Maternal responsivity to infants in the "High Chair" assessment: Longitudinal relations with toddler outcomes in a diverse, low-income sample.

Infant-parent interactions occur across many situations, yet most home-based assessments of parenting behaviors are conducted under conditions of low stress, such as free play. In this study, low-income mothers from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project were observed at home interacting with their 14-month-olds in the mildly stressful "High Chair" assessment (n=1718 dyads). This methodological study tested whether High Chair maternal responsiveness and detachment predicted later toddler cognitive and emotion outcomes, over and above equivalent maternal predictors during free play.

Stress-dependent impairment of passive-avoidance memory by propranolol or naloxone.

Previous work has shown that the effect of opioid-receptor blockade on memory modulation is critically dependent upon the intensity of stress. The current study determined the effect of adrenergic-receptor blockade on memory modulation under varied levels of stress and then compared the effect of adrenergic-receptor blockade under intense stress to that of a) opioid-receptor blockade and b) concurrent opioid- and adrenergic-receptor blockade. In the first experiment, the β-adrenergic-receptor blocker propranolol impaired retention in the passive-avoidance procedure when administered immediately after exposure to intense stress (passive-avoidance training followed by swim stress) but not mild stress (passive-avoidance training alone).

Amygdala activity at encoding corresponds with memory vividness and with memory for select episodic details.

It is well known that amygdala activity during encoding corresponds with subsequent memory for emotional information. It is less clear how amygdala activity relates to the subjective and objective qualities of a memory. In the present study, participants viewed emotional and neutral objects while undergoing a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan.

Meeting the challenge of preparing undergraduates for careers in cognitive neuroscience.

Preparing students for a career in cognitive neuroscience may be especially challenging due to the expense and complexity of many types of cognitive neuroscience technologies. However, it is possible to train students in cognitive neuroscience at a primarily undergraduate university (PUI) in both the classroom and the laboratory. First, we propose specific methods that can be used in the classroom to make cognitive neuroscience material accessible.

Fungi associated with dried fish in Sri Lanka.

The mycoflora of dried-salted fish from markets in Kandy, Sri Lanka was studied with emphasis on visibly spoiled dried fish. A total of 61 fungal isolates from 25 dried-fish were isolated and identified. The most prevalent fungus was Aspergillus niger.