Статьи

The excitation-inhibition ratio is a key functional property of cortical microcircuits which changes throughout an individual’s lifespan. Adolescence is considered a critical period for maturation of excitation-inhibition ratio. This has primarily been observed in animal studies. However, there is limited human in vivo evidence for maturation of excitation-inhibition ratio at the individual level. Here, we developed an individualized in vivo marker of regional excitation-inhibition ratio in human adolescents, estimated using large-scale simulations of biophysical network models fitted to resting-state functional imaging data from both cross-sectional (n = 752) and longitudinal (n = 149) cohorts. In both datasets, we found a widespread decrease in excitation-inhibition ratio in association areas, paralleled by an increase or lack of change in sensorimotor areas. This developmental pattern was aligned with multiscale markers of sensorimotor-association differentiation. Although our main findings were robust across alternative modeling configurations, we observed local variations, highlighting the importance of methodological choices for future studies.

Background. Motherhood in Chile is complex and challenging -marked as it is by a growing number of women raising children on their own, against a backdrop of multiple social, cultural and economic factors- as well as a significant decline in birth rates. Perezhivanie is a Russian word, originating in Russian scholarship. This concept integrates the personal, social, and environmental dimensions of individual experience. This study adopts a cultural-historical approach grounded in Vygotskian theory, proposing perezhivanie as the unit of analysis. Objective. To study the perezhivanie of Chilean women in relation to the psychological, social, and cultural factors underlying the complexities of motherhood. Design. This study uses a qualitative epistemology and adopts a constructive-interpretative paradigm proposed by González-Rey. As a research strategy, it uses a case study design and applies a purposive sampling method which allows to recruit 10 Chilean mothers to whom the episodic interview technique proposed by Flick is applied. Data analysis was conducted following González-Rey’s method to interpreting subjective productions. Results. The main findings indicate that participants construct a perezhivanie marked by guilt and frustration within a social framework characterised by family difficulties, of monoparenting, and lack of economic resources, all associated with cultural patterns that reinforce the unequal distribution of parenting responsibilities and gender stereotypes in society. Conclusion. The study concludes on the importance of studying and providing comprehensive responses to the complex reality of motherhood in Chile.

Death anxiety (DA), apprehension when thinking about death, has long been associated with distress. Studies have suggested that DA may transdiagnostically contribute to mental disorders. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, aiming to estimate the relationship between DA and distress or symptoms of mental disorders. The included studies reported the correlation between DA and distress or symptoms of mental disorders, across general population and clinical samples, using previously validated measures for all outcomes. PsychInfo and the Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection (via EBSCO), Embase, and Medline (via PubMed) were systematically searched up to 30 October 2023. Study quality was evaluated with the Study Quality Assessment Tools (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute). A total of 129 studies were included, reporting on 158 independent samples, for a total of 34,147 participants. Most studies were rated as poor quality. The findings indicated consistently positive associations between DA and distress outcomes (general anxiety: r = 0.42, P < 0.001; depression: r = 0.41, P < 0.001; distress: r = 0.36, P < 0.001). Heterogeneity was substantial, and prediction intervals crossed zero for all outcomes, except for anxiety and distress. We found no moderation by DA measure, sample type or the proportion of women in the sample. However, the association was stronger (t(35.37) = −2.055, P = 0.047) when medical conditions were present (r = 0.48, P < 0.001) than when they were absent (r = 0.37, P < 0.001). There was evidence of small-study effects, indicating possible publication bias. DA should be investigated in longitudinal studies across diverse samples of patients to clarify its contribution to psychopathology.

Establishing a unified theory of cognition has been an important goal in psychology1,2. A first step towards such a theory is to create a computational model that can predict human behaviour in a wide range of settings. Here we introduce Centaur, a computational model that can predict and simulate human behaviour in any experiment expressible in natural language. We derived Centaur by fine-tuning a state-of-the-art language model on a large-scale dataset called Psych-101. Psych-101 has an unprecedented scale, covering trial-by-trial data from more than 60,000 participants performing in excess of 10,000,000 choices in 160 experiments. Centaur not only captures the behaviour of held-out participants better than existing cognitive models, but it also generalizes to previously unseen cover stories, structural task modifications and entirely new domains. Furthermore, the model’s internal representations become more aligned with human neural activity after fine-tuning. Taken together, our results demonstrate that it is possible to discover computational models that capture human behaviour across a wide range of domains. We believe that such models provide tremendous potential for guiding the development of cognitive theories, and we present a case study to demonstrate this.

Актуальность. Наиболее активное исследование игры велось в советский период в контексте иной социальной и культурной реальности и, вероятно, в каких-то аспектах теория игры, разработанная в русле культурно-исторического подхода, требует обновлений. Выявление качественных и количественных закономерностей в желании или нежелании дошкольников играть в школу может быть полезно как для построения практической работы с детьми, так и для уточнения научных представлений о современной игре и совершенствовании методологии последующих исследовательских работ в этой области. Цель. Исследование было направлено, во-первых, на определение роли возраста, пола, саморегуляции и предпочитаемых ребенком игрушек в вероятности его желания играть в школу и, во-вторых, на составление насыщенного описания ключевых тем, звучащих в обосновании детьми желания или нежелания играть в школу, на основе детских высказываний. Выборка. В исследовании приняли участие 178 воспитанников средних и подготовительных групп детских садов, расположенных в спальных районах г. Москвы. На момент прохождения исследования возраст детей составлял от 4 до 7 полных лет (M = 5,55, SD = 0,78). Общее соотношение количества девочек и мальчиков в выборке было приближенным к равному (106 мальчиков и 118 девочек). Методы. В исследовании реализованы индивидуальная диагностика основных компонентов саморегуляции, а также экспериментальные процедуры для изучения детских предпочтений при выборе игрушек. Результаты. Выявлена позитивная статистически значимая связь между предпочтением ребенком высокореалистичных игрушек и желанием играть в школу. Показано, что вероятность интереса к игре в школу на 36% выше у девочек по сравнению с мальчиками. Предположения о возрастании интереса к игре в школу по мере приближения к школьному возрасту и при более совершенном развитии саморегуляции не подтвердились. В результате тематического анализа детских высказываний показано, что за желанием играть в школу чаще всего находился интерес детей к учебной деятельности, позитивное отношение к школе и удачные характеристики игрушки; а за нежеланием — необходимость прикладывать усилия в игре, опасение собственного неуспеха и неудовлетворение предпочтений ребенка в отношении игрушки или предполагаемого ей вида игры. Выводы. Выявленные закономерности и темы, звучащие в детских ответах, могут быть полезны в педагогической работе с детьми и создании условий для сюжетно-ролевой игры в детском саду, а также для совершенствования методологии последующих исследовательских работ в этой области.