			Home About us Contact

Direct Challenge (direct + challenge)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Loudness dependence of evoked dipole source activity during acute serotonin challenge in females

HUMAN PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY: CLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL, Issue 1 2008
Christine Norra
Abstract Objectives Direct challenge of cortical serotonergic (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) availability by tryptophan depletion test (TDT) was used to assess the hypothesized inverse relationship between central 5-HT function and loudness dependence of auditory evoked potentials (LDAEPs). Gender must be taken into particular account here, since there are gender differences in 5-HT brain synthesis, with women reacting more strongly to TDT. Methods In a double-blind, controlled cross-over study, 16 healthy females were ingested two highly concentrated amino acid mixtures with (+TRP) or without TRP (,TRP). While monitoring TRP levels and mood states, the AEP of different loudness stimuli were recorded, followed by dipole source analysis. Results Under the ,TRP condition, free plasma TRP levels decreased by 81.10% (±5.14). Most of the loudness change rates of the relevant N1/P2 tangential dipole activities were significantly increased under ,TRP, but calculated LDAEP did not differ significantly between treatments. LDAEP and states of mood were not correlated. Conclusions Despite strong TRP depletion, the results did not reach sufficient evidence that LDAEP is a valid biological marker of central 5-HT activity in females when using TDT. This agrees with the literature and supports the view that LDAEP indicates predominantly biological vulnerability in predisposed individuals. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Psychological functioning in families that blame: from blaming events to theory integration

JOURNAL OF FAMILY THERAPY, Issue 4 2005
Ceri Bowen
Blaming events in therapy were used as a focus for discussions with family therapists in order to examine their construal of the therapeutic process when working with families who blame. Interview transcripts were used as data which were analysed using a qualitative methodology, with a view to building a theoretical model. We present an exploratory model that allows therapists to position their therapy within a broader framework of psychological approaches. When prompted by a video-clip of blaming from the therapy setting, therapists tended to categorize current difficulties in terms of fear and control issues from past relationships and consequent underlying beliefs, and they also described the resultant negative outlook as a direct challenge to therapist idealism. Interestingly, the two themes that emerged from the interview data with the most categories and quotes were ,unhealthy allocation of responsibility for problems', which is arguably the main source of overt blaming, and ,family identity and cohesion', so often a point of contention during therapy. [source]

Spectral momentum densities in matter determined by electron scattering,

ACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION A, Issue 2 2004
Erich Weigold
In electron momentum spectroscopy (EMS), an incoming energetic electron (50,keV in this work) ionizes the target and the scattered and ejected electrons are detected in coincidence (at energies near 25,keV). From the energy and momentum of the detected particles, the energy and momentum transferred to the target can be inferred. The observed intensity distribution is proportional to the spectral momentum density of the target and hence provides a direct challenge to many-body theoretical descriptions of condensed matter. This is illustrated by comparing some many-body calculations with EMS measurements on graphite and polycrystalline aluminium. [source]

A New Nationalism for a New Era: The Political Ideology of Mexican Neoliberalism

BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2003
Gavin O'Toole
The structural economic reforms justified by neoliberal ideas that transformed Mexico's statist political economy in the 1980s posed a direct challenge to the nationalism inherited from the revolutionary era that had long served to legitimise the interventions of the social state. This article examines the strategy adopted by the administration of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988,1994) to reconcile the rival ambitions of neoliberalism and nationalism and its reasons for doing so. It does so by examining ideas concerning the state, society and the individual found in writing and speeches published in political organs and the press during this period. [source]