干预胆碱M受体对药物成瘾的影响及其与多巴胺的关系

药物成瘾是一类精神及行为障碍, 涉及到中枢神经系统的病变。毒蕈碱受体(Muscarinic receptor, M受体)属于胆碱能受体, 分5种亚型。行为学研究表明, 干预M受体能有效影响药物成瘾行为, 但其神经机制还亟待探索。阿片类药物与精神活性药物均能激活中枢多巴胺系统, 而M受体与多巴胺系统在多个脑区产生了交互作用。其中激动M2及M4受体抑制了多巴胺系统功能, 而激动M5受体增强了多巴胺系统功能, 与干预M2、M4、M5受体对药物成瘾行为的影响相对应。以上证据提示, 干预M受体可能通过影响多巴胺系统对药物成瘾起作用。     

欧美生命伦理委员会的机构建设与咨询服务

在当今国际世界,生命伦理学已经发展成一种国际性的“社会运动”,成为学术界和公众关注的热点领域。在欧美国家健全和完善现代医疗保健制度过程中,“生命伦理委员会”起到至关重要的作用,它不仅促使人们从伦理学角度探索“我/我们应当如何决定和行为”的问题,也推动社会从制度建构和文化塑造层面回答“政府应当如何行为”、“如何增进公民的生命伦理意识”等问题,并从哲学领域深入探索如何应对生命伦理学理论与实践中的复杂问题与困境,论证相关伦理选择及其实践的合理性。20世纪60年代以来,欧美社会生命伦理学在机构建设、咨询服务和思维方式等方面的经验可以为中国生命伦理学学科发展及生命伦理委员会建设提供有益的参考。     

Pubertal status associations with reward and threat sensitivities and subcortical brain volumes during adolescence

Adolescence is characterized by complex developmental processes that impact behavior, biology, and social functioning. Two such adolescence-specific processes are puberty and increases in reward sensitivity. Relations between these processes are poorly understood. The present study focused on examining unique effects of puberty, age, and sex on reward and threat sensitivities and volumes of subcortical brain structures relevant for reward/threat processing in a healthy sample of 9–18 year-olds. Unlike age, pubertal status had a significant unique positive relationship with reward sensitivity. In addition, there was a trend for adolescent females to exhibit higher threat sensitivity with more advanced pubertal development and higher reward and threat sensitivity with older age. Similarly, there were significant puberty by sex interaction effects on striatal volumes, i.e., left nucleus accumbens and right pallidum. The present pattern of results suggests that pubertal development, independent of chronological age, is uniquely associated with reward hypersensitivity and with structural differences in striatal regions implicated in reward processing.     

身体映像影响因素的生态系统分析

身体映像对个体的身心发展有重要的意义, 对它的研究在近20年来更是如火如荼地发展。根据布朗芬布伦纳的生态系统理论, 从微系统(父母、同伴、伴侣)、外系统(媒体)、宏系统(社会文化)以及处于系统中的个体因素四个方面, 对影响身体映像的因素进行初步的分类和归纳, 为身体映像的干预措施提供参考。     

Left caloric vestibular stimulation as a tool to reveal implicit and explicit parameters of body representation

Homeostatic parameters, such as temperature, are related to body representation. In this study, we measured whether caloric vestibular stimulation (CVS) alters body temperature and tactile processing, and if in the direction predicted by a holistic body matrix representation.Skin temperature and tactile two-point discrimination (TPD) acuity were measured for both arms before, immediately after and with a delay from CVS. Participants were also administered a personality questionnaire and an anxiety inventory to rule out confounding factors. Two control experiments were planned to exclude casual variations.Our results show that temperature drops significantly in both arms after CVS. CVS also induces a bilateral improvement in tactile acuity (even though not immediately after but in the delayed condition). Finally, these effects are not due to learning, as demonstrated by the control experiment.In summary, our results suggest that vestibular stimulation updates body representation, supporting the evidence in favor of a body matrix.     

亲子沟通观察研究的编码方案及其整合

在亲子沟通观察研究中对观察资料的编码和分析方法有许多种,文章介绍了行为类型编码、行为序列编码、言语内容编码、沟通结构编码等四类主流编码方案,并评析了每种方案的特点和应用背景;最后,指出未来亲子沟通研究编码方案的整合可以考虑如下三个思路:在行为分类基础上进行言语内容分析、从行为序列中发现沟通模式、一般趋势描述和典型个案分析相结合。     

中国颜色体系研究

概述了用颜色立体模型表示物体颜色,并做定量表示的颜色体系研究的理论意义及应用价值。介绍了国际上影响较大的颜色体系理论和编制原则的特点。中国颜色体系研究是在对国际上其它颜色体系的理论分析和对颜色样品测试的基础上,确立其理论依据和编制原则,开展了中国人眼对明度、色调、彩度等间距排列的视觉评价实验,建立了中国颜色体系理论模型。同时研制出《中国颜色体系样册》。该项研究于１９９３年７月通过了国家自然科学基金委员会和中国科学院联合召开的成果鉴定会,并得到良好的评价,又于１９９４年６月通过国家标准审查。该项研究的完成和推广,不仅能为我国国民经济各部门的颜色控制、标定和交流提供科学的颜色定量手段,同时也是对实用色度学的发展和颜色标准化工作做了有益的工作,产生了积极的经济效益和社会效益。     

Playing the Woman Card: Ambivalent Sexism in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Race

Late in the 2016 U.S. Presidential primary, Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton for playing the “woman’s card.” Theories of system justification suggest that attitudes about gender, particularly endorsement of hostile and benevolent sexism, likely shaped reactions to this campaign attack. Using a set of two studies, we find that hostile sexists exposed to the attack showed increased support for Trump and decreased support for Clinton. Benevolent sexists, however, reacted to Trump’s statements with increased support for Clinton, consistent with benevolent sexism’s focus on protecting women (Study 1). We further found that the woman card attack produced distinct emotional reactions among those with low and high levels of hostile and benevolent sexism. The attack also increased political participation among hostile sexists (Study 2). Our results offer new insights into the role of sexism in the 2016 presidential contest and further the discipline’s understanding of the gendered dimension of negative campaigning.     

Overt congruent facial reaction to dynamic emotional expressions in 9–10-month-old infants

The current study aimed to extend the understanding of the early development of spontaneous facial reactions toward observed facial expressions. Forty-six 9- to 10-month-old infants observed video clips of dynamic human facial expressions that were artificially created with morphing technology. The infants’ facial responses were recorded, and the movements of the facial action unit 12 (e.g., lip-corner raising, associated with happiness) and facial action unit 4 (e.g., brow-lowering, associated with anger) were visually evaluated by multiple naïve raters. Results showed that (1) infants make congruent, observable facial responses to facial expressions, and (2) these specific facial responses are enhanced during repeated observation of the same emotional expressions. These results suggest the presence of observable congruent facial responses in the first year of life, and that they appear to be influenced by contextual information, such as the repetition of presentation of the target emotional expressions.     

Anticipatory postural adjustments during a Fitts’ task: Comparing young versus older adults and the effects of different foci of attention

Anticipatory postural adjustments (APAs) are an integral part of standing balance. Previous research with balance control has shown that adopting an external focus of attention, compared to an internal focus of attention, yields better performance during motor skills. Despite the importance of APAs, especially among older adults, and the potential benefits of adopting an external focus of attention, studies investigating methods for improving APAs are limited. The aim of this study was to compare behavioral, kinematic and APAs measures while adopting different foci of attention among young and older adults when performing a lower extremity Fitts’ task. Ten young adults (mean age 24 years ± 4.37) and ten older adults (mean age 75 years ± 5.85) performed a lower-extremity reaching task (Fitts’ task) while adopting an external focus (focus on target) and an internal focus (focus on limb) in a within-subject design. A motion capture system was used to record participants’ movement data. Custom software derived movement time (MT), peak velocity (PV), time to peak velocity (ttPV) and variability at target (SD_T). Electromyography (EMG) was used to determine APAs onset and magnitude. The findings showed that an external focus of attention led to significantly shorter MT, higher PV, shorter ttPV and more accuracy when reaching the target (SD_T) for both age groups. Also, EMG results showed that, with an external focus, APAs onset occurred earlier and APAs magnitude was more efficient. As predicted by Fitts’ Law, participants spent more time executing movements to targets with higher indices of difficulty. Older adults compared to young adults were more adversely affected by the increase of difficulty of the Fitts’ task, specifically, on measures of APAs. In conclusion, adopting an external focus of attention led to better overall movement performance when performing a lower extremity Fitts’ task. The task used in the present study can distinguish between APAs for older and young adults. We recommend that future studies expand on our findings in order to establish a performance-based objective measure of APAs to assess clinical interventions for postural control impairment.