Alcohol consumption's effects on working memory: Examining familial confounding.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to provide a more rigorous test of the causal hypothesis that chronic alcohol use impairs working memory performance.

Method: We measured linear associations between a latent factor representing alcohol consumption and accuracy across four working memory tasks before and after accounting for familial confounding using a cotwin control design. Specifically, this study examined accuracy through a latent working memory score, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Toolbox List Sorting, NIH Toolbox Picture Sequence, Penn Word Memory, and 2-back tasks.

Spatiotemporal Alterations in Working Memory-Related Beta Band Neuromagnetic Activity of Patients With Schizophrenia On and Off Antipsychotic Medication: Investigation With MEG.

Background And Hypothesis: We used the uniquely high combined spatial and temporal resolution of magnetoencephalography to characterize working memory (WM)-related modulation of beta band activity in neuroleptic-free patients with schizophrenia in comparison to a large sample of performance-matched healthy controls. We also tested for effects of antipsychotic medication on identified differences in these same patients.

Study Design: Inpatients with schizophrenia (n = 21) or psychotic disorder not otherwise specified (n = 4) completed N-back and control tasks during magnetoencephalography while on placebo and during antipsychotic medication treatment, in a blinded, randomized, counterbalanced manner.

Ketamine Alters Electrophysiological Responses to Emotional Faces in Major Depressive Disorder.

Background: The glutamatergic modulator ketamine rapidly reduces depressive symptoms in individuals with treatment-resistant major depressive disorder (MDD). However, ketamine's effects on emotional processing biases remain largely unknown, and understanding these processes may help elucidate ketamine's mechanism of action.

Methods: Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was used to investigate ketamine's effects on early visual responses to affective stimuli in individuals with MDD (n=31) and healthy volunteers (HVs; n=24).

Prefrontal high gamma during a magnetoencephalographic working memory task.

In human electrophysiology research, the high gamma part of the power spectrum (~>60 Hz) is a relatively new area of investigation. Despite a low signal-to-noise ratio, evidence exists that it contains significant information about activity in local cortical networks. Here, using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we found high gamma activity when comparing data from an n-back working memory task to resting data in a large sample of normal volunteers.

The relationship between emotional intelligence, previous caring experience and successful completion of a pre-registration nursing/midwifery degree.

Aim: To examine the relationship between baseline emotional intelligence and prior caring experience with completion of pre-registration nurse and midwifery education.

Background: Selection and retention of nursing students is a global challenge. Emotional intelligence is well-conceptualized, measurable and an intuitive prerequisite to nursing values and so might be a useful selection criterion.