Unilateral forced nostril breathing affects dichotic listening for emotional tones

Unilateral forced nostril breathing (UFNB) through the left nostril is associated with enhanced spatial abilities, whereas UFNB through the right nostril is associated with enhanced verbal abilities. However, the effects of UFNB on standard tasks of laterality (e.g., dichotic listening) are unknown. This study employed dichotic listening for word targets, which typically exhibits a right ear advantage (REA), and dichotic listening for emotional targets, which typically exhibits a left ear advantage (LEA). Participants were asked to breathe either through their dominant nostril (congruent UFNB) or to breathe through their non-dominant nostril (incongruent UFNB) for the entire testing session. There was a significant three-way interaction between the type of dichotic listening task, nostril dominance, and nostril assignment, with the expected REA for word targets and the expected LEA for emotional targets-with one exception. Right nostril dominant participants assigned to the congruent condition exhibited an LEA for emotional targets (p < .05). The other three groups exhibited the expected LEA/right hemisphere advantage for the detection of emotional targets and all groups exhibited the expected REA/left hemisphere advantage for detection of word targets. As such, possible bias induced by tactile stimulation of the contralateral face cannot account for these results. Thus, our data are consistent with a selective enhancement of right hemispheric lateralized functions by right nostril UFNB.     

A New Appraisal of Combined Treatments for PTSD in the Era of Psychotherapy Adjunctive Medications

Combinations of pharmacologic and psychosocial interventions have garnered much enthusiasm over the past 30 years. Unfortunately, this enthusiasm is often disproportionate to the empirical support for these approaches. However, a new wave of basic, translational, and clinical research has demonstrated that the use of some substances—themselves having little to no therapeutic benefit—may help to increase or potentiate the effectiveness of certain psychological treatments. While these drugs have shown promise in the treatment of other anxiety disorders, they have yet to be thoroughly studied in PTSD populations. This article will describe the movement towards the use of pharmacologic substances as adjuncts to psychotherapy and will describe the rationale, initial support, implications, and future directions of their use in the treatment of PTSD.     

Free viewing perceptual asymmetries for judgment of brightness and quantity: dependence on stimulus orientation

Previous research has indicated that normals exhibit strong leftward biases during free-viewing perceptual judgments of brightness and quantity. When participants view two symmetrical objects and they are forced to choose which object appears darker or more numerous, participants usually select the stimulus with the relevant feature on the left side. The present study investigated the possibility that these perceptual asymmetries are dependent on scanning a stimulus horizontally across the midline by administering a task with two rectangular reversed stimuli presented either horizontally or vertically. When the stimuli were presented horizontally (crossing the midline), participants exhibited leftward biases, but these biases disappeared when the stimuli were presented vertically. This result supports the position that free-viewing perceptual asymmetries are dependent on scanning the stimuli across the midline.     

Examination of the Association Among Personality Traits,Anxiety Sensitivity,and Cannabis Use Motives in a Community Sample

Personality factors, such as neuroticism, are important for understanding motives for cannabis use; however, few studies have examined the role of neuroticism in the context of other personality factors, or possible mechanisms accounting for an association between neuroticism and motives for use. The present study examined concurrent associations between personality traits (i.e., conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism) and cannabis use motives, and the role of anxiety sensitivity (AS) in the association between neuroticism and coping cannabis use motives. Seventy young adults endorsing past-month cannabis use (58.6 % female, M _age = 20.91) completed self-report measures. Linear regressions were conducted to examine the concurrent associations between personality factors and cannabis use motives. Higher levels of neuroticism, but no other personality traits, were significantly associated with greater coping (β = 45, p < .01) and expansion (β = 0.29, p = <.05) motives. Bootstrap analysis (10,000 re-samples) revealed that a significant portion of the relationship between neuroticism and coping motives was explained by AS (point estimate = 0.029, PB 95 % CI: 0.0089 to 0.0615). Greater neuroticism may result in heightened sensitivity to arousal, which may then increase motivation to use cannabis to alleviate such arousal.     

Family factors associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and emotional disorders in children

Few well-controlled studies have identified psychosocial profiles of families of boys with ADHD and boys with emotional disorders compared with normal controls. However, the clinical and theoretical literature pinpoints four domains in which distinctive profiles would be expected to occur. In this study, twenty-two mothers and thirteen fathers of twenty-two boys with ADHD; twenty mothers and fifteen fathers of twenty boys with a mood or anxiety disorder; and twenty-six mothers and sixteen fathers of twenty-seven normal controls were compared on: (1) stress, support and quality of life; (2) current family functioning; (3) parenting style and satisfaction in the family of origin and current family; and (4) current and past parental functioning. The two clinical groups showed higher levels of stress and lower levels of both social support and quality of life than did normal controls. Both clinical groups showed deficits in current family functioning, but contrary to expectations the ADHD and emotional disorder group did not show distinctly different profiles. Parents of ADHD children reported higher levels of authoritarian parenting styles, and parents from both clinical groups reported less parenting satisfaction than did normal controls in both their current families and their families of origin. Parents of children with ADHD and emotional disorders reported greater parenting satisfaction in their families of origin than in their current families. This discrepancy was greatest for parents of ADHD children. Parents of children with ADHD and emotional disorders reported greater psychological health problems and more childhood ADHD symptomatology than did normal controls. Parents of children with ADHD and emotional disorders have significant psychosocial difficulties in family and personal functioning. Family intervention is highly appropriate for families with children who are referred for help with both types of difficulties.     

Resilience to Interpersonal Trauma and Decreased Risk for Psychopathology in an Epidemiologic Sample

Quantitative measures of psychological resilience related to discrete stressors, such as interpersonal (IP) trauma, are lacking. The current study examined whether a novel, quantitative measure of resilience was related to decreased risk for a broad range of lifetime DSM-IV axis I disorders in an epidemiologic sample. Resilience was defined as the residual resulting from the difference between the individual’s predicted and observed PTSD symptom count, based on their cumulative exposure to IP traumatic events. Participants were 6288 adults (59.5% women; M _age  = 46.9, SD = 14.5) from the National Epidemiologic Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions endorsing at least one lifetime IP traumatic event. Logistic regressions were conducted to examine the relationship between resilience and axis I diagnoses, covarying for age, sex, education level, social support, and recent stressful life events. Greater resilience scores were associated with decreased likelihood of major depression (OR = .64, p < .001), generalized anxiety disorder (OR = .65, p < .001), social anxiety disorder (OR = .74, p < .001), panic disorder (OR = .65, p <. 001), and alcohol dependence (OR = .85, p < .001). Discrepancy between expected and observed PTSD symptom severity based on IP trauma load may represent a useful, quantitative measure of resilience.     

Relation between coping and posttrauma cognitions on PTSD in a combat-trauma population

Individual differences in cognitive processes and coping behaviors play a role in the development and maintenance of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Given the large numbers of combat-exposed service members returning from the Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New Dawn (OND) conflicts, exploring individual differences in cognitive-affective processes is important for informing our understanding of PTSD etiology and early intervention in military samples. The present study examined the unique main and interactive effects of negative posttrauma cognitions (i.e., negative beliefs about self [NS], the world [NW], and self-blame [SB]) and coping strategies (i.e., positive behavioral, positive cognitive, avoidant coping, and social and emotional coping) on PTSD diagnosis within 155 (M_age = 30.7, SD = 4.48) OEF/OIF/OND combat trauma-exposed Veterans recruited from an ongoing study examining the effects of combat trauma and stress reactivity. In the final, stepwise logistic regression analysis, avoidant coping, but no other coping strategy, was significantly positively related to PTSD diagnosis in the initial step. Higher levels of NS, but not NW, were significantly associated with having a PTSD diagnosis, whereas SB was associated with decreased likelihood of PTSD, above and beyond coping strategies. A significant interaction effect was found between NS and positive cognitive coping, such that greater positive cognitive coping weakened the relationship between NS and PTSD. Examining and addressing coping behaviors and negative thoughts of self jointly may benefit assessment and intervention approaches in a combat-trauma population.