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PubMed1994

Consistency of children's hemodynamic responses to laboratory stressors.

Hemodynamic responses to three standard laboratory stressors (i.e., postural change, video game, forehead cold) were evaluated in 341 children (170 males) who had a mean age of 11.2 +/- 2.6 years. Inter-task consistency was evaluated for five physiological parameters for all stressor pairings. Evidence of consistency in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, cardiac output, and total peripheral resistance responses to all three stressors was observed. The highest and most consistent correlations across stressors were observed for cardiac output and total peripheral resistance responses. The need for clarification in the categorization of laboratory stressors used to measure reactivity is discussed.

Blood Pressure↗
PubMed1995

Cynical hostility influences anger, but not cardiovascular reactivity during competition with harassment.

Cynical hostility has been linked to coronary heart disease (CHD), and there is mixed support for the hypothesis that cynical hostility may contribute to CHD through exaggerated cardiovascular responses to anger-provoking stressors. The present study tested the influences of cynical hostility on affective and cardiovascular responses to provocation in 68 undergraduate men. Subjects were divided into high and low cynical hostility groups by a median split on Cook-Medley Hostility Scale scores, and half of the subjects in each group were harassed during competition on a video game. High hostile subjects reported greater anger than low hostile subjects during the competition, independently of harassment, and harassment produced stronger feelings of mistreatment, independently of hostility. Harassed subjects experienced larger systolic blood pressure responses only during an affect rating period after the competition, but the responses were not influenced by hostility. These findings provide further evidence that cynical hostility, anger, and cardiovascular reactivity are not simply nor consistently related.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Hemispheric consequences of success-related emotional states: roles of arousal and attention.

Three experiments employed a video game technique to investigate the influence of success-related emotional states on the detection of lateralized visual targets. Emotion was manipulated by means of success and failure feedback, while central and peripheral pretarget cues were used to assess arousal and attentional processes. Under neutral conditions involving no feedback, subjects showed a right visual field (RVF) advantage along with a phasic alerting effect (i.e., reaction times were faster to targets following cues at intermediate stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs]. When emotional value was added to the task, the RVF advantage increased following failure and decreased following success feedback. This effect peaked at intermediate SOAs, corresponding with the buildup of phasic arousal initiated by the cues. It was not influenced by the location of the pretarget cues, suggesting that attentional processes are not directly involved. These results are discussed in terms of recent models of hemispheric functioning during positive and negative emotional states.

Achievement↗
PubMed1988

The video invasion of rehabilitation.

Motivating burned children to participate actively in rehabilitation at the burn unit demands many creative ideas. To avoid resistance from the child towards the exercises, it is important to offer a variety of techniques. A new play technique is outlined here, based on the use of video games, that is capable of motivating and stimulating children of all ages--even the youngest--towards active participation in rehabilitation.

Burns↗
PubMed1996

Estradiol, progesterone and cardiovascular response to stress.

The present study examined the relationship between endogenous estradiol and progesterone levels and cardiovascular activity at rest and during stress in healthy young women. Subjects were tested in both the follicular and luteal phases of the menstrual cycle. Results indicated that, during the luteal phase, higher levels of estradiol were associated with lower levels of cardiac output responses to the combined video game and speech tasks, and lower levels of heart rate and systolic blood pressure responses to the cold pressor; estradiol levels were also associated positively with PEP responses to the cold pressor but only under high levels of progesterone. Additionally, during the luteal phase, higher levels of progesterone were associated with higher TPR and lower stroke volume responses to the cold pressor. In contrast, during the follicular phase, higher levels of progesterone were associated with lower vascular resistance responses to the cold pressor. Consistent with data from studies using exogenous estrogens, these results suggest that estradiol may contribute to a lowering of cardiovascular responses to stress.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Is there a general tendency to become addicted?

The tendency to become addicted across a number of different substances or activities was determined for a sample of 573 subjects, including college students and their parents. Four components of addiction were defined: craving, tolerance, withdrawal and lack of control. Subjects rated the extent to which each of these components characterized their relationships to each of ten substance/activities: coffee, tea, cola beverages, favorite alcoholic beverage, chocolate, nonchocolate sweets, hot chili pepper on food, cigarettes, gambling and video games. An "addiction score" was computed for each subject and each substance/activity, by summing the scores on the four components. Correlations in addiction scores for almost all activities were positive, but low (between 0 and .30), with the exception of chocolate and nonchocolate sweets, where the correlation was higher. The results suggest, at best, a weak tendency to become addicted, across a wide range of substances or activities. Other explanations for the low positive correlations are available, besides the notion of a general tendency to become addicted. There were a few significant mother-father correlations in various addiction scores, but none between mid-parent and child values. Three of the four components of addiction (craving, lack of control and withdrawal), were highly correlated. We conclude that there is little basis for the assumption of a general tendency to become addicted, a conclusion which casts doubt on the derivative notion of an addictive personality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1994

Computerized respiratory muscle training in children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

The present study describes the use of simple video games for a 5-week regimen of respiratory muscle training in 15 patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) at various stages of the disease. The games were re-arranged to be operated and driven by the respiratory efforts of the patient and to incorporate accurate ventilation and time measurements. Improvement in respiratory performance was determined by maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV), maximal achieved ventilation (VEmax) during a progressive isocapnic hyperventilation manoeuvre (PIHV) and the PIHV duration. The actual training period was 23 +/- 4 days (mean +/- S.D.) at ventilatory effort of 46 +/- 6% MVV, for 10 +/- 3 min day-1. Patients with moderate impairment of lung function tests (LFT) showed an improvement in MVV, VEmax, and duration of PIHV of 12 +/- 7% (p < 0.02), 53 +/- 25% (p < 0.001) 57 +/- 21% (p < 0.01), respectively. Improvements correlated with actual training time and ventilation level, %MVV, but negatively correlated with years of immobilization and with the initial MVV. We conclude that computerized respiratory games may be applied for breathing exercises and may improve respiratory performance in recently immobilized children with DMD who have moderate impairment of LFT.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Relationship of body composition to stress-induced pressure natriuresis in youth.

BACKGROUND: The contribution of stress to obesity-related cardiovascular disease is uncertain. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of body composition on stress-induced pressure natriuresis. METHODS: Dual energy x-ray absorptiometry was performed in 127 African American and white youths to assess lean body mass (LBM), fat mass (FM), and total percentage of body fat (%BF). The stress protocol was comprised of a 2-h baseline period, 1-h video game competition stressor, and 2-h recovery period. Blood and urine samples were collected hourly and blood pressure (BP) was obtained at 15-min intervals. RESULTS: Both BP and urinary sodium excretion(U(Na)V) increased from baseline to stress and returned to prestress levels after stress (P = .001 for each). The BP levels and changes were positively correlated with LBM. In contrast, levels and changes in sodium excretion U(Na)V were inversely correlated with FM and %BM. Multiple regression analyses that included ethnicity, sex, angiotensin II (Ang II), and measures of body composition in the models indicated the following: a) LBM was the best predictor of stress systolic BP and independently contributed with ethnicity to stress diastolic BP; b) ethnicity was the only independent predictor of the stress-related change in systolic and diastolic BP; c) LBM was the only independent predictor of the change in BP from stress to recovery for both systolic and diastolic BP; and d) total percent body fat accounted for 11.2% of the variance of stress U(Na)V, with Ang II contributing an additional 6.1%. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the results of this study, ethnicity and body composition are related to stress-induced pressure natriuresis.

Absorptiometry, Photon↗
PubMed2005

Media literacy for clinicians and parents.

Families and children are in the midst of a media revolution. Television, Internet access, instant messaging, cell phones, and interactive video games are delivering more information for more hours than ever in history. Exposure is occurring at younger and younger ages, often without parental oversight or interpretation. The impact on children is just beginning to be studied. Does media exposure prepare children for the world in which they live or deprive them of critical developmental opportunities? Does the steady display of violence contribute to violent behavior? This article presents a developmental context, discusses the research conducted to date, reviews the recommendations of major organizations, and tries to take a balanced perspective in the midst of a rising tide of media, technology, commercialism, and controversy.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2026

Context-dependent abstraction of temporal relationships during naturalistic episodic memory.

How does the human brain represent how far apart in time two remembered moments occurred? Healthy adults played a first-person interactive video game and subsequently judged the temporal order of pairs of event moments during functional MRI. Using representational similarity analysis, we identified a distributed multivoxel activity pattern in the precuneus and surrounding posterior medial cortex whose representational geometry tracked retrieved temporal-distance magnitude across intervals ranging from less than 1 s to approximately 18 min. This representation could not be explained by perceptual similarity, situational change, or task difficulty, and was stronger for events sharing a common episodic context. Applying inhibitory brain stimulation to the precuneus before retrieval attenuated this representational pattern while leaving overall BOLD activity levels unchanged. These findings suggest that the precuneus contributes to organizing temporal relationships among remembered events, representing temporal distance within structured episodic contexts rather than as a simple metric of elapsed time.

autobiographical memory↗
PubMed2005

Family environment and pediatric overweight: what is a parent to do?

Although the causes of pediatric overweight are many and the levels of intervention required to prevent overweight in children extend from the child's immediate environment to the larger societal level, one critical intervention target is the parent. Scientific evidence points to specific dietary and physical activity/inactivity behaviors that families can adopt to encourage healthful weight status. Dietary recommendations include providing children with ample access to nutrient-dense foods and beverages and high-fiber foods, both at meals and snack times, reducing children's access to high-calorie, nutrient-poor beverages and foods both when eating at home and at restaurants, avoiding excessive food restriction or use of food as a reward, and encouraging children to eat breakfast on a daily basis. Physical activity recommendations include providing opportunities and encouragement for children to be physically active while reducing children's television and video game time. Parental modeling of healthful eating and physical activity practices is recommended to reinforce these patterns in youth. Dietetics professionals, physicians, and other health care professionals can assist parents in their efforts to prevent pediatric overweight by providing information and supporting these key behaviors, while working to create environments that support healthful lifestyle changes.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The human brain's algorithm for extrapolating motion, and its possible gender-dependence.

Some athletes accomplish feats requiring a timing accuracy 100 times better than their reaction time. This capability implies that the brain can accurately extrapolate the motion of objects. We hypothesize that the brain uses a simple algorithm to accomplish this extrapolation, and that the algorithm is influenced by the subject's gender and recent observations of motion. We describe an experiment in timing the motion of a dot across a computer screen designed to discover the motion extrapolation algorithm. Different types of motion of the dot were studied. The experiment was conducted with 126 college students (two-thirds female), who each performed 1000 trials. By using as many as 126,000 trials, the random noise inherent in individual trials averages out, allowing the underlying algorithm to be revealed. The results show that motion extrapolation is done using the average velocity of a moving object with no correction for changes in velocity during the motion, but with an ad hoc adjustment based on recently observed motions and on gender-males having on average a smaller error than females. A future controlled experiment will be needed to establish whether the observed gender difference is due to the greater experience of males with such related tasks as video games and sports.

Algorithms↗
PubMed2005

Doing the right thing: a common neural circuit for appropriate violent or compassionate behavior.

Humans have a considerable facility to adapt their behavior in a manner that is appropriate to social or societal context. A failure of this ability can lead to social exclusion and is a feature of disorders such as psychopathy and disruptive behavior disorder. We investigated the neural basis of this ability using a customized video game played by 12 healthy participants in an fMRI scanner. Two conditions involved extreme examples of context-appropriate action: shooting an aggressive humanoid assailant or healing a passive wounded person. Two control conditions involved carefully matched stimuli paired with inappropriate actions: shooting the person or healing the assailant. Surprisingly, the same circuit, including the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, was activated when participants acted in a context-appropriate manner, whether being compassionate towards an injured conspecific or aggressive towards a violent assailant. The findings indicate a common system that guides behavioral expression appropriate to social or societal context irrespective of its aggressive or compassionate nature.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Psychomotor testing predicts rate of skill acquisition for proficiency-based laparoscopic skills training.

BACKGROUND: Laparoscopic simulator training translates into improved operative performance. Proficiency-based curricula maximize efficiency by tailoring training to meet the needs of each individual; however, because rates of skill acquisition vary widely, such curricula may be difficult to implement. We hypothesized that psychomotor testing would predict baseline performance and training duration in a proficiency-based laparoscopic simulator curriculum. METHODS: Residents (R1, n = 20) were enrolled in an IRB-approved prospective study at the beginning of the academic year. All completed the following: a background information survey, a battery of 12 innate ability measures (5 motor, and 7 visual-spatial), and baseline testing on 3 validated simulators (5 videotrainer [VT] tasks, 12 virtual reality [minimally invasive surgical trainer-virtual reality, MIST-VR] tasks, and 2 laparoscopic camera navigation [LCN] tasks). Participants trained to proficiency, and training duration and number of repetitions were recorded. Baseline test scores were correlated to skill acquisition rate. Cutoff scores for each predictive test were calculated based on a receiver operator curve, and their sensitivity and specificity were determined in identifying slow learners. RESULTS: Only the Cards Rotation test correlated with baseline simulator ability on VT and LCN. Curriculum implementation required 347 man-hours (6-person team) and 795,000 dollars of capital equipment. With an attendance rate of 75%, 19 of 20 residents (95%) completed the curriculum by the end of the academic year. To complete training, a median of 12 hours (range, 5.5-21), and 325 repetitions (range, 171-782) were required. Simulator score improvement was 50%. Training duration and repetitions correlated with prior video game and billiard exposure, grooved pegboard, finger tap, map planning, Rey Figure Immediate Recall score, and baseline performance on VT and LCN. The map planning cutoff score proved most specific in identifying slow learners. CONCLUSIONS: Proficiency-based laparoscopic simulator training provides improvement in performance and can be effectively implemented as a routine part of resident education, but may require significant resources. Although psychomotor testing may be of limited value in the prediction of baseline laparoscopic performance, its importance may lie in the prediction of the rapidity of skill acquisition. These tests may be useful in optimizing curricular design by allowing the tailoring of training to individual needs.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Tracking multiple targets with multifocal attention.

Attention allows us to monitor objects or regions of visual space and select information from them for report or storage. Classical theories of attention assumed a single focus of selection but many everyday activities, such as video games, navigating busy intersections, or watching over children at a swimming pool, require attention to multiple regions of interest. Laboratory tracking tasks have indeed demonstrated the ability to track four or more targets simultaneously. Although the mechanisms by which attention maintains contact with several targets are not yet established, recent studies have identified several characteristics of the tracking process, including properties defining a 'trackable' target, the maximum number of targets that can be tracked, and the hemifield independence of the tracking process. This research also has implications for computer vision, where there is a growing demand for multiple-object tracking.

Attention↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Symptom variations in ADHD: importance of context, development and comorbidity].

Attention-deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) is a common disorder in school-aged children and is associated with significant impairment in social and academic functioning. Its recognition is based on congruent information from different sources, because most ADHD children and adolescents are not completely aware of impairments caused by inattention and/or hyperactivity/impulsivity. Fluctuations in symptom expression may complicate the diagnosis: during clinical examination or tests sessions, ADHD symptoms may be less severe than usual or completely absent. This review examines variations in ADHD symptoms due to environmental context, internal state, circadian factors, development, psychiatric comorbidity and discusses their clinical relevance. Generally, ADHD symptoms are pervasive and identified in different areas of functioning. Despite their chronicity, they show a relative context-dependency. An unfamiliar environment or situation may lessen symptoms. The same happens in dual relations or in calm settings, when the child receives attention and positive reinforcement from the adult. On the contrary, the classroom situation with its high stimulation level (noise, visual distractors, large class size) is likely to reveal or accentuate instability, impulsivity and inattention. Independently from objective symptom fluctuations, the impact of ADHD symptoms, and their consequences on self-esteem may also vary with the degree of environmental mismatch. Recent research in experimental psychology also draws attention to the motivational state of ADHD children: preference for immediate gratification and delay aversion may explain why most of them show satisfactory attentional capacities in certain activities (for instance video games or TV), while showing impairment in school work or in other effortful tasks. The diagnosis of the full ADHD syndrome requires significant impact on functioning in at least two areas. Some children with "situational" ADHD are impaired either in school setting or exclusively at home. Manuzza et al. report long-term outcome of "situational" versus "pervasive" ADHD. School-ADHD, in opposition to home-ADHD shows similarities with the full blown syndrome, as regards proportion of anti-social personality disorder, psycho-social functioning and academic/professional achievements. Moderate seasonal variations have also been identified with less ADHD symptoms in August. This result is likely to reflect a better fit between individual characteristics and environmental demands during school holidays rather than neurobiological changes, as there are no convincing arguments for seasonal fluctuations of serotoninergic tone in ADHD. Another cause for variations in ADHD symptom expression may be the co-occurrence of a mood disorder. Relationships between early-onset mania and ADHD are discussed. The appropriate definition of prepubertal mania is still in debate; its recognition is hindered by symptom overlap and high level of comorbid conditions. Chronic emotional dysregulation with irritability and frequent temper tantrums, sometimes viewed as characteristics of early-onset mania, might reflect a--possibly severe--sub-type of ADHD rather than a prodrome of bipolarity. A marked cyclicity of symptoms, with periodic accentuation of ADHD and mood symptoms, requires careful monitoring and systematic analysis of comorbid conditions. Clarification of the complex interrelations between ADHD and bipolar disorder will be obtained from long-term studies.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed1998

Predictors of future ambulatory blood pressure in youth.

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to determine the predictors of future ambulatory blood pressure in normotensive youths with family histories of essential hypertension. STUDY DESIGN: Eighty-eight healthy youths (mean age 10.9 +/- 2.5 years; 52 blacks, 36 whites; 45 boys) were studied. During an initial visit anthropometric variables and hemodynamics were measured at rest and before, during, and after three laboratory stressors: postural change, forehead cold, and video game challenge. The subjects' ambulatory blood pressure was monitored for 24 hours as part of a follow-up evaluation an average of 2.5 years later. RESULTS: Anthropometric and demographic variables and measures of reactivity to laboratory stressors were related to future daytime and nighttime ambulatory blood pressure. CONCLUSION: These findings provide important information on the predictors of ambulatory blood pressure and underscore the importance of resting blood pressure and adiposity. These results support the guidelines of the Second Task Force, which recommend the measurement of blood pressure and adiposity in the context of ongoing health care.

Blood Pressure↗
PubMed1997

Food neophobia in humans: effects of manipulated arousal and individual differences in sensation seeking.

The study examined the effects of manipulated arousal and the trait of Sensation Seeking on willingness to taste novel foods (as assessed by means of a choice task). Arousal was manipulated by having subjects play an exciting, neutral, or boring video game. In line with predictions from optimal level of arousal theories, subjects chose more novel foods when manipulated arousal was low (vs. neutral) and fewer novel foods when manipulated arousal was high (vs. neutral). There was no main effect of individual differences in optimal level of arousal as assessed by the Sensation Seeking Scale; however, an interaction between the two independent variables revealed high-sensation seekers to try more novel foods than lows under conditions of low arousal.

Adolescent↗