Current Issue : July - September Volume : 2012 Issue Number : 3 Articles : 4 Articles
Background: Anxiety is relatively common in depression and capable of modifying the severity and course of\r\ndepression. Yet our understanding of how anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in depression is limited.\r\nMethods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging and two emotional information processing tasks to\r\nexamine frontal and limbic activation in ten patients with major depression and comorbid with preceding\r\ngeneralized anxiety (MDD/GAD) and ten non-depressed controls.\r\nResults: Consistent with prior studies on depression, MDD/GAD patients showed hypoactivation in medial and\r\nmiddle frontal regions, as well as in the anterior cingulate, cingulate and insula. However, heightened anxiety in\r\nMDD/GAD patients was associated with increased activation in middle frontal regions and the insula and the\r\neffects varied with the type of emotional information presented.\r\nConclusions: Our findings highlight frontal and limbic hypoactivation in patients with depression and comorbid\r\nanxiety and indicate that anxiety level may modulate frontal and limbic activation depending upon the emotional\r\ncontext. One implication of this finding is that divergent findings reported in the imaging literature on depression\r\ncould reflect modulation of activation by anxiety level in response to different types of emotional information....
The latency of startle reflex potentiation may shed light on the aware and\r\nunaware processes underlying associative learning, especially associative fear learning. We\r\nreview research suggesting that single-cue delay classical conditioning is independent of\r\nawareness of the contingency between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the\r\nunconditioned stimulus (US). Moreover, we discuss research that argues that conditioning\r\nindependent of awareness has not been proven. Subsequently, three studies from our lab\r\nare presented that have investigated the role of awareness in classical conditioning, by\r\nmeasuring the minimum latency from CS onset to observed changes in reflexive behavior.\r\nIn sum, research using this method shows that startle is potentiated 30 to 100 ms after CS\r\nonset following delay conditioning. Following trace fear conditioning, startle is potentiated\r\n1500 ms after CS presentation. These results indicate that the process underlying delay\r\nconditioned responding is independent of awareness, and that trace fear conditioned\r\nresponding is dependent on awareness. Finally, this method of investigating the role of\r\nawareness is discussed and future research possibilities are proposed....
Intracranial metastasis of neuroblastoma (IMN) is associated with poor survival. No curative therapy for the treatment of IMN\r\ncurrently exists. Unfractionated radiotherapy may be beneficial in the treatment of IMN given the known radiosensitivity of\r\nneuroblastoma as well as its proclivity to metastasize as discrete lesions. We present two patients with IMN treated with Gamma\r\nKnife stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS). Single-fraction radiotherapy yielded temporary reduction of tumor burden and stability of\r\ndisease in both patients. SRS may be a useful palliative tool in the treatment of IMN and expands the overall treatment options for\r\nthis disease....
According to the bottom-up theory of attention, unconscious abrupt onsets are\r\nhighly salient and capture attention via the Superior Colliculi (SC). Crucially, abrupt onsets\r\nincrease the perceived contrast. In line with the SC hypothesis, unconscious abrupt-onset\r\ncues capture attention regardless of the cue color when participants search for abrupt-onset\r\ntargets (Experiment 1). Also, stronger cueing effects occur for higher than lower contrast\r\ncues (Experiment 2) and for temporally, rather than nasally, presented stimuli\r\n(Experiment 3). However, in line with the known color-insensitivity of the SC, the SC\r\npathway is shunted and unconscious abrupt-onset cues no longer capture attention when\r\nthe participants have to search for color-defined targets (Experiment 4) or color-singleton\r\ntargets (Experiment 5). When using color change cues instead of abrupt-onset cues, the\r\ncueing effect also vanishes (Experiment 6). Together the results support the assumption\r\nthat unconscious cues can capture attention in different ways, depending on the exact task\r\nof the participants, but that one way is attentional capture via the SC. The present findings\r\nalso offer a reconciliation of conflicting results in the domain of unconscious attention....
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