Background:
Toxoplasmosis is an infectious disease caused by the obligatory intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The main aim of this study was to evaluate a possible relationship between aggression in autistic children with infection by T. gondii.
Methods:
The research design was an analytical (comparative) cross sectional study. The participants included (N = 100) subjects (50 autistic and 50 normal children) between 3 and 12 years old. They were matched for age, socioeconomic status, lack of physical and mental illness. The instruments were preschool aggression scale and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay procedure to essay the blood sample test. Five milliliters of blood samples were collected to assess the presence of T. gondii infection.
Results:
The results showed that autistic children had a higher rate of infection by T. gondii than normal children. Furthermore, children infected with T. gondii were more aggressive than the noninfected group.
Conclusions:
In autistic children, T. gondii infection was significantly higher than in the normal group. Also, autistic children who were infected with the parasite were more aggressive.
Introduction:For many years, it has been emphasized on the role of attentional bias in addiction-related disorders, including its role in craving and relapse. This reseasrch aimed to investigate, the effectiveness of attentional bias modification on attention bias, pre-attentional bias and craving in abstinent addicts. Methods: Three groups (control, attentional bias modification and attentional bias modification with reinforcement and punishment) in three phases (pre-test, post-test, and follow up) assessed in attentional bias, pre-attentional bias, and craving. During the pretest and post-test, the control group received placebo training, while the second group received attentional bias modification training, and the third group received attentional bias modification training with reinforcement and punishment, respectively. To measure attentional bias, pre-attentional bias, and interventions, and to measure craving Dotprobe task test and Brief Substance Craving Scale were used respectively. Results: The results indicated that there was a significant difference between three groups in attentional bias in post-test and follow-up, the pre-attentional bias in post-test, and craving in the post-test. The control group obtained a higher score in pre-attentional bias than two experimental groups in the pre-attentional bias in follow up and attentional bias modification with reinforcement and punishment group obtained a lower score in craving than two other groups in craving in follow up. Conclusion: It seems that adding reinforcement and punishment to the classical intervention of attentional bias modification can lead to improving the effectiveness of this intervention. Besides, interventions based on attention bias modification are efficient interventions.
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