Experiences of Patients in Cognitive Behavioural Group Therapy: A Qualitative Study of Eating Disorders

The aim of this study was to investigate whether there was a difference in skin conductance response between 2 groups of military personnel when exposed to emotionally neutral and charged stimuli. The 2 groups were a combat experience group (n?=?10) with prior experience of emotionally charged war situations and a comparison group (n?=?10) with no such experience. Results showed that the comparison group reacted more strongly to exposure to both charged and neutral pictures than did the combat experience group, regardless of exposure time. The results are discussed in terms of emotional numbing and differences in anxiety state between the 2 groups.     

Extended Family Impact of Genetic Testing: The Experiences of X-linked Carrier Grandmothers

In many cases, X-linked conditions are transmitted through families “silently” until the first affected individual is diagnosed. Grandmothers are often then tested to help determine the risk to other family members. To date, psychosocial research on carriers of X-linked conditions has focused primarily on mothers and sisters of affected males. In the wider social science literature, studies on grandparents of children with disabilities have centered on their role within the family and relationship with the grandchild. We therefore know little about the impact of carrier testing for a genetic condition on grandparents. This qualitative study aims to contribute towards filling that gap. This study included thirteen grandmothers in families with Fragile X or Duchenne muscular dystrophy; ten had living affected grandsons and three had daughters who chose not to continue with affected male pregnancies after prenatal diagnosis. All thirteen took part in semi-structured interviews and provided a rich and varied data source for conducting thematic analysis. Most of the grandmothers expressed recurring feelings of guilt and a strong sense of responsibility for what had occurred in the family. Other themes included feelings of shock after receiving their test result, changes in family relationships and searching to make sense of the inheritance within the context of the family’s experience. This study provides evidence that X-linked carrier testing can have a profound and lasting impact on grandmothers. Although genetic counseling for X-linked conditions is often focused on the potential reproductive implications for carriers, these findings suggest that grandmothers should also be offered genetic counseling when tests are carried out, because of the likely psychosocial impact of a positive test result.     

INCREASING OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: A PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS

We evaluated the effects of monitoring responses on the acquisition of sight words with 3 children with autism. In the training condition, we taught participants a vocal imitation and matching response related to a peer's reading response. In another condition, participants were exposed only to a peer's reading responses. Participants read the words more accurately during test sessions when the monitoring response was required. Results and discussion highlight the importance of identifying component responses of observational learning and the need for additional research in this area.     

Growth points in research on memory and hippocampus.

We present an overview of two of our on-going projects relating processes in the hippocampus to memory. We are trying to understand why retrograde amnesia occurs after damage to the hippocampus. Our experiments establish the generality of several new retrograde amnesia phenomena that are at odds with the consensus view of the role of the hippocampus in memory. We show in many memory tasks that complete damage to the hippocampus produces retrograde amnesia that is equivalent for recent and remote memories. Retrograde amnesia affects a much wider range of memory tasks than anterograde amnesia. Normal hippocampal processes can interfere with retention of a long-term memory stored outside the hippocampus. We conclude that the hippocampus competes with nonhippocampal systems during memory encoding and retrieval. Finally, we outline a project to understand and manipulate adult hippocampal neurogenesis in order to repair damaged hippocampal circuitry to recover lost cognitive functions.     

Secondary muscular carnitine deficiency following immunosuppressive treatment

Carnitine deficiency syndromes can be classified into two groups: primary carnitine deficiency and secondary carnitine deficiency syndromes. A lipid storage myopathy with carnitine deficiency following an immunosuppressive therapy is described in a young man suffering from a possible polymyositis. After treatment with L-carnitine both biochemical and morphological features recovered. A secondary carnitine deficiency syndrome due to an immunosuppressive therapy is supposed.     

Experiences in the diagnosis and treatment of polyneuropathies in patients with malignant monoclonal gammopathy

4 patients are reported having monoclonal gammopathies, who clinically exhibited a sensomotoric polyneuropathy being progressive during some years. The EMG showed axional failure and secondary demyelisation. In two of the patients an IgG-type multiple myeloma has been revealed, while in the other two ohnes an increase of abnormal IgM-mIg could be demonstrated. In all patients the liquor protein was found increased and the appropriate mIg has been found in the liquor. Immunohistochemically the appropriate immunoglobulins could be demonstrated on the peripheral nerve by means of immunofluorescence method. Electron microscopical studies of nerval biopsies supported the diagnosis of mIg-associated polyneuropathy. References to diagnostics and treatment of mIg-associated polyneuropathy are done.     

Memorability functions as an indicator of qualitative age differences in text recall

An analysis in which the probability of text unit recall for older adults [p(Re/O)] is plotted as a function of this probability for the young [p(Re/Y)] is considered as one way to assess whether there are qualitative differences in text recall for young and old. The application of this relative memorability analysis to previously reported data dealing with the immediate recall of spoken sentences (Stine, Wingfield, & Poon, 1986) revealed that although older adults show qualitative recall similar to younger adults when informational density is low, they show less discrimination among text elements when informational density is increased.     

Comparing means from nonnormal distributions: The bisquare-weighted analysis of variance

A new procedure analogous to the analysis of variance (ANOVA), called the bisquare-weighted ANOVA (bANOVA), is described. When a traditional ANOVA is calculated, using samples from a distribution with heavy tails, the Type I error rates remain in check, but the Type II error rates increase, relative to those across samples from a normal distribution. The bANOVA is robust with respect to deviations from a normal distribution, maintaining high power with normal and heavy-tailed distributions alike. The more popular rank ANOVA (rANOVA) is also described briefly. However, the rANOVA is not as robust to large deviations from normality as is the bANOVA, and it generates high Type I error rates when applied to three-way designs.