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Biomedical subjects

S J Dollinger

Publications and source records attributed to S J Dollinger.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1998

Myocytes isolated from rejecting transplanted rat hearts exhibit reduced basal shortening which is reversible by aminoguanidine.

Transplanted hearts exhibit depressed contractile function during periods of acute rejection. Myocytes from rejecting hearts also express inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS). We hypothesized that an intrinsic defect, due to the increased nitric oxide production by myocytes, is responsible for much of the observed contractile dysfunction. To test our hypothesis, we recorded shortening of myocytes isolated from rejecting (allograft) and non-rejecting (isograft) transplanted rat hearts under control conditions and following exposure to aminoguanidine (an inhibitor of iNOS), or methylene blue (an inhibitor of nitric oxide stimulation of guanylate cyclase). Four days after transplantation, basal shortening was reduced in allograft myocytes compared to isograft myocytes (allografts: 7.0 +/- 0.8 microns; isografts; 10.7 +/- 0.9 microns; P < 0.05). Allograft myocytes also had higher cGMP levels than isograft myocytes (allografts: 0.58 +/- 0.16 pmol/mg protein; isografts: 0.13 +/- 0.08 pmol/mg protein; P < 0.05). Aminoguanidine (1 mM) had no effect on shortening or cGMP levels in isograft myocytes, whereas aminoguanidine significantly reduced cGMP levels and greatly enhanced shortening of allograft myocytes, such that shortening was now similar in allograft and isograft myocytes. Methylene blue (100 microM) also caused a more than three-fold greater increase in shortening of allograft myocytes (+80 +/- 15%) than isograft myocytes (+23 +/- 6%; P < 0.05 from allografts). These results suggest that myocytes isolated from rejecting hearts have a reversible intrinsic contractile depression which is mediated by overstimulation of the nitric oxide/cGMP pathway within the myocytes. This intrinsic contractile dysfunction may be a major factor responsible for the reversible cardiac depression associated with acute rejection of transplanted hearts.

Animals↗
PubMed1996

Adolescents' perceived risk and personal experience with natural disasters: an evaluation of cognitive heuristics.

Elevated risk judgments for negative life events have been linked to personal experience with events. We tested the hypothesis that cognitive heuristics are the underlying cognitive mechanism for this relation. The availability (i.e., memory for incidents) and simulation (i.e., imagery) heuristics were evaluated as possible mediators for the relation between personal experience and risk estimates for fatal weather events. Adolescents who had experienced weather disasters estimated their personal risk for weather events. Support was obtained for the simulation heuristic (imagery) as a mediator for the relation. Availability for lightning disaster experience was also found to be a mediator for the relation between personal lightning disaster experience and risk estimate for future events. The implications for risk perception research are discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1996

Individuality and relatedness of the self: an autophotographic study.

Using R. C. Ziller's (1990) method of autophotography, the authors studied the duality of relatedness and individuality. A total of 226 young adults used photos (and words) to portray "who they are". Photo essays were scored for objective codes (e.g., people touching) and subjectively rated for individuality (richness of self-depiction). As predicted, persons who emphasized their personal rather than social identity depicted greater individuality; relatedness was associated with social and collective identity. Other results replicated earlier gender differences in relatedness and associations of individuality and relatedness with the 5-factor model. In the 2nd wave of the sample, individuality was associated with higher ego development, maturity, and self-directed values; low individuality was associated with restrictive conformity and security values. The authors suggest that the combination of individuality and relatedness is optimal for human development.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Sleep and anxieties in Brazilian children: the role of cultural and environmental factors in child sleep disturbance.

To test the contextual hypothesis of sleep disturbance, disadvantaged urban Brazilian children's self-reported fears were correlated with parental reports of children's sleep disturbance. Fears of death at the hands of "death squads," environment-related worries and other fears reflecting Brazil's political, religious, and collective culture all correlated with sleep disturbance. Results are contrasted with findings of earlier studies on sleep and anxieties in samples of learning-disabled adolescents and victims of lightning.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1996

Autophotographic identities of young adults: with special reference to alcohol, athletics, achievement, religion, and work.

This study examined the identities projected in autobiographical photo essays by college students answering the question "Who are you?" Five key identities-self-as-drinker, self-as-athlete, self-as-achiever, religious self, and working self-were correlated with parallel self-report measures and their correlates were studied. Results validated the photo-based identities, particularly self-as-drinker, and suggested that such criteria as college grades, orientation to college (Clark-Trow subcultures), and personality traits can be inferred from photo essays. I argue that the autophotographic method affords rich insights as an assessment method and has heuristic value as a point of departure for therapeutic conversation.

Achievement↗
PubMed1995

The relationship between psychometric intelligence and the five-factor model of personality in a rehabilitation sample.

WAIS-R and NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI) scores obtained from 85 rehabilitation clients of the Evaluation and Development Center of Southern Illinois University's Rehabilitation Institute were utilized to examine the relationship between psychometric intelligence and personality. Correlational analyses revealed that the NEO-PI Openness domain and its six facets significantly correlated with WAIS-R FSIQ, VIQ, PIQ, and 9 of the 11 subtests. Multiple regression analyses showed that the five NEO-PI domains accounted for significant proportions of WAIS-R, FSIQ, VIQ, and PIQ score variance. The NEO-PI Openness domain was found to be the best predictor of WAIS-R FSIQ, VIQ, and PIQ scores. The study concludes with a discussion of the meaning and implications of the findings and suggestions for future research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Nitric oxide donor SIN-1 inhibits mammalian cardiac calcium current through cGMP-dependent protein kinase.

The effect of the nitric oxide (NO) donor SIN-1 (3-morpholino-sydnonimine) on the calcium current (ICa) was examined in guinea pig ventricular myocytes. SIN-1 had little effect on basal ICa. After moderate stimulation of ICa with 10 nM isoproterenol (ISO), 10 microM SIN-1 caused either stimulation or inhibition of ICa; 100 microM SIN-1 consistently caused inhibition. SIN-1 (1-100 microM) inhibited ICa equally following considerable enhancement of ICa by either 1 microM ISO or 100 microM 3-isobutyl-1-methylxanthine, a nonspecific phosphodiesterase (PDE) inhibitor. SIN-1 (100 microM) also inhibited ICa equally following enhancement by either 10 microM pipette adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cAMP) or hydrolysis-resistant 8-bromo-cAMP. Thus the inhibitory effect of SIN-1 appears independent of PDEs. Addition of LY-83583 (a blocker of guanylate cyclase) to the pipette or superfusion with KT-5823 [a blocker of the guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate (cGMP)-dependent protein kinase] suppressed the inhibitory effect of SIN-1. We conclude that NO is an important modulator of beta-adrenergic effects on ICa and that the mechanism of NO inhibition of ICa in mammalian cardiac cells involves the cGMP-dependent protein kinase.

1-Methyl-3-isobutylxanthine↗
PubMed1994

Time course of postnatal changes in rat heart action potential and in transient outward current is different.

The rat ventricular action potential shortens after birth. The contribution of increases in the transient outward current (Ito) to postnatal action potential shortening was assessed by measuring Ito in isolated cells and by determining the effect of 2 mM 4-aminopyridine (4-AP) on the action potentials of papillary muscles. 4-AP had no effect on 1-day action potential duration at 25% repolarization (APD25), and 1-day cells had little Ito. In 8- to 10-day muscles, 4-AP caused a small, but significant, increase in APD25. Ito increased slightly between day 1 and days 8-10, but this increase was not significant. Most of the increase in Ito (79%) and in the response to 4-AP (64%) occurred between days 8-10 and adult; however, approximately 75% of the APD25 shortening took place by days 8-10. Thus, while Ito may contribute to repolarization in late neonatal and adult cells, the different time courses of action potential shortening and increases in Ito suggest that changes in Ito are unlikely to be responsible for most of the postnatal action potential shortening.

4-Aminopyridine↗
PubMed1993

Identity, self, and personality: II. Glimpses through the autophotographic eye.

Subjects were 201 college students, who used R. C. Ziller's (1990) autophotographic method to answer the question who are you? Richness of self-depiction (i.e., creative and self-expressive vs. prosaic photo essays) and interpersonal connectedness of the self were examined. As expected, Openness to Experience from the 5-factor model predicted richness of photo essays. Among women, Neuroticism and Introversion also predicted richness. As expected, Extraversion and Agreeableness related to interpersonal orientations in photo essays. Intergenerational photos had especially salient meaning for personality. Three other predictions received support, bearing on such identity-relevant categories as alcohol use, religiosity, self-exhibition in bathing attire, and identification with one's school. Results are integrated with literature on interpersonal connectedness and the relation of creativity to personality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Photographically portrayed identities, alcohol expectancies, and excessive drinking.

A new measure of alcohol-related identity was derived from college students' photographic self-depictions using Ziller's (1990) autophotographic essay task. This measure and the well-developed Alcohol Expectancy Questionnaire (AEQ; Brown, Goldman, Inn, & Anderson, 1980) were used to predict frequency and typical quantity of drinking. Replicating past research, the AEQ showed a number of significant relationships with drinking behavior. The alcohol identity measure also correlated with these measures, even when variance attributable to the AEQ was controlled, and related particularly well to the typical quantity measure. It is suggested that the autophotographic essay method has heuristic value for alcohol research and other personality phenomena.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

Adolescent smoking and perceived vulnerability to smoking-related causes of death.

Tested adolescent smokers' perceptions of risk for smoking-related causes of death in comparison to nonsmoking peers. 408 high school Ss (11% regular smokers, 15% occasional smokers) estimated the likelihood of personal death from cancer, emphysema, and stroke. Smokers did not differ from nonsmokers on perceived risks for smoking-related deaths. Smokers and nonsmokers perceived the odds of dying from cancer as high but, unrealistically, smokers did not view it as higher than nonsmokers. Regular smokers who report high exposure to news appear to minimize the risks for cancer and stroke deaths. High sensation-seeking tendencies led to lower perceived risks for males but not for females. The "invulnerability syndrome" is discussed in relationship to adolescents' risk perceptions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

The Word Association Implications Test.

Three experiments (N = 144 college students) tested and documented the relationship between incidental learning of diagnostic schemata with performance on the Word Association Implications Test (WAIT). Moreover, Experiment 1 showed that instruction in diagnostic cues did not improve WAIT scores, although an incentive did. Experiment 2 supported the "developing schemata" concept by showing that subjects need to interpret WAIT protocols before they can generate possible diagnostic clues. Experiment 3 showed that inductive reasoning and viewing the task as more play- and game-like (vs. work- and test-like) predicted WAIT scores over and above the influence of incidental learning of schemata, in sum, results suggest that an heuristic discovery-oriented approach is most successful in learning "to read between the lines" of word associations. Discussion addresses the value of heuristic versus algorithmic approaches to the learning of personality assessment.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1990

Children's defensive responses and emotional upset following a disaster: a projective assessment.

Projective stories were used to assess the defense mechanisms of 27 preadolescent boys who were victims of a lightning strike in which one boy died. Denial, projection, and identification, in combination, were found to be inversely related to clinical upset, as was the age and sex-appropriate individual defense of projection. In addition, low-defensive boys' self-reports of fears agreed more often with their parents' reports of sleep and somatic disturbances than did high-defensive boys' self-reports. The findings provide support for the validity of the Defense Mechanism Manual (Cramer, 1982) and raise the issue of defense mechanisms as moderator variables in self-report questionnaires.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1988

Disturbed sleep and worries among learning disabled adolescents.

This study tested the clinical assumption that sleep problems reflect underlying emotional concerns. The hypothesis that worry-correlates of disturbed sleep for learning disabled adolescents would be related to their disability was borne out by findings of sleep problems associated with concerns about intellectual and academic adequacy. Other significant correlates suggested the effect of social anxiety which may be age-appropriate.

Achievement↗
PubMed1985

Lightning-strike disaster among children.

Thirty-eight children playing or observing a soccer game were the victims of a lightning strike which killed one other child. Interviews with the children and their families documented a number of emotional effects of this disaster, chiefly situational adjustment reactions. The most common reactions involved anxiety, particularly at times of storms. However, the most severely upset children exhibited sleep disturbances, separation anxiety, and nocturnal enuresis. One of two side-flash victims experienced depression for several months; the other experienced no significant emotional upset. Both suffered medical complications and had no memory for the incident. While all children reached at follow-up were doing quite well, those who were most upset by the incident were more likely to refuse to play soccer during the follow-up interval. Stories told to pictures of lightning revealed projections of the children's emotional upset, various defensive reactions to the incident and an increased sense of subjective probability for lightning injuries.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1985

Effects of a paradoxical intervention on a child's anxiety about sleep- and sports-related performance.

A paradoxical instruction was used to treat a 10-yr.-old boy's complaint of crying when unable to sleep and the daytime equivalent of fearing the public display of crying when failing at sports performances. The instruction resolved both the sleep disturbance and the public crying. The results suggest that, like adults, children may experience anxiety about sleep difficulties and that paradoxical intention may have promise for the treatment of some children's insomnia.

Anxiety↗