Migraine and Major Depression: A Longitudinal Study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/72886/1/j.1526-4610.1994.hed3407387.x.pd

Empowerment and the Transition to Housing for Homeless Mentally Ill People: An Anthropological Perspective

Often lacking in scholarly and policy-oriented discussions of homelessness are contextualized understandings of the problems faced, and the values held, by homeless mentally ill people. This article, using an anthropological perspective, examines issues that arise for homeless mentally ill individuals in making the transition from shelter living to permanent residences. The transition occurs as part of a housing initiative driven by the philosophy of consumer empowerment. Project participants are placed in independent apartments or evolving consumer households (ECH) — shared, staffed residences designed to transform themselves into consumer-directed living situations over time. The effects of an empowerment paradigm on the organization of space, the nature of social relations, and the management of economic resources in the ECHs are discussed to show that consumers and staff sometimes have contrasting views of what empowerment entails. It is suggested that anthropological research can help to illuminate the issues at stake in determining policy for homeless people with major mental illness

Suppression of ovarian hormones in adolescent rats has no effect on anxiety-like behaviour or c-fos activation in the amygdala

Support was provided the British Society for Neuroendocrinology, Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews.In humans, sex differences in mood disorders emerge during adolescence, with prevalence rates being consistently higher in females than males. It has been hypothesised that exposure to endogenous ovarian hormones during adolescence enhances the susceptibility of females to mood disorders from this stage of life onwards. However, experimental evidence in favour of this hypothesis is lacking. In the present study, we examined the long‐term effects of suppressing adolescent gonadal hormone levels in a group of female Lister‐hooded rats via administration of a gonadotrophin‐releasing hormone antagonist (Antide; administered on postnatal day [PND] 28 and 42) compared to control females and males (n = 14 per group). We predicted that, in adulthood, Antide‐treated female rats would exhibit more male‐like behaviour than control females in novel environments (elevated‐plus maze, open field and light‐dark box), in response to novel objects and novel social partners, and in an acoustic startle task. Progesterone and luteinising hormone assays (which were conducted on blood samples collected on PND 55/56 and 69/70) confirmed that the hypothalamic‐pituitary‐gonadal axis was temporarily suppressed by Antide treatment. In addition, Antide‐treated females were found to exhibit a modest pubertal delay, as measured by vaginal opening, which was comparable in length to the pubertal delay that has been induced by adolescent exposure to alcohol or stress in previous studies of female rats. However, Antide‐treated females did not substantially differ from control females on any of the behavioural tests, despite the evidence for predicted sex differences in some measures. Following the acoustic startle response task, all subjects were culled and perfused, and c‐Fos staining was conducted in the medial and basolateral amygdala, with the results showing no significant differences in cell counts between the groups. These findings suggest that ovarian hormone exposure during adolescence does not have long‐term effects on anxiety‐related responses in female rats.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Protocol for investigating genetic determinants of posttraumatic stress disorder in women from the Nurses' Health Study II

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>One in nine American women will meet criteria for the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in their lifetime. Although twin studies suggest genetic influences account for substantial variance in PTSD risk, little progress has been made in identifying variants in specific genes that influence liability to this common, debilitating disorder.</p> <p>Methods and design</p> <p>We are using the unique resource of the Nurses Health Study II, a prospective epidemiologic cohort of 68,518 women, to conduct what promises to be the largest candidate gene association study of PTSD to date. The entire cohort will be screened for trauma exposure and PTSD; 3,000 women will be selected for PTSD diagnostic interviews based on the screening data. Our nested case-control study will genotype1000 women who developed PTSD following a history of trauma exposure; 1000 controls will be selected from women who experienced similar traumas but did not develop PTSD.</p> <p>The primary aim of this study is to detect genetic variants that predict the development of PTSD following trauma. We posit inherited vulnerability to PTSD is mediated by genetic variation in three specific neurobiological systems whose alterations are implicated in PTSD etiology: the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the locus coeruleus/noradrenergic system, and the limbic-frontal neuro-circuitry of fear. The secondary, exploratory aim of this study is to dissect genetic influences on PTSD in the broader genetic and environmental context for the candidate genes that show significant association with PTSD in detection analyses. This will involve: conducting conditional tests to identify the causal genetic variant among multiple correlated signals; testing whether the effect of PTSD genetic risk variants is moderated by age of first trauma, trauma type, and trauma severity; and exploring gene-gene interactions using a novel gene-based statistical approach.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Identification of liability genes for PTSD would represent a major advance in understanding the pathophysiology of the disorder. Such understanding could advance the development of new pharmacological agents for PTSD treatment and prevention. Moreover, the addition of PTSD assessment data will make the NHSII cohort an unparalleled resource for future genetic studies of PTSD as well as provide the unique opportunity for the prospective examination of PTSD-disease associations.</p

Space-optimal Heavy Hitters with Strong Error Bounds

The problem of finding heavy hitters and approximating the frequencies of items is at the heart of many problems in data stream analysis. It has been observed that several proposed solutions to this problem can outperform their worst-case guarantees on real data. This leads to the question of whether some stronger bounds can be guaranteed. We answer this in the positive by showing that a class of "counter-based algorithms" (including the popular and very space-efficient FREQUENT and SPACESAVING algorithms) provide much stronger approximation guarantees than previously known. Specifically, we show that errors in the approximation of individual elements do not depend on the frequencies of the most frequent elements, but only on the frequency of the remaining "tail." This shows that counter-based methods are the most space-efficient (in fact, space-optimal) algorithms having this strong error bound. This tail guarantee allows these algorithms to solve the "sparse recovery" problem. Here, the goal is to recover a faithful representation of the vector of frequencies, f. We prove that using space O(k), the algorithms construct an approximation f* to the frequency vector f so that the L1 error ||f -- f*||[subscript 1] is close to the best possible error min[subscript f2] ||f2 -- f||[subscript 1], where f2 ranges over all vectors with at most k non-zero entries. This improves the previously best known space bound of about O(k log n) for streams without element deletions (where n is the size of the domain from which stream elements are drawn). Other consequences of the tail guarantees are results for skewed (Zipfian) data, and guarantees for accuracy of merging multiple summarized streams.David & Lucile Packard Foundation (Fellowship)Center for Massive Data Algorithmics (MADALGO)National Science Foundation (U.S.). (Grant number CCF-0728645

Attentional Performance, Age and Scholastic Achievement in Healthy Children

Attentional processes in children play a critical role in daily school demands and accomplishments. Studies on the association of attentional processes with school achievement and age in healthy school children are scarce. The aim of the present study was to identify correlations between dimensions of attentional performance, scholastic achievement and age.An extensive testing battery was used to assess a wide range of attentional dimensions. A principal component analysis revealed three factors that are related to attentional performance (distractibility, lapses of attention, cognitive speed). Age was negatively associated with distractibility, lapses of attention and cognitive speed, indicating that distractibility and lapses of attention decreased with age in healthy children and resulted in lower cognitive speed.Attentional processes in healthy children should be measured in relation to distractibility, lapses of attention and cognitive speed

Standard Outpatient Re-Evaluation for Patients Not Admitted to the Hospital After Emergency Department Evaluation for Acute Abdominal Pain

The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of standard outpatient re-evaluation for patients who are not admitted to the hospital after emergency department surgical consultation for acute abdominal pain. All patients seen at the emergency department between June 2005 and July 2006 for acute abdominal pain were included in a prospective study using a structured diagnosis and management flowchart. Patients not admitted to the hospital were given appointments for re-evaluation at the outpatient clinic within 24 h. All clinical parameters, radiological results, diagnostic considerations, and management proposals were scored prospectively. Five-hundred patients were included in this analysis. For 148 patients (30%), the final diagnosis was different from the diagnosis after initial evaluation. Eighty-five patients (17%) had a change in management after re-evaluation, and 20 of them (4%) were admitted to the hospital for an operation. Only 6 patients (1.2%) had a delay in diagnosis and treatment, which did not cause extra morbidity. Standard outpatient re-evaluation is a safe and effective means of improving diagnostic accuracy and helps to adapt management for patients that are not admitted to the hospital after surgical consultation for acute abdominal pain at the emergency department.Vascular Surger

Cigarette smoking, nicotine dependence and anxiety disorders : a systematic review of population-based, epidemiological studies

Background Multiple studies have demonstrated that rates of smoking and nicotine dependence are increased in individuals with anxiety disorders. However, significant variability exists in the epidemiological literature exploring this relationship, including study design (cross-sectional versus prospective), the population assessed (random sample versus clinical population) and diagnostic instrument utilized.Methods We undertook a systematic review of population-based observational studies that utilized recognized structured clinical diagnostic criteria (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD)) for anxiety disorder diagnosis to investigate the relationship between cigarette smoking, nicotine dependence and anxiety disorders.Results In total, 47 studies met the predefined inclusion criteria, with 12 studies providing prospective information and 5 studies providing quasiprospective information. The available evidence suggests that some baseline anxiety disorders are a risk factor for initiation of smoking and nicotine dependence, although the evidence is heterogeneous and many studies did not control for the effect of comorbid substance use disorders. The identified evidence however appeared to more consistently support cigarette smoking and nicotine dependence as being a risk factor for development of some anxiety disorders (for example, panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder), although these findings were not replicated in all studies. A number of inconsistencies in the literature were identified.Conclusions Although many studies have demonstrated increased rates of smoking and nicotine dependence in individuals with anxiety disorders, there is a limited and heterogeneous literature that has prospectively examined this relationship in population studies using validated diagnostic criteria. The most consistent evidence supports smoking and nicotine dependence as increasing the risk of panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. The literature assessing anxiety disorders increasing smoking and nicotine dependence is inconsistent. Potential issues with the current literature are discussed and directions for future research are suggested

Environmental noise exposure, early biological risk and mental health in nine to ten year old children: a cross-sectional field study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Previous research suggests that children born prematurely or with a low birth weight are more vulnerable to the mental health effects of ambient neighbourhood noise; predominantly road and rail noise, at home. This study used data from the Road Traffic and Aircraft Noise Exposure and Children's Cognition and Health (RANCH) study to see if this finding extends to aircraft and road traffic noise at school.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Children and their parents from schools around three European airports were selected to represent a range of aircraft and road traffic noise exposure levels. Birth weight and gestation period were merged to create a dichotomous variable assessing 'early biological risk'. Mental health was assessed using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Complete data were available for 1900 primary school children.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Children who were 'at risk' (i.e. low birth weight or premature birth) were rated as having more conduct problems and emotional symptoms and poorer overall mental health than children not at risk. However, there was no interaction between aircraft or road traffic noise exposure at school and early biological risk.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Data from the RANCH study suggests that children with early biological risk are not more vulnerable to the effects of aircraft or road traffic noise at school on mental health than children without this risk; however they are more likely to have mental ill-health.</p