(C) 2009 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“Applying Rusbult’s investment model of dyadic relationships, we examined the effect of caregiver-care recipient relationship closeness (RC) on cognitive and functional decline

in Alzheimer’s disease. After diagnosis, 167 participants completed up to six visits, observed over an average of 20 months. Participants were 64% women, had a mean age of 86 years, and mean dementia duration of 4 years. Caregiver-rated closeness was measured using a six-item scale. In mixed models adjusted for dementia severity, dyads with higher levels of closeness (p <.05) and with spouse caregivers (p =.01) had slower cognitive decline. Effect of higher RC on functional Smad inhibitor decline was greater with PU-H71 clinical trial spouse caregivers (p =.007). These findings of attenuated Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) decline with closer relationships, particularly with spouse caregivers,

are consistent with investment theory. Future interventions designed to enhance the caregiving dyadic relationship may help slow decline in AD.”
“The involvement of striatum in affective processes has been consistently reported in recent years. However, studies within this field have mainly focused on positive affect, revealing the involvement of striatum in reward situations. The present research aimed to explore the involvement of striatum in negative affect through fMRI. To that aim, participants (n=18) were presented with negative, positive and neutral pictures while they performed an indirect task, a strategy repeatedly recommended to avoid cognitive interferences. Positive and

negative stimuli did not differ in their arousal levels, as assessed by participants themselves. Analyses of variance showed that caudate nucleus was sensitive to the emotional content of stimulation, negative pictures eliciting greater caudate responses than positive and neutral. Regression analyses indicated that both valence and arousal content of visual stimuli synergically contributed to explain the activation Birinapant clinical trial of caudate, whose strong response to negative pictures supports models proposing striatum as a key element in withdrawal situations. (C) 2009 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“The aim of the present study was to examine the pattern of phonological activation during Chinese sentence reading. Terminal words in high cloze sentences were manipulated across six conditions defined by word frequency and ending types. The P200 was smaller for the congruent targets than for the unrelated control targets, while there were no differences between the homophonic and unrelated control targets. No frequency effect on the P200 was observed. More importantly, a reduced N400 to the homophonic words was observed independent of word frequency.