Human medial temporal-lobe stimulation disrupts both formation and retrieval of recent memories

Disrupting medial temporal-lobe (MTL) activity for less than a second, either during the initial presentation of a complex scene or when it is presented again 1 min later, severely impairs recognition at the second presentation. MTL disruption during both presentation and recognition periods produces further impairment. These results are not consistent with views limiting MTL function solely to encoding or solely to retrieval mechanisms.     

The Development and Validation of the Health Proneness Questionnaire

This series of studies describes the development, validation and potential use of the Health Proneness Questionnaire (HPQ). Recent health, wellness and illness studies focus upon the dynamic interaction between psychological and physical well-being. This newly developed scale allows practitioners to quickly screen psychological characteristics related to health and a patient's perception of their quality of life. Participants were patients in university research clinics for vision problems. Through exploratory factor analysis three factors evolved related to the hypothesized psychological characteristics involved in health related quality of life: adaptability, self-efficacy and subjective well-being. In a confirmatory factor analysis, the best fit model yielded a higher-order health-proneness factor with the original three categories as sub-factors. Further criterion-related validity comparisons and discriminant and convergent validity studies indicated a psychometrically sound short survey for examining psychological characteristics of patients with mild chronic health conditions.     

The Community Child Health Network Life Stress Interview: a brief chronic stress measure for community health research

Background and Objectives: Chronic stress is implicated in many theories as a contributor to a wide range of physical and mental health problems. The current study describes the development of a chronic stress measure that was based on the UCLA Life Stress Interview (LSI) and adapted in collaboration with community partners for use in a large community health study of low-income, ethnically diverse parents of infants in the USA (Community Child Health Network [CCHN]). We describe the instrument, its purpose and adaptations, implementation, and results of a reliability study in a subsample of the larger study cohort. Design and Methods: Interviews with 272 mothers were included in the present study. Chronic stress was assessed using the CCHN LSI, an instrument designed for administration by trained community interviewers to assess four domains of chronic stress, each rated by interviewers. Results: Significant correlations ranging from small to moderate in size between chronic stress scores on this measure, other measures of stress, biomarkers of allostatic load, and mental health provide initial evidence of construct and concurrent validity. Reliability data for interviewer ratings are also provided. Conclusions: This relatively brief interview (15 minutes) is available for use and may be a valuable tool for researchers seeking to measure chronic stress reliably and validly in future studies with time constraints.     

Associations between dimensions of anxiety sensitivity and PTSD symptom clusters in active-duty police officers

Prior studies have shown that anxiety sensitivity (AS) plays an important role in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom severity. The purpose of this study was to evaluate associations between empirically supported PTSD symptom clusters (i.e. reexperiencing, avoidance, numbing, hyperarousal) and AS dimensions (i.e. psychological concerns, social concerns, somatic concerns). Participants were 138 active-duty police officers (70.7% female; mean age = 38.9 years; mean time policing = 173.8 months) who, as a part of a larger study, completed measures of trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, AS, and depressive symptoms. All participants reported experiencing at least one event that they perceived as traumatic, and 44 (31.9%) screened positive for PTSD. Officers with probable PTSD scored significantly higher on AS total as well as the somatic and psychological concerns dimensional scores than did those without PTSD. As well, a higher percentage of officers with probable PTSD scored positively on the AS-derived Brief Screen for Panic Disorder (Apfeldorf et al., 1994) compared with those without PTSD. A series of regression analyses revealed that depressive symptoms, number of reported traumas, and AS somatic concerns were significant predictors of PTSD total symptom severity as well as severity of reexperiencing. Avoidance was predicted by depressive symptoms and AS somatic concerns. Only depressive symptoms were significantly predictive of numbing and hyperarousal cluster scores. These findings contribute to understanding the nature of association between AS and PTSD symptom clusters. Implications for the treatment of individuals having PTSD with and without panic-related symptomatology are discussed.     

The Performance of Methods to Test Upper-Level Mediation in the Presence of Nonnormal Data

A Monte Carlo study compared the statistical performance of standard and robust multilevel mediation analysis methods to test indirect effects for a cluster randomized experimental design under various departures from normality. The performance of these methods was examined for an upper-level mediation process, where the indirect effect is a fixed effect and a group-implemented treatment is hypothesized to impact a person-level outcome via a person-level mediator. Two methods—the bias-corrected parametric percentile bootstrap and the empirical-M test—had the best overall performance. Methods designed for nonnormal score distributions exhibited elevated Type I error rates and poorer confidence interval coverage under some conditions. Although preliminary, the findings suggest that new mediation analysis methods may provide for robust tests of indirect effects.     

Perceived partner support in pregnancy predicts lower maternal and infant distress

Maternal postpartum emotional distress is quite common and can pose significant risk to mothers and infants. The current study investigated mothers' relationships with their partners during pregnancy and tested the hypotheses that perception of prenatal partner support is a significant predictor of changes in maternal emotional distress from midpregnancy to postpartum, and contributes to maternal ratings of infant distress to novelty. Using a prospective longitudinal design, 272 adult pregnant women were interviewed regarding their partner support, relationship satisfaction, and interpersonal security (attachment style and willingness to seek out support), and they completed standardized measures of prenatal symptoms of depression and anxiety (distress). At 6 to 8 weeks' postpartum, mothers reported these symptoms again and completed measures of their infants' temperament. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to test direct and indirect contributions of partner support, relationship satisfaction, and interpersonal security to maternal and infant postpartum distress. Mothers who perceived stronger social support from their partners midpregnancy had lower emotional distress postpartum after controlling for their distress in early pregnancy, and their infants were reported to be less distressed in response to novelty. Partner support mediated the effects of mothers' interpersonal security and relationship satisfaction on maternal and infant outcomes. A high-quality, supportive partner relationship during pregnancy may contribute to improved maternal and infant well-being postpartum, indicating a potential role for partner relationships in mental health interventions, with possible benefits for infants as well.