Stress-induced Fos-like Immunoreactivity in the Pons and the Medulla Oblongata of Rats

Immunoreactivity of the immediate early gene c-fos was used to investigate changes in the activity of brainstem neurons in response to acute stressors like immobilization, formalin-induced pain, cold exposure, hemorrhage and insulin-induced hypoglycemia. Different stressors induced Fos-like immunoreactivity in different pontine and medullary neurons. A single, 3 hour immobilization was found to be a very strong stimulus that activated brainstem catecholaminergic (tyrosine hydroxylase-immunopositive) neurons and cells in the raphe and certain pontine tegmental nuclei, as well as in the reticular formation. Pain, induced by a subcutaneous injection of formalin was also effective on catecholamine-synthesizing neurons and on others cells in the nucleus of the solitary tract. Cold exposure activated cells mainly in the sensory spinal trigeminal and parabrachial nuclei and in the so-called "pontine thermoregulatory area". Moderate Fos-like immunoreactivity was induced by a hypotonic (25%) hemorrhage in medullary catecholaminergic neurons, the nucleus of the solitary tract and the Barrington nucleus. Among stressful stimuli used, insulin-induced hypoglycemia elicited the smallest Fos activation in the lower brainstem. The present observations indicate that different stressors may use different neuronal pathways in the central organization of the stress response.     

Semantic aphasia: A neglected entity

Three cases of semantic aphasia are reported. Computerized brain tomography showed bilateral temporo-parieto-occipital junction hemorrhages in one patient, and left parieto-occipital junction infarctions in the other two patients. The auditory comprehension defect of the three patients was characterized by preserved understanding of single words and impaired understanding of grammatically complex constructions. It is suggested that this comprehension defect reflects an inability to fully grasp the meaning of words and grammatical constructions imbued with spatial or quasi-spatial significance. Each of the three patients showed a complex spatial disorder that included constructional apraxia, spatial agnosia, and elements of Gerstmann's syndrome. The aphasic as well as the spatial disorder of semantic aphasics may be manifestations of a common defect in the perception of spatial relationships produced by left temporo-parieto-occipital region damage.     

Family Systems and Ecological Perspectives on the Impact of Deployment on Military Families

The scope of sustained military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has placed great demands on the Armed Forces of the United States, and accordingly, military families have been faced with deployments in more rapid succession than ever before. When military parents fulfill occupational duties during wartime, military children and families face multiple challenges, including extended separations, disruptions in family routines, and potentially compromised parenting related to traumatic exposure and subsequent mental health problems. Such challenges can begin to exert a significant toll on the well-being of both individuals and relationships (e.g., marital, parent–child) within military families. In order to respond more effectively to the needs of military families, it is essential that mental health clinicians and researchers have a better understanding of the challenges faced by military families throughout the entire deployment experience and the ways in which these challenges may have a cumulative impact over multiple deployments. Moreover, the mental health field must become better prepared to support service members and families across a rapidly evolving landscape of military operations around the world, including those who are making the transition from active duty to Veteran status and navigating a return to civilian life and those families in which parents will continue to actively serve and deploy in combat zones. In this article, we utilize family systems and ecological perspectives to advance our understanding of how military families negotiate repeated deployment experiences and how such experiences impact the well-being and adjustment of families at the individual, dyadic, and whole family level.     

A biopsychosocial formulation of pain communication

We present a detailed framework for understanding the numerous and complicated interactions among psychological and social determinants of pain through examination of the process of pain communication. The focus is on an improved understanding of immediate dyadic transactions during painful events in the context of broader social phenomena. Fine-grain consideration of social transactions during pain leads to an appreciation of sociobehavioral events affecting both suffering persons as well as caregivers. Our examination considers knowledge from a variety of perspectives, including clinical health psychology, social and developmental processes, evolutionary psychology, communication studies, and behavioral neuroscience.     

Dissemination of Family-Centered Prevention for Military and Veteran Families: Adaptations and Adoption within Community and Military Systems of Care

In response to the needs of military families confronting the challenges of prolonged war, we developed Families OverComing Under Stress (FOCUS), a multi-session intervention for families facing multiple deployments and combat stress injuries adapted from existing evidence-based family prevention interventions (Lester et al. in Mil Med 176(1): 19–25, 2011). In an implementation of this intervention contracted by the US Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED), FOCUS teams were deployed to military bases in the United States and the Pacific Rim to deliver a suite of family-centered preventive services based on the FOCUS model (Beardslee et al. in Prev Sci 12(4): 339–348, 2011). Given the number of families affected by wartime service and the changing circumstances they faced in active duty and veteran settings, it rapidly became evident that adaptations of this approach for families in other contexts were needed. We identified the core elements of FOCUS that are essential across all adaptations: (1) Family Psychological Health Check-in; (2) family-specific psychoeducation; (3) family narrative timeline; and (4) family-level resilience skills (e.g., problem solving). In this report, we describe the iterative process of adapting the intervention for different groups of families: wounded, ill, and injured warriors, families with young children, couples, and parents. We also describe the process of adopting this intervention for use in different ecological contexts to serve National Guard, Reserve and veterans, and utilization of technology-enhanced platforms to reach geographically dispersed families. We highlight the lessons learned when faced with the need to rapidly deploy interventions, adapt them to the changing, growing needs of families under real-world circumstances, and conduct rigorous evaluation procedures when long-term, randomized trial designs are not feasible to meet an emergent public health need.     

The surprising empathic abilities of rodents

Many believe empathy and related pro-social behaviors to be the sole province of humans. The evolutionary antecedents of such phenomena, however, have been observed in lower mammals. By demonstrating empathy-based helping behavior in rats, a recently published study has provided clear-cut evidence that pro-social behaviors are not limited to humans.