Trauma-related memories in PTSD after interpersonal violence: an ambulatory assessment study

Background: Ambulatory assessment (AA) is increasingly recommended for assessing symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Previous AA studies provided new insights into the phenomenology of trauma-related memories, but also divergent findings. Notably, the range of trauma-related memories (a major target of psychotherapeutic interventions) reported in AA studies was as wide as 7.3 to 74.5 per week which might result from different methods used in these studies. Objective: We aimed at assessing the frequency of trauma-related memories in PTSD related to interpersonal violence and investigated whether this frequency is dependent upon the method. Method: For each patient trauma-related memories were assessed using two variants of smartphone-based AA: (1) Event-based sampling (EBS), i.e. participants entered data on each intrusive memory as it occurred; (2) Time-based sampling (TBS), i.e. participants reported the number of trauma-related memories they had experienced during the last two hours after they had been alerted by the smartphone. The numbers reported during the TBS-block were either analysed as reported by the participants or restricted to one per hour (rTBS). The impact of smartphone-assessments on trauma-related memories was assessed during a post-monitoring questionnaire. Results: While trauma-related memories were frequent across assessments, the methodology had a huge impact on the numbers: EBS (median = 7) and rTBS (median = 6) yielded significantly lower weekly numbers of intrusive trauma-related memories than TBS (median = 49). Accordingly, the possibility to report unrestricted numbers of trauma-related memories clearly impacted the results. The post-monitoring questionnaire identified another source for the divergent findings: while feeling disrupted by the smartphone-assessments was unrelated to the numbers reported during EBS, feeling disrupted was related to an increase of trauma-related memories during TBS and rTBS. Conclusions: The method clearly impacts the recorded number of trauma-related memories. Future research should clarify whether other variables (e.g. the subjective stress related to intrusive memories) are less dependent on the methodology

Preliminary result of the "origins of speech" project

International audienceThe speech abilities of fossil hominins are one of the oldest and most challenging questions in palaeoanthropology. The theory of « laryngeal descent » has long been used to explain human singularity. However, recent work has shown that some non-human primates were « speech ready ». The organs and soft tissues of the vocal apparatus are not preserved in the fossil record.This is why, to understand human-like speech capacity, we have developed a project untitled « Origins of speech », mainly supported by the institute of computing and data sciences (ISCD) of Sorbonne University, based on the bony articulators of speech. It aims at inferring soft tissue of the vocal tract (mainly the tongue and the pharyngeal walls) in fossil hominins based on the bony structure of the head, using transformation models from soft tissues (recorded with MR imaging) and bony structure (CT scans) of a living Homo Sapiens. These transformation models are evaluated and validated on data recorded from non-human primates, in which both soft tissues and bony structure are preserved.This multidisciplinary research involves palaeoanthropologists, biomechanicians, specialists in speech sciences, mathematical modeling and mathematicians. We present the preliminary results of this work, which aims at generating a Finite Element tongue model of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal specimen by transforming an existing model of a modern Homo sapiens using 3D image registration. Then we expect to quantify the parametric uncertainties resulted from the tongue model generation by a non-intrusive approach.Moreover, we are seeking to test the consequence of a vertical posture on human elocution faculty. We focused on an anatomical study (2D-3D) to test the relationships between bone structures within primates using a series of skeletons from the collections of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle to understand the geometry of the vocal apparatus (bone substrate) within the cranial complex and regarding the cervical spine (head position), and to carry out comparisons between genus (Homo/Pan/Gorilla/Papio) and species (Homo sapiens/Neanderthals)

Preliminary result of the "origins of speech" project

International audienceThe speech abilities of fossil hominins are one of the oldest and most challenging questions in palaeoanthropology. The theory of « laryngeal descent » has long been used to explain human singularity. However, recent work has shown that some non-human primates were « speech ready ». The organs and soft tissues of the vocal apparatus are not preserved in the fossil record.This is why, to understand human-like speech capacity, we have developed a project untitled « Origins of speech », mainly supported by the institute of computing and data sciences (ISCD) of Sorbonne University, based on the bony articulators of speech. It aims at inferring soft tissue of the vocal tract (mainly the tongue and the pharyngeal walls) in fossil hominins based on the bony structure of the head, using transformation models from soft tissues (recorded with MR imaging) and bony structure (CT scans) of a living Homo Sapiens. These transformation models are evaluated and validated on data recorded from non-human primates, in which both soft tissues and bony structure are preserved.This multidisciplinary research involves palaeoanthropologists, biomechanicians, specialists in speech sciences, mathematical modeling and mathematicians. We present the preliminary results of this work, which aims at generating a Finite Element tongue model of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal specimen by transforming an existing model of a modern Homo sapiens using 3D image registration. Then we expect to quantify the parametric uncertainties resulted from the tongue model generation by a non-intrusive approach.Moreover, we are seeking to test the consequence of a vertical posture on human elocution faculty. We focused on an anatomical study (2D-3D) to test the relationships between bone structures within primates using a series of skeletons from the collections of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle to understand the geometry of the vocal apparatus (bone substrate) within the cranial complex and regarding the cervical spine (head position), and to carry out comparisons between genus (Homo/Pan/Gorilla/Papio) and species (Homo sapiens/Neanderthals)