The effects of stress and stress hormones on human cognition: Implications for the field of brain and cognition

In this review, we report on studies that have assessed the effects of exogenous and endogenous increases in stress hormones on human cognitive performance. We first describe the history of the studies on the effects of using exogenous stress hormones such as glucocorticoids as anti-inflammatory medications on human cognition and mental health. Here, we summarize the cases that led to the diagnosis of glucocorticoid-induced 'steroid psychosis' in human populations and which demonstrated that these stress hormones could thus cross the blood-brain barrier and access the brain where they could influence cognition and mental health. We then summarize studies that assessed the effects of the exogenous administration of glucocorticoids on cognitive performance supported by the hippocampus, the frontal lobes and amygdala. In the second section of the paper, we summarize the effects of the endogenous release of glucocorticoids induced by exposure to a stressful situation on human cognition and we further dissociate the effects of emotion from those of stress on human learning and memory. Finally, in the last section of the paper, we discuss the potential impact that the environmental context to which we expose participants when assessing their memory could have on their reactivity to stress and subsequent cognitive performance. In order to make our point, we discuss the field of memory and aging and we suggest that some of the 'age-related memory impairments' observed in the literature could be partly due to increased stress reactivity in older adults to the environmental context of testing. We also discuss the inverse negative correlations reported between hippocampal volume and memory for young and older adults and suggest that these inverse correlations could be partly due to the effects of contextual stress in young and older adults, as a function of age-related differences in hippocampal volume.     

预期性思考、自我调节导向与非计划购买

当消费者对非计划购买产生犹豫时,营销者应如何引导他们的购买行为？本文通过准实验与控制实验的方法探究该问题。研究结果显示：（1）营销者可以通过设计预期欣喜和预期后悔信息提高其非计划购买意向;（2）但是预期性思考的有效性还受到消费者自我调节导向的影响：预期欣喜对提高趋利导向消费者的非计划购买意向较有效,预期后悔对提高避害导向消费者的非计划购买意向较有效;（3）预期欣喜和预期后悔通过影响消费者对购买合理性的判断而影响他们的非计划购买意向。     

人与非人动物"嵌合体"研究的伦理学分析与思考

人与非人动物嵌合体的研究,作为人类提高自身健康素质的技术工具,以科学技术的形式改变着人们的生活方式和思维方式,寻找遗传性或者难治性疾病的致病基因和治疗新途径,追求个人和社会整体的良好生存状态,有着巨大的医疗价值,符合"行善"的伦理原则,应该允许限制性的开展.考虑到可能引发的伦理和高技术风险,履行审慎的准入制度.进行规范的伦理管理和严格的法规、行政管理是非常必要的.     

阿伦特政治哲学研究述评

汉娜·阿伦特(Hannah Arendt,1906～1975)之所以为世人所熟知,"不仅因为她是20世纪最富原创性和最有影响力的政治哲学家之一,同时也因为她是一位令人感到困惑的学者."[1]阿伦特的政治哲学著作涉及各种不同的主题,包括极权主义、政治行动在人类生活中的影响、艾希曼的审判、现代革命传统的意义、政治自由与权威的本质、人类精神生活的能力等.现将国内外有关阿伦特政治哲学研究的主要成果做一综述和简单的评论.     

Motion sickness in quail: body-rotation-induced conditioned fluid aversions in C. coturnix japonica

The presence of motion sickness in Japanese quail (C. coturnix japonica) was examined by using a conditioned fluid aversion as an index. Twenty-three birds were divided into three groups. One group received a novel fluid (yellow-sour water) followed by 30 min of body rotation at 70 rpm (on a schedule of 15 s on and 5 s off). Another group received the novel fluid followed by exposure to a sham rotation procedure. The third group experienced the rotation procedure following access to water. The group receiving the rotation procedure contingent on presentation of the novel fluid exhibited a conditioned aversion to this fluid (relative to the control groups) over days of acquisition (p less than .025) which subsequently dissipated when rotation was no longer contingent on the presentation of the yellow-sour water (extinction). These data thus demonstrate the presence of motion sickness in a gallinaceous species as indexed by a conditioned fluid aversion procedure.     

Stressful life events, bipolar disorder, and the "kindling model"

A common misconception is that bipolar disorder is an endogenous process. However, previous research suggests a role for life events in the onset of and recovery from bipolar episodes. Yet, there remains some question as to whether the relationship between life events and onset changes over the course of the disorder as a result of the number of episodes an individual has experienced. Using a rigorous interview measure of stressful life events, the current study tested the kindling model (R. M. Post, 1992), which theorizes that major life events play a diminishing role over the course of illness in bipolar patients. Analyses revealed that the number of episodes experienced does not appear to have a significant effect on bipolar 1 patients' reactivity to external stressors. In addition, the results suggest that a more complex relationship exists among age, stress, and onset of new episodes than can be adequately explained by the kindling model.     

严新气功顾问候选院士神秘主义觊觎科学殿堂

中国科学院20059月6日《关于公布2005年院士增选初步候选人名单的公佶》中公布的145名院士候选人中有—位身份特殊的人物。他就是“国际严新气功学会”科学顾问余振苏。作为院士候选人．我们感兴趣的是佘振苏对于严信。     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Special Topic:</Emphasis> Creativity in Christianity and Confucianism

By focusing on the Confucian ideal of forming one body with Heaven, Earth, and myriad things, I argue that the distinctive feature of Chinese cosmology is not the absence of cosmogonist concerns, but faith in the interconnectedness of all modalities of being as the result of the continuous creativity of the cosmic process.