispositions including finger flexion.