Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J E Mekarski.
Diagnosis of a serious somatic condition may precipitate a seven stage coping process: shock, denial, procrastination, bargaining, depression, anger and adaptation. Psychometric/ statistical methods for operationalizing the stages are suggested. 1999 Elsevier, Paris.
Lymphatics, a third component of the circulation, may be deranged by the same factors as veins and arteries. Malfunctioning through overload or dyscrasia, they may foster high blood pressure. It is hypothesized that essential hypertension is caused by lymphatic system aberrations.
An Anxiety Rating scale was given to 130 parents who assessed their children's anticipatory fear of dentistry. These ratings were related to a Treatment Disruptiveness scale completed by a paedodontist immediately after treatment. Internal consistencies (alpha) of both were > .80. Scores on the two scales were significantly correlated, and results were replicated with a new sample of 194 children. Scores on both scales were significantly correlated with suppression of play activity scores and with severity of dental work. Younger children were more disruptive during treatment than older ones. Preliminary convergent validation suggests that with further development, the parents' Anxiety Rating and play suppression might prove useful in predicting children's anxiety.
An assertion was made that "There are no sex differences in Stroop interference" (MacLeod, 1991, p. 203) in spite of some evidence to the contrary (e.g., Sarmany, 1977). To resolve the discrepancy, this study examined the nature of gender differences in the context of other variables. 6 men and 8 women were tested, using response speed and errors made as dependent measures. Independent variables were gender, perceptual input (Stroop) task, congruency of stimuli, manual response output, and trial block. Contrary to MacLeod, men were consistently slower than women over trial blocks by some 46 msec., although their error rates did not differ significantly. Response output interacted with gender, with Stroop task, and with trial block. Congruent stimuli were processed faster than incongruent ones. Differences may be ascribed to greater verbal and fine motor abilities of women and greater spatial ability of men.
This work examined four independent variables which influence behavior of self-stimulating rats: site of electrode placement (cingulate cortex versus lateral hypothalamus), type of operant response (lever press versus nose poke), current intensity (50, 100, 150 microA) and pimozide dosage (0.125, 0.250, 0.500 mg/kg). The dependent measures were: total responding, alternation between two identical manipulanda and mean duration per response. Naive rats made more nose pokes than lever presses, suggesting nose pokes are more "prepared." The cingulate cortex was insensitive to current and pimozide manipulations in contrast with hypothalamic sensitivity, tentatively suggesting a cingulate role in release of prepared behaviors, hypothalamic in plasticity of learned ones. Lever pressing, more prevalent with lateral hypothalamic stimulation, was more affected by current and pimozide manipulations than nose poking. More prepared nose pokes might thus be less susceptible to brain stimulation reward manipulations. Intensifying current produced more but shorter responses, increasing pimozide dosage produced fewer and nonsignificantly longer ones, suggesting a primary effect on motor performance not reward. Decrements in performance over nondrug days were tentatively attributed to long-lasting effects of pimozide.