Beyond the blues: The protective influence of adaptability and well-being on university students' mental health.

Introduction: Theoretical approaches suggest that adaptability and well-being could serve as protective factors in influencing mental health. However, it remains empirically unclear how students' prior adaptability and well-being predict depression (and vice versa) in the long term. Hence, using a longitudinal design, the present study explores the reciprocal relations among university students' adaptability, well-being, as well as depression before, during, and after the lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Endogenous opiates and behavior: 2023.

This paper is the forty-sixth consecutive installment of the annual anthological review of research concerning the endogenous opioid system, summarizing articles published during 2023 that studied the behavioral effects of molecular, pharmacological and genetic manipulation of opioid peptides and receptors as well as effects of opioid/opiate agonists and antagonists. The review is subdivided into the following specific topics: molecular-biochemical effects and neurochemical localization studies of endogenous opioids and their receptors (1), the roles of these opioid peptides and receptors in pain and analgesia in animals (2) and humans (3), opioid-sensitive and opioid-insensitive effects of nonopioid analgesics (4), opioid peptide and receptor involvement in tolerance and dependence (5), stress and social status (6), learning and memory (7), eating and drinking (8), drug and alcohol abuse (9), sexual activity and hormones, pregnancy, development and endocrinology (10), mental illness and mood (11), seizures and neurologic disorders (12), electrical-related activity and neurophysiology (13), general activity and locomotion (14), gastrointestinal, renal and hepatic functions (15), cardiovascular responses (16), respiration and thermoregulation (17), and immunological responses (18).

Curiosity and Creative Experimentation Among Psychiatrists in India.

Medical anthropologists have not paid enough attention to the variation at the level of the individual practitioners of biomedicine, and anthropological critiques of biomedical psychiatry as it is practiced in settings outside the Global North have tended to depict psychiatrists in monolithic terms. In this article, we attempt to demonstrate that, at least in the case of India, some psychiatrists perceive limitations in the biomedical model and the cultural assumptions behind biomedical practices and ideologies. This paper focuses on three practitioners who supplement their own practices with local and alternative healing modalities derived from South Asian psychologies, philosophies, systems of medicine and religious and ritual practices.

Our individual order of things directs how we think we feel.

Our work draws upon Foucault's idea that the order of things, defined as the way we categorise our world, matters for how we think about the world and ourselves. Specifically, and drawing upon Pekrun's control-value theory, we focus on the question of whether the way we individually order our world into categories influences how we think about our typically experienced emotions related to these categories. To investigate this phenomenon, we used a globally accessible example, namely, the categorisation of knowledge based on school subjects.

Neuronal accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau protein predicts stable memory impairment in people living with HIV.

Objectives: As lifespans increase in people with HIV (PWH), there is concern that age-related neurodegenerative disorders may contribute to cognitive decline. We asked whether brain accumulation of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-associated proteins amyloid-beta (Aβ) and hyperphosphorylated tau (p-tau) predicted cognitive performance in middle-aged PWH.

Methods: In a prospectively followed, cognitively-characterized autopsy sample of 135 PWH, we used immunohistochemistry to assess Aβ plaques and neuronal p-tau in medial temporal and lateral frontal lobes.

Meisosomes, folded membrane microdomains between the apical extracellular matrix and epidermis.

Apical extracellular matrices (aECMs) form a physical barrier to the environment. In , the epidermal aECM, the cuticle, is composed mainly of different types of collagen, associated in circumferential ridges separated by furrows. Here, we show that in mutants lacking furrows, the normal intimate connection between the epidermis and the cuticle is lost, specifically at the lateral epidermis, where, in contrast to the dorsal and ventral epidermis, there are no hemidesmosomes.

Teaching the Skill of Chewing From a Behavior Analytic Approach: A Systematic Review.

Relatively few empirical studies of pediatric chewing interventions have been published in the psychology literature. The purpose of this paper was to systematically review chewing interventions within the applied behavior analysis literature. We identified a small, but growing, behavior analytic literature demonstrating the effectiveness of various multicomponent treatment packages to teach and improve chewing skills.

The neurocognitive implications of depression and socioeconomic status in people with HIV.

Objective: This cross-sectional study investigates the independent and interactive effects of depression and socioeconomic status (SES) on neurocognition in a diverse sample of people with HIV (PWH).

Method: The sample of 119 PWH (71% Latinx, 27% female) completed comprehensive neurocognitive and psychosocial evaluations and were separated into two groups: those with a history of depression diagnosis ( = 47) and those without ( = 72).

Results: The results of regression analyses indicated that lifetime depression was not associated with lower SES nor with worse neurocognitive performance on any neurocognitive outcome.

What If You Can't Ask Them? Psychometric Properties of a Behavioral Assessment of Sibling Relationship Quality.

Building on studies of preferences for social interaction in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) we sought to provide a way for siblings with ASD to express their perspective about the quality of their sibling relationships. We developed a behavioral assessment of sibling relationship preference (Sibling Relationship Assessment [SRA]) and examined the psychometric properties of test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, and convergent validity. The SRA was feasible to administer and revealed expected differences between sibling dyads with one sibling with ASD compared to typically-developing sibling dyads.

Gap in the conditioned stimulus: Differential impacts on temporal expectancy in appetitive and aversive conditions in rats.

We analyzed, through a Pavlovian conditioning procedure in rats, the temporal pattern of behavior in appetitive and aversive conditions within subjects, and the difference in inferred temporal working memory functioning with the Gap paradigm. For both conditions, we paired a 60-s conditioned stimulus (CS: tone1 or tone2) with an unconditioned stimulus (US: shock or chocolate pellet) delivered 20s after CS onset. The analyses of mean response rate and individual-trial data were performed during Probe trials, consisting of CS alone, and trials in which gaps of different position or duration were inserted, to assess the effect of the temporal manipulation on behavior.

Sensory Phenotypes in Autism: Making a Case for the Inclusion of Sensory Integration Functions.

Sensory features are part of the diagnostic criteria for autism and include sensory hypo/hyper reactivity and unusual sensory interest; however, additional sensory differences, namely differences in sensory integration, have not been routinely explored. This study characterized sensory integration differences in a cohort of children (n = 93) with a confirmed diagnosis of autism (5-9 years) using a standardized, norm-referenced battery. Mean z scores, autism diagnostic scores, and IQ are reported.

Age, cognitive status, and accuracy of ADL self-reports in adults living with HIV.

Determination of functional capacity in cognitively impaired persons living with HIV (PLHIV) is pivotal to the accurate diagnosis of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Functional data is typically collected through self-report. Reliability concerns arise with memory and executive functioning impairments, which could compromise the integrity of self-report and result in inaccurate HAND diagnoses.

Notes from an epicenter: navigating behavioral clinical trials on autism spectrum disorder amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the Bronx.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted nearly all facets of our daily lives, and clinical research was no exception. Here, we discuss the impact of the pandemic on our ongoing, three-arm randomized controlled trial (RCT) Sensory Integration Therapy (SIT) in Autism: Mechanisms and Effectiveness (NCT02536365), which investigates the immediate and sustained utility of SIT to strengthen functional daily-living skills and minimize the presence of maladaptive sensory behaviors in autistic children.

Main Text: In this text, we detail how we navigated the unique challenges that the pandemic brought forth between the years 2020 and 2021, including the need to rapidly adjust our study protocol, recruitment strategy, and in-person assessment battery to allow for virtual recruitment and data collection.

Optimizing mentoring relationships with persons from historically marginalized communities through the use of difficult dialogues.

Neuropsychology has struggled to recruit and retain trainees and early career professionals from historically marginalized communities (HMC). One of the primary strategies for retaining these individuals, and ensuring their success, is quality mentorship. Effective mentorship for trainees from HMC requires responsive attention to the unique training experiences that emerge from societal forces, such as structural racism and classism.

Consideration of sex and gender in Alzheimer's disease and related disorders from a global perspective.

Sex or gender differences in the risk of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) differ by world region, suggesting that there are potentially modifiable risk factors for intervention. However, few epidemiological or clinical ADRD studies examine sex differences; even fewer evaluate gender in the context of ADRD risk. The goals of this perspective are to: (1) provide definitions of gender, biologic sex, and sexual orientation.

Tracking cryptic SARS-CoV-2 lineages detected in NYC wastewater.

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity is strongly indicated because diversifying selection may lead to the emergence of novel variants resistant to naturally acquired or vaccine-induced immunity. To monitor New York City (NYC) for the presence of novel variants, we deep sequence most of the receptor binding domain coding sequence of the S protein of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from the New York City wastewater. Here we report detecting increasing frequencies of novel cryptic SARS-CoV-2 lineages not recognized in GISAID's EpiCoV database.

A Comprehensive Approach to Assessment of Testamentary Capacity.

The growing aging population raises important implications for legal and clinical systems, including testamentary capacity (TC) assessment. Yet, there are limited comprehensive and standardized assessment measures for TC readily available for clinical use. A review of current assessment methods and standardized approaches for TC assessment is provided.

The nonlinear feedback dynamics of asymmetric political polarization.

Using a general model of opinion dynamics, we conduct a systematic investigation of key mechanisms driving elite polarization in the United States. We demonstrate that the self-reinforcing nature of elite-level processes can explain this polarization, with voter preferences accounting for its asymmetric nature. Our analysis suggests that subtle differences in the frequency and amplitude with which public opinion shifts left and right over time may have a differential effect on the self-reinforcing processes of elites, causing Republicans to polarize more quickly than Democrats.