Neurosis and religiosity. Is there a causal correlation?

The interrelation between religiosity, mental health and psychopathology is reviewed on the basis of the current literature. Attributional labels, such as the German term "ecclesiogenic neurosis" are submitted to a critical reevaluation, and their validity as a construct is questioned. Neurotic symptomatology in religious patients has to be seen against the background of their underlying pathology, their biography, and the way in which they integrate religion into their life styles. The religiosity of a patient cannot be singled out as a causative and thus primary pathogenetic factor. Rather religion has to be seen as one forming element among others contributing to the content of a neurotic process. Therapists working with religious patients should try to understand the religious background of their patients in order to help them integrate their religiosity in a larger framework of therapeutic goals.     

Fertility drugs and ovarian epithelial cancer: is there a link?

Hepatitis C virus (HCV), the major causative agent of post transfusion non-A, non-B hepatitis (NANB), had been cloned and expressed. According to the protein sequence of HCV-BK and its epitope profiles which combined the hydrophilicity, accessibility, flexibility, antigenicity, charge distribution and HPLC reserve coefficient of protein using the "Goldkey" computer program, we designed and synthesized the following peptides: P1(475-495), P3(449-468), P4(658-663), P5(645-663), P6(484-489), P7(475-489), P15(655-662), P16(230-237), P17(225-237), P18(1220-1240), P19(1694-1735), P24(1230-1240), P25(1482-1493), P26(384-389), P27(2355-2389). The results of ELISA showed that P6(60% positive results) and P19(63% positive results) testing with PT-HC of Gu An, Hebei province were the major antigens in NS1 and in NS4 region, respectively.     

Self-concordance, goal attainment, and the pursuit of happiness: Can there be an upward spiral?

Two studies used the self-concordance model of healthy goal striving (K. M. Sheldon & A. J. Elliot, 1999) to examine the motivational processes by which people can increase their level of well-being during a period of time and then maintain the gain or perhaps increase it even further during the next period of time. In Study 1, entering freshmen with self-concordant motivation better attained their 1st-semester goals, which in turn predicted increased adjustment and greater self-concordance for the next semester's goals. Increased self-concordance in turn predicted even better goal attainment during the 2nd semester, which led to further increases in adjustment and to higher levels of ego development by the end of the year. Study 2 replicated the basic model in a 2-week study of short-term goals set in the laboratory. Limits of the model and implications for the question of how (and whether) happiness may be increased are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The association between computer use and cognition across adulthood: Use it so you won't lose it?

Understanding the association between computer use and adult cognition has been limited until now by self-selected samples with restricted ranges of age and education. Here we studied effects of computer use in a large national sample (N = 2,671) of adults aged 32–84, assessing cognition with the Brief Test of Adult Cognition by Telephone (Tun & Lachman, 2005) and executive function with the Stop and Go Switch Task (Tun & Lachman, 2008). Frequency of computer activity was associated with cognitive performance after controlling for age, sex, education, and health status: That is, individuals who used the computer frequently scored significantly higher than those who seldom used the computer. Greater computer use was also associated with better executive function on a task-switching test, even after controlling for basic cognitive ability as well as demographic variables. These findings suggest that frequent computer activity is associated with good cognitive function, particularly executive control, across adulthood into old age, especially for those with lower intellectual ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Clinical research: where does it come from? Where is it going?

In this editorial the author examines briefly the past, present and future of clinical investigation in general and particularly in Switzerland, where the same problems are encountered as in other European countries and North America. The main problems reside in the fragmentation of internal medicine into subspecialities with their own separate meetings and journals, at the expense of multidisciplinary sources of information on medical progress, thus widening the gap between the practitioners and the scientific community. Through examples, it is pointed out that the progression of medical knowledge follows the path from basic research in biochemistry, cellular biology, animal experiments, clinical investigation and finally clinical medicine not unidirectionally but bidirectionally. Thanks to the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Medical Schools of the five Universities and many private foundations, a considerable effort has been made in past decades to foster basic and clinical research, resulting in a most favorable position for our country on the international scene. There is a fear that political and administrative decision could jeopardize the present situation and imperil the future. Finally, citing Osler from his work "Aequanimitas", the author stresses that "the true test of a nation's life... is to be found in its intellectual and moral standards", and that "the measure of the value of a nation to the world is neither the bushel nor the barrel, but mind".     

Assessing symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in children and adults: Which is more valid?

The assessment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in adults has been a source of controversy. The authors tested competing ideas by evaluating familial transmission among adult and nonadult relatives of ADHD children. They analyzed ADHD symptom data collected by structured interviews from the members of 280 ADHD and 242 non-ADHD families. For both past and current symptoms, both the boys' and girls' families showed significantly more familial aggregation for adult relatives than for nonadult relatives. The results were similar for inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive symptoms and for relatives with and without psychiatric comorbidity. The results provide further evidence for the validity of adult ADHD and support the intriguing idea that, from a familial perspective, the assessment of ADHD may be more valid in adults than in children. They do not support the idea that parents of ADHD children are biased to report ADHD symptoms in themselves because of their exposure to an ADHD child. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Whose fault is it? People's own conceptions of the reasons for health inequalities

How do people themselves think about inequalities in health? The topic has rarely been investigated, and oblique evidence has to be drawn from research on general lay ideas about health and the causes of illness. Data from a large British survey are combined with a review of the extensive body of, more usually, qualitative research on attitudes to health in Western industrialised societies. One tentative conclusion is that social inequality in health is not a topic which is very prominent in lay presentations, and paradoxically this is especially true among those who are most likely to be exposed to disadvantaging environments. Possible explanations are offered in terms of the effects of widespread "health promotion" activities, and the way in which lay theorising incorporates relationships between the group and the individual. The methods used in asking people to talk about health are also relevant: accounts of health and illness are accounts of social identity, and it is unreasonable to expect people to devalue that identity by labelling their own "inequality".     

Rationing and unfairness in the National Health Service: who is responsible, who is to blame and what can be done about it?

Analysis of the tasks of a virological laboratory as regards viral hepatitis helped the authors validate the requirements to computer provision and develop a program "Hepatitis" which permits the creation of a reliable data bank on subjects screened for viral hepatitis, offers a comprehensive highly qualified analysis, and saves time needed for file registration and making reports. The program is addressed to virology laboratories of sanitary epidemiological, therapeutic, and research institutions.     

When is it safe to use an oversimplified substitution model in tree-making?

The choice of an "optimal" mathematical model for computing evolutionary distances from real sequences is not currently supported by easy-to-use software applicable to large data sets, and an investigator frequently selects one of the simplest models available. Here we study properties of the observed proportion of differences (p-distance) between sequences as an estimator of evolutionary distance for tree-making. We show that p-distances allow for consistent tree-making with any of the popular methods working with evolutionary distances if evolution of sequences obeys a "molecular clock" (more precisely, if it follows a stationary time-reversible Markov model of nucleotide substitution). Next, we show that p-distances seem to be efficient in recovering the correct tree topology under a "molecular clock," but produce "statistically supported" wrong trees when substitutions rates vary among evolutionary lineages. Finally, we outline a practical approach for selecting an "optimal" model of nucleotide substitution in a real data analysis, and obtain a crude estimate of a "prior" distribution of the expected tree branch lengths under the Jukes-Cantor model. We conclude that the use of a model that is obviously oversimplified is inadvisable unless it is justified by a preliminary analysis of the real sequences.     

Risk stratification in cardiac surgery: is it worthwhile?

Outcome analysis of many surgical procedures has become increasingly important to surgeons, institutions, and the public. Because there may be wide differences in case mix, outcomes must be evaluated in light of the patient's preoperative status. All relevant preoperative conditions must be identified and weighted, so that when risk factor scores are combined in some fashion, they will provide a single preoperative risk estimate for the individual patient, representing the likelihood of dying as a consequence of the operation. Comparing the mean risk adjusted score of a group of patients undergoing the same procedure with the observed mortality rate for the same group yields an index of the quality of care, provided all preoperative risk scores are calculated with reference to the same benchmark. We question the logic and wisdom of surgical outcome analysis because of the infinitely complex nature of biological and pathological processes, as well as the practical problems of reliable data collection. The assumption of true scientific accuracy may be illusory. Even though risk adjusted outcome analysis has merit in studying trends in therapy, it should be regarded with caution when used as a tool for evaluating quality of care. If publicized at all, the results should not be represented as "hard" scientific fact.     

Is there an essence of medicine?

INTRODUCTION: Medical practice has to move from a one-on-one relationship to consensual organization of the overall management of patients. Issues at stakes and potential consequences following such changes are discussed. EXEGESIS: The evolution of medical practice is introduced as a necessity resulting from both improvements in medical technology and economical pressure. Utilitarian and procedural doctrines are promoted, taking the place of ethical bases. The one-on-one relationship evidences two essential aspects: there is often more in the request made to the practitioner than just the expression of an immediate need, and the patient is not only an organism. Both aspects reflect the specificity of human beings. There is a danger that they will disappear, as they are not included in the definition of "useful", which in fact controls current choices. CONCLUSION: Medical practice is radically modifying its own basis. Practitioners who acknowledge these changes should be aware of their cost.     

Death, sex, love, and neuroticism: Why is sex such a problem?

Terror management theory posits that sex is a ubiquitous human problem because the creaturely aspects of sex make apparent our animal nature, which reminds us of our vulnerability and mortality. People minimize this threat by investing in the symbolic meaning offered by the cultural worldview. Because people high in neuroticism have difficulty finding or sustaining meaning, sex is a particular problem for them. In Study 1, mortality salience caused high-neuroticism participants to find the physical aspects of sex less appealing. Study 2 revealed that for such individuals thoughts of physical sex increase the accessibility of death-related thoughts. This finding was replicated in Study 3, which also showed that providing meaning by associating sex with love reduced the accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to thoughts of physical sex. These findings provide insight into why people high in neuroticism have conflicting thoughts about sexuality and why sexuality is so often regulated and romanticized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What's love got to do with it? Social functioning, perceived health, and daily happiness in married octogenarians.

This study examined day-to-day links between perceived health and happiness and between time spent with others and happiness in 47 older adult couples over an 8-day period. Marital satisfaction and time spent with others were explored as potential moderators of links between health and happiness. For both men and women, hierarchical linear modeling revealed daily links between more time spent with others and greater happiness. Daily links between time spent with one's partner and happiness were strongly moderated by marital satisfaction. For both men and women, marital satisfaction buffered day-to-day links between poorer perceived health and a decline in happiness, but time spent with others did not. This study provides support for the role of marital satisfaction in protecting older adults' happiness from daily fluctuations in perceived physical health and for the influence of social connections in promoting happiness in the lives of older adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Guillain-Barre syndrome in six cities and provinces of northern China: is it a new entity?

Forty cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome were reported, (GBS) which came from the regions where "Chinese Paralytic Syndrome" and "Acute Motor Axonal Neuropathy (AMAN)" were presented before. A study on their clinical, electrophysiological and pathological features was conducted, records on 3,733 GBS cases reported in northern China from 1978 to 1992 were reviewed and compared with cases of "acute moter axonal nouropathy". The results showed that the clinical, electrophysiological and pathological features of GBS in north China are similar to those of typical GBS cases in western countries, though there seemed to be some special epidemiological features in age, seasonal and regional distribution. It was concluded that the GBS in northern China is demyelinating GBS dominantly, not a new entity.     

Delivery care in Chiapas, Mexico: who and where does provide it?

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a chronic fibrotic lung disease of neonates. Fibronectin (FN), a component of the extracellular matrix, is increased in the tracheobronchial effluent of neonates destined to develop BPD. Pulmonary FN is derived from plasma and local cellular synthesis. In order to identify which pulmonary cells synthesize FN and to test the hypothesis that FN is more abundant in lungs with BPD, we examined the distribution of pulmonary FN by in situ hybridization (for mRNA) and immunohistochemistry (for protein) in neonatal autopsy lung specimens, comparing lungs with BPD to those without. We used a staging system in which BPD is characterized by disruption of alveolar architecture, severe vascular changes, airway epithelial necrosis, smooth muscle hypertrophy, and peribronchial fibrosis. FN mRNA and protein were found in vascular endothelium, macrophages, fibroblasts, vascular and airway smooth muscle, and chondrocytes as well as in the pulmonary parenchyma in neonates with and without BPD. Hyaline membranes, when present, immunostained intensely for FN protein. FN mRNA was not seen in airway epithelial cells of either group. FN mRNA and protein were first increased in early acute BPD with their levels appearing greatest during the chronic reparative stage of BPD. In long-standing "healed" BPD, lower levels of FN mRNA and protein were seen. These findings are consistent with the association of increased FN with adult fibrotic lung disease and the previously reported increase in FN tracheal effluent levels in infants with BPD. Our results suggest an important role for pulmonary cell-derived FN in the early inflammatory and later proliferative stages of BPD.     

Three-year-olds' difficulty with the appearance–reality distinction: Is it real or is it apparent?

Four experiments investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance–reality distinction using both J. Flavell, F. Green, and J. Flavell's (1986) typical verbal response paradigm and a new, nonverbal response paradigm. Both paradigms require verbal questioning, but the former involves a verbal response and the latter a nonverbal one. In the nonverbal paradigm, children were shown a deceptive object and asked to respond, nonverbally, to 2 different functional requests, 1 concerning the object's apparent property and 1 its real property. In the verbal paradigm, children were asked to state what the object looked like and what it really was. In the verbal paradigm, children were about 30% correct (a rate matching that in the literature), whereas over 90% of the same children were correct in the nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm first had a detrimental effect on the children's performance in the nonverbal paradigm, but the reverse order had no effect. These results suggest that 3-year-olds can represent two conflicting properties of a deceptive object and thus understand the appearance-reality distinction in the nonverbal domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

But is it good for the psychologists? Appraisal and status of DSM-III.

Presents a critical analysis of the 3rd edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). Improvements over DSM-II are acknowledged; it is suggested, however, that problems with larger issues (e.g., multiaxial, diagnosis, operational criteria, and the medical model) overshadow these positive features. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Testing children for genetic predispositions: is it in their best interest?

Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine; 5-HT), an endogenous and ubiquitous monoamine, has become a subject of "explosive" research. Though its vasoconstrictor properties were first noticed in defibrinated or clotted blood, 5-HT was discovered 75 years later going through several denominations such as "enteramine, serotonin or 5-HT". Once confirmed that serotonin, enteramine and 5-HT were the same substance, the compound was synthesized and efforts with a view to analyze 5-HT receptors were performed. On the basis of the actions of 5-HT and other drugs on several smooth muscle experimental preparations, it was originally suggested that 5-HT could act via different receptors. Thus, Gaddum and Picarelli proposed the "D" and "M" classification based on the differential sensitivity of guinea pig ileum 5-HT-induced contraction to some drugs. Later on, this classification was confronted with the new Peroutka's 5-HT, and 5-HT2 classification derived from radioligand binding studies. Since these 5-HT receptors were being referred to by many names, an international committee formulated some criteria for the characterization and a framework for the nomenclature of 5-HT receptors into 5-HT1, 5-HT2 and 5-HT3 categories. More recently, functional evidence unrelated to activation of the above 5-HT receptor types was given and a new 5-HT (5-HT4) receptor was proposed to exist. From this stage, molecular biologists have been cloning several 5-HT receptors which are different from the various receptors (sub)types characterized thus far. This review is focused on the discovery of 5-HT and the evolution of the classification of 5-HT receptors, from historical remarks to the modern concepts about receptor characterization; furthermore, the relevance of this development to medical research is considered.