Effects of anxiety on decision making and visual search behaviour in complex sport situations

Based on the Attentional Control Theory (ACT; Eysenck et al., 2007), performance efficiency is decreased in high-anxiety situations because worrying thoughts compete for attentional resources. A repeated-measures design (high/low state anxiety and high/low perceptual task demands) was used to test ACT explanations. Complex football situations were displayed to expert and non-expert football players in a decision making task in a controlled laboratory setting. Ratings of state anxiety and pupil diameter measures were used to check anxiety manipulations. Dependent variables were verbal response time and accuracy, mental effort ratings and visual search behavior (e.g., visual search rate). Results confirmed that an anxiety increase, indicated by higher state-anxiety ratings and larger pupil diameters, reduced processing efficiency for both groups (higher response times and mental effort ratings). Moreover, high task demands reduced the ability to shift attention between different locations for the expert group in the high anxiety condition only. Since particularly experts, who were expected to use more top-down strategies to guide visual attention under high perceptual task demands, showed less attentional shifts in the high compared to the low anxiety condition, as predicted by ACT, anxiety seems to impair the shifting function by interrupting the balance between top-down and bottom-up processes.

Molecular survival strategies of Echinococcus multilocularis in the murine host

Larval infection with Echinococcus multilocularis starts with the intrahepatic postoncospheral development of a metacestode that-at its mature stage-consists of an inner germinal and an outer laminated layer (GL ; LL). In certain cases, an appropriate host immune response may inhibit parasite proliferation. Several lines of evidence obtained in vivo and in vitro indicate the important bio-protective role of the LL. For instance, the LL has been proposed to protect the GL from nitric oxide produced by periparasitic macrophages and dendritic cells, and also to prevent immune recognition by surrounding T cells. On the other hand, the high periparasitic NO production by peritoneal exsudate cells contributes to periparasitic immunosuppression, explaining why iNOS deficienct mice exhibit a significantly lower susceptibility towards experimental infection. The intense periparasitic granulomatous infiltration indicates a strong host-parasite interaction, and the involvement of cellular immunity in control of the metacestode growth kinetics is strongly suggested by experiments carried out in T cell deficient mouse strains. Carbohydrate components of the LL, such as Em2(G11) and Em492, as well as other parasite metabolites yield immunomodulatory effects that allow the parasite to survive in the host. I.e., the IgG response to the Em2(G11)-antigen takes place independently of alpha-beta+CD4+T cells, and in the absence of interactions between CD40 and CD40 ligand. Such parasite molecules also interfere with antigen presentation and cell activation, leading to a mixed Th1/Th2-type response at the later stage of infection. Furthermore, Em492 and other (not yet published) purified parasite metabolites suppress ConA and antigen-stimulated splenocyte proliferation. Infected mouse macrophages (AE-MØ) as antigen presenting cells (APC) exhibited a reduced ability to present a conventional antigen (chicken ovalbumin, C-Ova) to specific responder lymph node T cells when compared to normal MØ. As AE-MØ fully maintain their capacity to appropriately process antigens, a failure in T cell receptor occupancy by antigen-Ia complex or/and altered co-stimulatory signals can be excluded. Studying the status of accessory molecules implicated in T cell stimulation by MØ, it could be shown that B7-1 (CD80) and B7-2 (CD86) remained unchanged, whereas CD40 was down-regulated and CD54 (=ICAM-1) slightly up-regulated. FACS analysis of peritoneal cells revealed a decrease in the percentage of CD4+ and CD8+T cells in AE-infected mice. Taken together the obstructed presenting-activity of AE-MØ appeared to trigger an unresponsiveness of T cells leading to the suppression of their clonal expansion during the chronic phase of AE infection. Interesting information on the parasite survival strategy and potential can be obtained upon in vitro and in vivo treatment. Hence, we provided very innovative results by showing that nitazoxanide, and now also, respectively, new modified compounds may represent a useful alternative to albendazole. In the context of chemotherapeutical repression of parasite growth, we searched also for parasite molecules, whose expression levels correlate with the viability and growth activity of E. multilocularis metacestode. Expression levels of 14-3-3 and II/3-10, relatively quantified by realtime reverse transcription-PCR using a housekeeping gene beta-actin, were studied in permissive nu/nu and in low-permissive wild type BALB/c mice. At 2 months p.i., the transcription level of 14-3-3 was significantly higher in parasites actively proliferating in nu/nu mice compared to parasites moderately growing in wild type mice. Immunoblotting experiments confirmed at the protein level that 14-3-3 was over-expressed in parasites derived from nu/nu mice at 2 months p.i. In vitro-treatment of E. multilocularis with an anti-echinococcal drug nitazoxanide for a period of 8 days resulted in a significant decrease of both 14-3-3 and II/3-10 transcription levels,

Distinct coping strategies differentially predict urge levels and lapses in a smoking cessation attempt

This study analysed mechanisms through which stress-coping and temptation-coping strategies were associated with lapses. Furthermore, we explored whether distinct coping strategies differentially predicted reduced lapse risk, lower urge levels, or a weaker association between urge levels and lapses during the first week of an unassisted smoking cessation attempt. Participants were recruited via the internet and mass media in Switzerland. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) with mobile devices was used to assess urge levels and lapses. Online questionnaires were used to measure smoking behaviours and coping variables at baseline, as well as smoking behaviour at the three-month follow-up. The sample consisted of 243 individuals, aged 20 to 40, who reported 4199 observations. Findings of multilevel regression analyses show that coping was mainly associated with a reduced lapse risk and not with lower urge levels or a weaker association between urge levels and lapses. 'Calming down' and 'commitment to change' predicted a lower lapse risk and also a weaker relation between urge levels and lapses. 'Stimulus control' predicted a lower lapse risk and lower urge levels. Conversely, 'task-orientation' and 'risk assessment' were related to higher lapse risk and 'risk assessment' also to higher urge levels. Disengagement coping i.e. 'eating or shopping', 'distraction', and 'mobilising social support' did not affect lapse risk. Promising coping strategies during the initial stage of smoking cessation attempt are targeted directly at reducing the lapse risk and are characterised by engagement with the stressor or one's reactions towards the stressor and a focus on positive consequences instead of health risks.

The Impact of Language Opacity and Proficiency on Reading Strategies in Bilinguals: An Eye Movement Study

Reading strategies vary across languages according to orthographic depth - the complexity of the grapheme in relation to phoneme conversion rules - notably at the level of eye movement patterns. We recently demonstrated that a group of early bilinguals, who learned both languages equally under the age of seven, presented a first fixation location (FFL) closer to the beginning of words when reading in German as compared with French. Since German is known to be orthographically more transparent than French, this suggested that different strategies were being engaged depending on the orthographic depth of the used language. Opaque languages induce a global reading strategy, and transparent languages force a local/serial strategy. Thus, pseudo-words were processed using a local strategy in both languages, suggesting that the link between word forms and their lexical representation may also play a role in selecting a specific strategy. In order to test whether corresponding effects appear in late bilinguals with low proficiency in their second language (L2), we present a new study in which we recorded eye movements while two groups of late German-French and French-German bilinguals read aloud isolated French and German words and pseudo-words. Since, a transparent reading strategy is local and serial, with a high number of fixations per stimuli, and the level of the bilingual participants' L2 is low, the impact of language opacity should be observed in L1. We therefore predicted a global reading strategy if the bilinguals' L1 was French (FFL close to the middle of the stimuli with fewer fixations per stimuli) and a local and serial reading strategy if it was German. Thus, the L2 of each group, as well as pseudo-words, should also require a local and serial reading strategy. Our results confirmed these hypotheses, suggesting that global word processing is only achieved by bilinguals with an opaque L1 when reading in an opaque language; the low level in the L2 gives way to a local and serial reading strategy. These findings stress the fact that reading behavior is influenced not only by the linguistic mode but also by top-down factors, such as readers' proficiency.