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Generalized anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in major depression
Date: February 9, 2012
Creator: Schlund, Michael W.; Verduzco, Guillermo; Cataldo, Michael F. & Hoehn-Saric, Rudolf
Description: This article discusses generalized anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in major depression. Abstract: Background: Anxiety is relatively common in depression and capable of modifying the severity and course of depression. Yet our understanding of how anxiety modulates frontal and limbic activation in depression is limited. Methods: The authors used functional magnetic resonance imaging and two emotional information processing tasks to examine frontal and limbic activation in ten patients with major depression and comorbid with preceding generalized anxiety (MDD/GAD) and ten non-depressed controls. Results: Consistent with prior studies on depression, MDD/GAD patients showed hypoactivation in medial and middle frontal regions, as well as in the anterior cingulate and insula. However, heightened anxiety in MDD/GAD patients was associated with increased activation in middle frontal regions and the insula and the effects varied with the type of emotional information presented. Conclusions: The authors' findings highlight frontal and limbic hypoactivation in patients with depression and comorbid anxiety and indicate that anxiety level may modulate frontal and limbic activation depending upon the emotional context. One implication of this finding is that divergent findings reported in the imaging literature on depression could reflect modulation of activation by anxiety level in response to different types of ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc122164/
Malnutrition And Food Aid Programs: A Case Study From Guatemala
Date: May 1982
Creator: Rodeheaver, Daniel G.; Bates, Frederick L. & Murphy, Arthur D.
Description: This report is on a case study from Guatemala on malnutrition and food aid programs. The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of food aid and/or food aid programs on the nutritional status of its recipients in two regions of Guatemala. From this investigation, empirically-based programmatic statements as to the role of food aid and its impact on human society will be presented.
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc84342/
Public Libraries and Democratization in Three Developing Countries: Exploring the Role of Social Capital
Date: March 2012
Creator: Ignatow, Gabe; Webb, Sarah M.; Poulin, Michelle; Parajuli, Ramesh; Fleming, Peter; Batra, Shika et al
Description: This article explores the role of social capital. Investments in public libraries in developing countries have been made based on the idea that libraries contribute to societal democratization. Yet scholarly understanding of the relationships between public libraries and democratization is sharply limited. In this article the authors review historical studies of national public library systems that cast doubt on widely held assumptions that a positive relationship necessarily pertains between the establishment of public libraries and democracy. Based on this historical review and on sociological theories of social capital (e.g. Bourdieu 1986), the authors develop a theoretical framework intended to facilitate systematic investigation of the contributions public libraries may make to democracy. Using comparative historical and ethnographic methods, the authors analyze the relationship between public libraries and democratic systems of government in Namibia, Nepal, and Malawi, and find that in all three cases public libraries were established mainly during democratic regimes. However, they were not necessarily established by democratically elected governments directly, but rather because democratic regimes proved to be relatively open to the influence of diasporas and global civil society. The authors only find evidence of public libraries contributing to societal democratization, as the authors conceptualize the process, in Nepal ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc81388/
[Review] Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America
Date: January 2011
Creator: Ignatow, Gabe
Description: This article reviews the book Habits of the Heartland: Small-Town Life in Modern America by Lyn C. MacGregor. Based on Lyn C. MacGregor's dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Habits of the Heartland is an ethnographic study of Viroqua, a small town approximately 4,000 residents in southwestern Wisconsin. MacGregor's two years living in Viroqua was time well spent: she collected a great deal of ethnographic and interview data, and her arguments regarding the town's social divisions are generally convincing and well supported as a result. MacGregor comes across as a trustworthy guide to Viroqua, and the book is well written and genuinely edifying.
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc78295/
Inter-organizational digital divide: Civic groups' media strategies in the Trinity River Corridor Project
Date: November 7, 2011
Creator: Ignatow, Gabriel & Schuett, Jessica Lynn
Description: This article discusses a study on civic groups' media strategies in the Trinity River Corridor project. Abstract: This study investigates how leaders of civic groups make decisions about using new and social media versus older forms of media. Drawing from theory and empirical research on the social effects of new media, we focus on whether new media is used in a way that lowers barriers to ordinary citizens' participation in local politics, or else contributes to a "digital divide" between elite and non-elite civic groups. To explore these issues, we conducted interviews with leaders of eight civic groups involved in the Trinity River Corridor development project in Dallas, Texas. We also interviewed local journalists, and analyzed the eight civic groups' Web sites, social media sites, and blogs, as well as blogs that linked to the groups' sites. We find that new and social media were used mainly by organizations that were not directly involved in major political actions, and that for the two groups most directly involved in political actions, the wealthier and more powerful group was better connected to other organizations that did use new and social media. The findings reveal a sharp digital divide between networks of civic ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc78305/
Behavioral Measures of Play
Date: 2008
Creator: Guðmundsdóttir, Kristín & Ala'i-Rosales, Shahla
Description: This paper discusses measuring play. Children with autism frequently display deficits in play skills, such as pretend play and object manipulation. This is described both in the diagnostic criteria for autism (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) and in descriptive studies on children's play (Jarrold, 2003; Williams, 2003). However, the nature of these deficits and the degree to which the play of children with autism differs in complexity and variety from the play of typically developing children is unclear (Vig, 2007). The purpose of this article is to review the importance of play in a young child's life and to discuss the importance of measuring play when designing interventions for children with autism. Furthermore, this paper will present an example of a consistent and reliable observation system that assesses the complexity and variety of play on children with autism and with typically developing children.
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77223/
Amygdala involvement in human avoidance, escape and approach behavior
Date: November 1, 2010
Creator: Schlund, Michael W. & Cataldo, Michael F.
Description: This article discusses amygdala involvement in human avoidance, escape and approach behavior. Abstract: Many forms of psychopathology and substance abuse problems are characterized by chronic ritualized forms of avoidance and escape behavior that are designed to control or modify external or internal (i.e., thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations) threats. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation, the authors examined amygdala reactivity to threatening cues when avoidance responding consistently prevented contact with an upcoming aversive event (money loss). In addition, the authors examined escape responding that terminated immediate escalating money loss and approach responding that produced a future money gain. Results showed cues prompting avoidance, escape and approach behavior recruited a similar fronto-striatal-parietal network. Within the amygdala, bilateral activation was observed to threatening avoidance and escape cues, even though money loss was consistently avoided, as well as to the reward cue. The magnitude of amygdala responses within-subjects was relatively similar to avoidance, escape and approach cues, but considerable between-subject differences were found. The heightened amygdala response to avoidance and escape cues observed within a subset of subjects suggests threat related responses can be maintained even when aversive events are consistently avoided, which may account for the persistence of avoiding-coping in various clinical ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77178/
Nothing to fear? Neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths
Date: August 15, 2010
Creator: Schlund, Michael W.; Siegle, Greg J.; Ladouceur, Cecile D.; Silk, Jennifer S.; Cataldo, Michael F.; Forbes, Erika E. et al
Description: This article discusses neural systems supporting avoidance behavior in healthy youths. Active avoidance involving controlling and modifying threatening situations characterizations many forms of clinical pathology, particularly childhood anxiety. Presently our understanding of the neural systems supporting human avoidance is largely based on nonhuman research. Establishing the generality of nonhuman findings to healthy children is a needed first step towards advancing developmental affective neuroscience research on avoidance in childhood anxiety. Accordingly, this investigation examined brain activation patterns to threatening cues that prompted avoidance in healthy youths. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, fifteen youths (ages 9-13) completed a task that alternatively required approach or avoidance behaviors. On each trial either a threatening 'Snake' cue or a 'Reward' cue advanced towards a bank containing earned points. Directional buttons enabled subjects to move cues away from (Avoidance) or towards the bank (Approach). Avoidance cues elicited activation in regions hypothesized to support avoidance in nonhumans (amygdala, insula, striatum and thalamus). Results also highlighted that avoidance response rates were positively correlated with amygdala activation and negatively correlated with insula and anterior cingulate activation. Moreover, increased amygdala activity was associated with decreased insula and anterior cingulate activity. Our results suggest nonhuman neurophysiological research findings on avoidance may ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77177/
Occipitoparietal contributions to recognition memory: stimulus encoding prompted by verbal instructions and operant contingencies
Date: August 21, 2007
Creator: Schlund, Michael W. & Cataldo, Michael F.
Description: This article discusses occipitoparietal contributions to recognition memory. Background: Many human neuroimaging investigations on recognition memory employ verbal instructions to direct subject's attention to a stimulus attribute. But do the same or a similar neurophysiological process occur during nonverbal experiences, such as those involving contingency-shaped responses? Establishing the spatially distributed neural network underlying recognition memory for instructed stimuli and operant, contingency-shaped (i.e., discriminative) stimuli would extend the generality of contemporary domain-general views of recognition memory and clarify the involvement of declarative memory processes in human operant behavior. Methods: Fifteen healthy adults received equivalent amounts of exposure to three different stimulus sets prior to neuroimaging. Encoding of one stimulus set was prompted using instructions that emphasizing memorizing stimuli (Instructed). In contrast, encoding of two additional stimulus sets was prompted using a GO/NO-GO operant task, in which contingencies shaped appropriate GO and NO-GO responding. During BOLD functional MRI, subjects completed two recognition tasks. One required passive viewing of stimuli. The second task required recognizing whether a presented stimulus was a GO/NO-GO stimulus, an Instructed stimulus, or novel (NEW) stimulus. Retrieval success related to recognition memory was isolated by contrasting activation from each stimulus set to a novel stimulus (i.e., an OLD > ...
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc77115/
HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa
Date: December 1, 2011
Creator: Moore, Ami R.
Description: This presentation is part of the faculty lecture series UNT Speaks Out on HIV/AIDS. This presentation discusses HIV and AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa.
Contributing Partner: UNT College of Public Affairs and Community Service
Permallink:digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc71784/