Although the zebrafish is increasingly used as a model organism to study epilepsy, no standard electrophysiological technique for recording electrographic seizures in adult fish exists. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a readily implementable technique for recording pentylenetetrazole seizures in the adult zebrafish. We find that we can consistently record a high quality field potential over the zebrafish cerebrum using an amplification of 5000 V/V and bandpass filtering at corner frequencies of 1.6 and 16 Hz. The cerebral field potential recordings show consistent features in the baseline, pre-seizure, seizure and post-seizure time periods that can be easily recognized by visual inspection as is the case with human and rodent electroencephalogram. Furthermore, numerical analysis of the field potential at the time of seizure onset reveals an increase in the total power, bandwidth and peak frequency in the power spectrum, as is also the case with human and rodent electroencephalogram. The techniques presented herein stand to advance the utility of the adult zebrafish in the study of epilepsy by affording an equivalent to the electroencephalogram used in mammalian models and human patients.

This phenomenological study explored the decision-making experience of parents whose children joined Special Olympics programs. The experiences of 16 families with children 10-22 years old were gathered through interviews, artifacts, and field notes. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis (a) thoughtful instruction, (b) finding the fit, and (c) security of acceptance. Parents sought instructors who were interested in building relationships with their children and creating anxiety-free instructional environments for them. A good program fit occurred when instructors had expectations for motor skill development and increased independence. Parents also preferred environments that encouraged meaningful peer interactions. The findings were interpreted within the context of self-determination theory.

Homelessness increases vulnerability to violence victimization; however, the precise factors associated with victimization and injury are not clearly understood. Thus, this study explores the prevalence of and characteristics associated with violence victimization among homeless individuals by surveying approximately 500 individuals experiencing homelessness in 5 cities across the United States. Our findings reveal that nearly one-half of our sample reported experiencing violence and that prolonged duration of homelessness (greater than 2 years) and being older increased the risk of experiencing a violent attack. In addition, increased length of homelessness and female gender predicted experiencing rape. Women were also significantly more likely to know one's perpetrator and experience continued suffering after a violent attack. We conclude that certain subpopulations within the homeless population are at an increased risk for victimization and, subsequently, require added protective services; implications for health care and policy recommendations are also discussed.

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BackgroundMost studies report that being parents of a child with cancer is a stressful experience, but these have tended to focus on mothers and few have included both parents. Moreover, studies have focussed on families in Western countries and none have been published examining the psychological outcomes for parents living in an Arabic country.This research explores the stress levels of Jordanian parents caring for a child with cancer in order to identify the psychological needs of parents in this environment and to explore how mothers and fathers stress levels might differ.MethodsThe study was carried out in Jordan using the Perceived Stress Scale 10-items (PSS10). The questionnaire was completed by 300 couples with a child who has cancer and a comparison group of 528 couples where the children do not have any serious illness. Multivariate backward regression analysis was carried out.ResultsAnalysis adjusting for spousal stress and sociodemographic predictors revealed that stress levels of mothers with a child who had cancer remained significantly higher than mothers whose children did not have any serious illness (p < 0.001). However, having a child with cancer did not show a significant association with the fathers’ reported stress scores (p = 0.476) when spousal stress was in the model, but was highly significant once that was removed (p < 0.001).Parental stress was analysed for those with a child who has cancer and in models which included spouse’s stress scores, sociodemographic and cancer-related predictors 64 % of the variance was explained for mothers (adjusted R2 = 0.64, p < 0.001) and fathers (adjusted R2 = 0.64, p < 0.001). Models excluding spousal stress scores explained just 26 % of the variance for fathers and 22 % for mothers.ConclusionsThis is the first study into the psychological outcomes for parents living in an Arabic country who care for a child with cancer. Both mothers and fathers with a child diagnosed with cancer reported higher stress levels than those from the normal Jordanian parent population. Mothers and fathers of children with cancer reported significantly different levels of stress to each other but models reveal significant contributions of the stress score of fathers upon mothers, and vice versa. The findings provide evidence of the need for psychological support to be developed for families caring for a child with cancer in Jordan.