Expectations about counseling in Yucatán, Mexico: Toward a "Mexican psychology."

Conducted a study of client expectations of psychological services in Yucatán, Mexico, under the sponsorship of a grant from the Organization of American States. The Expectations about Counseling–Brief form (EAC-B) questionnaire was translated and administered to 488 subjects across age, sex, and experience with psychological services. Subsequent analyses supported the reliability and robustness of the Spanish EAC-B, with factor structure similar to the EAC-B in English. Some relation was found among age, sex, prior counseling experience, and expectations about counseling. Implications of these data for future research and comparison with U.S. subjects are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationships between urbanization and the oak resource of the Minneapolis/St. Paul Metropolitan area from 1991 to 1998

Urbanization was associated with loss and transformation of the oak forest in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul) metropolitan area (TCMA) over a recent 7-year interval. Between 1991 and 1998, urbanization increased based on several indicators: population density, area of developed land, and area of impervious surface—total impervious area and area within three classes of increasing degree of imperviousness (protected, affected, and degraded). We quantified relationships between changes in urbanization and changes in several parameters describing the oak forest at the scale of ecological subsection. Increased total and affected impervious area were strongly correlated with decreased area of oak forest when changes of the urbanization indicators and oak were expressed as percentages of the subsection area. Relationships were reversed when changes were expressed as percentages of the 1991 values. Increased population density was strongly correlated with increased loss in numbers and increased isolation of oak patches, but weakly correlated with loss of oak forest area. This is the first study to quantify relationships between changes in urbanization and changes in a specific forest cover type. Our results demonstrate complexities of urbanization impacts on a metropolitan forest resource, and highlight the importance of selected variables, spatial and temporal scales, and expressions of change when quantifying these relationships.     

Primary afferent depolarizations of sensory origin within contact-sensitive mechanoreceptive afferents of a crayfish leg

Recordings from the central branches of single identified dactyl sensory afferent (DSA) neurons in a crayfish in vitro preparation were performed to study modifications of the sensory message occurring before the first central synapse. These afferents comprised hairs and force-sensitive mechanoreceptors with phasic and phasotonic response characteristics in the terminal segment (dactyl) of the crayfish leg. More than one afferent spike size was often observed in intracellular recordings from these afferents, thus indicating the presence of electrical coupling between the central processes of DSA fibers. Additionally, in identified DSA fibers with large spike sizes, primary afferent depolarizations (PADs) of up to 15 mV were observed, which sometimes triggered antidromic spikes in the afferent. Nevertheless, PADs were clearly inhibitory, because they shunted the afferent spikes. They exhibited the following properties. First, each PAD was preceded by an afferent spike from a neighboring hair, indicating that the PADs had a sensory rather than central origin. Second, PADs could follow high frequencies of afferent discharges without failure, a property suggestive of monosynaptic connections, but because PAD latencies varied by +/-0.5 ms it is more likely that they were mediated by a disynaptic pathway. Third, although PADs were evoked in an extremely reliable manner, their amplitude varied in a quantal manner. Most unitary PADs were the result of the release of < 12 quanta, the mean quantal content lying between 4 and 5; quantal size was large, approximately 1 mV. Fourth, PADs showed facilitation in some fibers, whereas in others they became much smaller when occurring at brief intervals. We suggest that PADs may be an efficient and parsimonious way to limit sensory inflow in space and time, allowing the crayfish to identify precisely both weak and strong mechanical stimuli.     

Passive sensitization of human airways induces myogenic contractile responses in vitro

We assessed effects of passive sensitization on human bronchial smooth muscle (BSM) response to mechanical stretching in vitro. Bronchial rings were sham (control) or passively sensitized overnight by using sera from donors demonstrating sensitivity to Dermatophagoides farinae and having immunoglobulin E (IgE) concentrations of 2,600 +/- 200 U/ml. Tissues were fixed isometrically to force transducers to measure responses to electrical field stimulation (EFS) and quick stretch (QS). The myogenic response to QS was normalized to the maximal response to EFS (%EFS). The myogenic response of sensitized BSM was 47.9 +/- 10.9 %EFS to a QS of approximately 6.5% optimal length (Lo); sham-sensitized tissues had a myogenic response of 13.5 +/- 6.4 %EFS (P = 0.012 vs. passively sensitized). A QS of approximately 13% Lo in sensitized BSM caused a response of 82.8 +/- 20.9 %EFS; sham-sensitized tissues developed a response of 38.2 +/- 17.3 %EFS (P = 0.004). BSM incubated with serum from nonallergic donors did not demonstrate increased QS response (4.6 +/- 1.4 %EFS, P = not significant vs. tissue exposed to atopic sera). However, tissues incubated in sera from nonatopic donors supplemented with hapten-specific chimeric IgE (JW8) demonstrated augmented myogenic response to QS of approximately 6.5% Lo (21.9 +/- 6.2 %EFS, P = 0. 027 vs. nonatopic sera alone). We demonstrate that passive sensitization of human BSM preparations causes induction and augmentation of myogenic contractions to QS; this hyperresponsiveness corresponds to the IgE concentration in sensitizing sera.     

Growth factor receptor expression during in vitro differentiation of partially purified populations containing murine stem cells

The Word Accentuation Test assesses the accentuation of 30 infrequent Spanish words written without the accentuation mark and is an easy-to-use tool for estimating premorbid intelligence of Spanish-speaking people. Its intraobserver (0.97) and interobserver (0.93) reliabilities and its correlation with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (.837) and Raven's Progressive Matrices (.655) are high, offering a good prediction of general intelligence. It is resistant to mental deterioration; 20 demented and 40 controls matched by sex, age, and education obtained similar scores. The discrepancies between current and predicted scores in Raven's scale can diagnose mild-moderate dementia with 0.79 accuracy (sensitivity, 0.78; specificity, 0.82).     

Antimutagenic activity of casein against MNNG in the E. coli DNA repair host-mediated assay

The effect of caseinate and soy protein in the diet on the mutagenicity induced by N-methyl-N'-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) was assessed in-vivo and ex-vivo in the DNA-repair host-mediated assay and liquid suspension assay, respectively. Of the two proteins only casein showed a strong antimutagenic activity over the whole digestive tract, except in the stomach. It is suggested that the molecular structure of a protein determines its protective effect against mutagens: casein lacks secondary and tertiary structure so that amino acids are more readily available for interaction with the mutagen than with the amino acids in soy protein which is a globular protein.