Beyond money: Risk preferences across both economic and non-economic contexts predict financial decisions.

Important decisions about risk occur in wide-ranging contexts, from investing to healthcare. While an underlying, domain-general risk attitude has been identified across contexts, it remains unclear what role it plays in shaping behavior relative to more domain-specific risk attitudes. Clarifying the relationship between domain-general and domain-specific risk attitudes would inform decision-making theories and the construction of decision aids.

Neural Mechanisms of Reward Prediction Error in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Few studies have explored neural mechanisms of reward learning in ASD despite evidence of behavioral impairments of predictive abilities in ASD. To investigate the neural correlates of reward prediction errors in ASD, 16 adults with ASD and 14 typically developing controls performed a prediction error task during fMRI scanning. Results revealed greater activation in the ASD group in the left paracingulate gyrus during signed prediction errors and the left insula and right frontal pole during thresholded unsigned prediction errors.

Maternal and neonatal outcomes of Hepatitis C positive women attending a midwifery led drug and alcohol service: A West Australian perspective.

Background: the Women and Newborn Drug and Alcohol Service (WANDAS) is a specialist, midwifery-led service providing pregnancy care to women dealing with alcohol and other drug (AOD) use, at the sole tertiary maternity hospital in Western Australia.

Aim: to assess the antenatal, intrapartum and neonatal outcomes of women with Hepatitis C (HCV) who attended the WANDAS service between 2009 and 2012.

Design: this retrospective cohort study used data obtained from computerised midwifery records.

Association between the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and mesolimbic responses to rewards.

Background: There has been significant progress in identifying genes that confer risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, the heterogeneity of symptom presentation in ASDs impedes the detection of ASD risk genes. One approach to understanding genetic influences on ASD symptom expression is to evaluate relations between variants of ASD candidate genes and neural endophenotypes in unaffected samples.

The wellbeing of infants exposed to buprenorphine via breast milk at 4 weeks of age.

Background: Buprenorphine has been available in Australia since 2000 as an alternative pharmacotherapy to methadone for the treatment of opioid dependence. However, there is little information in the literature regarding the effect of buprenorphine on the wellbeing of infants exposed to buprenorphine via breast milk, following discharge from hospital.

Objective: The aim of the present study was to examine the wellbeing of infants exposed to buprenorphine via breast milk up to 4 weeks postnatally.