The goals of the dissertation studies were to allow for psychologists and educators to better understand the relationship between non-clinical narcissism and creativity, and to develop two promising creativity measures. The results confirmed the hypothesis that there would be a positive, moderate correlation between non-clinical narcissism and creativity. Consequently, this could allow for researchers to more fully understand the components of creativity, and support the need for creativity measures to better account for non-clinical narcissism. Two measures were introduced to consider creativity in terms of feelings and thoughts, and non-clinical narcissism attributes of past creative individuals. The Creativity Attributes List (CAL) and the Creative Individual Assessment (CIA) differ from previously established creativity measurements, which use the current impressions of the achievements of contemporary people as their criterion. There were 147 participants in a study that examined the two measures and the relationship between non-clinical narcissism and creativity. Additionally, the experimenter attempted to increase short-term creativity by exposing participants to photographs of paintings with unconventional shape designs that depict both the mindsets and art of creative persons; albeit, the results did not indicate a significant difference in the movement of creativity scores for either the experimental or control group. The double-blind experiment with 80 participants was conducted independently from the aforementioned studies. The Appendices include three papers that were based on the data collected from the psychometric studies and experiment. They were submitted to refereed psychology journals. The first paper pertains to emotional arousal and creativity, the second paper pertains to sleep deprivation in graduate school students, and the third paper explores variables that have a significant relationship with creativity in graduate students. There are graphs and tables in the Appendices that explain the MANOVA and correlation results of the CIA attributes that had a significant relationship to either the Khatena Torrance - Creative Perception Inventory Something About Myself measurement (KTCPI-SAM) and/or the Khatena - Morse Multitalent Perception Inventory Creative Imagination scale (KMMPI - CI). Additionally, tables in the Appendices present the results of multiple regression analyses performed on selected attributes from the CAL assessment and factor analyses of the measurements introduced in the studies.

Background: Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) is a chronic breathing disorder that is estimated to affect 20% of the US adult population. Intermittent hypoxia and sleep fragmentation caused by OSA likely affects cardiometabolic function. Individuals with OSA might be at risk of developing hypertension and type 2 diabetes (T2DM), with a dose-response relationship related to OSA severity. The objective of this study was to estimate the association between severity of OSA at diagnosis with 1) incidence of hypertension incidence of hypertension and 2) incidence of T2DM. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study of Kaiser Permanente members diagnosed with OSA during 2000-2005. Adults without baseline hypertension or T2DM were eligible. Patients were excluded if hypertension or T2DM was diagnosed within one year prior to OSA diagnosis, and right censored at the end of follow-up or at the time Kaiser Permanente membership ended. Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox Proportional Hazard models were used to estimate the association between OSA severity and incident hypertension and incident diabetes. Results: Overall 719 patients were diagnosed with OSA during the study periods; 614 were included as those at risk of developing either hypertension (N=265) or T2DM (N=489). Overall, 261 had severe OSA at diagnosis. Those with severe OSA were more likely to be middle aged, overweight, and have prevalent hypertension or T2DM. Among those without prevalent hypertension at OSA diagnosis, 47.4% (126/266) were subsequently diagnosed with hypertension. Among those without prevalent T2DM at OSA diagnosis, 16.3% (80/491) were subsequently diagnosed with T2DM. After adjusting for BMI and prevalent T2DM, the hazard rate of incident hypertension among patients with severe OSA was 1.35 (95%CI: 0.88-2.06) compared to the rate among patients with mild OSA. The hazard rate of incident T2DM among patients with severe OSA was 1.49 (95%CI: 0.83-2.67) compared to the rate among patients with mild OSA after adjusting for BMI and prevalent hypertension. Discussion: We found high incidence rates of hypertension and T2DM among adults diagnosed with OSA. Severe OSA at diagnosis was associated with increased risk of either incident hypertension or T2DM, but not significantly (for p≤0.05).

Hippocampus has an extended developmental trajectory, with refinements occurring in the trisynaptic circuit until adolescence. While structural change should suggest a protracted course in behavior, some studies find evidence of precocious hippocampal development in the first postnatal year and continuity in memory processes beyond. However, a number of memory functions, including binding and relational inference, can be cortically supported. Evidence from the animal literature suggests that tasks often associated with hippocampus (visual paired comparison, binding of a visuomotor response) can be mediated by structures external to hippocampus. Thus, a complete examination of memory development will have to rule out cortex as a source of early memory competency. We propose that early memory must show properties associated with full function of the trisynaptic circuit to reflect "adult-like" memory function, mainly (1) rapid encoding of contextual details of overlapping patterns, and (2) retention of these details over sleep-dependent delays. A wealth of evidence suggests that these functions are not apparent until 18-24 months, with behavioral discontinuities reflecting shifts in the neural structures subserving memory beginning approximately at this point in development. We discuss the implications of these observations for theories of memory and for identifying and measuring memory function in populations with typical and atypical hippocampal function. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

published_or_final_version / Nursing Studies / Master / Master of Nursing

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of triazolam, a short-acting benzodiazepine, on nocturnal arousals, body movements, and quality of sleep in healthy, postmenopausal females. A double-blind control by constancy cross-over design was employed. Twelve subjects were randomly assigned to the sequence paradigm placebo, drug, placebo, drug or to the sequence paradigm drug, placebo, drug, placebo. Each subject slept for six nights in a sleep laboratory that was specifically designed to decrease the artificiality of the laboratory setting. EEG, EOG, and EMG measurements were recorded on a polysomnograph. Body movements were recorded on videotape and measured by radar and ultrasound instruments. Sleep quality was measured using both Likert and visual analogue scales. In examining arousal activity during sleep period time, the findings demonstrated a significant decrease in wakes after sleep onset (WASO), sleep stage one episodes, and sleep stage shifts when triazolam was compared to a placebo reference. There was no significant effect on K-complex activity associated with movement. In examining body movements during the sleep period time, the findings demonstrated a significant decrease in major body movements when triazolam was compared to a placebo reference. Minor body movements were increased, but not at significant levels. In examining the subject's perceived quality of sleep, their satisfaction with sleep was significantly increased on nights following triazolam administration when compared with nights following placebo administration.

Subjective feeling, or mood, is not just a product of situational and dispositional factors, but is also based in part on underlying circadian rhythms. Notably, accumulating evidence suggests that circadian patterning is limited to positive affect, possibly as an adaptive manifestation of an appetitive motivational system. Furthermore, dispositional factors may influence the observed patterning, such as blunting the rhythm in positive affect when depression is present. The present study sought to examine further these phenomenon at an individual-level, as well as to explore circadian and affective interactions at a couple-level for perhaps the first time by monitoring mood, interpersonal interactions, sleep, activity, and light in 31 bed-sharing cohabitating couples over the course of 7 days. Participants' depression, well-being, relationship satisfaction, and morningness-eveningness were also assessed. Systematic daily patterning was found in all three measures of affect, and was moderated by depression, well-being, and morningness-eveningness. Within-couple affective synchrony (covariation) was positively associated with relationship satisfaction, within-couple morningness-eveningness similarity, and synchrony of sleep timing. Finally, day-to-day within-couple sleep timing synchrony predicted the tenor of the following day's partner interactions and affect. These data provide further evidence of potentially important interactions between sleep, circadian, affective processes both within- and between-individuals.

Children and adolescents with Down Syndrome (DS) have a high incidence of sleep problems, including Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS). They are also likely to have deficits in neuropsychological tasks tapping prefrontal function and hippocampal function. There has recent revival of literature suggesting an active role for sleep in memory consolidation and problem-solving in both children and adults. Furthermore, given the cognitive and behavioral sequellae of OSAS in typically developing children it is logical to test if the hypoxemia and increased sleep fragmentation, the two major pathophysiological mechanisms of OSAS, seen in children with DS and OSAS may exacerbate learning or behavior disorders.Forty children with DS aged 7-18 were administered the Arizona Cognitive Test Battery (ACTB) for DS (Edgin et al., 2010), and in-home ambulatory polysomnography. Their parents were asked to complete several questionnaires assessing their child's sleep and behavior. Seventy-seven percent (n = 40) of our sample met criteria for pediatric sleep apnea (AHI>1.5), and the mean apnea hypoppnea index (AHI) was 8.4 events per hour. Our sample had a mean arousal index of 10.3, a respiratory arousal index of 3.2, and a SaO2 nadir of 86.9%. Over 70% of our sample had a SaO2 nadir below 90%. We examined the relationship between OSAS severity and cognitive and behavioral outcomes. We found that children with DS with a lower apnea hypopnea index (AHI) attained a greater number of stages on the CANTAB PAL task compared to chronologically age-matched children with higher AHI, and the variance in performance was partially explained by sleep fragmentation (i.e., the arousal index) and experimenter-rated "attention" but not hypoxemia. In addition, we also found that the low apnea group showed a trend toward outperforming the high apnea group on the KBIT-II Verbal IQ scale and DAS-2 Pattern Construction subtest.These findings have important clinical implications. First, these results suggest that early screening for OSAS in DS is important, as OSAS severity seems to explain some of the variance in cognitive functioning. Second, these findings suggest that an early intervention for OSAS might be warranted.

The purpose of this investigation was to explore how adherence to a positional therapy intervention affected therapeutic outcome in participants with positional-related obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. Eighteen adult participants identified as having positional-related obstructive sleep apnea by an initial overnight polysomnography study were recruited. Participants were instructed to use a “tennis ball technique” positional device for three weeks at home and record their sleep habits and adherence before a final post-treatment polysomnography evaluation. A repeated measures MANOVA found significant effects of treatment between pre- and post-test on the objective polysomnography variables of Total Recording Time [F(1,17) = 5.21, p<.05, η²=.24], Total Sleep Time [F(1,17) = 8.59, p<.01, η²=.34], Sleep Efficiency [F(1,17) = 5.42, p<.05, η²=.24], Total REM sleep time [F(1,17) = 9.91, p<.01, η²=.37], and the Apnea- Hypopnea Index [F(1,17) = 14.28, p<.001, η²=.46]. Sleep onset latency was not statistically significant. There were significant effects of treatment on the subjective measures of the Functional Outcome of Sleep Quality [F(1,17) = 8.92, p<.01, η²=.35], Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index [F(1,17) = 11.2, p<.01, η²=..39], Epworth Sleepiness Scale [F(1,17) = 6.69, p<.05, η²=.28], and the Brief Symptom Inventory [F(1,17) = 5.14, p<.05, η²=.23]. No significant interaction effects were found between treatment and adherence when participants were grouped post-hoc into an adherent or non-adherent categories based on their self-reported daily log data. In summary, the results of this study indicated that the positional device was efficacious for significantly improving both objective polysomnography variables and subjective variables of sleep. The results also indicated even partially adherent participants reported significant improvements in nighttime sleep quality and quality of life after the three week treatment period. Mixed Linear Modeling demonstrated that significant improvements in sleep quality, time to sleep onset, and total sleep time were not seen until the last weeks of treatment. This study found very acceptable adherence rates with this positional device design; all participants were able to utilize the therapeutic device on at least a portion of every night during the three-week intervention.

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