State-Dependent Learning During Alprazolam Assisted Exposure: A Pilot Study of Social Phobia

Social phobia is a newly defined disorder, and treatments for it typically involve pharmacotherapy or some form of in vivo exposure. When combining these therapies, there are three possible outcomes: No effect, an additive effect, or an interference effect. If additive, the pharmacotherapy will enhance the extinction of fear, and it will not increase the chance of relapse after drug discontinuation. If there is an interference effect, the pharmacotherapy will block extinction to the phobic situation, and there will be a relapse of anxiety when placed in the phobic situation in the no drug state. If this is the result, it may be due to state-dependent learning. This study tested to see what effect the combining of a placebo or alprazolam with guided exposure would have on subjective measures of anxiety for a socially phobic patient, and to see if state-dependent learning would be present in the alprazolam + exposure condition. Results suggest that there was state-dependent learning in the alprazolam + exposure condition, and that fear extinction was greater in the placebo + exposure condition

Modeling trajectories of perceived leg exertion during maximal cycle ergometer exercise in children and adolescents

BACKGROUND: Borg developed scales for rating pain and perceived exertion in adults that have also been used in pediatric populations. Models describing functional relationships between perceived exertion and work capacity have not been studied in children. We compared different models and their fits to individual trajectories and assessed the variability in these trajectories. METHODS: Ratings of perceived exertion (RPE) were collected from 79 children. Progressive cycle ergonometric testing was performed to maximal work capacity with test duration ranging from 6‐ 12 minutes. Ratings were obtained during each 1‐minute increment. Work was normalized to individual maximal work capacity (Wmax). A delay was defined as the fraction of Wmax at which point an increase in ratings of leg fatigue occurred. Such a delay term allows the characterization of trajectories for children whose ratings were initially constant with increasing work. Two models were considered, a delay model and a power model that is commonly used to analyze Borg ratings. Individual model fit was assessed with root mean squared error (RMSE). Functional clustering algorithms were used to identify patterns. RESULTS: Leg tiredness developed quickly for some children while for others there was a delay before an in‐ creased ratings of leg exertion occurred with increasing work. Models for individual trajectories with the smallest RMSE included a delay and a quadratic term (quadratic‐delay model), or a power function and a delay term (power‐delay model) compared to a simple power function. The median delay was 40% Wmax (interquartile range (IQR): 26‐49%) in a quadratic‐delay model, while the median exponent was 1.03 (IQR: 0.83‐1.78) in a power‐delay model. Nine clusters were identified showing linear or quadratic patterns with or without a delay. Cluster membership did not depend on age, gender or diagnosis. CONCLUSION: Children and adolescents vary widely in their capacity to rate their perceptions and exhibit different functional relationships between ratings of perceived exertion and work capacity normalized across individuals. Models including a delay term, a linear component, or a power function can describe these individual trajectories of perceived leg exertion during incremental exercise to voluntary exhaustion

The Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and the Social Phobia Scale (SPS): A comparison of two short-form versions.

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the American Psychological Association journal. It is not the copy of record. The version of record can be found here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037313The widespread use of Mattick and Clarke’s (1998) Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) and Social Phobia Scale (SPS) led two independent groups of researchers to develop short-forms of these measures (Fergus, Valentiner, McGrath, Gier-Lonsway, & Kim, 2012; Peters, Sunderland, Andrews, Rapee, & Mattick, 2012). This three-part study examined the psychometric properties of Fergus et al.’s and Peters et al.’s short-forms of the SIAS and SPS using an American nonclinical adolescent sample in Study 1 (N = 98), American anxiety disorder patient sample in Study 2 (N = 117), and both a South Korean college student sample (N = 341) and an American college student sample (N = 550) in Study 3. Scores on both sets of short-forms evidenced adequate internal consistency, inter-item correlations, and measurement invariance. Scores on Fergus et al.’s short-forms, particularly their SIAS short-form, tended to capture more unique variance in scores of criterion measures than did scores on Peters et al.’s short-forms. Implications for the use of these two sets of short-forms are discussed

Examining the symptom-level specificity of negative problem orientation in a clinical sample

This article was originally published in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The version of record can be found here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/16506073.2014.987314Given the equivocal state of the literature as to the symptom-level specificity of the cognitive variable labeled negative problem orientation (NPO), we targeted NPO–symptom relations. A clinical sample (N = 132) of adults diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, mood disorder, or obsessive-compulsive disorder completed self-reports of NPO and symptom types (worry, depression, obsessive-compulsive, panic, and social anxiety). Symptom-level specificity was examined using a combination of zero-order and regression analyses that controlled for the other assessed symptoms. Results were that NPO shared small to moderate correlations with the symptoms. Regression results indicated that NPO only shared unique associations with worry, depression, and social anxiety. In the analyses, NPO clustered particularly strongly with worry. The present results provide support for conceptualizing NPO as a cognitive variable common to emotional disorders, but not as related equivalently to all disorders within this category

Red Nuggets at z~1.5: Compact passive galaxies and the formation of the Kormendy Relation

We present the results of NICMOS imaging of a sample of 16 high mass passively evolving galaxies with 1.3<z<2, taken primarily from the Gemini Deep Deep Survey. Around 80% of galaxies in our sample have spectra dominated by stars with ages >1 Gyr. Our rest-frame R-band images show that most of these objects have compact regular morphologies which follow the classical R^1/4 law. These galaxies scatter along a tight sequence in the Kormendy relation. Around one-third of the massive red objects are extraordinarily compact, with effective radii under one kiloparsec. Our NICMOS observations allow the detection of such systems more robustly than is possible with optical (rest-frame UV) data, and while similar systems have been seen at z>2, this is the first time such systems have been detected in a rest-frame optical survey at 1.3<z<2. We refer to these compact galaxies as "red nuggets". Similarly compact massive galaxies are completely absent in the nearby Universe. We introduce a new "stellar mass Kormendy relation" (stellar mass density vs size) which isolates the effects of size evolution from those of luminosity and color evolution. The 1.1 < z < 2 passive galaxies have mass densities that are an order of magnitude larger then early type galaxies today and are comparable to the compact distant red galaxies at 2 < z < 3. We briefly consider mechanisms for size evolution in contemporary models focusing on equal-mass mergers and adiabatic expansion driven by stellar mass loss. Neither of these mechanisms appears able to transform the high-redshift Kormendy relation into its local counterpart. Comment: Accepted version (to appear in ApJ