What Lies Beneath? An exploration of Secrets held by Urban Youth

Every day in life one may have myriad experiences, however, there may be some events or thoughts that an individual may choose not to share it with anyone. This ability to keep the information to ourselves, is not an easy process and is an active intentional cognitive process. Secrets is something that each individual has, however, there has been a lack of empirical interest in this topic. What may be the function of this process and does it have any links to developmental stages or does it inform any aspects of counseling? In an exploratory study, secrets from 172 participants were collected and analyzed. The results provide evidence that suggests secrets may have a developmental basis. Further, the feelings associated with secrets are negative, thus providing support for our contention that the events precipitating the secret have their source in the shadow archetypes

Stuck in a moment, Concreteness and psychotherapy after acquired brain injury.

This paper surveys the issue of concrete thinking after brain injury—a phenomenon that is widely recognised clinically, but under-investigated in formal research settings. Through the lens of the classical work of Kurt Goldstein the paper outlines the diverse clinical manifestations of concreteness, and the barriers which this might present to the psychotherapeutic process. However, the paper also outlines the way in which preserved psychological functions in highly concrete patients, specially the capacity to focus on immediate reality, and experience emotions in present time, can be used as a lever for psychotherapeutic interventions. The paper concludes with a range of practical suggestions which may aid the psychotherapist in reaching out to this challenging patient group

Neural Priming in Human Prefrontal Cortex: Multiple Forms of Learning Reduce Demands on the Prefrontal Executive System.

Past experience is hypothesized to reduce computational demands in PFC by providing bottom-up predictive information that informs subsequent stimulus-action mapping. The present fMRI study measured cortical activity reductions ("neural priming"/"repetition suppression") during repeated stimulus classification to investigate the mechanisms through which learning from the past decreases demands on the prefrontal executive system. Manipulation of learning at three levels of representation-stimulus, decision, and response-revealed dissociable neural priming effects in distinct frontotemporal regions, supporting a multiprocess model of neural priming. Critically, three distinct patterns of neural priming were identified in lateral frontal cortex, indicating that frontal computational demands are reduced by three forms of learning: (a) cortical tuning of stimulus-specific representations, (b) retrieval of learned stimulus-decision mappings, and (c) retrieval of learned stimulus-response mappings. The topographic distribution of these neural priming effects suggests a rostrocaudal organization of executive function in lateral frontal cortex

The Effectiveness of Dietary-Induced Ketogenesis on Cognition in Older Adults: A Scoping Review of the Literature

There is growing interest in the effect of dietary interventions in people living with memory impairment and delaying cognitive decline. Investigation of alterations in glucose metabolism and dietary-induced ketogenesis in older adults is a recent growing area of research. Ketone bodies are an important alternative energy source in the brain and may be beneficial to people developing or who already have memory impairment or those with Alzheimer’s disease. This scoping review aims to evaluate the available evidence on dietary-induced ketogenesis and its effect on cognition in older adults and the factors affecting feasibility of the dietary interventions to inform the design of future studies. The scoping review methodology explored the current knowledge about dietary interventions related to dietary-induced ketogenesis and cognition in older adults and identify gaps in the literature. Eleven dietary intervention studies included in the review demonstrated that both medium-chain triglyceride supplementation and ketogenic diets induce ketosis. Nine of these studies demonstrated that dietary-induced ketogenesis could lead to an improvement in cognitive functions, but the evidence remains inconclusive. Most of the included studies showed evidence to suggest that dietary-induced ketogenesis improves cognitive functions in older adults. However, the number of published papers is small and there were differences in the design and types of the dietary interventions (medium-chain triglyceride supplementation, ketogenic diet) along with high drop-out rates in some studies which limits the generalization of the findings. Although methodologies used in the studies vary, the findings warrant the need for further research with larger sample sizes in people at different stages of cognitive impairment, and to develop strategies to improve adherence to the intervention

What type of inhibition underpins performance on Luria's Fist-Edge-Palm task?

OBJECTIVE: The Fist-Edge-Palm task is a motor sequencing task believed to be sensitive to frontal lobe impairment. The present study aimed to investigate the inhibitory processes underlying successful execution of this task. METHOD: Seventy-two healthy participants were asked to perform the Fist-Edge-Palm task paced at 120 bpms, 60 bpms and self-paced. They also completed assessments sensitive to recently dissociated forms of inhibition (the Hayling Sentence Completion Test and the Stroop Color-Word Test) that have recently been shown to be differentially lateralized (the right and left Prefrontal Cortex, respectively), and Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence test. RESULTS: Analysis revealed that performance on the Hayling Sentence Completion Test predicted the amount of crude errors and the overall score on the Fist-Edge-Palm task, and that pacing condition had no effect on this outcome. Neither the Stroop Color-Word Test nor Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test predicted performance on the Fist-Edge-Palm task. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with some previous neuroimaging findings, the present findings suggest that Fist-Edge-Palm task performance relies on right lateralized inhibitory processes

The Interdisciplinary Team not the Interdisciplinarist: reflections on Interdisciplinary Research

Worldwide there is a growing interest in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research. This Viewpoint addresses some of the pitfalls of, and barriers to, being an interdisciplinary researcher. Engaging in interdisciplinary research is not an easy option for an individual discipline expert. It requires individual skills, ability to see beyond one’s discipline and perhaps personality characteristics (e.g. being a team player). Interdisciplinary research may involve a mixed-methods approach underpinned by conflicting, and according to some incommensurable, research philosophies. The paper uses some examples drawn from experiences of working in interdisciplinary teams to illustrate its potential

‘Well I’m still the Diva!’ Enabling people with dementia to express their identity through graffiti arts: Innovative practice.

This article reports on a pilot study that investigated the use of graffiti arts as a medium for promoting self-expression in people with dementia. Two people with dementia attended a series of workshops with a graffiti artist where they explored their feelings of changing identity following their dementia diagnoses. As part of the workshops, they were encouraged to develop a personal ‘tag’ or signature to portray their sense of identity and a piece of street art to express ‘their message’. These completed artworks were displayed in a public space in Bournemouth, UK

Neuropsychology of Motivated Forgetting

When confronted with an unwelcome reminder, people often inhibit the unwanted memory from awareness, a process that causes forgetting. This suppression-induced forgetting (SIF), also sometimes known as motivated forgetting, can be empirically measured by the Think/No-Think (TNT) task. Chapter 1 reviews the literature on memory inhibition. Imaging work indicates suppressing retrieval engages the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (rDLPFC), which in turn may inhibit the retrieval processes within the hippocampus. This thesis, using a range of methods, aims to better understand the neuropsychology of motivated forgetting. Chapter 2 investigates whether the ability to inhibit unwanted memories can be modulated through electrical stimulation. Stimulation methods do not appear to improve inhibition, at least in this cohort, one possible reason for this being the increased perceived thought control ability. Chapter 3 reports the first ever adaptation of the TNT task in patients with unilateral frontal lesions. Pilot testing in Chapter 4 reports the study in patients with unilateral frontal lesions. The results suggested that patients with left frontal lesions showed a robust SIF, compared to those with right-frontal lesions who showed none. Finally, Chapter 5 attempted to identify the structural connectivity underlying inhibitory control of motivated forgetting. The results indicate that the DLPFC is connected to the hippocampus by a subset of the two tracts, namely the anterior thalamic projection connecting the DLPFC to the caudate nucleus, and the fornix. Future directions to expand on the finding of this thesis are discussed in Chapter 6