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At least 559 records · Page 31Linked to original sources
PubMed2005

Genomic scan for alcohol craving in Mission Indians.

Alcohol dependence is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in Native Americans, yet etiologic factors contributing to the disorder remain obscure. Complex psychiatric disorders may be influenced by a number of genes that may be difficult to detect because each has a small effect on a disorder that is broadly defined within a social context. However, such genes might be detected if they have a major effect on a more narrowly defined phenotype. Underlying alcohol dependence are appetitive drive states or instincts that lead to drug 'craving', contribute to compulsive drug usage, and influence relapse following abstinence. A whole genome scan in Mission Indian families provides evidence for genetic linkage to 'craving for alcohol' on chromosome 5. Identification of genes contributing to alcohol craving may give clues to the etiology of the disorder and also provide targets for the development of new medications to treat alcohol dependence.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Mentoring during residency education: a unique challenge for the surgeon?

A mentor serves as role model, counselor, and advocate for an understudy or protégé. The art and science of mentoring have been investigated most thoroughly in the educational literature, yet there are unique situational and individual considerations in the surgical arena that may warrant special consideration. The general attributes of successful mentors are not foreign to academic surgeons but may require deliberate cultivation to optimize mentorship in the context of academic medicine. Moreover, the stages of productive mentoring may be counter to the learned adaptive behaviors and instinctive personality traits of some accomplished surgeon educators. Indeed, examples of failed mentorship are common in our medical centers and, specifically, in surgical training programs. The behavioral adaptation that supports surgical decision-making under conditions of incomplete data and unusual stress often devalues succession planning and derivation of satisfaction from the success of other members of the team. Accordingly, fostering effective mentoring relationships in academic surgery will require a concerted effort to develop appropriate behaviors conducive to the mentoring process. The personal and professional growth of our students as well as the succession planning for our specialty are dependent upon the successful creation of an environment conducive to mentoring in academic orthopaedics.

Burnout, Professional↗
PubMed2002

Nuptial gifts of male spiders function as sensory traps.

While nuptial food gifts come in various forms in arthropods, their evolutionary origins are unclear. A previous study on insects has shown that such gifts may arise as a sensory trap that exploits a female's underlying motivation to feed. Here I present independent evidence of a sensory trap in spiders. In certain visually oriented spiders, I suggest that males initially exploit the maternal care instinct by producing a nuptial gift that closely resembles the female egg sac. Males of the spider Pisaura mirabilis cover their prey gift with a silk layer, transforming it into a white round object. In a laboratory experiment I tested whether the colour of the gift affected the rate that females accepted males displaying their gifts. I found that the brighter and the more alike the nuptial gift to a female's egg sac, the faster the female responded by grabbing the gift. My results support the hypothesis that the nuptial gift in P. mirabilis works as a sensory trap.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

How the mind understands other minds: cognitive psychology, attachment and reflective function.

Jung's epistemological relativistic attitude was very advanced for his time and very much in line with the contemporary philosophy of science. Further, Jung states that the patient's unconscious has the capacity to represent itself by creating metaphors which give the therapist all the help he might need in treating his patient. As such, Jungian analysts have not been encouraged to embark on theoretical work and as a result, the Jungian movement has been lacking those theories that connect general psychological principles with clinical practices. In an attempt to enlarge our 'middle-range theories', we shall discuss Peter Fonagy's concept of reflective function. In our opinion, the theoretical hypothesis regarding the instinct of reading the mind (Baron-Cohen 1995) and Fonagy's idea of reflective function are extremely useful in our Jungian clinical practice and these concepts are utilizable because they are not at odds with analytical psychology's general epistemological and theoretical framework.

Cognition↗
PubMed1993

Heavy drinking in hospital patients.

The study examines the prevalence of high consumption of alcohol among the patients of a large university hospital, and the ability of physicians to detect heavy drinking. According to self-report, the results of CAGE questionnaire or the physicians' opinion, 25% of the male and 11% of the female patients were heavy drinkers. The physicians identified 43% and 26% of the men and women who screened positively either according to CAGE or self-report. On the other hand, 17% of the men and 14% of the women who were identified by the physicians as heavy drinkers had a negative screening result. Heavy drinking was most often connected with psychiatric disorders, but it was present in all specialties. A wide range of diagnoses were found among abusers. It is concluded that all patients in all clinics should be asked about their drinking habits instead of relying solely on the physician's instinct or on the patient's self-report or CAGE. More individual interviews should be done to make possible early intervention in heavy drinking.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Creative nursing: processive care and more?

The authors describe a crisis point which led them from considering a reorientation of the present BSc (Nursing) curriculum at the University of Cape Town, South Africa to undertaking a radical revision of the degree programme. While examining final year students they realized that the nurses' excellent personal qualities apparent in everyday relationships, were not being used in their professional practice on hospital wards. It is suggested that this is due partly to an educational programme which neglected what the students already had (common sense and logic) and what they already knew from life experience and from instinct and intuition. It is also supposed that when hospital wards are their first clinical learning areas, nurses divorce patients and disease from the 'real' world, from the essentials of daily living and from the components of an individualized lifestyle. A staged process of learning experience, to include looking after healthy, elderly and disabled individuals in homes and institutions--with minimal nurse supervision--before exposure to hospital life, is advocated. In its present form the nursing process is seen as limiting the creativity of nursing practice and the authors suggest that further development of this approach is necessary if nursing science is to be interpreted as an art. Finally, the authors outline an experimental curriculum which takes cognisance of their experiences and syllogistic reasoning, together with a brief description of the first few months of its implementation at the University of Cape Town.

Creativity↗
PubMed1995

Maternal behaviour during spontaneous and directed pushing in the second stage of labour.

It has become custom and practice within the midwifery and obstetric professions in the English-speaking western world for women to be required to follow very specific instructions on how to push in the second stage of labour. There is very little literature on the behaviour of women using spontaneous pushing in the second stage of labour. In a pilot study of a randomized controlled trial comparing spontaneous (n = 15) with directed (n = 17) pushing, the behaviour of the women was observed and recorded. The findings from the observational part of the study are reported in this paper. When pushing spontaneously women do not instinctively take a deep breath, they do not start expulsive effort with the commencement of the contraction, and they use both open and closed glottis pushing. In order to assist women in the second stage of labour, those caring for them should be aware of what is normal behaviour when women are using spontaneous expulsive effort.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

[The anatomy of consciousness in domestic animals. Opening address of the 20th Congress of the EVVA in Zürich in memory of Eugen Seiferle].

All living organisms have a consciousness, not only humans. To seek to find humans' consciousness in animals is to seek wrongly. The question must be: "To what extent are prehuman and human consciousness comparable.' Animals have an instinctive sensational consciousness with a partial learning consciousness. It is a purely self-sustaining consciousness. In addition, humans have a spiritual-thinking consciousness, which is predominantly a learning consciousness and is not a pure self-sustaining consciousness. Since human consciousness arose from animals' consciousness, that behaviour in animals which is similar to the thought process in human beings can only be based on sensations. Sensations of pain and fear are not very different in man and animal, because they also belong to the sensation consciousness in humans, but humans have the additional advantage of being able to think about them and to understand their cause and meaning. That is not possible in animals, therefore, animals have to be anaesthetized to protect them from pain. Seiferle recognized this clearly, and my consciousness theory reinforces Seiferle's view, i.e. that consciousness is the central force of the soul. Its afferent forces are perception and sensation; its efferent forces are will, feeling, and deed.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Seeking comfort through prayer.

The aim of the research was to discover the experience and meaning of prayer of patients in hospital when undergoing coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Ethnographic-type post discharge interviews with 13 participants formed the major data source. Using the grounded theory method, the basic social psychological process was labeled seeking comfort through prayer. This was the process of engaging in prayer with God. The participants believed that God listened to their prayers and answered them when they were seeking comfort. It was this reassurance that gave them the strength to face uncertainty and possible death, and also gave them comfort in their psychophysiological condition at the time. Seeking comfort had three stages (maintaining or re-establishing a relationship with God; making peace with God; and asking God to be with them during the hospitalisation). This last stage involved five levels of prayer (acquiescence, instinctive prayer, survival, confiding and honouring).

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2006

Food for thought or thought for food?--a stakeholder dialogue around the role of the snacking industry in addressing the obesity epidemic.

The current obesity epidemic is generally considered multi-causal. Certain foods, including snacks such as potato chips, and their marketing are often highlighted as needing particular attention. This forces potato chip producers to take position on their role and responsibility. Based on expert interviews and a literature review, a systems analysis approach is presented that distinguishes between basic physiology, self-control and what we call jam transmitters, signals and pressures from the environment that hinder or frustrate self-control. Examples of the latter are commercial push and seduction, obesogenic cultures, obesogenic physical environment, socioeconomic factors, genes, hormones and instincts. Solution of the epidemic demands an approach that involves all factors and all related actors. As for the snacking industry, the comprehensive responses are: to introduce specific diet products; to improve the nutritional quality of its products; the latter combined with supporting and engaging in healthy lifestyle marketing; to practice responsible targeting of marketing; and to limit the promotion of unhealthy consumption patterns.

Advertising↗
PubMed2005

Pharmacoeconomics--an aid to better decision-making.

OBJECTIVES: The first aim of this workshop was to define pharmacoeconomic concepts and terminology. Pharmacoeconomics can be defined as the branch of economics that uses cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness, cost-minimization, cost-of-illness and cost-utility analyses to compare pharmaceutical products and treatment strategies. Economic evaluations provide healthcare decision-makers with valuable information, allowing optimal allocation of limited resources. However, pharmacoeconomics is based on long-term benefits, whereas physicians are typically forced to seek immediate savings. The second aim was to review pharmacoeconomic studies in the field of onychomycosis and finally to discuss future perspectives. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: We discussed current pharmacoeconomic issues on the management of onychomycosis. Consensus was reached on the following issues: * Published pharmacoeconomic studies concerning onychomycosis are flawed. Future studies should be based on internationally validated principles and appropriate models. The fact that costs of different drugs, laboratory examinations and physician visits vary worldwide should be considered. Cost-benefit studies are required. * The National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) recommendations are often considered in countries other than the UK, even when not adapted to the country in question. * Generic drugs might reduce costs, but this depends on their effectiveness (bioavailability). * Sampling requests affect the economic cost (dependent on methodology, which depends on country) and physicians often trust their instincts even when tests are repeatedly negative. * The cost of adverse event management is usually considered to be 10%; this may be too high for onychomycosis, as treatments are relatively safe without severe side-effects. * Probability of recurrence for each drug should be determined. * Need for disease severity standardization, definition of diagnostic criteria and successful treatment (mycological and clinical cure).

Antifungal Agents↗
PubMed2006

Organ sales and moral distress.

The possibility that organ sales by living adults might be made legal is morally distressing to many of us. However, powerful arguments have been provided recently supporting legalisation (I consider two of those arguments: the Consequentialist Argument and the Autonomy Argument). Is our instinctive reaction against a market of organs irrational then? The aim of this paper is not to prove that legalization would be immoral, all things considered, but rather to show, first, that there are some kinds of arguments, offered in favour of legalisation, that are, in an important sense, illegitimate, and second, that even if legalisation might not be wrong all things considered, there are good reasons for our negative moral intuitions. Moreover, identifying these reasons will help highlight some features of moral decisions in non-ideal situations, which in turn might be relevant to some other moral or policy choices.

Commerce↗
PubMed2006

The dazzle reflex: electrophysiological signals from ocular muscles reveal strong binocular summation effects.

Under dark adapted or dim conditions the mammalian visual system is carefully programmed to respond rapidly to the sudden onset of bright lights. This response, called the dazzle reflex, is controlled from sub-cortical structures of the brain. It is known anecdotally that exposure to a bright light when dark adapted induces an instinctive closure of one eye to reduce the pain associated with dazzle. This binocular summation of the dazzle response has not previously been reported. The dazzle reflex can be measured in human subjects by recording the electrical activity from surface electrodes located near the muscles around the eye. In this paper we report an investigation of the apparent binocular summation of the dazzle reflex using this technique. The data reveal a clear difference between monocular and binocular stimulation, with the binocular response being much larger than the monocular response. Furthermore this monocular/binocular difference arises only if the stimulus duration is longer than approximately 1 s. These observations are interpreted in terms of the known physiology of blink mechanisms.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Biting behavior, aggression, and seizures.

PURPOSE: To describe the semiologic features of aggressive behaviors observed in human epileptic seizures with particular reference to the act of biting a conspecific. METHODS: We analyzed the biting behavior (BB) and other aggressive gestures occurring in a group of 11 patients retrospectively selected from >1,000 patients subjected to video-EEG/SEEG monitoring for presurgical evaluation of drug-resistant seizures. RESULTS: Patients displaying BB showed (a) a male sex predominance, (b) heterogeneous etiologies and lesion locations, and (c) seizures involving the frontotemporal regions of both hemispheres. The act of biting was a rapid motor action, lasting approximately 600 ms, occurring in the context of strong emotional arousal, fear, and anger, with various bodily gestures with aggressive connotation. BB was mainly a "reflexive" behavior, in that biting acts were evoked (both during and after seizures) by actions of people in close contact with the patient. The sole intrusion of the examiner's hand in the space near the patient's face was effective in triggering BB. Rarely, self-directed or object-directed biting acts were not triggered by external stimuli. Intracranial data (SEEG) obtained in one subject showed that the amygdala/hippocampal region plus the orbitomedial prefrontal cortex had to be involved by ictal activity to observe BB. CONCLUSIONS: Anatomic and electrophysiologic data in our patients suggest that a model of dual--temporal and frontal--dysfunction could account for the occurrence of ictal/postictal BB. Behavioral data suggest also that BB and related aggressive gestures can be considered as the emergence of instinctive behaviors with an adaptative significance of defense of the peripersonal space.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Initial mothering patterns of low-income black primiparas.

Observations at three separate intervals of 24 black, low-income primiparas revealed that there is not necessarily a progressive use of the mother's fingers, hands, and arms during the attachment process. Although the mothers did use fingertips to explore their new infants at some time during the first contact, this was not their immediate behavioral responses as defined by Rubin as well as Klaus, et al. The orderly sequence from fingertip exploration to encompassing behavior has been noted by Rubin to occur over a period of time. Klaus reports the interval to be only days. The mothers in this study exhibited encompassing behavior immediately by reaching out for their infants using both hands and arms. The majority held and looked at their new babies throughout the contact time indicating the instinct for the en-face position which Klaus, et al. have described so clearly. The study data would also support Perry's statement that eye contact is an indicator of the intensity of the mother-infant interaction. Over one-half of the subjects, during the first contact, initiated verbal response to their infants. None, however greeted their infants by using given names. Clark, Affonso, and Harris do not refer to the significance of identification of baby by the mother, only to verbal interaction. All mothers in the study made positive statements regarding their infants's appearance and behavior which compares exactly with findings of Robson and Moss.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Erectile dysfunction in Fragile X patients.

AIM: To report the clinical experience during collecting sperm samples in the Fragile X syndrome (FXS) male patients. METHODS: Two different polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based methods were used for the molecular diagnosis of FXS. Sperm collection was done mostly according to the laboratory manual of the World Health Organization. RESULTS: We failed to collect sperm samples from five Fragile X subjects aged 18-60 years as a result of an unexpected erectile dysfunction (ED). Multiple examinations of the same subject at different times, and of different subjects from different provinces examined by different physicians, showed the same result consistently in all the five subjects. CONCLUSION: Erectile reflex is an instinctive response in all healthy males. The absence of erection can be caused by hormonal, physical or neuronal malfunction. As hormonal profiles were reported to be generally normal in Fragile X men, we propose that an unknown physical factor or the neuronal circuit, or both, underlying the erection is compromised. The finding of this symptom in Fragile X patients may help better understand the clinical spectrum and pathogeneses of the disease.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Clinical potential for the use of neuroprotective agents. A brief overview.

"Stroke treatment seems to be entering a golden age ...." Fisher's observation not only applies to ischemic stroke, but to all the conditions described above, and in the future, possibly (and quite speculatively), to other neurologic diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, even radiation therapy and Bell's palsy. Physicians must sharpen their criteria for decisions regarding therapy and must" ... be prepared to accept what is actually known from scientific data ... rather than to rely on instinct, clinical impression, or the need to do something rather than nothing."

Animals↗
PubMed1994

On psychoanalysis and non-linear dynamics: the paradigm of bifurcation.

Some of Freud's main theoretical conceptualizations drew on metaphors from 19th century physics. However, though the physics of Freud's era was based on deterministic Newtonian mechanics and equilibrium thermodynamics, his descriptions of the dynamics of instincts, therapeutic change, and even transference, were far beyond this model. Freud's dynamic description of psychic development evokes contemporary theories of irreversible, far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics and non-linear dynamics. The present paper focuses on bifurcation theory, which offers a paradigm for the investigation of unpredictable but deterministic phenomena; this paradigm sheds a retroactive light on the classical psychoanalytical conceptualizations of complemental series, repetition compulsion, transference and cure.

Compulsive Behavior↗