The Dissociable Impact of Auditory vs. Visual Emotional Cues on Visual Processing

Background: Emotional information has privileged access to processing resources, which can cause it to have a distracting or facilitating effect on task performance for reasons that are poorly understood. The sensory modality through which it is presented may be one determining factor. Some findings suggest that auditory stimuli facilitate visual task performance while visual stimuli interfere with it, but there are conflicting findings. Hypothesis: We hypothesize that emotional content of a different sensory modality from the task improves task-related performance via a general alerting and arousing effect for all stimuli, while emotional content of the same modality disrupts performance when task-relevant neutral stimuli compete with emotional stimuli for processing resources. Methods: Participants will attempt to identify the location of a Gabor patch (a sinusoidal grating of horizontal lines), either on the left or right side of the computer screen, while a negative or neutral image or sound is presented. Their reaction times will be compared across conditions. Expected Results: We expect that emotional content presented through the auditory modality will result in faster responses on the visual perception task, compared to neutral content. Conversely, compared to neutral stimuli, emotional content presented visually will lead to slower responses. Discussion: This research will lead to a better understanding of how the manner in which emotional information is presented can determine its effect on task performance. This is a key step in determining how emotional content perceived through multiple modalities interacts to affect a person’s perceptual abilities in complex emotional situations

Putting phenomenology into practice - towards an ontology of person centered healthcare

In this research I have set out a philosophical basis for person centered healthcare. I have uncovered the philosophical ground on which this rests in an attempt to show how practice can be improved, and how examples of person centered practice can be transferred between individuals and institutions involved in the commissioning and provision of healthcare. Philosophy is the instrument through which we understand why systems work and philosophy is therefore the key to unlock the potential of person centered healthcare. By providing an underlying architectonic this work will help to enable practitioners to understand the benefits of person centered healthcare practice in promoting autonomy in those who are suffering from chronic and other illnesses. I have used the existential phenomenology of Martin Heidegger and Gadamer’s work on hermeneutics to provide support to the argument in favour of a person centered approach to healthcare. Phenomenology offers a rich and subtle way of thinking about how we know what we know, and this applies to our knowledge and understanding of how healthcare works just as much as it does to all other kinds of knowledge. Existential phenomenology, with its emphasis on the first person lived experience of people who are ill and receiving care provides a method of discussing, understanding and grounding person centered healthcare which is philosophically robust, and which offers policy makers, and those commissioning and providing healthcare, clear guidance on how to make their practice person centered. Using examples from my own experience of illness and healthcare along with account given by others I have shown how the purpose of healthcare is understood as the preservation, restoration and maximisation of personal autonomy, how a person centered approach is the most appropriate response to this purpose, and how the philosophical ground which I have set out becomes manifest in the practice of person centered healthcare

Studies of the excretion of cholesterol and its metabolites

This thesis describes work on the development of new techniques of faecal neutral steroid and bile acid analysis and the application of these techniques to a variety of clinical circumstances in which the metabolism of cholesterol, and the output of faecal steroids might be altered. The thesis is in four main parts, 1. A consideration from an historical standpoint of cholesterol metabolism and its regulation; in particular, the reduction of serum cholesterol levels by three groups of compounds; a) Inhibitors of cholesterol biosynthesis either at an early stage in the biosynthetic pathway or at a stage after the cyclisation of squalene. b) Compounds which cause increased excretion of faecal bile acids and/or faecal neutral steroids. c) Compounds which act by impairing cholesterol absorption. 2. A review of the application of thin layer chromatography (TLC) to lipid analysis. In this section the use of silver nitrate impregnated TLC, reversed phase TLC and derivatives in the separation of structurally similar compounds are discussed together with the application of TLC to quantitative analysis of faecal neutral steroids and bile acids. 3. A detailed consideration of the way in which TLC and other methods have been modified for use in the present study. The extraction of neutral steroids and bile acids from faeces is described together with methods for their qualitative and quantitative analysis . A technique for estimating biliary bile acids is also described. 4. The final section is concerned with the application of quantitative techniques of neutral steroid and bile acid analysis to four problems. a). The effect of oral taurine on serum cholesterol and biliary bile acid conjugation was studied in three subjects. The results suggest that although the proportion of bile acids conjugated with taurine in human bile can be readily increased by feeding taurine this has no effect on serum cholesterol concentrations. b). The mechanism by which clofibrate reduces serum cholesterol in patients with hypercholesterolaemia was investigated by three approaches. 1). The effect of clofibrate on the pattern of biliary bile acids in five subjects with hypercholesterolaemia. 2). The effect of clofibrate on faecal neutral steroids and bile acids in twenty one subjects. 3). A comparison of the effect of clofibrate and L-thyroxine on serum and faecal lipids in four hypothyroid patients. Clofibrate did not appear to alter the conjugation ratio or the pattern of biliary bile acids in the five subjects studied. The results of the comparative study with L-thyroxine suggest that the mechanism of action of clofibrate is quite different to that of L-thyroxine in lowering serum lipids. Studies of faecal bile acids and neutral steroids in the 21 subjects strongly suggest that the reduction of serum cholesterol by clofibrate is not produced by an increased excretion of cholesterol or its metabolites in faeces. Inhibition of hepatic synthesis of cholesterol seems a more likely explanation. c). The effect of increased oral calcium on faecal neutral steroids and bile acids was studied in six subjects. Although calcium markedly increased faecal bile acid excretion there was no reduction in serum cholesterol concentration. d). The final problem studied was the effect of dietary cholesterol on serum and faecal lipids in a single subject. The results of this experiment suggest that there is a negative feedback mechanism in which the level of dietary cholesterol controls the hepatic synthesis of cholesterol

The impact of violent gaming on the brain as a function of individual differences in trait empathy

In this project, we will uncover any existing interaction between violent media and the capacity for empathic reactions (known as trait empathy) at a neural level, as the foundational milestone for the kind of large-scale study discussed above. The level of trait empathy varies by individual - we will explore whether exposure to violent media exacerbates the difficulties that those with low trait empathy already show in relating to the emotions of othershttps://ir.lib.uwo.ca/brainscanprojectsummaries/1021/thumbnail.jp