From Intra- to Inter-personal: Effects of Mindfulness Training on Emotion Regulation in Social Contexts

The social and emotional lives of people are highly interdependent. Incipient evidence suggests that attention may also play an essential role in determining one’s social and emotional well-being. Mindfulness, as a manner of attending, entails greater moment-to-moment awareness to internal and external events, and is thought to have both intra- and inter-personal benefits. Here a study of mindfulness training (MT) examined whether training mindful attention would improve emotion regulation in social contexts as indexed by neural, behavioral, and experience sampling measures. More specifically, 60 participants in romantic relationships were randomly assigned to either four brief (20 min.) MT sessions or a structurally-equivalent control procedure. Romantic partners of these participants also completed questionnaires and experience sampling measures. Findings across the variety of measures supported hypotheses that MT would benefit social emotion regulation. Relative to control participants, those in MT demonstrated greater early attention to facial expressions on an Emotional Go/No-Go task, as indexed by the N200, a neural marker of conflict monitoring. Response time and accuracy during this task revealed more sustained efficient discrimination of facial expressions for MT participants. During day-to-day social interactions, MT participants reported more positive and less negative emotion as well as less negative emotion lability from one interaction to the next. A mediation analysis found improved accuracy on the Emotional Go/No-Go task mediated the relation between MT and more positive emotion during daily social interactions. Given that social emotion regulation places unique demands on attention for which mindfulness appears well-suited, research on both topics can build from these findings to better understand both intra- and inter-personal benefits of MT

Dispositional Mindfulness as a Moderator of Electrocortical and Behavioral Responses to Affective Social Stimuli

Numerous studies have linked dispositional mindfulness to enhanced emotion regulation. The present research examined dispositional mindfulness as a predictor of emotion regulation in social affective contexts. Participants completed passive viewing and Emotional Go/No-Go tasks involving social affective stimuli (happy, neutral, and fearful facial expressions). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses were examined to discern whether dispositional mindfulness predicted differential neural and behavioral responses indexing attention to, awareness of, and inhibitory control over automatic responses to affective social stimuli. Dispositional mindfulness predicted larger (more negative) N100, N200 and No-Go N200 amplitudes during the Emotional Go/No-Go task, but was not associated with amplitude of the Late Positive Potential during the passive viewing task. Dispositional mindfulness also predicted faster response times (RT) to target stimuli that were not attributable to a speed-accuracy tradeoff. No relations were found between mindfulness and RT variability nor accuracy. Implications for understanding mindfulness and early processes of social emotion regulation are discussed

Il Veneto e l'Europa

In una mappa mondiale ed europea il Veneto non appare in posizione soddisfacente. Tuttavia, data la forte domanda di policentrismo europeo pienamente corrispondente all’organizzazione – anche spontanea - del territorio e dell’economia del Veneto, è possibile immaginare che attraverso un più stretto rapporto con l’UE (Cfr. le strutture già cooperative su base policentrica), il Veneto diventi nel prossimo periodo 2007-2013 molto più visibile. L’Unione Europea, che adatta il proprio giudizio a quanto i singoli stati mostrano (ad esempio statisticamente) e segnalano a proposito di regioni, non ha chiaro al momento a quale struttura geografica, politica, economica, sociale – in una parola: a quale ambiente - si debba fare riferimento quanto parliamo di Veneto. Se ad una visione globale del locale o ad una paneuropea, perché si trovi – seppure parzialmente - riscontro della posizione regionale in progetti più “operativi”, come quelli lanciati e gestiti da ESPON o Metrex. Trattandosi di una regione “storica” della vecchia Mittel-Europa, circondata oggi da regioni molto più “giovani”? (Fig. 1), il Veneto apparirà nei prossimi anni agli occhi dell’Unione Europea solo se in grado di definire la propria strategia territoriale come sinergica e cooperativa rispetto a quella delle regioni contermini (cooperazione transregionale). L’Unione considera infatti che l’assetto del territorio non può e non deve ridursi ad una somma di impostazioni, nazionali e regionali, ma deve essere il risultato di una loro interazione ed integrazione di più ampio respito. In tal senso la regione rappresenta il livello ideale di mediazione tra una visione strategica globale e locale; essa esprime il livello ottimale di orientamento e governo della governance; cioè dall’insieme di regole con cui si attuano, in concrete visioni strategiche, i riferimenti spaziali e fisici. In questa logica ogni regione offre il suo contributo alla creazione di uno spazio integrato europeo (European Spatial Development Perspective– ESDP ). La dimensione geopolitica e geoeconomica nell’ambito della quale il Veneto si trova ad operare nell’Europea allargata a 27 (+2) non è semplice e mostra come, sino ad oggi, le reti di comunicazione, gli scambi commerciali e culturali, l’innovazione e la ricerca, le attività di cooperazione internazionale, le interdipendenze di tipo politico e sociale siano andate di pari passo con l’integrazione istituzionale vera e propria. Il processo di “europeizzazione” nelle politiche di gestione del territorio, che per alcuni appare come una sorta di omologazione culturale, ha in realtà avuto esiti molto diversi nei vari paesi e nelle diverse regioni. Dunque anche in Veneto, che, come molti stati e regioni europei dell’area mediterranea ha avuto difficoltà a recepire ed applicare i principi e le opzioni di indirizzo dello Schema di Sviluppo Spaziale Europeo (SSSE). Motivo per cui il Veneto non ne ha dato completa applicazione, recependo non sempre in modo completo le indicazioni del livello nazionale. Il ruolo dell’europeizzazione è stato comunque estremamente rilevante anche in Veneto ed ha assunto un’importanza determinante soprattutto con la programmazione 2000-2006, nell’ambito della quale la Regione è riuscita ad esercitare un ruolo leader maggiore rispetto al passato. Ciò ha consentito al Veneto di essere riconosciuto tra gli enti regionali con un forte ruolo (2006), essere cioè considerato “ente territoriale a disporre delle leve fondamentali per l'attivazione dello sviluppo economico e sociale, che esercitano il controllo e la gestione del territorio, con la possibilità di prendere decisioni sul suo utilizzo”, parafrasando l’affermazione dell’allora Ministro delle politiche comunitarie (1997)

Delayed priming promotes CNS regeneration post-rhizotomy in Neurocan and Brevican-deficient mice

A wealth of literature has provided evidence that reactive tissue at the site of CNS injury is rich in chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans which may contribute to the non-permissive nature of the CNS. We have recently demonstrated using a murine model of human brachial plexus injury that the chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans Neurocan and Brevican are differentially expressed by two subsets of astrocytes in the spinal cord dorsal root entry zone (DREZ) following dorsal root lesion (Beggah et al., Neuroscience 133: 749-762, 2005). However, direct evidence for a growth-inhibitory role of these proteoglycans in vivo is still lacking. We therefore performed dorsal root lesion (rhizotomy) in mice deficient in both Neurocan and Brevican. Rhizotomy in these animals resulted in no significant increase in the number of sensory fibres regenerating through the DREZ compared to genetically matched controls. Likewise, a conditioning peripheral nerve lesion prior to rhizotomy, which increases the intrinsic growth capacity of sensory neurons, enhanced growth to the same extent in transgenic and control mice, indicating that absence of these proteoglycans alone is not sufficient to further promote entry into the spinal cord. In contrast, when priming of the median nerve was performed at a clinically relevant time, i.e. 7 weeks post-rhizotomy, the growth of a subpopulation of sensory axons across the DREZ was facilitated in Neurocan/Brevican-deficient, but not in control animals. This demonstrates for the first time that (i) Neurocan and/or Brevican contribute to the non-permissive environment of the DREZ several weeks after lesion and that (ii) delayed stimulation of the growth program of sensory neurons can facilitate regeneration across the DREZ provided its growth-inhibitory properties are attenuated. Post-injury enhancement of the intrinsic growth capacity of sensory neurons combined with removal of inhibitory chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans may therefore help to restore sensory function and thus attenuate the chronic pain resulting from human brachial plexus injur

Brief mindfulness training enhances cognitive control in socioemotional contexts: Behavioral and neural evidence.

In social contexts, the dynamic nature of others' emotions places unique demands on attention and emotion regulation. Mindfulness, characterized by heightened and receptive moment-to-moment attending, may be well-suited to meet these demands. In particular, mindfulness may support more effective cognitive control in social situations via efficient deployment of top-down attention. To test this, a randomized controlled study examined effects of mindfulness training (MT) on behavioral and neural (event-related potentials [ERPs]) responses during an emotional go/no-go task that tested cognitive control in the context of emotional facial expressions that tend to elicit approach or avoidance behavior. Participants (N = 66) were randomly assigned to four brief (20 min) MT sessions or to structurally equivalent book learning control sessions. Relative to the control group, MT led to improved discrimination of facial expressions, as indexed by d-prime, as well as more efficient cognitive control, as indexed by response time and accuracy, and particularly for those evidencing poorer discrimination and cognitive control at baseline. MT also produced better conflict monitoring of behavioral goal-prepotent response tendencies, as indexed by larger No-Go N200 ERP amplitudes, and particularly so for those with smaller No-Go amplitude at baseline. Overall, findings are consistent with MT's potential to enhance deployment of early top-down attention to better meet the unique cognitive and emotional demands of socioemotional contexts, particularly for those with greater opportunity for change. Findings also suggest that early top-down attention deployment could be a cognitive mechanism correspondent to the present-oriented attention commonly used to explain regulatory benefits of mindfulness more broadly

Programmability and Performance of Parallel ECS-based Simulation of Multi-Agent Exploration Models

While the traditional objective of parallel/distributed simulation techniques has been mainly in improving performance and making very large models tractable, more recent research trends targeted complementary aspects, such as the “ease of programming”. Along this line, a recent proposal called Event and Cross State (ECS) synchronization, stands as a solution allowing to break the traditional programming rules proper of Parallel Discrete Event Simulation (PDES) systems, where the application code processing a specific event is only allowed to access the state (namely the memory image) of the target simulation object. In fact with ECS, the programmer is allowed to write ANSI-C event-handlers capable of accessing (in either read or write mode) the state of whichever simulation object included in the simulation model. Correct concurrent execution of events, e.g., on top of multi-core machines, is guaranteed by ECS with no intervention by the programmer, who is in practice exposed to a sequential-style programming model where events are processed one at a time, and have the ability to access the current memory image of the whole simulation model, namely the collection of the states of any involved object. This can strongly simplify the development of specific models, e.g., by avoiding the need for passing state information across concurrent objects in the form of events. In this article we investigate on both programmability and performance aspects related to developing/supporting a multi-agent exploration model on top of the ROOT-Sim PDES platform, which supports ECS

Measuring the quality of teacher-child interaction in autistic disorder

The teacher-child relationship fulfils critical functions for the well being of the child, affecting emotive development, academic achievements, behavioral conducts and relationships with peers. The goal of the presented study is to compare the perceptions of the class teacher and of the support teacher concerning their relationship with subjects with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD; N=14; Mean age =90.07 months; SD=19.36) and with children of the control group (4 classmates per every subject of the experimental group, for a total of 56 pupils, Mean age = 80.36 months; SD=18.33). The perception by the teacher of the class, concerning the relationship with children with ASD, is characterized by higher levels of Conflict, and lower levels of Closeness, if compared with perceptions about the relationship with children of the control group (Conflict: t=-3.317; df= 14.931; p<0.01; Closeness: t= 5.638; df = 65; p < 0.001). The perception of the two teachers only correlates with regards to the Conflict dimension (r=0.769; p < 0.01). In reference to the child's adaptive skills only the social skills scale correlates with the Closeness. This is true in the perception of the support teacher (r=0.598; p<0.05). Finally, we take into account how the perception of the relationship relates with the socio-personal and professional data of the teachers and with the social features of the children

Strong interaction studies with kaonic atoms

The strong interaction of antikaons (K-) with nucleons and nuclei in the low energy regime represents an active research field connected intrinsically with few-body physics. There are important open questions like the question of antikaon nuclear bound states - the prototype system being K-pp. A unique and rather direct experimental access to the antikaon-nucleon scattering lengths is provided by precision X-ray spectroscopy of transitions in low-lying states of light kaonic atoms like kaonic hydrogen isotopes. In the SIDDHARTA experiment at the electron-positron collider DA?NE of LNF-INFN we measured the most precise values of the strong interaction observables, i.e. the strong interaction on the 1s ground state of the electromagnetically bound K-p atom leading to a hadronic shift and a hadronic broadening of the 1s state. The SIDDHARTA result triggered new theoretical work which achieved major progress in the understanding of the low-energy strong interaction with strangeness. Antikaon-nucleon scattering lengths have been calculated constrained by the SIDDHARTA data on kaonic hydrogen. For the extraction of the isospin-dependent scattering lengths a measurement of the hadronic shift and width of kaonic deuterium is necessary. Therefore, new X-ray studies with the focus on kaonic deuterium are in preparation (SIDDHARTA2). Many improvements in the experimental setup will allow to measure kaonic deuterium which is challenging due to the anticipated low X-ray yield. Especially important are the data on the X-ray yields of kaonic deuterium extracted from a exploratory experiment within SIDDHARTA.Comment: Proc. Few Body 21, 4 pages, 2 figure