Профессору И. В. Гончарову - 65 лет

3 января 2012 г. исполнилось 65 лет со дня рождения профессора, доктора геолого-минералогических наук, профессора кафедры геологии и разведки полезных ископаемых Института природных ресурсов ТПУ Ивана Васильевича Гончарова

Family, friends, and feelings: the role of relationships to parents and peers and alexithymia in adolescents with anorexia nervosa

Background Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with impairments in socio-emotional functioning, including difficulties in interpersonal relationships as well as alexithymia (difficulties identifying and describing one’s emotions). Although the onset of the disorder is mostly in adolescence, a developmental period in which interpersonal relationships to parents as well as peers undergo major changes, only few studies have investigated the quality of interpersonal relationships in adolescent AN patients. Furthermore, the mechanisms linking poor relationship quality to eating disorder psychopathology are not yet clarified, albeit some research suggests that alexithymia might play a pivotal role. The aims of the present study were investigating the quality of interpersonal relationships to parents and peers in adolescents with AN compared to healthy adolescents as well as exploring the mediating role of alexithymia in the association between relationship quality and eating disorder symptoms. Methods Self-report questionnaires were used to assess relationship quality (Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment) and alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale) in 12–18 year old female adolescents with AN (n = 35) in comparison to healthy adolescents (n = 40). Results Adolescents with AN reported lower relationship quality to both of their parents and to peers compared to healthy controls. Relationship quality scores were negatively correlated to alexithymia as well as eating disorder symptoms. Alexithymia fully meditated the association between eating disorder symptoms and relationship quality to parents and partially mediated the association between eating disorder symptoms and relationship quality to peers. Conclusion The results indicate difficulties in interpersonal relationships among adolescents with AN and emphasize the role of peer relationships for adolescents’ eating disorder psychopathology. Alexithymia seems to play an important role in explaining the link between quality of relationships and eating disorder psychopathology. Results suggest that treatment should not only focus on family relationships but also address relationships to peers as well as adolescents’ competence in identifying and dealing with their emotions

Corrigendum: The Influence of Task-Irrelevant Flankers Depends on the Composition of Emotion Categories

Face recognition usually takes place in a social context, where faces are surrounded by other stimuli. These can act as distracting flankers which impair recognition. Previous work has suggested that flankers expressing negative emotions distract more than positive ones. However, the various negative emotions differ in their relative impact and it is unclear whether all negative emotions are equally distracting. We investigated the impact of three negative (angry, fearful, sad) and one positive (happy) facial flanker conditions on target recognition in an emotion discrimination task. We examined the effect of the receiver’s gender, and the impact of two different temporal delays between flanker and target onset, as stimulus onset asynchrony is assumed to affect distractor strength. Participants identified and rated the emotional intensity of target faces surrounded by either face (emotional and neutral) or non-face flankers. Target faces were presented either simultaneously with the flankers, or delayed by 300 ms. Contrary to our hypothesis, negative flankers did not exert stronger distraction effects than positive or neutral flankers. However, happy flankers reduced recognition performance. Results of a follow-up experiment with a balanced number of emotion categories (one positive, one negative and one neutral flanker condition) suggest that the distraction effect of emotional flankers depends on the composition of the emotion categories. Additionally, congruency effects were found to be valence-specific and overruled by threat stimuli. Females responded more quickly and rated targets in happy flankers as less intense. This indicates a gender difference in emotion processing, with greater sensitivity to facial flankers in women. Targets were rated as more intense when they were presented without a temporal delay, possibly due to a stronger flanker contrast. These three experiments show that an exceptional processing of threat-related flanker stimuli depends on emotion category composition, which should be considered a mediating factor when examining emotional context effects

Alcohol Consumption Levels and Health Care Utilization in Germany: Results from the GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS Study

Abstract:Aims: Due to large inconsistencies in previous studies, it remains unclear how alcohol use is related to health care utilization. The aim of this study was to examine associations between alcohol drinking status with utilization of outpatient and inpatient health care services in Germany. Methodology: Survey data of the GEDA 2014/2015-EHIS study with n = 23,561 German adults were analyzed (response rate: 27 %). Respondents were categorized as lifetime abstainers, former drinkers, and non-weekly drinkers, as well as weekly low-risk drinkers and risky drinkers. Outpatient services included GP, specialist, and hospital visits; inpatient services included hospital overnight stays in the last 12 months. For both settings, binary logistic regression models were applied, adjusted for possible confounders. Results: For specialist visits, elevated odds were found among former drinkers (odds ratio (OR) = 1.93, 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) = 1.50-2.49), non-weekly drinkers (OR = 1.24, 95 % CI = 1.05-1.47), weekly low-risk drinkers (OR = 1.39, 95 % CI = 1.17-1.67), and risky drinkers (OR = 1.28, 95 % CI = 1.04-1.57) compared to lifetime abstainers. In contrast, lower odds for inpatient service use were found among non-weekly drinkers (OR = 0.76, 95 % CI = 0.62-0.93), low-risk drinkers (OR = 0.66, 95 % CI = 0.53-0.81), and risky drinkers (OR = 0.65, 95 % CI = 0.51-0.84). No differences were observed for GP and outpatient hospital visits. Conclusions: While the increased odds of consulting a specialist are consistent with higher health care needs among former and current drinkers, the lower use of inpatient care among current drinkers is contrary to known health risks associated with alcohol consumption and evidence from hospitalized populations. The findings also highlight the need to differentiate between lifetime abstainers and former drinkers in their use of health services

Biased Maintenance of Attention on Sad Faces in Clinically Depressed Youth: An Eye-Tracking Study

The role of negative attention biases (AB), central to cognitive models of adult depression, is yet unclear in youth depression. We investigated negative AB in depressed compared to healthy youth and tested whether AB are more pronounced in depressed than at-risk youth. Negative AB was assessed for sad and angry faces with an eye-tracking paradigm Passive Viewing Task (PVT) and a behavioural task Visual Search Task (VST), comparing three groups of 9-14-year-olds: youth with major depression (MD; n = 32), youth with depressed parents (high-risk; HR; n = 49) and youth with healthy parents (low-risk; LR; n = 42). The PVT revealed MD participants to maintain attention longer on sad faces compared to HR, but not LR participants. This AB correlated positively with depressive symptoms. The VST revealed no group differences. Our results provide preliminary evidence for a negative AB in maintenance of attention on disorder-specific emotional information in depressed compared to at-risk youth

Emotional Situation of Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Germany: Results from the COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring Study (COSMO)

The COVID-19 pandemic led to numerous restrictions in daily life that had a significant impact on the well-being and mental health of the population. Among others, children and adolescents were particularly affected, being a vulnerable group at risk. The aim of this study was to assess the emotional situation of children and adolescents during different phases of the pandemic and to identify modifying factors. Data from the serial cross-sectional COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO) survey in Germany were used for this study. The survey waves 12 (19th/20th May 2020) and 21 (15th/16th September 2020) were investigated as examples of two different pandemic phases. The psychosocial and emotional situation and well-being of children were measured with the emotional subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) assessed by parents. Descriptive analyses and logistic regressions were calculated. In total, a third of the participating parents in wave 12 and in wave 21 reported having children and adolescents with emotional symptoms. Especially children with younger parents seemed to be more affected by emotional symptoms. Sociodemographic aspects, such as household language, showed a significant association with reported emotional symptoms in children (Wave 12: OR = 2.22; 95% CI: 1.20–4.09). Reported prevalences of emotional symptoms in children did not differ between the pandemic phases. In conclusion, the pandemic had negative influences on the emotional symptoms of children and adolescents in COVID-19 pandemic waves in 2020, indicating a forecasted reoccurrence and need for preventive measures for upcoming waves and other pandemics in the future

What is a soundscape intervention? Exploring definitions and identification criteria and a platform to gather real-world examples

Possible definitions for the concept of “soundscape intervention” and criteria that could be used to identify stages in a design-oriented framework are discussed. This is in line with the Part 4 of the ISO 12913 series on soundscape being currently developed. For some time already, the soundscape concept has attracted attention from policymakers and practitioners of the built environment, as it advocates for more engagement with local communities in design processes. This is reflected in several documents published by national and international agencies calling for consultation and participation of the public in the definition of soundscape interventions. However, this intended framework is still trying to bridge a gap with the planning and design community, possibly for the lack of conspicuous empirical evidence (i.e., case studies and success stories) showing the benefits provided by the soundscape approach, and some lack of consensus about what a “soundscape intervention” is in the first place. Therefore, an online platform will be presented that can be used for data collection of soundscape intervention examples. This relates to the preliminary stage of a project called “Catalogue of Soundscape Interventions (CSI)”, which has the long-term goal of observing frequent/recurring situations or strategies that can be collated into design toolkits and formulate design briefs that local authorities will be using to communicate with soundscape consultants

eGFP-tagged Wnt-3a enables functional analysis of Wnt trafficking and signaling and kinetic assessment of Wnt binding to full-length Frizzled

The Wingless/Int1 (Wnt) signaling system plays multiple, essential roles in embryonic development, tissue homeostasis and human diseases. Although many of the underlying signaling mechanisms are becoming clearer, the binding mode, kinetics and selectivity of 19 mammalian WNTs to their receptors of the class Frizzled (FZD$_{1-10}$) remain obscure. Attempts to investigate Wnt-FZD interactions are hampered by the difficulties in working with Wnt proteins and their recalcitrance to epitope tagging. Here, we used a fluorescently tagged version of mouse Wnt-3a for studying Wnt-FZD interactions. We observed that the enhanced GFP (eGFP) tagged Wnt-3a maintains properties akin to wild-type Wnt-3a in several biologically relevant contexts. The eGFP-tagged Wnt-3a was secreted in an evenness interrupted (EVI)/Wntless-dependent manner, activated Wnt/β-catenin signaling in 2D and 3D cell culture experiments, promoted axis duplication in Xenopus embryos, stimulated LDL receptor–related protein 6 (LRP6) phosphorylation in cells and associated with exosomes. Further, we used conditioned medium containing eGFP-Wnt-3a to visualize its binding to FZD and to quantify Wnt-FZD interactions in real time in live cells, utilizing a recently established NanoBRET-based ligand binding assay. In summary, the development of a biologically active, fluorescent Wnt-3a reported here opens up the technical possibilities to unravel the intricate biology of Wnt signaling and Wnt-receptor selectivity