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This study introduced the novel concept of Centeredness, a measure of the emotional atmosphere of the family of origin and a target adult individual's perception of feeling safe, accepted, and supported from childhood primary caregivers and other family members. This study developed a Centeredness scale for adult respondents and tested hypotheses that higher levels of overall Centeredness would predict lower levels of depression and anxiety symptoms; suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs); and aggressive behavior; and higher levels of life satisfaction. Predictive effects of Centeredness were compared against attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, and adverse and benevolent childhood experiences (ACEs and BCEs). Participants were recruited via the Prolific-Academic (Pro-A) survey panel into two large independent samples of US young adults aged 19-35 years [Sample 1 (test sample), N = 548, 53.5% female, 2.2% gender non-conforming, 68.3% White, recruited before the pandemic; Sample 2 (replication sample), N = 1,198, 56.2% female, 2.3% gender non-conforming, 66.4% White; recruited during the pandemic]. Participants completed the novel Centeredness scale, which showed strong psychometric properties, and standardized, publicly available assessments of childhood experiences and mental health outcomes. Centeredness was the only variable that significantly predicted each mental health outcome across both samples. BCEs predicted all outcomes except aggressive behavior in the test sample. Centeredness and BCEs were also the only two variables that significantly predicted a dimensional mental health composite in both samples. Neither attachment-related anxiety and avoidance nor ACEs were as broadly predictive. The Centeredness scale assesses emotional aspects of childhood family relationships with individuals of diverse backgrounds and family compositions. Clinical and cultural implications are discussed. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42844-023-00089-x.

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Measures of well-being have proliferated over the past decades. Very little guidance has been available as to which measures to use in what contexts. This paper provides a series of recommendations, based on the present state of knowledge and the existing measures available, of what measures might be preferred in which contexts. The recommendations came out of an interdisciplinary workshop on the measurement of well-being. The recommendations are shaped around the number of items that can be included in a survey, and also based on the differing potential contexts and purposes of data collection such as, for example, government surveys, or multi-use cohort studies, or studies specifically about psychological well-being. The recommendations are not intended to be definitive, but to stimulate discussion and refinement, and to provide guidance to those relatively new to the study of well-being.

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Supported employment is a treatment whereby those with severe mental illness (or other disabilities) receive aid searching for competitive employment and mental health (or other) treatments concurrently. The most popular implementation of supported employment is individual placement and support (IPS). We conducted meta-analytic analyses of the randomized controlled trials of IPS. We found that subjects in IPS, compared to usual treatment conditions, had better vocational outcomes (obtained any competitive employment: RR = 1.63, 95%CI = [1.46, 1.82]; job tenure: d = 0.55, 95%CI = [0.33, 0.79]; job length: d = 0.46, 95%CI = [0.35, 0.57]; income: d = 0.48, 95%CI = [0.36, 0.59]) Non-vocational outcomes estimates, while favoring IPS, included the null (quality of life: d = 0.30, 95%CI = [-0.07, 0.67]; global functioning: d = 0.09, 95%CI = [-0.09, 0.27]; mental health: d = 0.03, 95%CI = [-0.15, 0.21]). Analysis of the expected proportion of studies with a true effect on non-vocational outcomes with d>0.2 showed some reason to expect a possible improvement for quality of life for at least some settings (Prop = 0.57, 95%CI = [0.30, 0.84]).

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Differing results in olfactory-based decision-making research regarding the amount of time that rats and mice use to identify odors have led to some disagreements about odor-processing mechanics, including whether or not rodents use temporal integration (i.e., sniffing longer to identify odors better). Reported differences in behavioral strategies may be due to the different types of tasks used in different laboratories. Some researchers have reported that animals performing two-alternative choice (TAC) tasks need only 1-2 sniffs and do not increase performance with longer sampling. Others have reported that animals performing go/no-go (GNG) tasks increase sampling times and performance for difficult discriminations, arguing for temporal integration. We present results from four experiments comparing GNG and TAC tasks over several behavioral variables (e.g., performance, sampling duration). When rats know only one task, they perform better in GNG than in TAC. However, performance was not statistically different when rats learned and were tested in both tasks. Rats sample odors longer in GNG than in TAC, even when they know both tasks and perform them in the same or different sessions. Longer sampling is associated with better performance for both tasks in difficult discriminations, which supports the case for temporal integration over ≥2-6 sniffs in both tasks. These results illustrate that generalizations from a single task about behavioral or cognitive abilities (e.g., processing, perception) do not capture the full range of complexity and can significantly impact inferences about general abilities in sensory perception.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Behavioral tasks and training and testing history affect measured outcomes in cognitive tests. Rats sample odors longer in a go/no-go (GNG) than in a two-alternative choice (TAC) task, performing better in GNG unless they know both tasks. Odor-sampling time is extended in both tasks when the odors to be discriminated are very similar. Rats may extend sampling time to integrate odor information up to ∼0.5 s (2-6 sniffs). Such factors as task, task parameters, and training history affect decision times and performance, making it important to use multiple tasks when making inferences about sensory or cognitive processing.

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UNLABELLED: Olfactory system beta (15-35 Hz) and gamma (40-110 Hz) oscillations of the local field potential in mammals have both been linked to odor learning and discrimination. Gamma oscillations represent the activity of a local network within the olfactory bulb, and beta oscillations represent engagement of a systemwide network. Here, we test whether beta and gamma oscillations represent different cognitive modes using the different demands of go/no-go and two-alternative choice tasks that previously were suggested to favor beta or gamma oscillations, respectively. We reconcile previous studies and show that both beta and gamma oscillations occur in both tasks, with gamma dominating the early odor sampling period (2-4 sniffs) and beta dominating later. The relative power and coherence of both oscillations depend separately on multiple factors within both tasks without categorical differences across tasks. While the early/gamma-associated period occurs in all trials, rats can perform above chance without the later/beta-associated period. Longer sampling, which includes beta oscillations, is associated with better performance. Gamma followed by beta oscillations therefore represents a sequence of cognitive and neural states during odor discrimination, which can be separately modified depending on the demands of a task and odor discrimination. Additionally, fast (85 Hz) and slow (70 Hz) olfactory bulb gamma oscillation sub-bands have been hypothesized to represent tufted and mitral cell networks, respectively (Manabe and Mori, 2013). We find that fast gamma favors the early and slow gamma the later (beta-dominated) odor-sampling period and that the relative contributions of these oscillations are consistent across tasks. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Olfactory system gamma (40-110 Hz) and beta (15-35 Hz) oscillations of the local field potential indicate different neural firing statistics and functional circuits. We show that gamma and beta oscillations occur in stereotyped sequence during odor sampling in associative tasks, with local gamma dominating the first 250 ms of odor sniffing, followed by systemwide beta as behavioral responses are prepared. Oscillations and coupling strength between brain regions are modulated by task, odor, and learning, showing that task features can dramatically adjust the dynamics of a cortical sensory system, which changes state every ∼250 ms. Understanding cortical circuits, even at the biophysical level, depends on careful use of multiple behavioral contexts and stimuli.

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Sensory-motor relationships are part of the normal operation of sensory systems. Sensing occurs in the context of active sensor movement, which in turn influences sensory processing. We address such a process in the rat olfactory system. Through recordings of the diaphragm electromyogram (EMG), we monitored the motor output of the respiratory circuit involved in sniffing behavior, simultaneously with the local field potential (LFP) of the olfactory bulb (OB) in rats moving freely in a familiar environment, where they display a wide range of respiratory frequencies. We show that the OB LFP represents the sniff cycle with high reliability at every sniff frequency and can therefore be used to study the neural representation of motor drive in a sensory cortex.

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To elucidate the cognitive structures of animals, neuroscientists use several behavioral tasks. Therefore, it is imperative to have a firm understanding of each task's behavioral parameters in order to parse out possible task effects. We compare two operant discrimination tasks (Go/No-Go: GNG; Two-Alternative Choice: TAC) that are commonly used in olfactory research. Past research has suggested that solving the two tasks requires divergent cognitive strategies. One hypothesis is that the two tasks differ in how an animal optimizes reward rate by means of a speed-accuracy trade-off (SAT). If this is true, then changing tasks could give researchers an additional tool to understand animal cognition. However, no study has systematically analyzed the two tasks in parallel using odor stimuli. Using standardized training protocols, we test GNG and TAC in parallel. Our protocols allow us to isolate the stimulus sampling period from a general reaction time period. We find that the two tasks do not differ with regard to the stimulus sampling period and conclude that the two tasks do not differ in the amount of time it takes an animal to perform a discrimination. Instead, tasks differ in the time it takes to make an overt behavioral response, with GNG showing shorter periods than TAC. We also find no evidence of rats using either task-specific or intertrial interval-dependent SAT schema in order to optimize reward rate. We show that similarities between dependent variables, with the possible exception of response delay, appear to be under experimenter control.

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The overlap hypothesis of mixture perception is based on the observation that mixtures of perceptually similar odorants tend to smell different from their components (configural), whereas mixtures of dissimilar odorants smell like their components (elemental). Because input patterns of perceptually similar odorants tend to overlap more than dissimilar ones, it has been hypothesized that component pattern overlap can predict a mixture's perceptual quality, with high overlap predicting a configural response and low overlap an elemental response. The authors used 7 pairs of odorants chosen for different degrees of overlap in their monomolecular 2-deoxyglucose activation patterns to test the theory in a go/no-go behavioral assay that measured generalization from binary mixtures to components. The authors show that individual component odorant input patterns are not sufficient to predict mixture quality, falsifying the overlap hypothesis. An important finding is that different odorant pairs with similar glomerular overlap showed opposite behavioral-perceptual responses, suggesting nonlinear effects at the receptor or glomerular level or the critical involvement of higher order areas. Thus, the authors posit that imaging the mixtures themselves may provide additional information needed to reliably predict mixture quality.

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