Search results for "developmental"

Human values and retirement experiences: A longitudinal analysis of Norwegian data.

2021

Motivational factors, such as one’s value system, may affect how people cope with the opportunities and challenges of retirement. This article explores the moderating roles of Schwartz’s four basic values (self-enhancement, self-transcendence, openness to change, and conservation) on the magnitude and duration of retirement effects on life satisfaction between two waves (2007 and 2017) of the Norwegian Life course, Ageing and Generation (NorLAG) study. Fixed-effect regression analyses are run separately for men and women to account for gender differences in the attachments and identities tied to work and non-work domains. Retirement is not a uniform experience, and findings show that retire…

Erratum to: Socio-Demographic Vulnerability: The Condition of Italian Young People

2010

Disconnected Lives: Trends in Time Spent Alone in Finland

2020

AbstractDiscussions about social isolation have been extensive over the past few decades. A less sociable nature of social ties has been identified in Western societies. The phenomenon has been associated with demographic changes such as aging and living alone as well as changes in the use of new technologies. In this study we employ representative Finnish Time Use Surveys from three decades, 1987–1988 (n = 1887), 1999–2000 (n = 2673) and 2009–2010 (n = 1887) to examine the trends in social isolation, measured as time spent alone. Our results showed that between 1987 and 2010 the time spent alone increased by 124 min per day. The increase was linear and occurred in nearly all population gro…

Brain event-related potentials to phoneme contrasts and their correlation to reading skills in school-age children

2017

Development of reading skills has been shown to be tightly linked to phonological processing skills and to some extent to speech perception abilities. Although speech perception is also known to play a role in reading development, it is not clear which processes underlie this connection. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) we investigated the speech processing mechanisms for common and uncommon sound contrasts (/ba/-/da/-/ga/ and /ata/-/at: a/) with respect to the native language of school-age children in Finland and the US. In addition, a comprehensive behavioral test battery of reading and phonological processing was administered. ERPs revealed that the children could discriminate betw…

Mismatch negativity (MMN) elicited by changes in phoneme length: A cross-linguistic study

2006

Speech sounds representing different phonetic categories are typically easier to discriminate than sounds belonging to the same category. This phenomenon is referred to as the phoneme boundary effect. We aimed to determine whether, at neural level, this effect is indeed due to crossing the phoneme boundary. The mismatch negativity (MMN) brain response was measured for across- and within-category changes in Finnish phoneme length in native speakers and second-language users of Finnish as well as non-Finnish-speaking subjects. The results showed that the MMN amplitude was enhanced in the native speakers in comparison with the two non-native groups which, in turn, did not differ from each othe…

Aging and strength training influence knee extensor intermuscular coherence during low- and high-force isometric contractions

2019

Aging is associated with reduced maximum force production and force steadiness during low-force tasks, but both can be improved by training. Intermuscular coherence measures coupling between two peripheral surface electromyography (EMG) signals in the frequency domain. It is thought to represent the presence of common input to alpha-motoneurons, but the functional meaning of intermuscular coherence, particularly regarding aging and training, remain unclear. This study investigated knee extensor intermuscular coherence in previously sedentary young (18–30 years) and older (67–73 years) subjects before and after a 14-week strength training intervention. YOUNG and OLDER groups performed maximu…

Methamphetamine abuse and meth mouth in Europe

2014

With easy chemical synthesis from its precursor, methamphetamine (MA) is now widespread in many countries. The abuse of methamphetamine is associated with several negative effects on health, because MA is a neurotoxin and a dangerous central nervous system stimulant. It changes levels of neurotransmitters in the brain, releasing dopamine and inhibiting nor epinephrine uptake which increases sympathetic nervous system activity and can lead to cardiac arrhythmia, hypertension and tachypnea. The consequences of MA abuse are clearly manifested in oral diseases (like “meth mouth”) which is characterised by extensive caries, teeth grinding with ensuing dental wear and trismus. The present review …

Use of a Virtual Environment to Engage Motor and Postural Abilities in Elderly Subjects With and Without Mild Cognitive Impairment (MAAMI Project)

2016

Objectives: In the context of rehabilitation, the use of new technology such as Virtual Reality Technology (VRT) offers multiple possibilities to modulate the functional stimulation of subjects according to needs. Material and methods: In this study, the validity and reliability of our VRT system were investigated in fifteen healthy aged adults (HAA) and seven aged subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). One implicit session was designed through two virtual environments (VEs) in order to induce the adapted activities associated with balance and postural control. In comparison, the same activities were achieved in explicit sessions with a physiotherapist. This cross-over study made us…

Is the taste of fat regulated?

2013

Over the last decade, converging data have been accumulated both in rodents and humans, supporting the existence of a sixth taste modality devoted to the perception of dietary lipids. It is well known that the sense of taste is determinant for the food choice and that the overconsumption of highly palatable energy-dense foods contributes to the current obesity epidemic. Thus, an important issue in terms of Public Health is to understand the mechanisms by which the oro-sensory perception of fat is regulated. An overview of our current knowledge in this field of investigations is proposed in this mini-review.

Functional roles of the sweet taste receptor in oral and extraoral tissues

2014

International audience; Purpose of review: This review summarizes and discusses the current knowledge about the physiological roles of the sweet taste receptor in oral and extraoral tissues. Recent findings: The expression of a functional sweet taste receptor has been reported in numerous extragustatory tissues, including the gut, pancreas, bladder, brain and, more recently, bone and adipose tissues. In the gut, this receptor has been suggested to be involved in luminal glucose sensing, the release of some satiety hormones, the expression of glucose transporters, and the maintenance of glucose homeostasis. More recently, the sweet taste receptor was proposed to regulate adipogenesis and bon…