ERP to chess stimuli reveal expert-novice differences in the amplitudes of N2 and P3 components

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Society for Psychophysiological Research.ERP experiments were conducted to analyze the underlying neural events when chess players make simple judgments of a board position. Fourteen expert players and 14 age-matched novices viewed, for each of four tasks, 128 unique positions on a mini (4 × 4) chess board each presented for 0.5 s. The tasks were to respond: (a) if white king was in check, (b) if black knight was present, (c) if white king was not in check, and (d) if no black knight was present. Experts showed an enhanced N2 with check targets and a larger P3 with knight targets, relative to novices. Expert-novice differences in posterior N2 began as early as 240 ms on check-related searches. Results were consistent with the view that prolonged N2 components reflect matching of current perceptual input to memory, and thus are sensitive to experts' superior pattern recognition and memory retrieval of chunks

The timing of maternal depressive symptoms and child cognitive development: a longitudinal study.

Background: Maternal depression is known to be associated with impairments in child cognitive development, although the effect of timing of exposure to maternal depression is unclear. Methods: Data collected for the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a longitudinal study beginning in pregnancy, included self-report measures of maternal depression the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, completed on 6 occasions up to 3 years of age, and IQ of the index child (WISC) measured at aged 8 years. We used these data to assign women to 8 groups according to whether depression occurred in the antenatal, postnatal, preschool period, any combination of these times, or not at all. We compared a model comprising all patterns of depression (saturated model) with models nested within this to test whether there is a relationship between depression and child cognitive development and, if so, whether there is a sensitive period. We then investigated the relationship with child IQ for each model, following adjustment for confounders. Results: Six thousand seven hundred and thirty-five of 13,615 children from singleton births (49.5%, of eligible core sample) attended a research clinic at 8 years and completed a WISC with a score ≥ 70. A total of 5,029 mothers of these children had completed mood assessments over the 3 time periods. In unadjusted analyses, all three sensitive period models were as good as the saturated model, as was an accumulation model. Of the sensitive period models, only that for antenatal exposure was a consistently better fit than the accumulation model. After multiple imputation for missing data (to n = 6,735), there was no effect of postnatal depression on child IQ independent of depression at other times [-0.19 IQ points, 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.5 to 1.1 points]. There was an effect of antenatal depression (-3.19 IQ points, 95% CI: -4.33 to -2.06) which attenuated following adjustment (-0.64 IQ points, 95% CI: -1.68 to 0.40). Conclusions: The postnatal period is not a sensitive one for the effect of maternal depression on child cognitive development. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry

Parental depression and child outcomes--is marital conflict the missing link?

BACKGROUND: Both maternal and paternal depression during the perinatal period are associated with adverse effects on child outcomes. Attention has started to focus on the mechanisms mediating these relationships. Marital conflict may play a role in this context. METHODS: In a large cohort study, the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (n = 14,541 pregnancies), we aimed to (i) investigate the relative influences of parental postnatal depression and marital conflict on child outcomes and to attempt to determine the pathway(s) of risk; (ii) investigate the impact of two types of antenatal stress (parental depression and marital conflict) on child outcomes; and (iii) determine the relative contributions of antenatal and postnatal risk. Parents completed the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and a marital conflict scale during the second trimester and at 8 months postnatally. Child outcomes were assessed at 42 months using the Rutter revised pre-school scales. RESULTS: Marital conflict partially mediated the relationship between postnatal depression in both mothers and fathers and child outcomes, and acted as an independent risk for adverse outcomes. Parental depression (maternal and paternal) and marital conflict in the antenatal period were both associated with adverse effects which persisted even when postnatal stresses were taken into account. CONCLUSIONS: These findings, if replicated, suggest that screening and intervention programmes targeted at parental depression and marital problems should be considered antenatally, as well as postnatally

Maternal self-reported prenatal depressive symptoms predict infant NR3C1 1F and BDNF IV DNA methylation.

Prenatal maternal psychological distress increases risk for adverse infant outcomes. However, the biological mechanisms underlying this association remain unclear. Prenatal stress can impact fetal epigenetic regulation that could underlie changes in infant stress responses. It has been suggested that maternal glucocorticoids may mediate this epigenetic effect. We examined this hypothesis by determining the impact of maternal cortisol and depressive symptoms during pregnancy on infant NR3C1 and BDNF DNA methylation. Fifty-seven pregnant women were recruited during the second or third trimester. Participants self-reported depressive symptoms and salivary cortisol samples were collected diurnally and in response to a stressor. Buccal swabs for DNA extraction and DNA methylation analysis were collected from each infant at two months of age, and mothers were assessed for postnatal depressive symptoms. Prenatal depressive symptoms significantly predicted increased NR3C1 1F DNA methylation in male infants ( 2.147 = س , P = 0.044). Prenatal depressive symptoms also significantly predicted decreased BDNF IV DNA methylation in both male and female infants ( -3.244 = س , P = 0.013). No measure of maternal cortisol during pregnancy predicted infant NR3C1 1F or BDNF promoter IV DNA methylation. Our findings highlight the susceptibility of males to changes in NR3C1 DNA methylation and present novel evidence for altered BDNF IV DNA methylation in response to maternal depression during pregnancy. The lack of association between maternal cortisol and infant DNA methylation suggests that effects of maternal depression may not be mediated directly by glucocorticoids. Future studies should consider other potential mediating mechanisms in the link between maternal mood and infant outcome

The acute psychobiological impact of the intensive care experience on relatives.

There is a growing awareness amongst critical care practitioners that the impact of intensive care medicine extends beyond the patient to include the psychological impact on close family members. Several studies have addressed the needs of relatives within the intensive care context but the psychobiological impact of the experience has largely been ignored. Such impact is important in respect to health and well-being of the relative, with potential to influence patient recovery. The current feasibility study aimed to examine the acute psychobiological impact of the intensive care experience on relatives. Using a mixed methods approach, quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously. Six relatives of patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) of a District General Hospital, were assessed within 48 h of admission. Qualitative data were provided from semi-structured interviews analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Quantitative data were collected using a range of standardised self-report questionnaires measuring coping responses, emotion, trauma symptoms and social support, and through sampling of diurnal salivary cortisol as a biomarker of stress. Four themes were identified from interview: the ICU environment, emotional responses, family relationships and support. Questionnaires identified high levels of anxiety, depression and trauma symptoms; the most commonly utilised coping techniques were acceptance, seeking support through advice and information, and substance use. Social support emerged as a key factor with focused inner circle support relating to family and ICU staff. Depressed mood and avoidance were linked to greater mean cortisol levels across the day. Greater social network and coping via self-distraction were related to lower evening cortisol, indicating them as protective factors in the ICU context. The experience of ICU has a psychological and physiological impact on relatives, suggesting the importance of identifying cost-effective interventions with evaluations of health benefits to both relatives and patients

Towards a Notion of Distributed Time for Petri Nets

We set the ground for research on a timed extension of Petri nets where time parameters are associated with tokens and arcs carry constraints that qualify the age of tokens required for enabling. The novelty is that, rather than a single global clock, we use a set of unrelated clocks --- possibly one per place --- allowing a local timing as well as distributed time synchronisation. We give a formal definition of the model and investigate properties of local versus global timing, including decidability issues and notions of processes of the respective models

Feasibility trial of a psychoeducational intervention for parents with personality difficulties: the Helping Families Programme

The Helping Families Programme is a psychoeducational parenting intervention that aims to improve outcomes and engagement for parents affected by clinically significant personality difficulties. This is achieved by working collaboratively with parents to explore ways in which their emotional and relational difficulties impact on parenting and child functioning, and to identify meaningful and realistic goals for change. The intervention is delivered via one-to-one sessions at weekly intervals over a period of 16 weeks. This protocol describes a two arm parallel RCT in which consenting parents are randomly allocated in a 1:1 ratio to either the Helping Families Programme plus the usual services that the parent may be receiving from their mental health and/or social care providers, or to standard care (usual services plus a brief parenting advice session). The primary clinical outcome will be child behaviour. Secondary clinical outcomes will be child and parental mental health, parenting satisfaction, parenting behaviour and therapeutic alliance. Health economic measures will be collected on quality of life and service use. Outcome measures will be collected at the initial assessment stage, after the intervention is completed and at 6-month follow-up by research staff blind to group allocation. Trial feasibility will be assessed using rates of trial participation at the three time points and intervention uptake, attendance and retention. A parallel process evaluation will use qualitative interviews to ascertain key-workers’ and parent participants' experiences of intervention delivery and trial participation. The results of this feasibility study will determine the appropriateness of proceeding to a full-scale trial

The derivation of performance expressions for communication protocols from timed Petri net models

Petri Net models have been extended in a variety of ways and have been used to prove the correctness and evaluate the performance of communication protocols. Several extensions have been proposed to model time. This work uses a form of Timed Petri Nets and presents a technique for symbolically deriving expressions which describe system performance. Unlike past work on performance evaluation of Petri Nets which assumes a priori knowledge of specific time delays, the technique presented here applies to a wide range of time delays so long as the delays satisfy a set of timing constraints. The technique is demonstrated using a simple communication protocol