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Ergebnisse 4 Einträge

  • INTRODUCTION: Trait sexual motivation defines a psychological construct that reflects the long-lasting degree of motivation for sexual activities, which is assumed to be the result of biological and sociocultural influences. With this definition, it shares commonalities with other sexuality-related constructs like sexual desire, sexual drive, sexual needs, and sexual compulsivity. AIM: The Trait Sexual Motivation Questionnaire (TSMQ) was developed in order to measure trait sexual motivation with its different facets. METHODS: Several steps were conducted: First, items were composed assessing sexual desire, the effort made to gain sex, as well as specific sexual behaviors. Factor analysis of the data of a first sample (n = 256) was conducted. Second, the factor solution was verified by a confirmatory factor analysis in a second sample (n = 498) and construct validity was demonstrated. Third, the temporal stability of the TSMQ was tested in a third study (n = 59). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: Questionnaire data. RESULTS: The exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that trait sexual motivation is best characterized by four subscales: Solitary Sexuality, Importance of Sex, Seeking Sexual Encounters, and Comparison with Others. It could be shown that the test quality of the questionnaire is high. Most importantly for the trait concept, the retest reliability after 1 year was r = 0.87. CONCLUSION: Our results indicate that the TSMQ is indeed a suitable tool for measuring long-lasting sexual motivation with high test quality and high construct validity. A future differentiation between trait and state sexual motivation might be helpful for clinical as well as forensic research.

  • BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In PD, tissue damage occurs in specific cortical and subcortical regions. Conventional MR images have only limited capacity to depict these structural changes. The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether voxel-based MT imaging could indicate structural abnormalities beyond atrophy measurable with T1-weighted MR imaging. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-six patients with PD without dementia (9 in H&Y stage 1, thirteen in H&Y 2, eleven in H&Y 3, three in H&Y 4) and 23 age-matched control subjects were studied with T1-weighted MR imaging and MT imaging. Voxel-based analyses of T1-weighted MR imaging was performed to investigate brain atrophy, while MT imaging was used to study abnormalities within existing tissue. Modulated GM and WM probability maps, sensitive to volume, and nonmodulated maps, indicative of tissue density, were obtained from T1-weighted MR imaging. Effects seen on MTR images, but absent on density maps, were attributed to damage of existing tissue. RESULTS: Contrary to T1-weighted MR imaging, MT imaging was sensitive to the progression of brain pathology of the neocortex and paraventricular WM. MTR images and T1-based volume images, but not density images, showed a progression of disease in the olfactory cortex, indicating the occurrence of atrophy as well as damage to existing tissue in this region. MTR images revealed bilateral damage to the SN, while T1-weighted MR imaging only showed left-sided abnormalities. CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that voxel-based MT imaging permits a whole-brain unbiased investigation of CNS structural integrity in PD and may be a valuable tool for identifying structural damage occurring without or before measurable atrophy.

  • Cognitive disturbances are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). Examination of cognitive function often reveals deficits in executive functions, including maintenance and inhibition of attention, flexibility in thinking, and planning. The involvement of the dopaminergic system in cognitive executive functions has been suggested by numerous studies. The aim of the present study was to analyze the effect of cognitive training on cognitive performance of PD-patients (N=26). Half of the patients participated in a cognitive training regimen, while the other patients only received standard treatment. The outcome showed improved performance of the group with cognitive treatment in two executive tasks after the training period, while no improvement was seen in the standard-treatment group. The results indicate that specific training is required for improvement of executive functions, while general rehabilitation is not sufficient. Thus, PD-patients might benefit from a short-term cognitive executive function training program that is tailored to the individual patient's needs.

  • We investigated subjective and hemodynamic responses towards disgust-inducing, fear-inducing, and neutral pictures in a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Within an interval of 1 week, 24 male subjects underwent the same block design twice in order to analyze possible response changes to the repeated picture presentation. The results showed that disgust-inducing and fear-inducing scenes provoked a similar activation pattern in comparison to neutral scenes. This included the thalamus, primary and secondary visual fields, the amygdala, the hippocampus, and various regions of the prefrontal cortex. During the retest, the affective ratings hardly changed. In contrast, most of the previously observed brain activations disappeared, with the exception of the temporo-occipital activation. An additional analysis, which compared the emotion-related activation patterns during the two presentations, showed that the responses to the fear-inducing pictures were more stable than the responses to the disgust-inducing ones.

Last update from database: 11.08.25, 05:41 (UTC)