ObjectiveRett Syndrome is a progressive neurodevelopmental disorder caused mainly by mutations in the gene encoding methyl-CpG-binding protein 2. The relevance of MeCP2 for GABAergic function was previously documented in animal models. In these models, animals show deficits in brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of this disease. Neuronal Cation Chloride Cotransporters (CCCs) play a key role in GABAergic neuronal maturation, and brain-derived neurotrophic factor is implicated in the regulation of CCCs expression during development. Our aim was to analyse the expression of two relevant CCCs, NKCC1 and KCC2, in the cerebrospinal fluid of Rett syndrome patients and compare it with a normal control group.MethodsThe presence of bumetanide sensitive NKCC1 and KCC2 was analysed in cerebrospinal fluid samples from a control pediatric population (1 day to 14 years of life) and from Rett syndrome patients (2 to 19 years of life), by immunoblot analysis.ResultsBoth proteins were detected in the cerebrospinal fluid and their levels are higher in the early postnatal period. However, Rett syndrome patients showed significantly reduced levels of KCC2 and KCC2/NKCC1 ratio when compared to the control group.ConclusionsReduced KCC2/NKCC1 ratio in the cerebrospinal fluid of Rett Syndrome patients suggests a disturbed process of GABAergic neuronal maturation and open up a new therapeutic perspective.

Benefits and costs on prospective memory performance, of enactment at encoding and a semantic association between a cue-action word pair, were investigated in two experiments. Findings revealed superior performance for both younger and older adults following enactment, in contrast to verbal encoding, and when cue-action semantic relatedness was high. Although younger adults outperformed older adults, age did not moderate benefits of cue-action relatedness or enactment. Findings from a second experiment revealed that the inclusion of an instruction to perform a prospective memory task led to increments in response latency to items from the ongoing activity in which that task was embedded, relative to latencies when the ongoing task only was performed. However, this task interference 'cost' did not differ as a function of either cue-action relatedness or enactment. We argue that the high number of cue-action pairs employed here influenced meta-cognitive processes, in particular attention allocation, in all experimental conditions. 3 Many of us have experienced the embarrassment of forgetting to turn off our mobile phone before attending a concert or a work meeting. Although we intended to do so, our intention 'slipped our minds', even if only for a few crucial moments. Such failures to recall an intention to do something at a future moment, described as errors of prospective remembering, are not uncommon in everyday life (Ellis & Freeman, 2008;Terry, 1988). Here we investigate the influence of two simple strategies that might be expected to support successful prospective memory performance and explore the demands that their employment places on the recruitment of strategic processes.A number of different variables have been posited to influence the likelihood that an intention will be retrieved at the correct moment. It has been suggested, for example, that the level of association or integration between a retrieval cue and its intended action is a key factor in determining the likelihood of successfully completing a prospective memory (PM) task (Ellis, 1996;McDaniel, Guynn, Einstein and Breneisser (2004; see also, McDaniel & Einstein, 2000). Consistent with this proposal, McDaniel et al (2004) reported superior PM performance when participants were required to write the word sauce upon encountering the cue word spaghetti in an ongoing word-rating task, compared to when they had to write church upon seeing spaghetti (see also Marsh et al., 2003). Moreover, it has been observed that PM responses to cue words from semantically related cue-action pairs are faster than those to cue words from unrelated pairs (Maylor, Smith, della Sala & Logie, 2002). These findings indicate that not only are actions more likely to be retrieved upon the presentation of a related cue than an unrelated one, but also that retrieval may occur more readily under such conditions. Consistent with these findings, McDaniel et al (2004) have observed that PM performance when cue-action pairs are semantically related occurs relatively 4...

There exists uncertainty for clinicians over how the separate subcomponent processes of psychological flexibility, a core construct of the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy model, interact and influence distress experienced. The present study ( N = 567) employed latent class analysis to (a) identify potential classes (i.e., subgroups) of psychological flexibility based on responses on measures of key subcomponent process and (b) examine whether such classes could reliably differentiate levels of self-reported psychological distress and positive and negative emotionality. We found three distinct classes: (a) High Psychological Flexibility, (b) Moderate Psychological Flexibility, and (c) Low Psychological Flexibility. Those in the Low Psychology Flexibility class reported highest levels of psychological distress, whereas those in the High Psychological Flexibility class reported lowest levels of psychological distress. This study provides a clearer view to clinicians of the profile of the broader spectrum of the psychological flexibility model to facilitate change in clients.

Introduction: Prospective memory (PM) is a fundamental requirement for independent living which might be prematurely compromised in the neurodegenerative process, namely in Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), a typical prodromal Alzheimer's disease (AD) phase. Most encoding manipulations which typically enhance learning in healthy adults are of minimal benefit to AD patients. However, there is some indication that these can display a recall advantage when encoding is accompanied by the physical enactment of the material. The aim of this study was to explore the potential benefits of enactment at encoding and cue-action relatedness on memory for intentions in MCI patients and healthy controls using a behavioural PM experimental paradigm. Method: We report findings examining the influence of enactment at encoding for PM performance in MCI patients and age and education matched controls using a laboratory based PM task with a factorial independent design. Results: PM performance was consistently superior when physical enactment was used at encoding and when target-action pairs were strongly associated. Importantly, these beneficial effects were cumulative and observable across both a healthy and a cognitively impaired lifespan as well as evident in the perceived subjective difficulty to perform the task. Conclusions:The identified beneficial effects of enacted encoding and semantic relatedness have unveiling the potential contribution of this encoding technique to optimize attentional demands through an adaptive allocation of strategic resources. We discuss our findings with respect to their potential impact on developing strategies to improve PM in AD sufferers.

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