Effects of Acute Stress or Centrally Injected Interleukin-1beta on Neuropeptide Expression in the Immune System

Acute stress stimulates the expression and release of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and arginine vasopressin (AVP) from the hypothalamus, and the pro-opiomelanocortin products beta-endorphin and ACTH from the anterior pituitary. These neuropeptides are also expressed in immune tissues, and it has been proposed that they may modulate immune responses to stress through paracrine mechanisms. We subjected rats to restraint stress or central injection of interleukin (IL)-1beta to determine whether these acute stimuli can alter the expression of neuropeptides in the spleen and thymus. Restraint stress significantly increased the contents of all these neuropeptides in thymic, but not splenic, extracts. A single icv injection of IL-1beta increased contents of CRH, AVP, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleens of both sham-operated and adrenalectomised (ADX) rats. IL-1beta increased thymic contents of CRH and ACTH in sham-operated rats but these increases were not observed in ADX rats. These results suggest that the effects of IL-1beta on neuropeptide expression in the spleen are independent of glucocorticoids, whereas IL-1beta stimulation of neuropeptide expression in the thymus is dependent on circulating glucocorticoids. There were significant correlations between increases in CRH, ACTH and beta-endorphin in the spleen, and between CRH and ACTH in the thymus, consistent with the suggestion that IL-1beta-induced increases in ACTH and beta-endorphin may be mediated through CRH. These results provide evidence that stressors can directly influence neuropeptide expression in immune tissues. Thus stress may influence immune functions through paracrine mechanisms involving locally synthesised neuropeptides as well as through activation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis.     

Evolutionary skepticism

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion -     

Effect of situational factors on the self-attributions of females and males

The simultaneous effects of the sex-role appropriateness of the task and the presence or absence of competition upon the attributions made by males and females were studied with 192 college students. Contrary to predictions, males rated themselves as luckier than females in the competitive conditions. However, as predicted, females made fewer self-serving attributions for the male than the female task.     

Speaking for Ourselves: Feminist Methods and Community Psychology

Although feminist and community psychology share a number of epistemological and methodological perspectives that guide their respective theories and research practices, it has been argued that community psychology has not fully integrated a feminist perspective into the discipline. This paper examines how community psychology and feminist research methods might combine to help us better understand women's experiences without essentializing or universalizing those experiences. The authors offer a series of suggested directions for feminist research that may also prove promising for community psychology. Particular attention is paid to feminist social constructionist approaches insofar as they address the complex relationship between epistemology and methodology.     

Refining the measurement of distress intolerance

Distress intolerance is an important transdiagnostic variable that has long been implicated in the development and maintenance of psychological disorders. Self-report measurement strategies for distress intolerance (DI) have emerged from several different models of psychopathology and these measures have been applied inconsistently in the literature in the absence of a clear gold standard. The absence of a consistent assessment strategy has limited the ability to compare across studies and samples, thus hampering the advancement of this research agenda. This study evaluated the latent factor structure of existing measures of DI to examine the degree to which they are capturing the same construct. Results of confirmatory factor analysis in three samples totaling 400 participants provided support for a single-factor latent structure. Individual items of these four scales were then correlated with this factor to identify those that best capture the core construct. Results provided consistent support for 10 items that demonstrated the strongest concordance with this factor. The use of these 10 items as a unifying measure in the study of DI and future directions for the evaluation of its utility are discussed.     

Anti-fat Prejudice: The Role of Psychology in Explication, Education and Eradication

The field of psychology’s explication of anti-fat prejudice and its impact on psychological practice in the U.S. is reviewed. The medical perspective that obesity is itself a disease or a psychological disorder and that fat is the cause of various physical or mental health conditions is challenged and viewed as contributing to weight-based prejudice in the U.S. The role of psychology in educating students and future practitioners about anti-fat bias and research on the ineffectiveness of dieting is examined. Research documenting anti-fat bias in the diagnosis and treatment of fat female clients in the U.S. is reviewed, and potential solutions for eradicating anti-fat prejudice in the clinical practice of psychology, including alternatives to dieting for women, are described.     

Natural history of the long-term cognitive, affective, and physical sequelae of mild traumatic brain injury

Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is associated with cognitive,affective, and physical sequelae. When symptoms persist for more than 3 months, a diagnosis of Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS) is often given. The current study tracked symptom development to explore the natural sequelae of MTBI. Twenty-six MTBI patients received a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment at three intervals: within 1 week, at 4 months and at 7 months post-concussion. Based on DSMIV criteria and clinical judgment, two external raters diagnosed five MTBI participants with PCS. Results suggested that aspects of cognitive functioning of the symptomatic MTBI (i.e., PCS) participants were different from matched normal control (NC) subjects, and from the 21 MTBI patients who were asymptomatic, at 4 months. Asymptomatic MTBI participants improved in overall level of functioning from 4 to 7 months, but remained significantly different from NC participants in their reduced verbal fluency and working memory functioning.     

Cognitive Defusion Versus Thought Distraction in the Mitigation of Learned Helplessness

The Psychological Record - Recent research suggests that attempting to avoid unwanted psychological events is maladaptive. Contrastingly, cognitive defusion, which is an acceptance-based method for...