In this study, we evaluated observers' ability to compare naturally shaped three-dimensional (3-D) objects, using their senses of vision and touch. In one experiment, the observers haptically manipulated 1 object and then indicated which of 12 visible objects possessed the same shape. In the second experiment, pairs of objects were presented, and the observers indicated whether their 3-D shape was the same or different. The 2 objects were presented either unimodally (vision-vision or haptic-haptic) or cross-modally (vision-haptic or haptic-vision). In both experiments, the observers were able to compare 3-D shape across modalities with reasonably high levels of accuracy. In Experiment 1, for example, the observers' matching performance rose to 72% correct (chance performance was 8.3%) after five experimental sessions. In Experiment 2, small (but significant) differences in performance were obtained between the unimodal vision-vision condition and the two cross-modal conditions. Taken together, the results suggest that vision and touch have functionally overlapping, but not necessarily equivalent, representations of 3-D shape.

Adults with Down syndrome (DS) develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD) neuropathology by 40 years of age. Synaptophysin (SYN) consistently declines with age and is further reduced with sporadic AD. Thus, we hypothesized that SYN would be reduced in DS with AD. The gene for synaptojanin-1 (SYNJ1), involved in synaptic vesicle recycling, is on chromosome 21. We measured SYN and SYNJ1 in an autopsy series of 39 cases with DS and 28 without DS, along with 7 sporadic AD cases were examined. SYN was significantly lower in DSAD compared with DS alone and similar to sporadic AD. Reduced SYN is associated with AD neuropathology and with Aβ levels in DS, as is seen in sporadic AD. SYNJ1 was significantly higher in DS and correlated with several measures of Aβ. SYNJ1 was higher in DSAD and significantly higher than SYNJ1 in sporadic AD. Although significantly higher in DS, SYNJ1 is further increased with AD neuropathology suggesting interesting differences in a synapse-associated protein that is overexpressed in trisomy 21.

Abstract-A preliminary study by Sneddon et al. (2005) using visual working memory tasks coupled with quantified EEG (qEEG) analysis distinguished mild dementia subjects from normal aging ones with a high degree of accuracy. The present study hypothesizes that a simpler task such as having a subject count backwards mentally by ones can be coupled with qEEG to yield a similar degree of accuracy for classifying early dementia. The study focuses on participants with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and includes both a delayed visual match-tosample (working memory) task and a counting backwards task (eyes closed) for comparison. The counting backwards protocol included 15 normal aging and 11 MCI participants, and the working memory task included 9 normal aging and 7 MCI individuals. The EEG data were quantified using Tsallis entropy, and the brain regions analyzed included the prefrontal cortex, occipital lobe, and the posterior parietal cortex. The

Despite growing interest in self-care, few studies have explicitly examined the self-care practices of healthcare social workers. This exploratory study investigated self-care among practitioners (N = 138) in one southeastern state. Overall, data suggest that healthcare social workers only moderately engaged in self-care. Additionally, analyses revealed significant differences in self-care practices by financial stability, overall health, and licensure status, respectively. Interestingly, perceived health status and current financial situation were significant predictors for overall self-care practices. After a brief review of the literature, this narrative will explicate findings, elucidate discussion points, identify salient implications, and conclude with areas for future research.

To better understand individual differences in sensation seeking and its components, including boredom susceptibility and experience seeking, we examined brain responses of high and low sensation seekers during repeated visual experience. Individuals scoring in the top and bottom quartiles from a college-aged population on the Brief Sensation-Seeking Scale (BSSS) participated in an event-related potentials (ERPs) experiment. Line drawings of common objects were randomly intermixed and presented 1–3 times. Sixty-four channel ERP responses were recorded while participants classified items as “man-made” or “not man-made” in a repetition priming task. The two groups showed different ERP responses at frontal electrode sites after seeing a visual stimulus for 400–800 ms. The frontal late positive components (LPC) showed different habituation of ERP responses to new and studied repeated objects between high and low sensation seekers. Source localization analysis (LORETA) indicated that during visual stimulus adaptation the left ventral pre-frontal cortex showed lack of frontal involvement among high sensation seekers. Furthermore, frontal LPC latencies during repeated visual exposure correlated with boredom susceptibility and experience seeking subscales. The distinct profiles of brain responses to repeated visual experience in high and low sensation seekers provide evidence that individual differences in neural adaptation can be linked to personality dimensions.