Extended cortical activations during evaluating successive pain stimuli

Comparing pain is done in daily life and involves short-term memorizing and attention focusing. This event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study investigated the short-term brain activations associated with the comparison of pain stimuli using a delayed discrimination paradigm. Fourteen healthy young volunteers compared two successive pain stimuli administered at a 10 s interval to the same location at the nasal mucosa. Fourteen age- and sex-matched subjects received similar pain stimuli without performing the comparison task. With the comparison task, the activations associated with the second pain stimulus were significantly greater than with the first stimulus in the anterior insular cortex and the primary somatosensory area. This was observed on the background of a generally increased stimulus-associated brain activation in the presence of the comparison task that included regions of the pain matrix (insular cortex, primary and secondary somatosensory area, midcingulate cortex, supplemental motor area) and regions associated with attention, decision making, working memory and body recognition (frontal and temporal gyri, inferior parietal lobule, precuneus, lingual cortices). This data provides a cerebral correlate for the role of pain as a biological alerting system that gains the subject''s attention and then dominates most other perceptions and activities involving pain-specific and non-pain-specific brain regions.     

Nachruf auf Dr. Holger Dausch

Der Freie Zahnarzt - Landesverband Rheinland-Pfalz Am 18.03.2018 verstarb im Alter von 63 Jahren unser hochgeschätzter Kollege Dr. Holger Dausch.     

Measuring female intrasexual competition by the scale for intrasexual competition: a validation of the German version

Competitive behaviour amongst members of the same sex is termed intrasexual competition. The tendency to engage in such competition appears to be strongly related to stable individual characteristics such as personality traits. Additionally, recent studies have revealed transient fluctuations in competitiveness according to the female menstrual cycle. To date, no German questionnaire exists to measure intrasexual competition. Our first study aimed to translate and validate the Intrasexual Competition Scale (ICS) by Buunk and Fisher (J Evol Psychol 7:37–48, 2009) in a population of healthy Swiss females (n = 241). Our second study applied the validated German ICS in a group of healthy, regularly cycling females (n = 49) in order to examine possible associations between the menstrual cycle phase and ICS scores. The psychometric properties suggest that the German ICS is a reliable and valid tool to assess individual differences in female intrasexual competition. Furthermore, our second study demonstrated that on average, women showed higher intrasexual competition scores when tested in the late follicular phase (M = 35.77 ± SD = 12.03) compared to the mid-luteal phase (M = 30.93 ± SD = 10.20). Our studies support previous findings of an association between ICS scores and relatively stable individual characteristics such as personality traits. Furthermore, our research endorses the assumption of cycle-dependent fluctuations in intrasexual competition. Future research should clarify the precise mechanisms underlying these findings and include biomarkers such as oestrogen and testosterone.