Cognitive autonomy among adolescents with and without hearing loss: Associations with perceived social support

Cognitive autonomy is a skill which may help adolescents prepare for important decisions in adulthood. The current study examined the associations between cognitive autonomy and perceived social support among adolescents with and without hearing loss. Participants were 177 students: 55 were deaf and hard of hearing (dhh) and 122 were hearing. They completed the Cognitive Autonomy and Self-Evaluation Inventory, the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and a demographic questionnaire. Significant positive correlations were found between some of the cognitive autonomy variables and some of the perceived social support variables. However, among the dhh group, they were fewer and weaker. Family support was found to be a significant predictor of three out of the five cognitive autonomy variables. In addition, significant differences were found between the dhh and hearing participants in some of the cognitive autonomy variables, but not in perceived social support. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.     

一般支持性心理治疗和认知疗法在重型肝炎护理中的作用

目的探讨一般支持性心理治疗和认知疗法对重型肝炎的护理效果。方法收集2010年3月-2012年3月期间我院收治的120例重型肝炎患者,随机分为实验组和对照组,每组各60例。对照组接受内科综合治疗及护理,实验组在此基础上应用支持性心理治疗和认知疗法。比较两组患者治疗前后心理健康状况和肝炎相关生化指标的改变情况。结果与治疗前相比较,两组患者的心理健康状况、肝炎相关生化指标均有改善,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05);与对照组相比较,实验组患者的治疗后心理健康状况和肝炎相关生化指标改善更加明显,差异具有统计学意义(P<0.05)。结论一般支持性心理治疗和认知疗法能够有效改善重型肝炎患者的身心健康,值得推广。     

半军事化管理对航海类高职生心理健康影响的实证研究

目的考察半军事化管理对航海类高职生心理健康的影响。方法采用症状自评量表(SCL-90)、中国大学生适应量表(CCSAS)和总体幸福感量表(GWB)对279名航海类高职生施测。结果①半军事化管理对航海类高职生心理健康水平没有显著影响(t=0.45,P>0.05);②半军事化管理对航海类高职生心理适应性存在显著影响(t=2.36,P<0.05),在校园生活(t=2.27,P<0.05)、自我适应(t=1.93,P<0.05)因子上产生显著影响,在情绪(t=2.55,P<0.01)、择业适应(t=3.65,P<0.001)因子上产生极其显著的影响;③半军事化管理对航海类高职生总体幸福感产生极其显著影响(t=4.01,P<0.001),在对健康的担心(t=-20.13,P<0.001)、精力(t=3.04,P<0.01)、忧郁或愉快的心境(t=-24.61,P<0.001)、松弛和紧张(t=2.83,P<0.01)各因子上均产生极其显著影响。结论半军事化管理对航海类高职生的心理适应性和总体幸福感产生显著影响。     

Maternal overnutrition leads to cognitive and neurochemical abnormalities in C57BL/6 mice

Objectives: Epidemiological studies have linked maternal obesity with metabolic as well as psychiatric disorders in the progeny. However, very little is known how maternal overnutrition may affect the cognitive abilities of the offspring.

Methods: Here, we tested the hypothesis whether maternal high-fat diet (HFD) exposure in mice may induce long-term cognitive impairments and neurochemical dysfunctions in the offspring during different age trajectories.

Results: We found that maternal HFD led to cognitive disabilities in adult offspring compared to controls. It was mostly evident in a reference memory and in an associative learning paradigm. More severe and pervasive impairments were evident in the aged adult group across multiple cognitive domains. In addition, adult and aged adult HFD offspring showed potentiation of prepulse inhibition. The cognitive impairments observed at adulthood were associated with attenuations of amino acid levels in the medial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus regions.

Discussion: Our results suggest that HFD offspring are at an increased risk to develop cognitive deficits, affecting learning and memory processes in adulthood. Furthermore, maternal HFD exposure may facilitate or even drive pathological brain aging mainly in the hippocampal and prefrontal cortex structures that may explain the cognitive deficits observed in the offspring.     

Perceptual basis of evolving Western musical styles

The brain processes temporal statistics to predict future events and to categorize perceptual objects. These statistics, called expectancies, are found in music perception, and they span a variety of different features and time scales. Specifically, there is evidence that music perception involves strong expectancies regarding the distribution of a melodic interval, namely, the distance between two consecutive notes within the context of another. The recent availability of a large Western music dataset, consisting of the historical record condensed as melodic interval counts, has opened new possibilities for data-driven analysis of musical perception. In this context, we present an analytical approach that, based on cognitive theories of music expectation and machine learning techniques, recovers a set of factors that accurately identifies historical trends and stylistic transitions between the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Post-Romantic periods. We also offer a plausible musicological and cognitive interpretation of these factors, allowing us to propose them as data-driven principles of melodic expectation.     

Cognitive functions in Parkinson's disease: Relation to disease severity and hallucination

ObjectiveWe wished to relate severity of Parkinson's disease (PD) with cognitive function in relation to cerebral blood flow (CBF).MethodsEighty-one consecutive PD patients were enrolled in this study. We used Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third edition (WAIS-III) to evaluate cognitive functions, and three-dimensional stereotactic ROI template (3DSRT) and Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) 8 to evaluate single photon emission CT (SPECT) recordings of regional CBF.ResultsThe mean MMSE score of PD patients was 27.4 ± 2.4. The scores of most patients were higher than 23/30. On the other hand, the mean Full-scale IQ of PD patients was 88.4 ± 17.3 in WAIS-III, which was lower than that of normal controls. In particular, visuospatial function score of most patients was lower. There was significant correlation between cognitive scores and Hoehn & Yahr stage and hallucinatory episodes. PD Patients with stage III and IV showed significant deterioration in cognitive functions compared to stage II patients. Analysis of CBF revealed relative reductions in perfusion in the cerebral cortex relative to that in normal control. SPM 8 showed that cognitive functions in PD patients were positively correlated with rCBF in the thalamus and cingulate gyrus.ConclusionsThis is the study to demonstrate the cognitive impairments in PD patients using WAIS-III. Visuospatial dysfunction might be caused by decrease in rCBF in the parietal and occipital lobes and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The severity of cognitive impairments in PD patients was correlated with disease severity and hallucinatory episodes.     

The acute cognitive effects of zopiclone,zolpidem, zaleplon,and eszopiclone: A systematic review and meta-analysis

The “z-drugs” zopiclone, zolpidem, eszopiclone, and zaleplon were introduced in the 1980s for the treatment of insomnia, as it was observed that the side effect profile associated with these medications were more benign than those related to the benzodiazepines. This meta-analysis set out to ascertain which domains of cognitive function, if any, were affected by the ingestion of these medications. A total of 20 studies met the study inclusion criteria. Results revealed medium effect sizes for zopiclone and zolpidem on measures of verbal memory. An additional medium effect size was observed for zolpidem on attention. Finally, smaller effect sizes were observed for zolpidem speed of processing and for zopiclone on working memory. It is clear from these data that the use of a single dose of the z-drugs in healthy adults as measured in the morning following the exposure does produce a specific rather than a generalized negative effect on cognitive function. However, there were only enough studies to evaluate the individual cognitive effects of the zolpidem and zopiclone medications; the specific effects of zaleplon and eszopiclone cannot be ascertained because only one study met the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the review.     

Anchor Points in Transitions to a New School Environment

This exposition provides a theoretical framework for designing and implementing prevention programs for students in school-related transitions (e.g., entering kindergarten, transition to high school). For this purpose, an anchor point is defined in an ecological and developmental perspective as an element of the person-in-environment system that facilitates transaction between the person and the environment. Depending upon the context, anchor points can lead to adaptive transaction or maladaptive transaction. Features and examples of anchor points are discussed and proposed are procedures to plant positive anchor points which lead to adaptive transaction and children's development in a new person-in-environment system. Finally, its strengths in prevention programs for school-related transitions are addressed.     

The time-course of auditory and visual distraction effects in a new crossmodal paradigm

Vision often dominates audition when attentive processes are involved (e.g., the ventriloquist effect), yet little is known about the relative potential of the two modalities to initiate a “break through of the unattended”. The present study was designed to systematically compare the capacity of task-irrelevant auditory and visual events to withdraw attention from the other modality. Sequences of auditory and visual stimuli were presented with different amounts of temporal offset to determine the presence, strength, and time-course of attentional orienting and reorienting as well as their impact on task-related processing. One of the streams was task-relevant, while crossmodal distraction caused by unexpected events in the other stream was measured by impairments of behavioral task performance and by the N2, P3a, and reorienting negativity (RON) components of the event-related potential (ERP). Unexpected events in the visual modality proved to be somewhat more salient than those in the auditory modality, yet crossmodal interference caused by auditory stimuli was more pronounced. The visual modality was relatively constrained in terms of a critical time-range within which distraction effects could be elicited, while the impact of auditory stimuli on task-related processing extended over a longer time-range. These results are discussed in terms of functional differences between the auditory and visual modalities. Further applications of the new crossmodal protocol are deemed promising in view of the considerable size of the obtained distraction effects.