Motor excitability is reduced prior to voluntary movements in children and adolescents with Tourette syndrome

Tourette syndrome (TS) is a neuro‐developmental disorder characterized by the occurrence of motor and vocal tics: involuntary, repetitive, stereotyped behaviours that occur with a limited duration, often typically many times in a single day. Previous studies suggest that children and adolescents with TS may undergo compensatory, neuroplastic changes in brain structure and function that help them gain control over their tics. In the current study we used single‐pulse and dual‐site paired‐pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), in conjunction with a manual choice reaction time task that induces high levels of inter‐manual conflict, to investigate this conjecture in a group of children and adolescents with TS, but without co‐morbid Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). We found that performance on the behavioural response‐conflict task did not differ between the adolescents with TS and a group of age‐matched typically developing individuals. By contrast, our study demonstrated that cortical excitability, as measured by TMS‐induced motor‐evoked potentials (MEPs), was significantly reduced in the TS group in the period immediately preceding a finger movement. This effect is interpreted as consistent with previous suggestions that the cortical hyper‐excitability that may give rise to tics in TS is actively suppressed by cognitive control mechanisms. Finally, we found no reliable evidence for altered patterns of functional inter‐hemispheric connectivity in TS. These results provide evidence for compensatory brain reorganization that may underlie the increased self‐regulation mechanisms that have been hypothesized to bring about the control of tics during adolescence.     

Preference for unreliable reinforcement in children with mental retardation: the role of conditioned reinforcement

We examined the effects of conditioned reinforcement on children's choice between reliable (100%) and unreliable (50%) reinforcement under various stimulus conditions in a concurrent-chains procedure. The study was conducted across three experiments. Experiments 1 and 2 were conducted under conditions similar to basic laboratory work and consisted of participants selecting from one of two black boxes (placed on a table) that were correlated with different reinforcement schedules. In Experiment 3, we assessed a participant's preference for unreliable reinforcement during conditions in which the target responses were aggression and mands. Results of the three experiments showed that the participants preferred unreliable reinforcement under certain conditions. Findings are discussed regarding the role of specific stimuli (i.e., items correlated with a reinforcement schedule, adult reactions) as conditioned reinforcers and how they may influence children's preference for a response (e.g., aggression, self-injury) that produces reinforcement on a leaner schedule than a socially desirable response (e.g., mands).     

The influence of maternal child-rearing attitudes and teaching behaviors on preschoolers' delay of gratification

This study was an exploratory examination of the influence of mothers' teaching behaviors, strategies, and child-rearing attitudes on their children's ability to delay gratification. In an externally imposed delay of gratification situation, 30 mothers from a rural university community taught their children strategies that could help them refrain from touching a brightly wrapped present when the mothers left the room. Results showed that mothers of children who did not delay gratification exhibited teaching behaviors and child-rearing attitudes consistent with a permissive parenting style, whereas mothers of children who did delay gratification exhibited teaching behaviors and child-rearing attitudes consistent with an authoritative parenting style. The results of this study are discussed with respect to the development of children's self-control and self-regulatory abilities.     

Third Men: The Logic of the Sophisms at Arist. SE 22, 178b36–170a10

This article aims at elucidating the logic of Arist. SE 22, 178b36–179a10 and, in particular, of the sophism labelled "Third Man" discussed in it. I suggest that neither the sophistic Walking Man argument, proposed by ancient commentators, nor the Aristotelian Third Man of the , suggested by modern interpreters, can be identified with the fallacious argument Aristotle presents and solves in the passage. I propose an alternative reconstruction of the Third Man sophism and argue that an explanation of the lines regarding the identity of Coriscus and Coriscus the musician (178b39–179a3) is indispensable for its correct understanding, since they hint at another sophism in some important aspects analogous. Finally, I show that two contradictions concerning spotted by scholars in the passage are only apparent and can be dissolved once the assumption that the anti-Platonic Third Man argument is at stake here is discarded, and once the passage is read in the light of its agonistic context.     

A Proof-theoretical Analysis of Semiconstructive Intermediate Theories

In the 80's Pierangelo Miglioli, starting from motivations in the framework of Abstract Data Types and Program Synthesis, introduced semiconstructive theories, a family of large subsystems of classical theories that guarantee the computability of functions and predicates represented by suitable formulas. In general, the above computability results are guaranteed by algorithms based on a recursive enumeration of the theorems of the whole system. In this paper we present a family of semiconstructive systems, we call uniformly semiconstructive, that provide computational procedures only involving formulas with bounded complexity. We present several examples of uniformly semiconstructive systems containing Harrop theories, induction principles and some well-known predicate intermediate principles. Among these, we give an account of semiconstructive and uniformly semiconstructive systems which lie between Intuitionistic and Classical Arithmetic and we discuss their constructive incompatibility.     

Reactions to perceived deprivation in ingroup and outgroup: a cross-cultural comparison

An experiment is reported in which the reactions of observers to the relative and absolute deprivation of others are assessed. Eighty German and 80 Italian subjects made decisions about ingroup (own nationality) or outgroup (foreign) protagonists suffering high or low relative and absolute deprivation. Results showed that subjects were more likely to take social action that violated some rule when the protagonist was in high rather than low absolute deprivation. Racist subjects were somewhat more likely to satisfy the request of a deprived ingroup protagonist whereas non-racist subjects favoured the deprived outgroup. No differences emerged for non-deprived protagonists. Overall, Germans tended to take social action only when the protagonist suffered high absolute deprivation whereas Italians took action regardless of degree of absolute deprivation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pain appraisal and quality of life in 108 outpatients with rheumatoid arthritis

Individual differences in emotional functioning, pain appraisal processing, and perceived social support may play a relevant role in the subjective experience of pain. Due to the paucity of data regarding individuals with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA), the present study aimed to examine pain intensity, emotional functioning (psychological distress and alexithymia), pain appraisal (pain beliefs, pain catastrophizing, and pain-related coping strategies) and social support, and their relationships with the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) in patients with RA. Data were collected from 108 female patients diagnosed with RA. Clinically relevant levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms assessed by the HADS subscales were present in 34% and 41% of the patients, respectively, and about 24% of them exhibited the presence of alexithymia. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that pain intensity, alexithymia, the maladaptive beliefs regarding the stability of pain and the coping strategy of guarding explained 54% of the variance in the physical component of HRQoL (p < 0.001). Depression subscale of the HADS, alexithymia, the coping strategy of resting, and the rumination factor of pain catastrophizing significantly explained 40% of the variance in the mental component of HRQoL (p < 0.001). The present findings provide evidence regarding the importance of emotional functioning and pain appraisal in the negative impact of RA on patients’ quality of life. These findings provide additional evidence for the biopsychosocial model of chronic pain, further supporting the complex interaction between emotional, cognitive, and behavioral processes in patients with chronic pain.