A subset of data was used from the Waterloo Longitudinal Reactivity Study (WLRS)to examine predictors of cardiovascular reactivity during the Type A Structured Interview (SI). Sex, age, total cholesterol, body mass index (BMI), activity level, smoking, drinking, family history of cardiovascular disease, anger-management styles (i.e., hostility, SI Components, and anger) and respective resting levels for the dependent measures were the predictor variables. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), heart rate (HR), norepinephrine, and epinephrine were the dependent measures. For this study, 111 males and 129 females completed the study. They were first or second year students from the University of Waterloo. The subjects' mean age was 20.44 years. In the WLRS, subjects were asked to come to the laboratory on several occasions. The first occasion was to obtain consent. The second occasion was to habituate subjects to the laboratory setting and the equipment. The third session was the test proper. The focus of this secondary data analysis was to examine the predictive property of anger-management styles to reactivity during one task in the test proper, the SI. Factor analyses were done on the psychometric scales. From this, three factors emerged: hostility, SI components, and anger. These variables, along with the remaining independent variables were entered in multiple regression equations. For norepinephrine, epinephrine, and DBP reactivity only the respective resting values were predictive of reactivity. The independent measures, sex and BMI were predictive of SBP reactivity. Predictors of HR reactivity were resting HR, anger(one of the three factors), and sex. The results of this study did not support the contention that personality measures are predictive of catecholamine or blood pressure reactivity. H R reactivity, however, was predicted by personality and demographic measures. Although clinical applications are not possible, the study allows for the possibility that one day only psychometric scales will need to be completed in order to predict reactivity.

Obesity is a global epidemic that is associated with several adverse health consequences. In addition, there is also a growing prevalence of obesity in pregnancy. Maternal obesity places the fetus in an abnormal in utero condition that can produce alterations in development leading to permanent programming of physiological systems. Obesity is also associated with cognitive dysfunction, which calls for investigations into its effects on the hippocampus, a brain area involved in learning and memory. Long-term potentiation (LTP), a neurophysiological correlate for learning and memory, can be examined in hippocampal slices. This study aimed to fill in the gap in literature regarding the effect of obesity on hippocampal synaptic plasticity in female rats, and maternal obesity effects on offspring hippocampal synaptic plasticity. Female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a control diet (CD), or a high-fat diet (HFD; 40% of calories from saturated fat) for 16 weeks. Impaired glucose tolerance and greater retroperitoneal fat pad weight indicated an obese phenotype in HFD rats; as well, the modified diet led to impaired LTP: CD rats had 10% more potentiation in amplitude, and 11% more potentiation in slope than HFD rats. Offspring were weaned onto control diet at post-natal day 21. Reduced success rates for achieving LTP, and lowered magnitudes of mean LTP in the offspring, strongly suggest that maternal obesity may have compromised hippocampal synaptic plasticity, and warrants further study.

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