<p> There is a long history in psychological science of studying the negative sequelae that follow exposure to traumatic or other adverse life events. A large body of evidence has accumulated showing that individuals who have experienced major adversity are at higher risk for both mental and physical illness. However, while it is certainly true that some individuals experience these deleterious outcomes following adversity, the majority of individuals appear to be resilient to adversity. Moreover, some people even demonstrate personal growth following the experience. These observations have given rise to an interest in understanding how people make meaning out of threatening experiences, as well as the mechanisms through which people display resilience and even growth following adversity. </p><p> Relevant to this, a mounting body of research coming out of personality and narrative psychology has argued that a person&rsquo;s identity is formed by developing an autobiographical life narrative that reconstructs past experiences, acknowledges the present, and projects into the future. This is called &ldquo;narrative identity.&rdquo; These life stories are not objective recounts of past experiences; rather, they are insights into who individuals views themselves as now. As such, individuals have some ability to shape past adversities insofar as they are able to choose how they will ultimately narrate the experience and incorporate it into their own sense of identity. </p><p> There are two major types of scenes that come up in life stories that have importance to how one fares in the face of adversity. Some people develop stories of redemption, where negative experiences are transformed into something positive. Conversely, some people narrate stories of contamination, where positive experiences are subsequently ruined by something negative. The use of redemptive imagery in the life story is positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being, whereas the use of contamination sequences is negatively associated with well-being. However, whether redemption and contamination narrations are associated with physical health remains unknown. </p><p> To address this, I report on data drawn from a larger longitudinal study of midlife American adults. At the baseline visit, participants underwent an extensive life story interview and completed various questionnaires. Five years later they underwent the same procedure. Within a year of this second visit, they filled out additional questionnaires related to mood, well-being, and health, and also had their blood drawn to assess cardiometabolic health indicators. For metabolic properties, height, weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and glycosylated hemoglobin (a method of assessing average plasma glucose levels over the past 3 months) were assessed at the time of the study visit, and these variables were used to index metabolic syndrome related components and risk. At that time, serum was also frozen to allow for future batch testing of inflammatory proteins and markers. From this serum, C-reactive protein (CRP) and lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A₂ (Lp-PLA₂) were quantified in all participants to assess markers of general systemic inflammation (CRP) as well vasculature specific inflammation (Lp-PLA₂). Additionally, a panel of inflammatory chemical messengers &ndash; called cytokines &ndash; were assayed as broader indicators of peripheral inflammatory activity. These cytokines were interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), interleukin-10 (IL-10), interferon-&gamma; (IFN&gamma;), and tumor necrosis factor &alpha; (TNF&alpha;). Levels of the various inflammatory markers and cytokines (CRP, Lp-PLA2, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IFN&gamma;, and TNF&alpha;) were z-scored and summed to create a composite inflammatory variable. </p><p> This study has three overarching sets of hypotheses, as well as one set of exploratory hypotheses. First, the usage of redemptive sequences in individuals&rsquo; life stories should be associated with better cardiometabolic health outcomes. This should be evidenced by better subjective self-reported health, fewer components related to metabolic syndrome as well as lower metabolic risk, lower levels of CRP, less risk of having a CRP value falling in the &ldquo;high cardiovascular risk&rdquo; category, and lower levels of composite inflammation. Second, the usage of contamination sequences in individuals&rsquo; life stories should be associated with poorer cardiometabolic health outcomes. This should be evidenced by worse subjective self-reported health, more components related to metabolic syndrome as well as higher metabolic risk, higher levels of CRP, more risk of having a CRP value falling in the &ldquo;high cardiovascular risk&rdquo; category, and higher levels of composite inflammation. Third, there should be an interaction between the presence of redemption sequences and the presence of contamination sequences in predicting the various cardiometabolic health outcomes. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)</p>

Some experiences occurring early in life affect structure and function of the nervous system. Handling and isolation of infant rats produce physiological and behavioral changes that persist throughout life. These changes may result from interference with the maturation of late developing systems, such as the hippocampus. The research reported here used handling and isolation alone, and in combination, and measured activity, cognitive ability and plasma CORT levels in adult rats. Handling resulted in increased activity, decreased CORT levels, and impaired spatial learning ability. Isolation failed to alter activity levels, impaired spatial ability, and increased CORT levels in females, and reduced them in males. Combining the two manipulations produced no changes in behavior or CORT levels. The results are discussed in terms of altering the manner in which the animals respond to environmental challenges.

Damage to the frontal lobes appears to result in a deficit in the temporal organization of memory. McAndrews and Milner (1991) recently found that subject performed tasks (SPTs) with objects allowed frontal lobe-damaged patients to circumvent this deficit and perform normally on recency judgments. The present study was an attempt to investigate the critical properties of SPTs, by comparing the performance of frontal lobe-damaged patients and healthy control subjects on recency judgments under five different encoding conditions: SPT, naming, visual imagery, visual observation, and verbal elaboration. Results revealed a significant group-by-condition interaction, indicating that patients' performance varied across encoding conditions, while controls did not. Post-hoc comparisons confirmed that patients performed significantly poorer than normal controls across all encoding tasks, except SPT. In the SPT condition, there was no significant difference between the groups. The present findings serve as a replication of McAndrews and Milner's results. Further, they help elucidate the nature of both SPTs and memory for temporal order. The fact that patients' performance in the SPT condition was superior to all other conditions, suggests that performing an action served as more than an elaborative encoding technique. It is concluded that activating and executing motor programs was the critical feature responsible for the observed SPT effect. It is further concluded that SPTs, rely on automatic processes. The use of an automatic method for item encoding may have allowed frontal lobe patients to devote available cognitive resources to encoding temporal order. Thus, SPTs compensated for frontal lobe patients' deficits in effortful processing, and hence improved their recency judgments.

This research addresses the role that psychosocial factors currently play in selection of candidates for heart transplantation, and the predictive validity of these factors to selection decisions and patient outcomes. The initial focus of this research was on what psychosocial factors are considered and how much impact they have individually and collectively on selection decisions. This investigation examined how individual members of a cardiac transplant team (University Medical Center, Tucson, Arizona) arrive at these decisions and how these individual judgments are combined into a consensual team decision. Further, in an effort to usefully standardize the psychosocial information used in patient assessments, we developed a consensus weighting formula for the whole transplant team. Our findings from the initial phase of the research indicate general agreement among team members that psychosocial factors are of some importance in screening transplant candidates. Most team members give primary attention to medical factors, though all were attentive to the influence of psychosocial factors on patient eligibility for transplant and on post-transplant adjustment. We next examined the relationship between what the team believes they are doing in selecting candidates for transplantation against empirical data from the cases the team has evaluated. However, when belief was tested against empirical evidence we find some disparity between what the team reported as important to their decision making and the actual decisions the team had made. Our results showed that team members use some, but not all, psychosocial factors in their transplant eligibility decisions. Lastly, we investigated the relationship between psychosocial factors and various patient outcomes. We investigated the extent to which outcome measures: mortality, morbidity, functional status, quality of life, patient management, and patient compliance, can be predicted by measures, including psychosocial measures, available at the time of initial evaluation. Our results indicate an association between pre-transplantation psychosocial evaluation and certain behavior aspects of transplant outcome, patient management and compliance. However, no relationship was found between psychosocial factors and medical and functional outcomes. The findings from this empirical prediction model should add to the information available to the team at the time of the pre-transplant screening decision.

<p> The purpose of this study was to evaluate, auditory feedback as a training procedure to increase the effectiveness of throwing a "right cross.&rdquo; Auditory feedback was evaluated in multiple baselines across behaviors design with 4 mixed martial arts students, two males and two females, 25-54 years old. The percentage of correct steps of the right crosses&rdquo; was stable during baseline for all participants improved substantially following the introduction of the auditory feedback, and maintained at 90 percent or more for all participants during follow-up.</p>

<p> Simple environmental features can shape complex behavior. Identifying key aspects of the environment (e.g., temperature, structure, toxins) that lead to widespread consequences is of central importance in a changing world. The primary objective of my dissertation is to investigate how relatively simple aspects of the environment can influence small groups of animals in profound and complex ways. In the first three chapters, I report on experiments showing how small changes in the environment can affect the expression of behavior at different points in development and can have important physiological consequences for litters of mouse pups. I then report on two sets of experiments showing how subtle changes in the environment can dramatically affect spacing patterns and social dynamics of small groups of adult zebrafish. Together, my results emphasize the ways that subtle changes in the environment can have profound impacts on individuals and small groups. In both lines of work, I have found that a more accurate characterization of the phenomena, infant rodent development and zebrafish social behavior, requires the use of individual and group measures and that temperature, density, and pollutants can have a powerful effect on group responses. These results are important because they show that the physical environment can have profound effects on the phenotype, and that with a changing physical environment or anthropogenic change, dramatic differences may be observed in the behavior of groups.</p>

Many behavioral medicine models of illness have been proposed but few, if any, have been tested. Meaningful relevant research has been limited due to restricted access to causal inferences based on correlational data which comprise much of behavioral medicine databases. Covariance structure modeling, a technique which provides for the approximation of causal inferences based upon correlational input data, now enables testing of such models. / Everly and Sobelman's (1987) biopsychosocial model of arousal, which proceeds laterally to include environmental events, cognitive appraisal, affective integration, physiological mediation, coping and illness, was tested via covariance structure modeling. Questionnaires, which assessed these domains, were distributed to 200 subjects including 100 pre-angioplasty cardiology inpatients and 100 cross-sectional subjects varying along the continuum of health and illness. Cross-sectional subjects were recruited from various men's and women's groups and matched the inpatient sample along sex and age variables. The confirmatory test of the hypothesis was performed on the pooled sample of 200. An exploratory test of possible differences between groups was performed in a stacked analysis of the samples of 100. / Results did not support the hypothesized model but suggested that an adjusted model, with two theoretically justifiable modifications, was valid for the pooled sample. An exploratory analysis supported the validity of the adjusted model in the cardiovascular disorder and the cross-sectional groups. The exploratory analysis provided cross-validation of the adjusted model and support for the generalizability of the adjusted model from a more healthy to a formal patient sample. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-07, Section: B, page: 3789. / Major Professor: Charles Madsen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) embodies a spectrum of complex, pervasive, and heterogeneous neurodevelopmental disorders. There is not one single identified cause, but is instead composed of dynamically diverse etiologies and developmental directions that ultimately influence the degree of core symptom severity. Valproic acid (VPA), clinically known as Depakote, is a popular anticonvulsant with teratogenic properties. Indeed, fetal exposure to valproic acid during the first trimester is associated with a seven-fold occurrence risk for the development of ASD. Likewise, prenatal VPA exposure in rats and mice induces social behavior deficits, replicating ASD-like symptoms in humans. While studies with rats and mice have provided valuable insights into the effects of prenatal VPA exposure, few considered both sexes and none have examined the effects of VPA in a relevant specie that exhibit strong social behaviors, which are deficient in ASD. Behaviors such as social attachment and partner preference are not displayed by rats and mice, and therefore these behaviors have not been previously assessed in response to prenatal VPA exposure. The socially monogamous nature of the prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) has granted us that previously unexplored advantage to investigate the consequences of prenatal VPA exposure on the ability to form social attachments or social bonding. In Chapter I, along with introducing main ASD pathologies and introducing this valuable animal model, we review several neural mechanisms that have been implicated in VPA-induced behavior, molecular, and anatomical deficits in humans and traditional laboratory rodents. In Chapter 2, we sought to determine if prenatal VPA exposure can trigger behavioral, molecular, and neuromorphological deficits in the prairie vole, in an effort to better understand the mechanisms underlying ASD-like social impairments. Prairie voles exposed to VPA at 600 mg/kg on embryonic day 12.5 engaged in fewer social affiliative behaviors in a familial context, exhibited fewer social interactions with novel conspecifics, and showed enhanced anxiety-like behavior. Interestingly, among numerous genes that we examined, and are linked to autism spectrum disorders, expression of avpr1a, an essential social behavior-relevant gene, and mecp2, an important player in the regulation of synaptic plasticity and social behaviors, were the only two genes whose expression were down-regulated in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain region implicated in complex cognitive and social behaviors. Considering that evidence of atypical structure and function in the mPFC has been linked to individuals with ASD, in VPA-exposed rats and mice, and now in our VPA-exposed prairie voles, we next sought to examine changes in mPFC dendritic spine density and morphology. However, we found no alterations in dendritic spine density and morphology in the mPFC of adult prairie voles, suggesting that although prenatal VPA exposure induces underweight phenotypes throughout development, adolescent social deficits, and down-regulation of genes relevant to social behaviors, it does not seem to alter neuronal morphology and likely communication between neurons in mPFC. However, this finding needs to be further explored. It is important to note that co-parental care to the VPA-exposed offspring remained sustained and similar to vehicle-exposed offspring, implying that VPA treatment effects in the offspring is not the consequence of differences in paternal and/or maternal care. Following VPA-exposed rat and mouse models, we report that both male and female prairie voles prenatally exposed to VPA exhibit affiliative behavior and social interaction impairments, associated with a reduction of social behavior- and ASD-relevant genes in the mPFC, but no alterations in dendritic spines morphology or density in this brain area. Our data suggest that prenatal exposure to VPA in male and female prairie voles could be a useful animal model for investigating how developmental perturbations early in life lead to long-term changes in social behaviors that are perturbed in ASD. In Chapter 3, to address how prenatal VPA exposure affects opposite-sex social attachments in prairie voles, we followed the same VPA exposure paradigm, allowed subjects to reach sexual maturity, and assessed their ability to form partner preferences and display selective aggression following two weeks of cohabitation with mating. Similarly to the cohort of VPA-exposed prairie voles tested for adolescent social behaviors, this group received normal co-parental care. Remarkably, VPA-exposed subjects displayed a robust preference for their opposite-sex partner, versus an opposite-sex stranger, and correspondingly displayed high levels of aggression against same-sex intruders. These results suggest VPA alters only certain behavioral domains such as sex-naive anxiety and affiliative behaviors, but does not alter other domains such as social bonding with opposite sex individuals Finally, in Chapter 4, we provide a summary of our findings and a general discussion of their implications, as well as future directions for the study of the consequences of prenatal VPA exposure in prairie vole social monogamous behaviors. Taken together, this work demonstrates that prairie voles are valuable animal models for validating the use of the prenatal VPA exposure model of ASD. Significantly, using the socially monogamous nature of the prairie vole allowed us to highlight an important distinction between same-sex social affiliative behaviors and the underlying processes of enduring sexual attachments affected by prenatal VPA exposure—a peculiarity observed in a subtype of the autism spectrum. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Biomedical Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester 2018. / October 16, 2018. / Autism spectrum disorders, MeCP2, Medial prefrontal cortex, Prairie vole, Social behavior, Vasopressin / Includes bibliographical references. / Mohamed Kabbaj, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Keller, University Representative; Zuoxin Wang, Committee Member; Pradeep Bhide, Committee Member; Akash Gunjan, Committee Member.

Mice of the 129/J and C57BL/6J inbred strains were assessed behaviorally using two-bottle 48-h preference tests and found to differ in their preference for 0.08 M NaCl. 129/J mice exhibited a greater preference for NaCl solutions compared to C57BL/6J mice. Underlying this preference was a significant difference in NaCl intake, with 129/J mice consuming more NaCl than C57BL/6J mice. Additional behavioral testing revealed that prior NaCl exposure played an important role in determining the extent of the difference in NaCl intake for the two strains of mice. To determine if the strain difference was mediated by gustatory mechanisms, the integrated neural responses of the chorda tympani nerve to a concentration range of NaCl and KCl were examined. No strain differences were found in neural gustatory responses. However, with the lingual application of 0.5 mM amiloride hydrochloride, a sodium channel transport blocker, suppression of the neural responses to NaCl was apparent in C57BL/6J mice but not in 129/J mice. Results suggest that for 129/J mice, salt reception and transduction are primarily amiloride-insensitive whereas for C57BL/6J mice, both amiloride-sensitive and amiloride-insensitive components are present. The strain difference in salt intake may be mediated through gustatory mechanisms, with reduced salt preference in long-term tests influenced by amiloride-sensitive sodium transduction mechanisms. / Blood levels of sodium were dissimilar in the two strains under normal conditions. Following sodium depletion, C57BL/6J mice exhibited a significant reduction in blood sodium levels. In response to furosemide-induced sodium depletion, a sodium appetite was produced for both groups of mice, although it was more pronounced in C57BL/6J mice. These results suggest that differential regulation of sodium balance in 129/J and C57BL/6J mice may also contribute to differences in sodium intake. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-12, Section: B, page: 5596. / Major Professor: James C. Smith. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

The purposes of this research were to: (1) determine the dependence of vernier acuity upon specific spatial frequency channels; (2) determine the effect of stimulus position in the central 2 deg arc upon vernier acuity thresholds; (3) investigate the relationship between binocular, monocular, and dichoptic vernier acuity; (4) evaluate the effect of the subjective task upon vernier acuity thresholds; and, (5) determine the differences between using absolute thresholds and difference thresholds as measures of vernier acuity. / Vernier acuity thresholds were found to be a function of both spatial frequency (0.5-20 cpd) and grating contrast (0.25-0.65). Thresholds were higher with low spatial frequency grating ($<$2 cpd), and the low spatial frequency grating thresholds were most affected by reduced levels of contrast. Vernier acuity mechanisms appear to utilize information over a wide range of spatial frequencies. / Monocular vernier acuity thresholds were found to vary with the stimulus position, with stimulus in the nasal hemifield resulting in lower thresholds than presentation in the temporal hemifield. Binocular vernier acuity was well predicted from the monocular vernier acuity by a probability summation model, suggesting independence between the monocular inputs. / In general, stimulus detection resulted in lower thresholds than stimulus classification (i.e., offset direction), particularly at low spatial frequencies. Difference thresholds were consistently lower than absolute thresholds, and they showed smaller variations with stimulus manipulation than absolute thresholds. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-10, Section: B, page: 4598. / Major Professor: Mark A. Berkley. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1988.