saied sabaghypour

Considering the increasing need for finding diagnostic criteria to help reliably predict Alzheimer's disease (AD) and given that neuropathological changes occur in brain areas, especially temporal areas, before the onset of AD clinical symptoms, and there is a functional relationship between these regions and the cognitive functions including spatial working memory (SWM), pattern recognition memory (PRM), and paired associates learning (PAL), this study aims to investigate these three functions in the children of parents with AD and healthy parents.

This is a comparative study. The statistical population consists of the children of parents aged 30-55 years referred to a neurology clinic in Tehran, Iran, in 2022. Of these, 55 children were selected using a convenience sampling method; 31 were the children of AD parents and 24 were the children of healthy parents. They were evaluated using three tests from the Cambridge neuropsychological test automated battery (CANTAB), including SWM, PRM, and PAL. The data were analyzed in SPSS software using independent t-test and Mann-Whitney U test.

Regarding the SWM performance, there were significant differences in the items of between errors (control group: 14.21±12.21; AD group: 34.58±22.69) and total errors (control group: 12.96±9.3; AD group: 37.03±22.22) between the two groups (P<0.01). Regarding the PRM performance, there were significant differences between the two groups in two items of mean latency (control group: 1917.17±364.03; AD group: 2186.94±445.15, P=0.020) and percent correct (control group: 96.33±4.44; AD group: 84.39±8.93; P=0.001). There were no significant differences in the mean correct and incorrect latencies in the PRM test (P>0.05). Regarding the PAL performance, there were significant differences in all three items of first trial memory score (control group: 23.08±1.59; AD group: 17.65±4.32), mean errors to success (control group: 0.54±0.36; AD group: 2.31±1.83), and total errors (control group: 4.54±2.87; AD group: 17.10±1.83) between the two groups (P<0.01).

The PAL, PRM, and SWM of the children of AD and non-AD parents are different which may be considered as the indicators of AD.

In line with Lakoff’s theory of embodied cognition, several studies in the field of emotional processing have demonstrated that positive and negative valence is represented based on spatial and bodily characteristics.

The present study aimed to investigate the implicit link between body parts and the emotional valence of Persian words.

The participants included 33 right-handed undergraduate students in the field of psychology who were selected via the convenience sampling method. A priming task with emotional negative and positive words (prime) was used, and the participants had to recognize the leftness or rightness of hand stimuli (target). Reaction times were recorded for target stimuli. The data were analyzed in SPSS software (version 24) using repeated-measures ANOVA.

The obtained results pointed to the implicit association of positive and negative words with bodily features (right hand and left hand).

The findings of the current study are finally discussed within theories of embodied cognition, as well as hemispheric and language processing, for emotional stimuli.

There is plenty of evidence concerning novel treatments for major depression, as a prevalent disorder of the era. Acceptance commitment therapy (ACT), group therapy (GT), and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) are the most widely used interventions, particularly for the amelioration of depressive symptoms. However, for those who receive these interventions, the risk of depression relapse is high. In this article, we have reported a depressed patient who was treated by a novel triangular systematic protocol with the advantage of relapse prevention.

The triangular protocol contained three stages of tDCS, ACT, and GT, which were conducted in succession. Initially, after administering tDCS, improvements were observed concerning dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation. After increasing prefrontal activity, however, the patient was complaining of remaining symptoms. Hence, we supposed it was time to work on mental reconstruction using ACT techniques. Because for most major depressive disorder (MDD) relapse following acute treatment is common, we hypothesized that administering GT after combined use of tDCS and ACT can prevent recurrence and relapse of the disease and that there will also be differences in electroencephalogram (EEG) oscillations of a depressed person after combining these methods.

Detailed brain map of the patient and low-resolution electromagnetic tomographic analysis exhibited a marked correction of previously elevated frontal Alpha activity. According to the Beck Depression inventory-short form (BDI-SF) and Acceptance and Action questionnaire (AAQ-II), the levels of depression symptoms and psychological inflexibility were decreased, respectively. The decreasing trend was maintained after ACT and GT (stages 2 and 3). Among different times (baseline, tDCS, ACT, and GT), AAQ dramatically decreased following ACT. Similarly, the observation was maintained after the third edge of the triangle protocol. Based on the positive results of the study, it might be important for future studies with larger samples to consider the proposed protocol and might provide further evidence about the effectiveness of this method and its long-lasting effects.

Several behavioral and neuropsychological studies have shown that many cognitive processes are influenced by spatial, motor, and physical characteristics. For example, the relations between emotional valence of stimuli (positive vs. negative) and spatial dimensions (up vs. down) have been approved by many experiments (e.g. happiness is up).

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the movement of the head to the left or right of the space could affect retrieval of Persian words with positive and negative valence?

The research method was experimental. For this purpose, 38 participants from the population of Psychology Students of the University of Isfahan were selected by the public call and convenience sampling for participation in the research. DMDX software was used to evaluate the effect of movement on emotional memory. The results were then analyzed by repeated measure design using SPSS 24 software.

The results of the study indicated that the number of retrieved words with valence was more than neutral ones. In addition, the interaction of valence and head movement was significant (p<0.05).

In addition to reviewing embodied accounts we finally conclude that abstract concepts such as positive and negative emotions might be under the influence of movement to the left or right of the space.

Based on the studies which have investigated conscious and unconscious processes, simple arithmetic operations such as addition and multiplication can be automatically processed in the brain and affect subsequent responses. However, most studies have focused on addition and multiplication of one-digit numbers. In this research we used subliminal priming paradigm to assess automatic retrieval of subtraction operation for the first time.
The aim of this study was to use a subliminal priming paradigm in a naming task and investigate the automatic and unconscious processing of the subtraction operation. Research of this kind can help us determine different levels of unconscious and conscious processing in the brain.
Forty-five graduate student in psychology at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Tabriz (between 18 and 25 years; mean 20.7, SD=2.7) participated in the experiment. For presenting the stimuli, an open-source software (DMDX) was used and presented on a 15-inch monitor. In the experiment, in the congruent condition, the prime was congruent with the target in terms of subtraction calculation result and in the incongruent condition there was no logical connection between the two stimuli. The vocal reaction time (RT) of participants was recorded and paired t-test analysis was conducted for comparison of the two conditions.
The data showed that naming the target by the participants is carried out faster when the two stimuli are congruent with each other in terms of the result of the operation.
These findings may have implications on the levels of mathematical operations. In conclusion it seems that the calculation of one-digit numbers can happen at the level of simple neuronal circuits and may be carried out without conscious-awareness. The findings confirm the fact that calculating subtraction for one-digit numbers does not require conscious effort and can be processed automatically.