O Tratamento com a fluoxetina (mas não com outros farmacos antidepressivo e ansioíiticos) reverte o déficit de memória aversiva causado por estresse agudo de contenção em camundongos

The physiologist H. Selye defined stress as the nonspecific response of the body to any factors that endanger homeostasis (balance of internal environment) of the individual. These factors, agents stressors, are able to activate the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis, thus resulting in the physiological responses to stress by the release of glucocorticoids that leads to psychophysiological changes, including effects on cognitive functions such as learning and memory. When this axis is acutely stimulated occurs a repertoire of behavioral and physiological changes can be adaptive to the individual. Notwithstanding, when the HPA axis is chronically stimulated, changes may favor the development of, such as anxiety disorders. Some drugs used in the clinic for the treatment of anxiety disorders these can exert effects on cognitive function, on the HPA axis and on the anxiety. In this context, the aim of our study was to investigate the effects of administration i.p. acute of diazepam (DZP, 2 mg/kg), buspirone (BUS, 3 mg/kg), mirtazapine (MIR, 10 mg/kg) and fluoxetine (FLU, 10 mg/kg) in male mice submitted to acute restraint stress, and evaluated using plus-maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT), which simultaneously evaluates parameters such as learning, memory and anxiety. Our results demonstrated that (1) the administration of DZP and BUS, but not FLU, promoted anxiolytic effects in animals; (2) administration mirtazapine caused sedative effect to animals; (3) in the training session, the animals treated with BUS, MIR and FLU learned the task, on the other hand DZP group showed impairment in learning; (4) in the test session, animals treated with DZP, BUS, and MIR showed deficits in relation to discrimination between the enclosed arms, aversive versus non-aversive arm, demonstrating an impairment in memory, however, animals treated with FLU showed no interference in the retrieval of this memory; (5) acute stress did not interfere in locomotor activity, anxiety, or learning on the learning task, but induced impairment in retrieval memory, and the group treated with FLU did not demonstrated this deficit of memory . These results suggest that acute administration of drugs with anxiolytic and antidepressant activity does not interfere with the learning process this aversive task, but impair its retrieval, as well as the acute restraint stress. However, the antidepressant fluoxetine was able to reverse memory deficits promoted by acute stress, which may suggest that modulation, even acutely serotonergic neurotransmission, by selectively inhibiting the reuptake of this neurotransmitter, interferes on the process of retrieval of an aversive memory

Efeitos do tratamento com lítio na memória aversiva, comportamentos relacionados à ansiedade e depressão e na expressão de BDNF em ratos

Lithium (Li) is the first choice to treat bipolar disorder, a psychiatric illness characterized by mood oscillations between mania and depression. However, studies have demonstrated that this drug might influence mnemonic process due to its neuroprotector, antiapoptotic and neurogenic effects. The use of Li in the treatment of cognitive deficits caused by brain injury or neurodegenerative disorders have been widely studied, and this drug shows to be effective in preventing or even alleviating the memory impairment. The effects of Li on anxiety and depression are controversial and the relationship of the effects of lithium on memory, anxiety and depression remain unknown. In this context, this study aims to: evaluate the effects of acute and chronic administration of lithium carbonate in aversive memory and anxiety, simultaneously, using the plus maze discriminative avoidance task (PMDAT); test the antidepressant effect of the drug through the forced swimming test (FS) and analyze brainderived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression in structures related to memory and emotion. To evaluation of the acute effects, male Wistar rats were submitted to i.p. administration of lithium carbonate (50, 100 or 200 mg/kg) one hour before the training session (PMDAT) or lithium carbonate (50 or 100 mg/kg) one hour before the test session (FS). To evaluation of the chronic effects, the doses administered were 50 or 100 mg/kg or vehicle once a day for 21 days before the beginning of behavioral tasks (PMDAT and FS). Afterwards, the animals were euthanized and their brains removed and submitted to immunohistochemistry procedure to quantify BDNF. The animals that received acute treatment with 100 and 200 mg/kg of Li did not discriminated between the enclosed arms (aversive and non-aversive) in the training session of PMDAT, showing that these animal did not learned the task. This lack of discrimination was also observed in the test session, showing that the animals did not recall the aversive task. We also observed an increased exploration of the open arms of these same groups, indicating an anxiolytic effect. The same groups showed a reduction of locomotor activity, however, this effect does not seem to be related with the anxiolytic effect of the drug. Chronic treatment with Li did not promote alterations on learning or memory processes. Nevertheless, we observed a reduction of open arms exploration by animals treated with 50 mg/kg when compared to the other groups, showing an anxiogenic effect caused by this dose. This effect it is not related to locomotor alterations since there were no alterations in these parameters. Both acute and chronic treatment were ineffective in the FS. Chronic treatment with lithium was not able to modify BDNF expression in hippocampus, amygdala and pre-frontal cortex. These results suggest that acute administration of lithium promote impairments on learning in an aversive task, blocking the occurrence of memory consolidation and retrieval. The reduction of anxiety following acute treatment may have prevented the learning of the aversive task, as it has been found that optimum levels of anxiety are necessary for the occurrence of learning with emotional context. With continued, treatment the animals recover the ability to learn and recall the task. Indeed, they do not show differences in relation to control group, and the lack of alterations on BDNF expression corroborates this result. Possibly, the regimen of treatment used was not able to promote cognitive improvement. Li showed acute anxiolytic effect, however chronic administration 4 promoted the opposite effect. More studies are necessary to clarify the potential beneficial effect of Li on aversive memory

Participação e ação política dos psicólogos frente à política de saúde mental no Piauí

It is intended to problematize forms of participation and political action of psychologists toward mental health policy in Piauí. The study was motivated through challenges faced by the local Psychiatric Reform movement, and the one underway in the country, which needs support technical-assistence and sociopolitical to guarantee accomplishments and to move on with the complete reversion of the asylum to psychosocial model. The method was based on institutional analysis and counted with three insertion moments for the field research: a) to identify historical and political events that configure the local Psychiatric Reform (documental research/oral memory) and to identify psychologists that act in Mental Health; b) to realize participant observation and semi-structured interview with 33 psychologists which act in Mental Health in Teresina; c) to follow the sociopolitical contexts/events of the local Psychiatric Reform (participant observation and conversation circles). The data were analyzed considering four discussion axes, achieved through categorization of the collected material: 1) ways of professional insertion of psychologists in mental health; 2) knowledge and practices used to act in this work context of the profession; 3) political professional movements of workers of the reformist local process; 4) political action of psychologists toward the course of Piauí mental health policy. We concluded identifying that the participation of psychologists in Piauí mental health finds strength by the conduction of its macro and micropolitical professional action. The first one follows oriented by the lemma of social commitment, despite this movement doesn t have equivalence in the transformation of practices and political-professional postures of psychologists in the daily of services. The second is constituted in the every day of work, standing to the political action of the profession implicated with the preservation of the classic modus operandi of being psychologist. Therefore, it is about the actions that give little sustainability technicalassistance to the Psychiatric Reform underway in the State, and why not say in the country

Imagem sócio-ambiental do bairro de Cidade Nova, Natal-RN, por seus moradores

This dissertation investigates how the neighborhood of Cidade Nova, located in the western side of the of Natal, is perceived by its residents in order to understand its socio-environmental image, intending to contribute both to define strategies of urban intervention and environmental education in the area and to consolidate a methodology that addresses this kind of problem. The completion of field research used a multimethod strategy to study the socio-environmental image of urban areas. It consists of: (a) review of local history from literature research, data recorded by the City Hall, news published on the city's newspapers and interviews with former inhabitants, (b) application of questionnaires to inhabitants including emotions, visual perception, memory and local social activities, (c) development of a drawing of the district, (d) conducting focus groups with inhabitants, using as a starting point the results obtained in the previous activities. In steps "b" and "c" attended 32 neighborhood residents, 16 of them being Community Health Workers and other 16 persons appointed by them. In step "d" 10 individuals took part, divided into two groups. The result of the research showed a picture of residents coincident with the image conveyed by the media in relation to the issues: violence, garbage, public policy/social support and appreciation of the beauties of environmental (dunes and Parque da Cidade park). Although Cidade Nova has been regarded as a dirty, noisy and dangerous place, most of the participants say they enjoy living on the neighborhood. Overall, the results corroborate and gain theoretical explanations, as they are interrelated. The socio-environmental image is expressed for instance in the elements dunes, dump, railroad tracks and Central Avenue that gain symbolic connotation influenced by time and socio-economic context. The insecurity and other negative characteristics assigned by the inhabitants and the media are parallel to the place attachment, since the environmental legibility, the time/familiarity and territoriality offer inhabitants the preference for place of residence, setting up their social identity.

Avaliação da relação entre qualidade de sono e uma intervenção com jogos para o desempenho de crianças e adolescentes

The sleep is an active brain process that allows the efficient realization of daily tasks. The changes on sleep patterns may influence the different cognitive processes performance. Many recent studies show the possibility of cognitive performance improvement, through the cognitive training with the use of computer games. The question is if these interventions may be influenced by the sleep quality. Thus, we evaluated the sleep quality effect about the efficacy of an intervention with computers games based on the working memory and attention for a cognitive performance training of elementary school students. The sample was constituted by 42 students with average age of 10,43 years old (SD=1,23), with 22 male participants and 20 female participants. We used to evaluate the sleep with the parents a sleep questionnaire, a sleep diary and the Sleep Behavior Questionnaire. In regard to intervention, the subjectives were distributed in an experimental and in a control group, both with 21 participants. In the first group occurred the intervention that consisted in the working memory and attention training with two cognitive tasks (Safari e Brain Workshop) during 30 daily minutes, for a 6 weeks period. In an equal period, the students from the control group should reproduce an artwork using drawing software. To evaluate the cognitive performance we applied before and after the intervention period the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III). The results showed that in both the groups the performance of the intelligence, working memory, attention and visuospatial skills was below of the mean. The cognitive processes evaluated after of intervention in the experimental group had a performance significantly higher in the Perceptual Reasoning Index (t = -6,24; p < 0,01) and in the Full Scale IQ (t = -5,09; p < 0,01) and Performance IQ (t = -6,52; p < 0,01), suggesting a improvement on the visuospatial skills, attention, working memory and processing speed. On the control group, the performance was significantly higher in the Coding subtest (t = -5,38; p< 0,01) and in the Perceptual Reasoning Index (t = -3,66; p = 0,01), suggesting a improvement on the visuospatial skills and attention. The mean obtained with the Sleep Behavior Questionnaire was 53,76 (SD=14,96) for an experimental group and 61,19 (SD=12,82) for a control group, indicating tendency for a bad sleep quality in that last one. Not only during the first days, but also in the last fifteen days of the intervention we verified in the two groups an adequate time to sleep, duration and regularity, in the weekdays and on the weekends. We didn t find significant differences between the two groups in none of the sleep variables. We verified statistically meaningful improvement on the performance of the experimental group with the intervention in the two games. We didn t verify significant correlations between the games performance index and in the sleep variables of the experimental group individuals. We verified significant correlations among the performance on the Brain Workshop and the Cubes subtest, the Perceptual Reasoning Index and the Scale Performance IQ, suggesting that the significant improvement of the visuospatial skills and of the attention was correlated with the performance in the Brain Workshop. Although the absence of correlations with the performance in the Safari, possibly it also has relieved in the improvement of the cognitive performance. The findings support the hypothesis that the computer games might be a satisfactory tool for the improvement of the performance in visuospatial skills and attention. This can be resulted of the insertion of visuospatial stimulations in the task, for example, graphical elements with thematic for children that increase the interest. The IQ below mean the individuals might have influenced the improvement absence on the cognitive processes like the working memory with games. Moreover, it wasn t verified a relation between the sleep quality and the intervention efficacy. It might have been influenced by the n of the sample. Future studies must focalize in the improvement of the effect of the interventions with games

O cuidador familiar do idoso com alzheimer: percepções e sentimentos

The Brazilian Constitution maintains that care for elderly people is a responsibility shared by the state, the family and the society. The politics for the elderly corroborate this understanding and treats home as a privileged place for elderly care taking. This determines the participation of the familiar as a caregiver, but highlights the lack of strategic assistance for the needs of the relative caregiver who feels helplessly and unattended in their responsibility for elderly homecare. In recent years , despite the recently pursuit for health and life quality, there is an increasing incidence of elderly patients with dementia diseases that lead to disability, the most common among then is the Alzheimer´s disease. This disease affects seriously and irreversibly cognition, memory and independence of the elderly, making it dependent on others to perform basic activities of daily life, for all his life. The present study aims to evaluate the perceptions and feelings of family caregivers of elders with Alzheimer on the role of caregiver. This is a qualitative study conducted with family caregivers of seniors with Alzheimer´s, caregivers linked to the group of the Specialized Care Center of the Elderly´s Health, located in Natal / RN. Through semi-structured interview research sought to investigate the perceptions of family caregivers on the role of caregiver, the feelings and the changes in the caregiver´s life since they assumed this role. The data were organized into categories and units of semantic analysis and analyzed using thematic content analysis by Bardin. The reports originated three categories: the perception of the role of caregiver, feelings related to the caregving and consequences of the caregiver role. Perceptions of caregivers of elderly from the requirement of dedication to the care generates losses in personal and professional life for the familiar who assumes this responsibility. The lack of family and social support, aggravates the burden of care for the dependent elderly. Public health politics for the elderly recognize the importance and needs of family caregivers, but not enough to provide support and meet the needs and assist them in supporting their limitations. The research results show the urgent need to take measures to assist the caregivers of seniors with Alzheimer, recognizing them as an action of promotion quality of life and health of the elderly and protection the health of the caregiver

Arquitetura multiagente baseada em nuvem de partículas para hibridização de metaheurísticas

This thesis proposes an architecture of a new multiagent system framework for hybridization of metaheuristics inspired on the general Particle Swarm Optimization framework (PSO). The main contribution is to propose an effective approach to solve hard combinatory optimization problems. The choice of PSO as inspiration was given because it is inherently multiagent, allowing explore the features of multiagent systems, such as learning and cooperation techniques. In the proposed architecture, particles are autonomous agents with memory and methods for learning and making decisions, using search strategies to move in the solution space. The concepts of position and velocity originally defined in PSO are redefined for this approach. The proposed architecture was applied to the Traveling Salesman Problem and to the Quadratic Assignment Problem, and computational experiments were performed for testing its effectiveness. The experimental results were promising, with satisfactory performance, whereas the potential of the proposed architecture has not been fully explored. For further researches, the proposed approach will be also applied to multiobjective combinatorial optimization problems, which are closer to real-world problems. In the context of applied research, we intend to work with both students at the undergraduate level and a technical level in the implementation of the proposed architecture in real-world problems

Desempenho escolar de crianças com Distúrbio Específico de Linguagem: relações com habilidades metafonológicas e memória de curto prazo

OBJETIVO: Descrever o desempenho de crianças com Distúrbio Específico de Linguagem (DEL) em provas de leitura, escrita, aritmética, consciência fonológica e memória seqüencial auditiva, assim como, verificar se há associação positiva entre as provas que avaliam a aprendizagem escolar e as que avaliam o processamento da informação. MÉTODOS: Vinte sujeitos com diagnóstico de DEL, com idades entre 7 e 12 anos, foram submetidos ao Teste de Desempenho Escolar (TDE) e a duas provas, que avaliam o processamento da informação (Perfil de Habilidades Fonológicas e Subteste de Memória Seqüencial Auditiva do Teste de Illinois de Habilidades Psicolingüísticas - ITPA). RESULTADOS: A maioria apresentou alteração em todas as provas realizadas. As associações entre o desempenho do grupo nas diferentes provas demonstram que a habilidade metafonológica apresentou associação estatisticamente significante com as habilidades de leitura (p=0,02) e escrita (p=0,02). Por sua vez, a habilidade de memória seqüencial auditiva apresentou associação estatisticamente significante apenas com a habilidade de aritmética (p=0,0003). CONCLUSÃO: O desempenho escolar, assim como as habilidades de consciência fonológica e memória de curto prazo mostraram-se defasados na maioria dos sujeitos avaliados, havendo associação positiva entre: a prova de memória de curto prazo e a prova de aritmética; a prova de consciência fonológica e as provas de leitura e escrita. Neste contexto, reforça-se aqui a utilização de programas de intervenção baseados em Modelos Psicolingüísticos, que sugerem o uso de estratégias individuais para o desenvolvimento das habilidades metafonológicas.

Detecção e diagnóstico de falhas não-supervisionados baseados em estimativa de densidade recursiva e classificador fuzzy auto-evolutivo

In this work, we propose a two-stage algorithm for real-time fault detection and identification of industrial plants. Our proposal is based on the analysis of selected features using recursive density estimation and a new evolving classifier algorithm. More specifically, the proposed approach for the detection stage is based on the concept of density in the data space, which is not the same as probability density function, but is a very useful measure for abnormality/outliers detection. This density can be expressed by a Cauchy function and can be calculated recursively, which makes it memory and computational power efficient and, therefore, suitable for on-line applications. The identification/diagnosis stage is based on a self-developing (evolving) fuzzy rule-based classifier system proposed in this work, called AutoClass. An important property of AutoClass is that it can start learning from scratch". Not only do the fuzzy rules not need to be prespecified, but neither do the number of classes for AutoClass (the number may grow, with new class labels being added by the on-line learning process), in a fully unsupervised manner. In the event that an initial rule base exists, AutoClass can evolve/develop it further based on the newly arrived faulty state data. In order to validate our proposal, we present experimental results from a level control didactic process, where control and error signals are used as features for the fault detection and identification systems, but the approach is generic and the number of features can be significant due to the computationally lean methodology, since covariance or more complex calculations, as well as storage of old data, are not required. The obtained results are significantly better than the traditional approaches used for comparison

Processos aleatórios não-markovianos: perfis de memória

One of the mechanisms responsible for the anomalous diffusion is the existence of long-range temporal correlations, for example, Fractional Brownian Motion and walk models according to Elephant memory and Alzheimer profiles, whereas in the latter two cases the walker can always "remember" of his first steps. The question to be elucidated, and the was the main motivation of our work, is if memory of the historic initial is condition for observation anomalous diffusion (in this case, superdiffusion). We give a conclusive answer, by studying a non-Markovian model in which the walkers memory of the past, at time t, is given by a Gaussian centered at time t=2 and standard deviation t which grows linearly as the walker ages. For large widths of we find that the model behaves similarly to the Elephant model; In the opposite limit (! 0), although the walker forget the early days, we observed similar results to the Alzheimer walk model, in particular the presence of amnestically induced persistence, characterized by certain log-periodic oscillations. We conclude that the memory of earlier times is not a necessary condition for the generating of superdiffusion nor the amnestically induced persistence and can appear even in profiles of memory that forgets the initial steps, like the Gausssian memory profile investigated here.

Non-pharmacological interventions on cognitive functions in older people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI)

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Síndrome da apneia obstrutiva do sono e o potencial auditivo P300

A Síndrome da Apneia Obstrutiva do Sono (SAOS) diminui as capacidades da atenção, memória e concentração, fatores relacionados com a cognição. A análise dos parâmetros do P300 auditivo permitiria inferir disfunção cognitiva. OBJETIVO: Comparar os dados da polissonografia e do P300 auditivo em adultos, roncopatas primários com portadores de SAOS. CASUÍSTICA E MÉTODO: Estudo prospectivo em roncopatas primários (N=12) e em portadores de SAOS (N=54), submetidos à polissonografia definidos pelo índice de apneia e hipopneia (IAH). As variáveis da polissonografia e as do P300 foram comparadas, pelos testes T de Student, exato de Fisher, regressão logística e análise de correlação com nível de significância de 5%. RESULTADOS: O IAH apresentou correlação inversa com a oximetria em ambos os grupos. A prevalência do P300 foi menor no G.SAOS (teste exato de Fisher, p=0,027). A idade dos pacientes não influenciou a prevalência do P300 (análise de regressão; p=0,232). A amplitude do P300 foi menor do G.SAOS (teste T de Student; p=0,003) a latência do P300 foi semelhante em ambos os grupos (teste T de Student; p=0,89). CONCLUSÃO: A redução da amplitude do P300 nos portadores de SAOS sugere disfunção cognitiva induzida por diminuição da memória auditiva.

Escuta de crianças com fissura labiopalatina na escola

INTRODUÇÃO: Grande similaridade entre o comportamento de pacientes com fissura labiopalatina e aqueles com transtorno de processamento auditivo são relatadas por pais e professores. OBJETIVO: Verificar a escuta de crianças com fissura labiopalatina em seis condições de escuta. MÉTODO: Professores de 224 escolares (7 a 11 anos) com fissura completaram um questionário, visando julgar a escuta do escolar no ruído, condição ideal, com múltiplos estímulos, no silêncio, quando solicitado recordar a informação ouvida e durante longo período de escuta, comparando-o ao de outro sem fissura de mesma idade e condição de escuta. Estudo Prospectivo. RESULTADOS: A média do julgamento (-0,08, desvio padrão de 0,27) dos alunos com fissura, realizado pelo professor, foi aproximadamente ao de mesma dificuldade (zero), quando comparado com o escolar sem fissura. Não foi encontrada significância estatística para qualquer uma das condições, nem para o valor total do questionário considerando os gêneros e as séries escolares. CONCLUSÃO: As características de escuta dos escolares com fissura labiopalatina foram similares ao de outro sem esta malformação craniofacial de mesma idade e condição de escuta semelhante. No ruído, quando a memória e a atenção auditiva são requeridas foram as condições mais difíceis.

Desempenho cognitivo em diferentes níveis de escolaridade de adultos e idosos ativos

OBJETIVO: Comparar o desempenho cognitivo em diferentes níveis de escolaridade de indivíduos adultos e idosos praticantes de atividade física. MÉTODOS: Foram avaliados 122 indivíduos sem comprometimento cognitivo, idade entre 46 a 85 anos e escolaridade entre 1 a 15 anos, praticantes de atividade física há mais de 6 meses no Programa de Atividades Físicas e Recreativas para a Terceira Idade. Foi aplicada uma bateria de testes cognitivos para verificar as seguintes variáveis: memória de curto prazo, linguagem, aprendizagem, taxa de esquecimento e funções executivas. RESULTADOS: O teste de Kruskal-Wallis apontou diferenças entre os grupos, com diferentes níveis de escolaridade, apenas para a memória de curto prazo, sendo que o teste de U Mann Whitney demonstra diferença entre o grupo de menor escolaridade (1-4 anos) com o grupo de maior escolaridade (> 12 anos). CONCLUSÃO: Diante disso, sugere-se que adultos e idosos ativos, em diferentes níveis de escolaridade, apresentam um perfil cognitivo semelhante para os seguintes domínios cognitivos: linguagem, aprendizagem, taxa de esquecimento e funções executivas.

Discalculia do desenvolvimento: avaliação da representação numérica pela ZAREKI-R

O presente estudo investigou aspectos da representação numérica (processamento numérico e cálculo) e memória operacional de crianças com transtornos de aprendizagem. Participaram 30 crianças de idade entre 9 e 10 anos, ambos os gêneros, divididas em dois grupos: sem dificuldade em aritmética (SDA; N=11) e com dificuldade em aritmética (CDA; N=19), avaliadas pela ZAREKI-R, Matrizes Coloridas de Raven, o Blocos de Corsi e o BCPR. Crianças CDA exibiram escores levemente mais baixos que as SDA quanto ao nível intelectual e nos Blocos de Corsi. Na ZAREKI-R apresentaram prejuízo nos subtestes ditado de números, cálculo mental, problemas aritméticos e total. Crianças CDA apresentaram déficits específicos em memória operacional visuoespacial e comprometimento em processamento numérico e cálculo, compatível com discalculia do desenvolvimento.