Search results
Found 12210 matches for
Nature and human well-being: The olfactory pathway.
The world is undergoing massive atmospheric and ecological change, driving unprecedented challenges to human well-being. Olfaction is a key sensory system through which these impacts occur. The sense of smell influences quality of and satisfaction with life, emotion, emotion regulation, cognitive function, social interactions, dietary choices, stress, and depressive symptoms. Exposures via the olfactory pathway can also lead to (anti-)inflammatory outcomes. Increased understanding is needed regarding the ways in which odorants generated by nature (i.e., natural olfactory environments) affect human well-being. With perspectives from a range of health, social, and natural sciences, we provide an overview of this unique sensory system, four consensus statements regarding olfaction and the environment, and a conceptual framework that integrates the olfactory pathway into an understanding of the effects of natural environments on human well-being. We then discuss how this framework can contribute to better accounting of the impacts of policy and land-use decision-making on natural olfactory environments and, in turn, on planetary health.
The future of psychological treatments: The Marburg Declaration.
Although psychological treatments are broadly recognized as evidence-based interventions for various mental disorders, challenges remain. For example, a substantial proportion of patients receiving such treatments do not fully recover, and many obstacles hinder the dissemination, implementation, and training of psychological treatments. These problems require those in our field to rethink some of our basic models of mental disorders and their treatments, and question how research and practice in clinical psychology should progress. To answer these questions, a group of experts of clinical psychology convened at a Think-Tank in Marburg, Germany, in August 2022 to review the evidence and analyze barriers for current and future developments. After this event, an overview of the current state-of-the-art was drafted and suggestions for improvements and specific recommendations for research and practice were integrated. Recommendations arising from our meeting cover further improving psychological interventions through translational approaches, improving clinical research methodology, bridging the gap between more nomothetic (group-oriented) studies and idiographic (person-centered) decisions, using network approaches in addition to selecting single mechanisms to embrace the complexity of clinical reality, making use of scalable digital options for assessments and interventions, improving the training and education of future psychotherapists, and accepting the societal responsibilities that clinical psychology has in improving national and global health care. The objective of the Marburg Declaration is to stimulate a significant change regarding our understanding of mental disorders and their treatments, with the aim to trigger a new era of evidence-based psychological interventions.
Inhaled pentamidine and prevention of pneumocystis pneumonia
To the Editor: In the report of the recent European controlled trial of inhaled pentamidine for prophylaxis against Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), Hirschel and colleagues (April 18 issue)1 state that it appears that prophylaxis against PCP may be less expensive than treating this disease. On the basis of data from the United States, there are several reasons why inhaled pentamidine is unlikely to reduce costs in this country. First, its cost is $100 to $129 per 300-mg vial (the lowest wholesale cost to the hospital), four times the cost in Europe.2,3 In addition, according to data from the Multi-center AIDS. © 1991, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.
Compliance Committees and Recent Multilateral Environmental Agreements: The Canadian Experience with Their Negotiation and Operation
In order to enhance and encourage compliance with obligations in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), states have agreed to the creation of compliance committees for all of the recent MEAs. Canada has been a strong supporter of the compliance committee experiment and an active participant in the negotiation and operation of numerous MEA compliance committees. This article does three things. First, it examines the international legal nature of the MEA compliance committees. Second, the key issues of the structure of the committees are explored. Finally, the article look at the development and operation of compliance committees pursuant to: the Montreal Protocol; the LRTAP Convention; the Espoo Convention; the Basel Convention; the Cartagena Protocol; the Rotterdam Convention; the Stockholm Convention; and the Protocol to the London Dumping Convention.
Online cognitive monitoring technology for people with Parkinson's disease and REM sleep behavioural disorder.
Automated online cognitive assessments are set to revolutionise clinical research and healthcare. However, their applicability for Parkinson's Disease (PD) and REM Sleep Behavioural Disorder (RBD), a strong PD precursor, is underexplored. Here, we developed an online battery to measure early cognitive changes in PD and RBD. Evaluating 19 candidate tasks showed significant global accuracy deficits in PD (0.65 SD, p = 0.003) and RBD (0.45 SD, p = 0.027), driven by memory, language, attention and executive underperformance, and global reaction time deficits in PD (0.61 SD, p = 0.001). We identified a brief 20-min battery that had sensitivity to deficits across these cognitive domains while being robust to the device used. This battery was more sensitive to early-stage and prodromal deficits than the supervised neuropsychological scales. It also diverged from those scales, capturing additional cognitive factors sensitive to PD and RBD. This technology offers an economical and scalable method for assessing these populations that can complement standard supervised practices.
LGI1-antibody encephalitis: how to approach this highly treatable dementia mimic in memory and mental health services.
Leucine-rich glioma-inactivated 1-antibody-encephalitis is a treatable and potentially reversible cause of cognitive and psychiatric presentations, and may mimic cognitive decline, rapidly progressive dementia and complex psychosis in older patients. This aetiology is of immediate relevance given the alternative treatment pathway required, compared with other conditions presenting with cognitive deficits.
Comparing the Oxford Digital Multiple Errands Test (OxMET) to a real-life version: Convergence, feasibility, and acceptability.
We aimed to assess the convergence, feasibility, and acceptability of the Oxford Digital Multiple Errands Test (OxMET) and the in-person Multiple Errands Test-Home version (MET-Home). Participants completed OxMET, MET-Home, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), and questionnaires on activities of daily living, depression, technology usage, mobility, and disability. Forty-eight stroke survivors (mean age 69.61, 41.67% female, and average 16.5 months post-stroke) and 50 controls (mean age 71.46, 56.00% female) took part. No performance differences were found for healthy and stroke participants for MET-Home, and only found below p = .05 for OxMET but not below the corrected p = .006. Convergent validity was found between MET-Home and OxMET metrics (most r ≥ .30, p
Give it a second try? The influence of feedback and performance in the decision of reattempting.
Feedback evaluation can affect behavioural continuation or discontinuation, and is essential for cognitive and motor skill learning. One critical factor that influences feedback evaluation is participants' internal estimation of self-performance. Previous research has shown that two event-related potential components, the Feedback-Related Negativity (FRN) and the P3, are related to feedback evaluation. In the present study, we used a time estimation task and EEG recordings to test the influence of feedback and performance on participants' decisions, and the sensitivity of the FRN and P3 components to those factors. In the experiment, participants were asked to reproduce the total duration of an intermittently presented visual stimulus. Feedback was given after every response, and participants had then to decide whether to retry the same trial and try to earn reward points, or to move on to the next trial. Results showed that both performance and feedback influenced participants' decision on whether to retry the ongoing trial. In line with previous studies, the FRN showed larger amplitude in response to negative than to positive feedback. Moreover, our results were also in agreement with previous works showing the relationship between the amplitude of the FRN and the size of feedback-related prediction error (PE), and provide further insight in how PE size influences participants' decisions on whether or not to retry a task. Specifically, we found that the larger the FRN, the more likely participants were to base their decision on their performance - choosing to retry the current trial after good performance or to move on to the next trial after poor performance, regardless of the feedback received. Conversely, the smaller the FRN, the more likely participants were to base their decision on the feedback received.
Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation.
The spread of misinformation through media and social networks threatens many aspects of society, including public health and the state of democracies. One approach to mitigating the effect of misinformation focuses on individual-level interventions, equipping policymakers and the public with essential tools to curb the spread and influence of falsehoods. Here we introduce a toolbox of individual-level interventions for reducing harm from online misinformation. Comprising an up-to-date account of interventions featured in 81 scientific papers from across the globe, the toolbox provides both a conceptual overview of nine main types of interventions, including their target, scope and examples, and a summary of the empirical evidence supporting the interventions, including the methods and experimental paradigms used to test them. The nine types of interventions covered are accuracy prompts, debunking and rebuttals, friction, inoculation, lateral reading and verification strategies, media-literacy tips, social norms, source-credibility labels, and warning and fact-checking labels.
Behavioral Analysis of NMDAR Function in Rodents: Tests of Long-Term Spatial Memory.
NMDAR-dependent forms of synaptic plasticity in brain regions like the hippocampus are widely believed to provide the neural substrate for long-term associative memory formation. However, the experimental data are equivocal at best and may suggest a more nuanced role for NMDARs and synaptic plasticity in memory. Much of the experimental data available comes from studies in genetically modified mice in which NMDAR subunits have been deleted or mutated in order to disrupt NMDAR function. Behavioral assessment of long-term memory in these mice has involved tests like the Morris watermaze and the radial arm maze. Here we describe these behavioral tests and some of the different testing protocols that can be used to assess memory performance. We discuss the importance of distinguishing selective effects on learning and memory processes from nonspecific effects on sensorimotor or motivational aspects of performance.
The association between anxiety and cardiac interoceptive accuracy: A systematic review and meta-analysis.
Anxiety is often conceptualised as the prototypical disorder of interoception (one's perception of bodily states). Whilst theoretical models predict an association between interoceptive accuracy and anxiety, empirical work has produced mixed results. This manuscript presents a pre-registered systematic review (https://osf.io/2h5xz) and meta-analysis of 55 studies, obtained via a Pubmed search on 9th November 2020, examining the relationship between state and trait anxiety and objectively measured cardiac interoceptive accuracy as assessed by heartbeat counting and discrimination tasks. Potential moderators of this relationship - the age, gender and clinical diagnoses of participants, the anxiety measures used and the study design - were also explored. Overall, we found no evidence for an association between cardiac interoceptive accuracy and anxiety, with none of the factors examined moderating this finding. We discuss the implications these findings have for future research, with a particular focus on the need for further investigation of the relationship between anxiety and other facets of interoception.
Feelings of worthlessness links depressive symptoms and parental stress: A network analysis during the COVID-19 pandemic
Abstract Background The prevalent co-occurrence between parental stress and depression has been established prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. However, no studies to date have identified the connections through which these symptom domains interact with each other to emerge into a complex and detrimental mental health state, along with the plausible mechanistic variables that may play key roles in maintaining parental stress and depression. The aim of this research is to uncover these interactions in a period where parents experience heightened demands and stress because of the strict social distancing protocols. Methods Network analysis is utilized to examine parental stress and depressive symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic in a large cross-sectional study (N = 2,868) of parents. Two graphical Gaussian graphical network models were estimated, one in which only parental stress and depression symptoms were included, and another in which several mechanistic variables were added. Results Expected influence and bridge expected influence revealed that feeling worthless was the most influential node in the symptoms network and bridged the two psychological states. Among the mechanistic variables, worry and rumination was specifically relevant in the depressive cluster of symptoms, and self-criticism was connected to both constructs. Conclusion The study displays that the co-occurrence of parental stress and depression has specific pathways, was manifested through feelings of worthlessness, and has specific patterns of connection to important mechanisms of psychopathology. The results are of utility when aiming to avoid the constellation of co-occurring parental stress and depressive symptoms during the pandemic.
Mechanisms associated with the trajectory of depressive and anxiety symptoms: A linear mixed-effects model during the COVID-19 Pandemic
AbstractWith the fluctuations in anxious and depressive symptomatology accompanied by the pandemic crises, studies on the trajectories of these symptom domains are warranted to monitor the development of mental health problems in the population. This pre-registered longitudinal study examines stable factors and mechanistic processes covarying with the trajectory of anxiety and depressive symptoms using linear-mixed effects models in 4936 adults from the pandemic’s onset to four months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Norway. Prevalence estimates of moderate to severe levels of clinically impairing symptoms of anxiety and depression revealed high but reduced occurrence four months into the pandemic where social distancing protocols were substantially lightened in severity, revealing associations between symptoms and viral mitigation protocols after stringent control of plausible confounders. Subgroups at risk at the onset of the pandemic sustained their relative position compared to their counterparts four months into the pandemic, indicating prolonged suffering of these subgroups. Among mechanistic processes, key differences were identified regarding the trajectory of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Physical exercise was associated with long-term but not momentaneous alleviations in anxiety. In contrast, reductions in depressive symptoms were associated with both the simultaneous exertion as well as dose-increases in exercise over time. Increased knowledge about how to best cope with pandemic challenges was associated with greater improvement in depressive but not anxiety symptoms. Reductions in maladaptive coping strategies and negative metacognitive beliefs was substantially associated with greater improvement of both anxious and depressive symptomatology. Mechanistic processes divergently relate to the trajectory of depressive and anxious symptomatology, yielding domain-specific information of utility for preventive and interventive efforts aimed at impeding deleterious symptom levels.
Parental burnout during the COVID‐19 pandemic
AbstractIncreased and long‐term parental stress related to one's parental role can lead to parental burnout. In the early phase of the COVID‐19 pandemic, families experienced intensified pressure due to the government‐initiated contact restrictions applied to prevent the spread of the virus in the population. This study investigates the risk factors and predictors of parental burnout in a large sample of parents (N = 1488) during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Norway. Demographic and psychosocial factors were assessed at two timepoints: at the beginning of the pandemic outbreak in March 2020 (T1) and at 3 months follow‐up (T2). A hierarchical regression analysis was applied to identify the factors that contribute to parental burnout at T2. Parental burnout was additionally explored across subgroups. Findings revealed that younger age was associated with more parental burnout. Concurrent (T2) use of unhelpful coping strategies, insomnia symptoms, parental stress, and less parental satisfaction was significantly associated with the presence of greater parental burnout (T2). Additionally, parental stress and satisfaction measured in the earliest phase of the pandemic (T1) were associated with parental burnout 3 months later (T2) over and above concurrent parental stress/satisfaction. Unemployed parents and individuals with a mental health condition were identified as subgroups with substantially heightened levels of parental burnout.