Pathological gambling: Etiologic considerations and treatment efficacy of eye movement desensitization/reprocessing

This study of 22 subjects who meet DSM IV criteria for Pathological Gambling (PG) tests a theory that the development of PG lies in the existence of unresolved trauma-related anxiety, similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and predicts that reduction of that anxiety will result in reduced pathological gambling behavior. The study compares the effect on gambling event frequency of Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy with cognitive therapy to that of cognitive therapy alone for subjects with and without reported trauma history. Results are significant for pre- vs post-EMDR (p =.04), for those with reported trauma history, (p=.01) and when controlled for frequency of sessions and time in therapy prior to the treatment (p=.04). Findings support an anxiety based model for the etiology of PG behavior.     

Report on the First FTM Conference of the Americas: A Vision of Community

The author reports on the first ever conference (held in San Francisco last summer) devoted entirely to the subject of female-to-male transsexualism (biological females who live as men). Having thrown off the notion that transsexualism refers only to biological males who live as women (MTFs), the newly formed female-to-male transsexual (FTM) community addressed a wide range of topics from “Living Long Term in Transsexual Bodies” to “Gay/Straight Issues” A full day was devoted to presentations of the medical technologies designed to accomplish a transition from female to male. Notably the conference participants began to challenge a disease model of transsexualism and acknowledged the development of “transgender studies” in academia.     

Nuclear hormone receptors, metabolism, and aging: what goes around comes around. Transcription factors link lipid metabolism and aging-related processes

Previous studies have linked the mysterious and inevitable process of aging to essential processes such as metabolism, maturation, and fecundity. Each of these processes is controlled to a large extent by nuclear hormone receptors (NHRs). NHRs also play important roles in the control of periodical processes, the most recently implicated being circadian rhythm. This Review stresses the mounting evidence for tight relationships between each of these NHR-regulated processes and the processes of aging.     

Projection of Health Benefits from Ambient Ozone Reduction Related to the Use of Methyl tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) in the Reformulated Gasoline Program

To estimate potential public health benefits from ozone (O₃) pollution reduction attributable to the use of methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE) in gasoline, O₃ dose-response estimates from the biomedical literature were combined with model estimates of O₃ reduction. Modeling employed EPA MOBILE5a and Complex models to predict emission changes, industry AQIRP techniques to predict ambient O₃ changes, and the National Exposure Model to predict human exposures. Human health effects considered were lung function decrements and respiratory irritant symptoms (using dose-response functions measured in laboratory and field studies), and increased death rates (using concentration-response functions inferred statistically from public-health data). Other reported health effects, such as lung inflammation, increases in asthma attacks, and hospitalizations, were not addressed because of inadequate dose-response information. Even for the health responses considered, quantitation of improvements due to MTBE use is problematical, because MTBE affects only a small percentage of existing O₃ pollution, and because exposure-response relationships are not well understood for population subgroups most likely to be affected. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to conclude that even small MTBE-associated reductions in peak ambient O₃ levels (1–5 ppb, according to model estimates) should yield considerable public health benefits. Tens of millions of Americans are potentially exposed to O₃ in the concentration range associated with health effects. Even if only a small percentage of them are susceptible, any incremental reduction in O₃ (as with MTBE use) must mitigate or prevent effects for a meaningful number of people. Better quantitative estimates of benefit must await a more detailed understanding of each link in the chain of causation.     

What makes sex offenders confess? An exploratory study

This study examines correlates of offender confession in criminal sexual conduct cases involving children. The cases consist of all closed court files (N=318), spanning the last 10 years from a single jurisdiction. This jurisdiction has a community-wide protocol for handling child sexual abuse cases, a high rate of charging (69%), a high rate of confession (64%), and high rates of pleas to sex crimes (77%). To determine what factors were associated with suspect confession before adjudication, we examined characteristics of the suspect, the child, the abuse, and the system using bi-variate and multi-variate analysis. The following four variables are associated with suspect confession: (1) having the state police conducting the law enforcement part of the investigation, (2) more serious abuse, (3) younger age of the suspect, and (4) having a court appointed (as opposed to a retained) attorney.     

Disability analysis of longitudinal health data: Policy implications for social security disability insurance

The relationship between impairment, disability, and labor force participation is investigated longitudinally through disability determinations using objective medical evaluations. The sensitivity and specificity concepts are used to study the disability determination standards and their ability to predict capacity to work. Approximately one of every eight men in the study had a physical impairment that met or equaled the medical listings of impairment sometime through age 65; for the women the figure was slightly less than one-half that size. Many of these people were seriously ill; within four years of the disabling condition being established, about two of every five people were dead, suggesting the listings of impairment are indeed sensitive to serious health problems. The majority of the men who did meet or equal the medical listings of impairment were alive four years after the disabling condition was determined, and most of these survivors were in the labor force despite the disabling impairment. The study shows that withdrawal from the labor force is based on age in combination with any level of impairment; and the disabled are a unique subset of the impaired, distinguishable not by health but demographic and socioeconomic characteristics.     

Defining terms in behavior analysis: Reinforcer and discriminative stimulus

Many definitions of reinforcer and discriminative stimulus found in behavioral texts include a requirement of temporal proximity between stimulus and response. However, this requirement is not consistently adopted. We present additional evidence from a questionnaire that was sent to members of the editorial boards of several behavioral journals showing that there is not universal agreement concerning the temporal parameters accepted in the definitions of reinforcer and discriminative stimulus. We suggest that the disagreement over the definitions of these essential terms ought to be at least addressed if not resolved. Because the discrepancy usually occurs when the behavior of verbal humans is at issue, we urge behavior analysts to be conservative when extending the terms reinforcer and discriminative stimulus from the behavior of nonhumans in the laboratory to human behavior where the effects of many stimuli may depend in part on sophisticated verbal repertoires.