Structural connectivity between the hippocampus and cortical/subcortical area relates to cognitive impairment in schizophrenia but not in mood disorders

Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders is a challenge to be overcome in order to maintain patients' quality of life and social function. The neurological pathogenesis of cognitive impairment requires further elucidation. In general, the hippocampus interacts between the cortical and subcortical areas for information processing and consolidation and has an important role in memory. We examined the relationship between structural connectivity of the hippocampus and cortical/subcortical areas and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia, major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder. Subjects comprised 21 healthy controls, 19 patients with schizophrenia, 20 patients with bipolar disorder and 18 patients with major depressive disorder. Diffusion-weighted tensor images data were processed using ProbtrackX2 to calculate the structural connectivity between the hippocampus and cortical/subcortical areas. Cognitive function was assessed using the Brief Assessment of Cognition in schizophrenia composite score. Hippocampal structural connectivity index was significantly correlated with composite score in the schizophrenia group but not in the healthy control, major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder groups. There were no statistically significant differences in hippocampal structural connectivity index between the four groups. Structural connectivity between the hippocampus and cortical/subcortical areas is suggested to be a pathophysiological mechanism of comprehensive cognitive impairment in schizophrenia.     

The Role of Families and Care Givers as Risk and Protective Factors in Preventing Youth Violence

This paper reviews research which discusses the risk and protective functions that families and other caregivers provide in influencing the development of aggressive behavior in youth. Currently, there is an emphasis on providing violence prevention programs in the school environment, typically with little parental or caregiver involvement. By enhancing the role of families and caregivers in youth violence prevention programs, we assert that an unique opportunity exists to both address specific risk factors for violence while enhancing the protective features of the family. Relatedly, the risk literature on youth violence indicates that the most influential risk factors (i.e., the family, community, and peers) have their principle impact on youth aggression outside the school. We suggest a shift in the focus of violence prevention programming that is more inclusive of families as both a risk and protective agent. In support of this position, relevant theory and reviews of exemplary family-involved programs are offered. Challenges to involving youth caregivers are identified and recommendations for overcoming those challenges suggested. Last, recommendations for future research and public policy in the prevention of youth violence are offered.     

Development and validation of a measure of display rule knowledge: the display rule assessment inventory

As one component of emotion regulation, display rules, which reflect the regulation of expressive behavior, have been the topic of many studies. Despite their theoretical and empirical importance, however, to date there is no measure of display rules that assesses a full range of behavioral responses that are theoretically possible when emotion is elicited. This article reports the development of a new measure of display rules that surveys 5 expressive modes: expression, deamplification, amplification, qualification, and masking. Two studies provide evidence for its internal and temporal reliability and for its content, convergent, discriminant, external, and concurrent predictive validity. Additionally, Study 1, involving American, Russian, and Japanese participants, demonstrated predictable cultural differences on each of the expressive modes.     

A variable that may affect individual differences in the child-directed speech of Japanese women

Sixty-one single Japanese-speaking women between the ages of 18 and 26 years were recorded as they read aloud picture books to a young child and as they conversed with another Japanese-speaking woman. When their utterances were acoustically compared between the two settings with regard to prosodic features, both the average pitch and pitch excursions exhibited a significant increase when interacting with the child in 17 of the 61 women. In 36 of the remaining 44 subjects, neither of these parameters showed such changes. This individual variability was not related to the subjects' liking for picture books, previous experience with reading or being read them, or with baby-sitting. The only variable that could explain the results was whether the subjects had grown up with one or more siblings or as only children. If they were only children, the prosodic modification was significantly less likely to occur     

Effects of self-efficacy on adjustment to college

This study examined the effects of self-efficacy on adjustment to college among 1385 Japanese college students. The College Adjustment Self-Efficacy Scale (CASES) was constructed in order to evaluate the degree of confidence in the skills necessary for college adjustment. Three subscales were identified in the CASES: judgmental ability based on objective information, self-controlled persistence of activity, and self-adjustment in human relations. There were slight gender differences in the first and the third subscales. The CASES subscale scores were compared between well and poorly adjusted students in each college major. Differences in the score patterns of well adjusted students were compared across 13 college majors. The implications for academic career counseling are discussed.     

Systems of Quantum Logic

Logical implications are closely related to modal operators. Lattice-valued logic LL and quantum logic QL were formulated in Titani S (1999) Lattice Valued Set Theory. Arch Math Logic 38:395–421, Titani S (2009) A Completeness Theorem of Quantum Set Theory. In: Engesser K, Gabbay DM, Lehmann D (eds) Handbook of Quantum Logic and Quantum Structures: Quantum Logic. Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 661–702, by introducing the basic implication → which represents the lattice order. In this paper, we fomulate a predicate orthologic provided with the basic implication, which corresponds to complete ortholattices, and then formulate a quantum logic which is equivalent to QL, by using a modal operator instead of the basic implication.     

Afterimage oscillation after a brief light flash

Abstract: To investigate whether oscillation might appear not only in brightness but also in color dimension, we performed the following two experiments. In Experiment 1 subjects were asked to observe a moving dim light slit in the darkness with their right eye focused on a fixation point, which resulted in an afterimage appearing like a comet’s trail after the slit. The trail oscillated rapidly in brightness (four/five times), and soon disappeared. In Experiment 2, an afterimage generated by an intense color disc (S1) was projected onto a dim white disc (S2) after a controlled period of interstimulus interval. The white disc appeared oscillating slowly between the similar color and the complementary color, at least twice in approximately 40 s. The results of these experiments led us to infer that afterimage oscillations occur in both brightness and in color dimension. These oscillations are closely correlated with those caused by two physiological mechanisms: the magnosystem generating the brightness oscillation, and the opponent‐color site of the parvosystem generating the color oscillation.     

Effects of peripheral immune activation on social behavior and adrenocortical activity in aggressive mice: Genotype-environment interactions

To explore genetic-developmental differences in the biobehavioral effects of induced illness, males from two lines of mice selectively bred for high or low levels of aggressive behavior were injected with endotoxin (Escherichia coli, LPS: 0.25 mg/kg, 1.25 mg/kg, or 2.5 mg, i.p.) or saline. Body temperature, weight, and locomotor activity were monitored immediately before and 8 and 24 hr after injection. Twenty-four hours after injection, social behaviors were assessed in a 10-min dyadic test, and hypothalamus, spleen, and serum were collected. In both lines, endotoxin treatment increased behavioral immobility ("freezing") and decreased social exploration. Other effects showed line differences: Males from the high-aggressive line had a lower threshold to endotoxin-induced effects on body temperature, weight loss, spleen weight, and corticosterone. Social reactivity (startle response to mild social investigation) increased in the high-aggressive line and decreased in the low-aggressive line after treatment. In the high-aggressive line only, endotoxin decreased attack frequency and increased latency to attack. The interactions between selected line (genotype) and endotoxin treatment (environment) demonstrate that genetic-developmental differences in social and aggressive behavior may indicate the extent to which immune stimuli (e.g., bacteria, viruses, cytokines) function as "biobehavioral stressors." Aggr. Behav. 23:93–105, 1997.© 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Ideal Body Image Assessment Among Japanese Women

Using the Contour Drawing Rating Scale, we examined the ideal body sizes of young Japanese women who resided in Tokyo. The results indicated that the relationship among the respondents' current, ideal, perceived male-peer, and perceived female-peer ideal body sizes were not necessarily the same across different body mass index levels. For example, the results revealed thatonly the heavier respondents seemed to consider their male-peer ideal body sizes as their own ideal body sizes. The findings also showed that although most participants wished to be slimmer, they believed that their same-sex peers wanted to be even thinner than themselves.     

THE UTILITY OF CURRICULUM-BASED MEASUREMENT FOR EVALUATING THE EFFECTS OF METHYLPHENIDATE ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Two case studies were conducted to investigate the utility of curriculum-based measurement of math and reading for evaluating the effects of methylphenidate on the academic performance of 2 students diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Following baseline measurement, double-blind placebo-controlled procedures were employed to evaluate each student's response to three levels (5 mg, 10 mg, and 15 mg) of the medication. Results of the first study suggest that the curriculum-based measures were sensitive indicators of the student's response to medication. This finding was replicated in the second study. In the second study, when the student's follow-up dose of medication was based on trial-phase data, follow-up performance was improved compared to baseline performance. These case studies suggest that further research is warranted on the utility of curriculum-based measurements for monitoring and evaluating stimulant medication interventions with children with this disorder.