A longitudinal study of pain sensitivity and blood pressure in adolescent boys: results from a 5-year follow-up.

A growing literature has observed a significant reduction in pain sensitivity among hypertensive animals and humans. It is uncertain whether a reduced sensitivity to pain can be observed in nonnotensive individuals who go on to develop high blood pressure. Blood pressure (BP) was reassessed in one hundred fifteen 19-year-old boys initially tested at age 14, when they were also presented with a pain stimulus (mechanical finger pressure). Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that information regarding pain tolerance improved prediction of changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure beyond that afforded by differences in BP at age 14, parental history of hypertension, and body mass index. These analyses suggest that pain sensitivity may be associated with physiological processes involved in the development of sustained high blood pressure.     

赵汀阳教授访谈录——联合国大学“全球正义”访谈系列

让-马克·夸戈（Jean—Marc Coicaud）,法国哲学家,联合国大学教授,主持联合国大学的“全球正义”的系列思想访谈节目,与各国的知名学者对话,讨论前沿思想问题,网上直播。夸戈教授在联合国工作期间任联合国前秘书长加利的助手。本访谈有文字访谈与视频访谈两个版本,内容大部分一致,但视频版由于时间关系有部分问题没有讨论到,例如民主问题。这里是文字访谈的完整版。     

VIII—Permissible Rescue Killings

Many believe that agent-centred considerations, unlike agent-neutral reasons, cannot show that victims have the right to kill their attackers in self-defence, let alone establish that rescuers have the right to come to their help. In this paper, I argue that the right to kill in self- or other-defence is best supported by a hybrid set of reasons. In particular, agent-centred considerations account for the plausible intuition that victims have a special stake, which other parties lack, in being to thwart the attackers. That special stake plays an important part justifying victims' right to obtain help, and rescuers' right to give it.     

Aggressive disposition,alcohol, and aggression

This study investigated the effect of aggressive disposition on intoxicated and non-intoxicated aggressive behavior. Prior aggressiveness was measured with a structured questionnaire. Based on a bipartite split of scores, 28 subjects were assigned to the high aggressor group, and 29 to the low aggressor group. Subjects in both disposition groups were then randomly assigned to either a drunk or sober condition, and participated in a competitive reaction time task involving the administering and receiving of electric shocks to/from a fictitious opponent under conditions of high and low provocation. Aggression was defined as shock level intensity delivered to the sham opponent. When highly provoked, sober high aggressors were significantly more aggressive than low aggressors, thus validating the measure of aggressive disposition. When intoxicated, highly provoked individuals in both the high and low aggressive disposition groups attained equal levels of aggression. It was low aggressors who responded to escalated provocation with a significant increase in aggression responding when intoxicated. These results lend support to the notion that a pharmacological effect of alcohol can increase aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 23:11–18, 1997. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Muscimol diffusion after intracerebral microinjections: a reevaluation based on electrophysiological and autoradiographic quantifications

Intracerebral muscimol injection is widely used to inactivate discrete brain structures during behavioral tasks. However, little effort has been made to quantify the extent of muscimol diffusion. The authors report here electrophysiological and autoradiographic results obtained after muscimol injection (1 microg/microl) either into the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (0.1-0.4 microl) or into the thalamic reticular nucleus (RE, 0.05-0.1 microl). In 52 rats, multiunit recordings were collected either in the RE or in the auditory thalamus during the 2 h following muscimol injection. Decreases in neuronal activity were observed up to 3 mm from the injection site; their time of occurrence was a function of the distance between the injection and recording sites. Because these decreases cannot be explained by physiological effects, they likely reflected muscimol diffusion up to the recording sites. Autoradiographic studies involved 25 rats and different experimental conditions. Optical density (OD) measures indicated that after a survival time of 15 min, a 0.05 microl injection produced a labeled area of 5.25 mm(2) at the injection site and a rostrocaudal labeling of 1.7 mm. Increasing the survival time to 60 min, or increasing the injected volume to 0.1 microl, systematically led to a larger labeled area at the injection site (8-12 mm(2)) and to a larger rostrocaudal diffusion (2.0-2.5 mm). Direct quantifications of radioactivity by a high-resolution radioimager validated the OD measures and even indicated a larger muscimol diffusion (up to 3.25 mm). Thus, these data point out that muscimol diffusion after intracerebral microinjection is larger than usually supposed. The relationships between these results and those obtained in behavioral studies are discussed.     

Psychotherapy across languages: beliefs,attitudes and practices of monolingual and multilingual therapists with their multilingual patients

Aims: The present study investigates beliefs, attitudes and practices of 101 monolingual and multilingual therapists in their interactions with multilingual patients. Method: A mixed‐method approach was adopted using an online questionnaire with closed questions, and informed questions in interviews with one monolingual and two multilingual therapists. Results: A principal component analysis yielded a four‐factor solution accounting for 41% of the variance. The first dimension, which explained 17% of variance, reflects therapists' attunement towards their bilingual patients (attunement versus collusion). Further analysis showed that the 18 monolingual therapists differed significantly from their 83 bi‐ or multilingual peers on this dimension. The follow‐up interviews confirmed this result. Discussion: Recommendations based on these findings are made for psychotherapy training and supervision.