Depression Symptom Changes as a Function of Increased Creative Behavior Over a Two-Week Recording Period

Research in the area of creativity suggested that mild, but not severe, mood elevation may sometimes enhance creativity. While depression has been thought by some to reduce creativity, empirical support for this hypothesis has been elusive and the relationship between creativity and depression now seems more complex than previously considered. Conversely, there has been speculation that creative activity itself may have differential effects on mood, depending on the individual. Maladaptive perfectionism, theorized to be one of the intervening variables between depression and creativity, has been associated with higher levels of categorical thinking which may mitigate against the constructive reasoning thought necessary for creative endeavors to flourish. The present study hypothesized that the effects of creative behavior on depression would vary significantly as a function of maladaptive perfectionism, e.g., positive versus inverse relationship for low versus high perfectionistic traits, respectively. Forty-six participants were randomly assigned to a control or experimental condition. Experimental group participants were asked to increase creative behavior in their daily lives over a two-week period. Creative behavior was measured with the Pleasant Events Schedule-Creativity Scale, depression symptoms were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), and perfectionism as assessed with the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS). Collateral analyses (i.e., comparisons of experimental participants who increased their creative behavior to controls who did not) were completed to better understand the results. Asking participants to increase creative behavior in their daily lives was a successful method when participants had initially lower levels of creative behavior. Increases in creative behavior over a two-week period produced significant reductions in depression symptoms compared to a control group. Maladaptive perfectionism within this sample of college undergraduates was not linked to creative behavior but MPS scale scores had a positive trend with BDI-II depression symptoms

The Effect of Instructor-Produced Videos as Supplemental Material for Training Visual Screening Procedures in Occupational Therapy Education

The aim of this study was to explore student perceptions of instructor-produced videos to enhance knowledge, self-efficacy, and clinical skill with administering visual screening procedures. The video library, hosted by Vimeo™, consisted of 26 videos, with an average video duration less than 90 seconds. The videos were made available to occupational therapy students as supplemental material. Three focus groups consisting of 23 participants captured students’ perceived value of instructor-produced videos to enrich their learning. Three categories emerged from the data analysis including clinical application, learning preferences, and elements of video production. Students commented on how the videos positively influenced their ability to perform visual screening procedures, confidence with screening procedure administration and reasoning skills when evaluating client performance during visual screens. Students expressed how the videos appealed to their learning style (visual/kinesthetic). Also, they reported how the videos allowed them control over the pace of information delivery, the frequency of content delivery, and the environment in which they viewed the content. Students discussed elements of video production that enhanced their learning including actor characteristics and video use pragmatics

Environment symmetry drives a multidirectional code in rat retrosplenial cortex

We investigated how environment symmetry shapes the neural processing of direction, by recording directionally tuned retrosplenial neurons in male Lister-hooded rats exploring multi-compartment environments that had different levels of global rotational symmetry. Our hypothesis built on prior observations of twofold symmetry in the directional tuning curves of rats in a globally twofold-symmetric environment. To test whether environment symmetry was the relevant factor shaping the directional responses, here we deployed the same apparatus (two connected rectangular boxes) plus one with fourfold symmetry (a 2x2 array of connected square boxes) and one with onefold symmetry (a circular open-field arena). Consistent with our hypothesis we found many neurons with tuning curve symmetries that mirrored these environment symmetries, having twofold, fourfold or onefold-symmetric tuning respectively. Some cells expressed this pattern only globally (across the whole environment), maintaining singular tuning curves in each subcompartment. However, others also expressed it locally, within each subcompartment. Since multidirectionality has not been reported in naïve rats in single environmental compartments, this suggests an experience-dependent effect of global environment symmetry on local firing symmetry. An intermingled population of directional neurons were “classic” head direction cells, with globally referenced directional tuning: these cells were electrophysiologically distinct, with narrower tuning curves and a burstier firing pattern. Thus, retrosplenial directional neurons can simultaneously encode overall head direction and local head direction (relative to compartment layout). Furthermore, they can learn about global environment symmetry and express this locally: this may be important for the encoding of environment structure beyond immediate perceptual reach

The challenge of diabetic foot care: Review of the literature and experience at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi

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Field repetition and local mapping in the hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex

Hippocampal place cells support spatial cognition and are thought to form the neural substrate of a global 'cognitive map'. A widely held view is that parts of the hippocampus also underlie the ability to separate patterns, or to provide different neural codes for distinct environments. However, a number of studies have shown that in environments composed of multiple, repeating compartments, place cells and other spatially modulated neurons show the same activity in each local area. This repetition of firing fields may reflect pattern completion, and may make it difficult for animals to distinguish similar local environments. In this review we will (a) highlight some of the navigation difficulties encountered by humans in repetitive environments, (b) summarise literature demonstrating that place and grid cells represent local and not global space, and (c) attempt to explain the origin of these phenomena. We argue that the repetition of firing fields can be a useful tool for understanding of the relationship between grid cells in the entorhinal cortex and place cells in the hippocampus, the spatial inputs shared by these cells, and the propagation of spatially-related signals through these structures

Immune genotypes, immune responses, and survival in a wild bird population

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the Tsawout and Tseycum bands for allowing us to conduct research on Mandarte Island, and to the many contributors to long-term monitoring, especially L. Keller, P. Nietlisbach, and J. Krippel. We also thank C. Ritland, A. Miscampbell, and G. Huber for their assistance in the laboratory. All work was conducted under permit of the Canadian Wildlife Service and UBC Animal Care Committee. Funding Information: This study was generously supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada via a Post‐doctoral Fellowship award to MJNF (PDF‐2014–454522) and a Discovery Grant to EAMS.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Place field repetition and spatial learning in a multicompartment environment

Recent studies have shown that place cells in the hippocampus possess firing fields that repeat in physically similar, parallel environments. These results imply that it should be difficult for animals to distinguish parallel environments at a behavioral level. To test this, we trained rats on a novel odor-location task in an environment with four parallel compartments which had previously been shown to yield place field repetition. A second group of animals was trained on the same task, but with the compartments arranged in different directions, an arrangement we hypothesised would yield less place field repetition. Learning of the odor-location task in the parallel compartments was significantly impaired relative to learning in the radially arranged compartments. Fewer animals acquired the full discrimination in the parallel compartments compared to those trained in the radial compartments, and the former also required many more sessions to reach criterion compared to the latter. To confirm that the arrangement of compartments yielded differences in place cell repetition, in a separate group of animals we recorded from CA1 place cells in both environments. We found that CA1 place cells exhibited repeated fields across four parallel local compartments, but did not do so when the same compartments were arranged radially. To confirm that the differences in place field repetition across the parallel and radial compartments depended on their angular arrangement, and not incidental differences in access to an extra-maze visual landmark, we repeated the recordings in a second set of rats in the absence of the orientation landmark. We found, once again, that place fields showed repetition in parallel compartments, and did not do so in radially arranged compartments. Thus place field repetition, or lack thereof, in these compartments was not dependent on extra-maze cues. Together, these results imply that place field repetition constrains spatial learning. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Lesions of the head direction cell system increase hippocampal place field repetition

A central tenet of systems neuroscience is that the mammalian hippocampus provides a cognitive map of the environment. This view is supported by the finding of place cells, neurons whose firing is tuned to specific locations in an animal's environment, within this brain region. Recent work, however, has shown that these cells repeat their firing fields across visually identical maze compartments [1, 2]. This repetition is not observed if these compartments face different directions, suggesting that place cells use a directional input to differentiate otherwise similar local environments [3, 4]. A clear candidate for this input is the head direction cell system. To test this, we disrupted the head direction cell system by lesioning the lateral mammillary nuclei and then recorded place cells as rats explored multiple, connected compartments, oriented in the same or in different directions. As shown previously, we found that place cells in control animals exhibited repeated fields in compartments arranged in parallel, but not in compartments facing different directions. In contrast, the place cells of animals with lesions of the head direction cell system exhibited repeating fields in both conditions. Thus, directional information provided by the head direction cell system appears essential for the angular disambiguation by place cells of visually identical compartments