Waiting for delayed rewards is important to reach long-term goals, yet most people prefer immediate rewards. This tendency is called delay discounting. Evidence shows that people are more willing to ...wait for delayed rewards when they believe that the delayed reward is certain. We hypothesized that feeling safe makes delayed outcomes subjectively more certain, which should in turn reduce neuronal signals of delay discounting. We hypnotized 24 highly suggestible participants and gave them a suggestion to feel safe. We then used EEG to measure their brain responses to immediate and delayed rewards while they played a delayed gratification game. As compared to a control condition without hypnosis, participants that were suggested to feel safe under hypnosis reported feeling significantly safer. Further, their reward-related brain activity differentiated less between immediate and delayed rewards. We conclude that feeling safe makes delayed outcomes subjectively more certain and therefore reduces neuronal signals of delay discounting.
The COVID-19 pandemic and related physical distancing measures have posed a significant threat to the mental health of adults, particularly those living alone. Accordingly, the World Health ...Organization implemented the #HealthyAtHome program, encouraging people to keep in regular contact with loved ones, stay physically active, and keep a regular routine. The current study aims to examine a micro-longitudinal link between behavioral activation coping strategies (exercise, meditation, relaxation, and social connection) and depressive symptoms among adults who lived alone during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used 21 biweekly waves of longitudinal data from the Understanding America Study (UAS) collected between April 2020 and February 2021 (N = 1,280). The multilevel models with correlated random effects were estimated to examine lagged effects of coping strategies (t-1) on depressive symptoms (t). The results showed that exercise was predictive of lower depressive symptoms even after controlling for time-invariant and time-varying covariates. The results showed that modifiable lifestyle factors, such as taking time to exercise, may be beneficial for the mental health of Americans living in single-person households.
Background
Clinical course in attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is highly heterogeneous with respect to both core symptoms and associated features and impairment. Onset of comorbid ...anxiety and mood disorders during later childhood and adolescence is one critical aspect of divergent outcomes in ADHD. Characterizing heterogeneity in onset of anxiety and depression and identifying prospective predictors of these divergent courses may facilitate early identification of the children most at risk.
Methods
A total of 849 children recruited for a case–control study of ADHD development, aged 7–12 years at baseline, completed up to six annual waves of comprehensive clinical and cognitive assessment, including multi‐informant behavior ratings, parent semi‐structured clinical diagnostic interviews, and measures of executive function (EF). Latent class growth curve analyses (LCGAs) characterized patterns of anxiety and depression over time. Trajectories were predicted from baseline parent‐rated child temperament, lab‐measured child EF, coded parental criticism, and child‐reported self‐blame for inter‐parental conflict.
Results
Latent class growth curve analyses separately identified three trajectories for anxiety and three for depression: persistently high, persistently low, and increasing. Temperamental fear/sadness and irritability were independent predictors that interacted with family characteristics. Baseline parental criticism and self‐blame for inter‐parental conflict exerted influence but only in the context of low temperamental risk. Better baseline child working memory was associated with delayed onset of depression.
Conclusions
The interaction of baseline child emotional features with EF or family environment predicted divergent courses of both anxiety and depression from middle‐childhood to mid‐adolescence. Results suggest modifiable risk factors associated with prospective differences in long‐term outcomes.
Death by suicide is one of the great challenges in public health. Suicide is a tragedy that affects not only the deceased individual but also everybody to whom that individual was connected. Yet, ...despite the link between death by suicide and social integration being long recognized and many efforts to reduce suicide rates in recent decades,1 the age-adjusted rate of suicide in the United States increased from 10.5 per 100 000 in 1999 to 13.9 in 2019.2 Before the pandemic, suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in terms of all-age mortality; in comparison, ageadjusted rates for the top three causes of death are 161.5 per 100 000 for heart disease, 146.2 for cancer, and 49.3 for unintentional injuries. Suicide is even more important among those younger than 65 years, ranking as the fifth leading cause of death.2 The US suicide rate is not atypical, with the suicide rate for other high-income countries being 13.7 per 100 0003 Thus, identifying how to best target interventions to address suicide is a global priority.In this issue of AJPH, Olfson et al. (p. 1774) describe who dies alone and how. The strongest associations between living alone and risk of suicide are for those with the most advantaged social positions, as indicated by education, income, and ethnicity. Looking at the results in additional detail provides more information. Among adults living with others, suicide rates decline with increasing income and education levels. Conversely, there is little evidence of any differences in suicide rates by income or education among people living alone, a finding that cannot be explained by chance.
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CEKLJ, FSPLJ, ODKLJ, UL, VSZLJ
•Detailed examination of psychometric properties and accurate cultural localizing this tool specialized to Iranian community.•The presence of subjects with 1019 families with children aged 18–42 ...months is an important feature and advantage of article compare to previous articles in the term of standardizing this tool.•Non-presence of all participants (children aged 18–42 months) in kindergarten due to the elimination of secondary affordance-makers such as kindergarten.•The presence of different ethnic groups and cultures in present study has made standardizing the tool very unique in Iran and even in other articles from different countries.•AHEMD questionnaire was a valid and reliable instrument for classifying the quality and quantity of the home environment to provide a developmental basis for Iranian children aged 18 to 42 months and understanding of the multidimensional environment of the home.
The aim of this study was to translate the original English language version of the Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development (AHEMD) inventory and test its psychometric properties for use with Iranian children aged 18–42 months.
For this purpose, the tool was translated into Farsi (a Persian language) using the forward-backward translation method and some of its psychometric properties were examined. Multistage stratified-cluster sampling was used to study 1019 families having children aged 18–42 months from among the regional divisions of Tehran urban community health centers. The questionnaire evaluated five factors: outside space, inside space, variety of stimulation, fine motor toys and gross motor toys. Expert opinion was used for content-related validity evaluation and confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine construct validity. For test-retest reliability, parents completed identical questionnaires two weeks apart. Internal consistency was evaluated using inter-examiner reliability, Cronbach's alpha and construct reliability. Linear regression analysis was used to explain and predict the effects of toys on AHEMD total score.
Results showed that content-related validity was 0.92. Data confirmatory factor analysis showed an acceptable fit to the original five factors. Reliability over time was 0.91 and internal consistency was 0.93. It was also found that fine- and gross-motor toys showed a significant 55% predictability of affordance provision in the home.
The Farsi translation of the AHEMD is acceptable for use with Iranian children aged 18–42 month.
Background
Non‐suicidal self‐injury (NSSI) is a common harmful behavior during adolescence. Exposure to childhood family adversity (CFA) is associated with subsequent emergence of NSSI during ...adolescence. However, the pathways through which this early environmental risk may operate are not clear.
Aims
We tested four alternative hypotheses to explain the association between CFA and adolescent‐onset NSSI.
Methods
A community sample of n = 933 fourteen year olds with no history of NSSI were followed up for 3 years.
Results
Poor family functioning at age 14 mediated the association between CFA before age 5 and subsequent onset of NSSI between 14 and 17 years.
Conclusions
The findings support the cumulative suboptimal environmental hazards (proximal family relationships as a mediator) hypothesis. Improving the family environment at age 14 may mitigate the effects of CFA on adolescent onset of NSSI.
Links between human milk (HM) and infant development are poorly understood and often focus on individual HM components. Here we apply multi-modal predictive machine learning to study HM and head ...circumference (a proxy for brain development) among 1022 mother-infant dyads of the CHILD Cohort. We integrated HM data (19 oligosaccharides, 28 fatty acids, 3 hormones, 28 chemokines) with maternal and infant demographic, health, dietary and home environment data. Head circumference was significantly predictable at 3 and 12 months. Two of the most associated features were HM n3-polyunsaturated fatty acid C22:6n3 (docosahexaenoic acid, DHA; p = 9.6e-05) and maternal intake of fish (p = 4.1e-03), a key dietary source of DHA with established relationships to brain function. Thus, using a systems biology approach, we identified meaningful relationships between HM and brain development, which validates our statistical approach, gives credence to the novel associations we observed, and sets the foundation for further research with additional cohorts and HM analytes.
•Destination environment may function as the back stage for tourists to relieve their daily self-presentational concerns.•Rural destinations perform better than urban destinations in reducing urban ...residents’ self-presentational concerns.•The advantage of rural destinations becomes weaker as tourists stay longer at the destinations.•The function of back stage reflects tourists’ psychological reactions to novel socio-physical environments.
Tourists are known to behave differently from their home environment, a phenomenon that has been well interpreted by sociologists in early conceptual works. By investigating tourists’ self-presentational concerns, this study attempts to provide a psychological explanation of this phenomenon, as well as empirical evidence to test it in the context of rural tourism. Through a mixed-design questionnaire survey, the study shows that destination environment may function as the back stage for tourists to do away with the social constraints at home and relieve their daily self-presentational concerns. Specifically, rural destinations perform better than urban destinations in reducing urban residents’ self-presentational concerns but this advantage becomes weaker as tourists stay longer at the destinations.
With an aging population, numerous assistive and monitoring technologies are under development to enable older adults to age in place. To facilitate aging in place, predicting risk factors such as ...falls and hospitalization and providing early interventions are important. Much of the work on ambient monitoring for risk prediction has centered on gait speed analysis, utilizing privacy-preserving sensors like radar. Despite compelling evidence that monitoring step length in addition to gait speed is crucial for predicting risk, radar-based methods have not explored step length measurement in the home. Furthermore, laboratory experiments on step length measurement using radars are limited to proof-of-concept studies with few healthy subjects. To address this gap, a radar-based step length measurement system for the home is proposed based on detection and tracking using a radar point cloud followed by Doppler speed profiling of the torso to obtain step lengths in the home. The proposed method was evaluated in a clinical environment involving 35 frail older adults to establish its validity. Additionally, the method was assessed in people's homes, with 21 frail older adults who had participated in the clinical assessment. The proposed radar-based step length measurement method was compared to the gold-standard Zeno Walkway Gait Analysis System, revealing a 4.5 cm/8.3% error in a clinical setting. Furthermore, it exhibited excellent reliability (ICC(2,k) = 0.91, 95% CI 0.82 to 0.96) in uncontrolled home settings. The method also proved accurate in uncontrolled home settings, as indicated by a strong consistency (ICC(3,k) = 0.81 (95% CI 0.53 to 0.92)) between home measurements and in-clinic assessments.
Introduction: The environment in which the child is inserted and motor opportunities offered to this is essential for a good motor development Objective: To analyze the relationship between the motor ...stimulation opportunities in the family environment and children's motor development of both sex. Method: were evaluated 72 children, 33 boys and 39 girls with age of 38 to 42 months. The evaluation was conducted by Affordances in the Home Environment for Motor Development (AHEMD) and the Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2). Were used the tests Chi-square, Fisher exact test, t test for independent samples, Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression. Results: In general, the households have low opportunities for motor stimulation, and for households with boys the score is higher. The girls performed better in locomotor skills, while boys had higher scores on object control skills. It found a significant correlation to motricity materials and thick materials motor for boys and variety of stimulation, fine motor materials, motricity materials and motor stimulation for girls. For the boys the motor performance is explained by the available variables of fine and gross motor skills and for the girls by materials of motor stimulation, stimulation variety and materials of fine and gross motor skills. Conclusion: On the presented results we can conclude that the home environment is directly related to the motor development of girls and boys.
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