[Presentation of age(ing) and elderly people in TV commercials].

Background: From the results of different studies it is known that stereotyped images about ageing and elderly people frame and influence the attitudes, beliefs and activities of elderly people and also influence the interaction of others with elderly people.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the currently portrayed images of elderly people, age and ageing in television (TV) advertisements.

Material And Methods: The study was based on a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of commercials presented on four major TV networks, two private and two public TV broadcasting networks in Germany.

Impact of childhood trauma, alexithymia, dissociation, and emotion suppression on emotional Stroop task.

Objective: Attentional bias to emotion- and illness-related information plays a prominent role in many mental disorders, particularly major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders. Using the emotional Stroop task we investigated which variables beyond aspects of patients' psychopathology might influence reaction times and interference in the Stroop test.

Methods: We investigated 82 psychosomatic inpatients and 39 healthy controls.

The diurnal course of salivary alpha-amylase in nurses: an investigation of potential confounders and associations with stress.

In psychoneuroendocrinology research, salivary measures have become increasingly important. While several studies focus on determinants of salivary cortisol such as age, gender, and gynaecological variables, less research has focused on confounding variables of salivary alpha-amylase (sAA). In a large sample of nurses (N=215) we analyzed the impact of age, gender, intake of oral contraceptives, smoking, coffee consumption as well as psychological parameters, such as work stress and burnout, on basal diurnal sAA release.

Stress modulates the use of spatial versus stimulus-response learning strategies in humans.

Animal studies provided evidence that stress modulates multiple memory systems, favoring caudate nucleus-based "habit" memory over hippocampus-based "cognitive" memory. However, effects of stress on learning strategy and memory consolidation were not differentiated. We specifically address the effects of psychosocial stress on the applied learning strategy in humans.

Cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress is not affected by alpha2-adrenoreceptor activation or inhibition.

Rationale: It has been postulated that cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress varies with tonic central sympathetic nervous system activity, but pharmacological evidence is missing.

Objective: To test whether modulation of central sympathetic nervous system activity by alpha2-adrenergic agonism and antagonism affects cardiovascular reactivity to mental stress.

Materials And Methods: On three five-stepped dose/concentration-response study days, 12 healthy male volunteers received intravenous infusions of dexmedetomidine (alpha2-agonist, target plasma concentrations: 0.

Evidence that baroreflex feedback influences long-term incidental visual memory in men.

Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity at the time of acquisition is associated with human memory. However, rather than SNS activity per se, it may be afferent baroreflex feedback that is responsible for this effect. A pharmacological design was employed to unload (SNP, sodium nitro-prusside) and load (norepinephrine) baroreceptors.