Objective: Epidemiological data increasingly supports sleep as a determinant of cardiovascular disease risk. Fewer studies have investigated the mechanisms underlying this relationship or employed objective sleep assessment approaches to discern the CVD impact of specific sleep characteristics. The aim of this study was to examine associations between objectively assessed sleep duration and efficiency and daily blood pressure as a potential atherogenic pathway. Methods: A diverse community sample of 300 men and women ages 21-70, enrolled in the North Texas Heart Study participated in the study. Actigraphy assessed sleep was monitored over 2 consecutive nights with ambulatory blood pressure sampled randomly within 45-min blocks on the first and second day and second night. Results: Complete data was available for 216 participants. As predicted, individuals with lower mean sleep efficiency had higher daytime (systolic: B=-0.241, SE=0.100, p<.017, adjusted R2 =0.412; diastolic: B=-0.121, SE=0.06, p<.045, adjusted R2 =0.356) and nighttime BP (systolic: B= -0.696, SE=0.174, p<.001, adjusted R2 = .243; diastolic: B= -0.410, SE= 0.093, p<.001, adjusted R2 = .230). Moreover, lower sleep efficiency on one night was associated with higher systolic (B= -0.386, SE= 0.111, p<.001, adjusted R2 =0.325) but not diastolic BP (B= -0.126, SE= 0.067, p=.062, adjusted R2 = .223) the following day. Overall, sleep duration was associated with systolic BP only, with the exception of nighttime BP. Conclusions: Objectively assessed sleep efficiency and duration are associated with both concurrent nighttime BP and subsequent day BP and may serve as pathways linking sleep to CVD.

In accordance with spatial mapping theory and findings from the Morris Water Maze (WMW), we predicted that older humans would differ from younger humans on a place learning task. Using a computerized version of the MWM entitled the Computer-Generated Arena, we compared performance of adults 22-29 years of age (yoa) with adults 64-81 yoa. We found that 22-29 yoa adults located an invisible target more quickly and accurately than 64-81 yoa adults. Additionally, removing sets of distal stimuli severely disrupted performance in 64-81 yoa adults, but not 22-29 yoa adults. In a post C-G Arena puzzle task, both groups of adults accurately recreated the spatial configurations of stimuli, but the 64-81 yoa adults did not place the target accurately within that space. This suggests that 64-81 yoa adults can accurately map a novel space but may not be able to place learn. These results correlate highly with performance in a real-world MWM task testing the same population.

Rule governance is critical to human society. However, could rule governance be found in non-human animals? A six year old, female, African white-necked raven (Covrus albicollis) named Shade correctly followed informal verbal commands to retrieve specified objects in the past. This ability was tested using two different methods. Both methods involved the researcher verbally asking the bird to retrieve one object out of two either from the same room or an adjacent room. While initial results were not significantly different than chance, review of trial recordings revealed that it is possible to predict when the bird will retrieve an incorrect object based solely on specific behaviors, termed inattentive or uninterested. Trials marked as inattentive by observers were significantly more likely to be incorrect than correct. This indicates that the bird was capable of retrieving the correct object, but that she also occasionally, intentionally retrieved the incorrect object.

The MMPI answer sheets of 30 psychiatric and 30 non-psychiatric patients at a Veterans Administration Hospital were scored for the standard MMPI and the scales of kincannon's 71-item Mini-Mult. Correlational data demonstrated good correspondence between the MMPI and the Mini-Mult for groups. Correlations ranged from .62 to .85 for the psychiatric group and from .20 to .81 for the non-psychiatric group. The psychiatric group was somewhat superior to the non-psychiatric group in terms of correspondence, which was expected. Individual profile pairs were also compared. An analysis of the validity scales, high points, and gerneral elevation indicated that the individual Mini-Mult profile was, in many cases, a poor predictor of its corresponding MMPi profile. Though the utility of the Mini-Mult in clinical practice is minimal, it could be usefully empolyed forresearch in group comparison.