Body, Mind & Spirit Articles and Latest News

Drinking against unpleasant emotions: possible outcome of early onset of alcohol use?

Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2010 Jun;34(6):1052-7

Authors: Buchmann AF, Schmid B, Blomeyer D, Zimmermann US, Jennen-Steinmetz C, Schmidt MH, Esser G, Banaschewski T, Mann K, Laucht M

BACKGROUND: Recent animal and human studies indicate that the exposure to alcohol during early adolescence increases the risk for heavy alcohol use in response to stress. The purpose of this study was to examine whether this effect may be the consequence of a higher susceptibility to develop “drinking to cope” motives among early initiators. METHODS: Data from 320 participants were collected as part of the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk, an ongoing epidemiological cohort study. Structured interviews at age 15 and 19 were used to assess age at first alcohol experience and drunkenness. The young adults completed questionnaires to obtain information about the occurrence of stressful life events during the past 4 years and current drinking habits. In addition, alcohol use under conditions of negative states was assessed with the Inventory of Drinking Situations. RESULTS: The probability of young adults’ alcohol use in situations characterized by unpleasant emotions was significantly increased the earlier they had initiated the use of alcohol, even when controlling for current drinking habits and stressful life events. Similar results were obtained for the age at first drunkenness. CONCLUSIONS: The findings strengthen the hypothesis that alcohol experiences during early adolescence facilitate drinking to regulate negative affect as an adverse coping strategy which may represent the starting point of a vicious circle comprising drinking to relieve stress and increased stress as a consequence of drinking.

PMID: 20374211 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Gilles de la Tourette’s criminal women: the many faces of fin de siècle hypnotism.

Clin Neurol Neurosurg. 2010 Sep;112(7):549-51

Authors: Bogousslavsky J, Walusinski O

Gilles de la Tourette is now known for the disease which now bears his name, but his activities in the management of hysterics and in hypnotism, which gained him most of his lifetime reputation, have been largely forgotten. As one of the closest followers of Jean-Martin Charcot, he always remained faithful to his mentor’s views, and was one of the most vehement defenders of La Salpêtrière school during the quarrel with Hippolyte Bernheim and the Nancy school on the question of the specificity of hypnotic susceptibility in hysteria. This controversy became critical during medico-legal assessment of crimes supposedly committed under hypnotic suggestion. Gilles de la Tourette’s involvement in criminal hypnotism was striking, as shown by his own experiments, the most famous of which being his suggested poisoning of a colleague by Blanche Wittman, the celebrated Charcot’s hysteric patient in the 1887 Brouillet’s painting. Gilles de la Tourette also acted as expert in murder trials, and his Epilogue in the Gouffé’s trunk case, where he affirmed that no murder in real life could be due to hypnotism, and considered that Gabrielle Bompard, the murderer’s accomplice, was not under hypnotic suggestion, had a considerable impact. Finally, he was confronted to the issue of murder under hypnotism in his private life, since in 1893, a former patient, Rose Kamper, came and shot him in the head at his home, claiming that hypnotism sessions had changed her own person, and that she had been hypnotized “at distance”. These acts from three very different “hysterical” women highlight the Salpêtrière’s theories on hypnotism and their inner contradictions in the fin de siècle ambiance, a few years before Joseph Babinski renewed the concepts on hysteria.

PMID: 20413214 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Prefrontal cortical changes following cognitive training in patients with chronic schizophrenia: effects of practice, generalization, and specificity.

Neuropsychopharmacology. 2010 Aug;35(9):1850-9

Authors: Haut KM, Lim KO, MacDonald A

Cognitive training is increasingly used in the treatment of schizophrenia, but it remains unknown how this training affects functional neuroanatomy. Practice on specific cognitive tasks generally leads to automaticity and decreased prefrontal cortical activity, yet broad-based cognitive training programs may avoid automaticity and increase prefrontal cortex (PFC) activity. This study used quasi-randomized, placebo-control design and pre/post neuroimaging to examine functional plasticity associated with attention and working memory-focused cognitive training in patients with schizophrenia. Twenty-one participants with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder split into two demographically and performance matched groups (nine scanned per group) and nine control participants were tested 6-8 weeks apart. Compared with both patient controls and healthy controls, patients receiving cognitive training increased activation significantly more in attention and working memory networks, including dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate and frontopolar cortex. The extent to which activity increased in a subset of these regions predicted performance improvements. Although this study was not designed to speak to the efficacy of cognitive training as a treatment, it is the first study to show that such training can increase the ability of patients to activate the PFC regions subserving attention and working memory.

PMID: 20428109 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Implicit, explicit, and internalized weight bias and psychosocial maladjustment among treatment-seeking adults.

Eat Behav. 2010 Aug;11(3):180-5

Authors: Carels RA, Wott CB, Young KM, Gumble A, Koball A, Oehlhof MW

OBJECTIVE: Weight bias among weight loss treatment-seeking adults has been understudied. This investigation examined the 1) levels of implicit, explicit, and internalized weight bias among overweight/obese treatment-seeking adults, 2) association between weight bias and psychosocial maladjustment (binge eating, body image, depression), and 3) association between participation in weight loss treatment and changes in weight bias. METHODS: Fifty-four overweight and obese individuals (BMI > or = 27) recruited for a weight loss intervention completed measures of depression, body image, binge eating, and implicit, explicit, and internalized weight bias. RESULTS: Participants evidenced significant implicit, explicit, and internalized weight bias. Greater weight bias was associated with greater depression, poorer body image, and increased binge eating. Despite significant reductions in negative internalized and explicit weight bias following treatment, weight bias remained strong. CONCLUSIONS: Weight bias among treatment-seeking adults is associated with greater psychological maladjustment and may interfere with their ability to achieve optimal health and well-being.

PMID: 20434066 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Changes in eating pathology and associated symptoms among chronically ill adults attending a brief psychoeducational group.

Eat Behav. 2010 Aug;11(3):186-9

Authors: von Ranson KM, Stevenson AS, Cannon CK, Shah W

OBJECTIVE: Two quasi-experimental pilot studies examined eating pathology, eating self-efficacy, shame, guilt, and pride in adults with chronic illness before and after participating in brief cognitive-behavioral psychoeducational groups addressing eating concerns. METHOD: In Study 1, 60 adults completed assessments before and after a series of two groups; in Study 2, 21 adults also completed an assessment five weeks prior to the first group to identify time-related changes in symptoms. RESULTS: Study 1 participants improved across domains, whereas Study 2 analyses also examining time-related changes showed improvements in eating self-efficacy, shame, guilt, and pride, but not in eating pathology. DISCUSSION: Psychoeducational groups may help improve symptoms including eating pathology, eating self-efficacy, shame, guilt, and pride among chronically-ill adults with eating concerns.

PMID: 20434067 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Minding the aging brain: technology-enabled cognitive training for healthy elders.

Curr Neurol Neurosci Rep. 2010 Sep;10(5):374-80

Authors: Steinerman JR

Cognitive training refers to theory-driven behavioral intervention, ideally supported by a strong conceptual framework and specified neurocognitive mechanisms. Within this field, neurotechnology promises many advantages, and a growing literature establishes technology-enabled cognitive training as a promising modality to promote positive cognition in consumer, research, clinical, and public health settings. Methodologic challenges remain, and specific cognitive training recommendations for healthy elders must be tentative in the context of an emerging evidence base.

PMID: 20544402 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

Differential effects of serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants on brain activity during a cognitive control task and neurofunctional prediction of treatment outcome in patients with depression.

J Psychiatry Neurosci. 2010 Jul;35(4):247-57

Authors: Wagner G, Koch K, Schachtzabel C, Sobanski T, Reichenbach JR, Sauer H, Schlösser RG

BACKGROUND: We investigated the differential effects of serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants on brain activation in patients with major depressive disorder during a Stroop task. We predicted that pretreatment hyperactivity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex would predict better treatment outcomes. METHODS: In total, 20 patients underwent naturalistic open-label clinical treatment with citalopram (n = 12) or reboxetine (n = 8). We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging at baseline and after 6 weeks of treatment. RESULTS: There were no significant group differences in clinical characteristics, treatment outcomes or baseline fMRI activations. The group by time interaction revealed significant voxels in the right amygdala-hippocampus complex (p < 0.05, family-wise error corrected by use of the bilateral amygdala and hippocampus mask image as a small volume), indicating a posttreatment blood oxygen level- dependent signal decrease in the citalopram group. Pretreatment hyperactivity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex was not related to symptom improvement. LIMITATIONS: Our study was a nonrandomized clinical trial. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that serotonergic and noradrenergic antidepressants have a differential effect on brain activity, especially in the amygdala and hippocampus.

PMID: 20598238 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

The use of playfulness in the treatment of chronic pain.

Pain Pract. 2010 Jul;10(4):375-7

Authors: Wernik U

PMID: 20636578 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

A pervasive visual-haptic framework for virtual delivery training.

IEEE Trans Inf Technol Biomed. 2010 Mar;14(2):326-34

Authors: Abate AF, Acampora G, Loia V, Ricciardi S, Vasilakos AV

Thanks to the advances of voltage regulator (VR) technologies and haptic systems, virtual simulators are increasingly becoming a viable alternative to physical simulators in medicine and surgery, though many challenges still remain. In this study, a pervasive visual-haptic framework aimed to the training of obstetricians and midwives to vaginal delivery is described. The haptic feedback is provided by means of two hand-based haptic devices able to reproduce force-feedbacks on fingers and arms, thus enabling a much more realistic manipulation respect to stylus-based solutions. The interactive simulation is not solely driven by an approximated model of complex forces and physical constraints but, instead, is approached by a formal modeling of the whole labor and of the assistance/intervention procedures performed by means of a timed automata network and applied to a parametrical 3-D model of the anatomy, able to mimic a wide range of configurations. This novel methodology is able to represent not only the sequence of the main events associated to either a spontaneous or to an operative childbirth process, but also to help in validating the manual intervention as the actions performed by the user during the simulation are evaluated according to established medical guidelines. A discussion on the first results as well as on the challenges still unaddressed is included.

PMID: 20659831 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]

On-scene crisis intervention: psychological guidelines and communication strategies for first responders.

Int J Emerg Ment Health. 2010;12(1):11-9

Authors: Miller L

Effective emergency mental health intervention for victims of crime, natural disaster or terrorism begins the moment the first responders arrive. This article describes a range of on-scene crisis intervention options, including verbal communication, body language, behavioral strategies, and interpersonal style. The correct intervention in the first few moments and hours of a crisis can profoundly influence the recovery course of victims and survivors of catastrophic events.

PMID: 20828086 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

[Read more →]