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Background: Interpersonal factors may help explain why men and women differ in their perception and expression of pain. Whilst the focus is often on the person in pain, how observers respond to those in pain is important. This study explored whether male-female differences exist in the way observers attend to expressions of pain in others.Methods: Fifty-three adults (26 females) completed a visual dot-probe task, to measure selective attentional biases to facial expressions of pain and fear. Expression pairs (e.g. pain/neutral) were displayed by either the same male or female actor, and in two different viewing duration conditions: 150 and 1250 ms. Dot-probes appeared in either a congruent or incongruent location to the target expression.Results: No evidence was found for sex-related attentional biases towards pain or fear. However, when examining congruency and incongruency indexes separately, differences emerged. The congruency index analysis indicated that in the 150-ms presentation condition, both men and women were slower during congruent female pain/neutral trials when compared to neutral/neutral trials, and relatively faster at responding during congruent male pain/neutral trials.Conclusions: There is utility in exploring the attentional processes involved in the decoding of pain-related expressions to understand the influence of sex and gender differences in pain. Although male-female differences were found, this was most clearly related to the actor. Our results point to an early attentional mechanism that orients attention away from female expressions of pain. Future consideration of sex- and gender-related contextual factors in attentional processing is warranted.Significance: Sex-related factors seem to affect how observers view the pain of others. Our results point to an early attentional mechanism that orients the attention of observers away from female expressions of pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Pain can be detected through nonverbal cues, including facial expressions, vocalisations, and body posture. While there are sex differences in how emotional expressions are recognized, these differences have not always been found for pain. One reason for this inconsistency may be methodological, as pain studies tend not to be designed to investigate individual differences in expression recognition. Also, few studies consider sex differences outside facial expression.Methods: This study applied an image degradation method used to examine individual differences in emotion recognition, to investigate sex differences in the decoding of pain body postures. Forty participants (20 male) were presented with a series of body posture images depicting pain at differing levels of image degradation. Happiness, anger and sadness expressions were also included for comparison.Results: Results showed significant effects of image degradation, affect type, and actor sex. Females were rated as presenting more intense pain than males; this pattern was also found for fear, but not anger or happiness. The accuracy of pain intensity judgements was reduced as image clarity decreased. Male actors depicting pain were recognized with greater accuracy than female actors. Interestingly, similar patterns were found for anger and fear expressions.Conclusions: We conclude that sex has a significant influence on pain decoding under certain conditions, and while there are similarities with the way pain and core emotions are decoded, this may depend on the type of emotion presented. This also suggests that sex-related effects in the recognition of pain expressions may include body postural cues.Significance: Observer's judgements of pain displayed through body postures are driven by the sex of the person in pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Adolescents are routinely recognized as native to online technologies. However, we know from previous research that this familiarity does not often translate into its use for help-seeking around health. We designed this study to examine the experience of adolescents in using the Internet to access pain management information, specifically why some adolescents may be reluctant to use these resources. Methods Twenty-six healthy, school attending, adolescents aged between 14 and 17 years old were recruited to a qualitative study of focus groups. Seventeen participants were female and nine were male. Participation was limited to those who self-selected as frequent users of the Internet, but who were loath to use it as a resource for health information as we wished to explore reasons for non-use. All data were thematically analysed. Results Most participants reported using the Internet to seek health information at least once. Experiences with online content were typically negative and drawn on only when all other sources of information and pain coping were exhausted. Three themes emerged, Drivers of Internet use, Barriers, and Anxiety around use. Adolescent health websites were reported to be confusing, anxiety provoking and hard to negotiate. The Internet was judged to be less accessible than other forms of pain and health coping information. Secondary themes related to topic embarrassment, the strive for independence and reassurance, preferred information source failure, curiosity, website design, availability of OTC analgesics, effort, fear-provoking narratives, mistrust of quality of online content and pain-related anxiety. Conclusions Counter to many positive reports of the health benefits of Internet use during information seeking, its value is questionable to some adolescents. Typical experience was anxiety provoking, unlikely to yield helpful results, and wasteful comparative to off-line resources for pain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While previous research has indicated that the relative efficacy of attentional strategies on pain may be influenced by anxiety sensitivity ( AS) and sex, no study appears to have examined this within the context of an emotion-focus versus distraction paradigm. The present study compared the effect of attentional emotion-focus and distraction instructions on pain response with noxious heat stimulation in 114 healthy adults (62 women and 52 men) varying in levels of AS. Results indicated that men reported a significantly higher mean tolerance time than women. Moderated regression analysis also revealed a significant strategy × anxiety sensitivity × sex interaction on pain tolerance. For those low in AS, relative efficacy was dependent upon sex, with distraction superior to emotion-focusing in women, but with strategies equivalent in men. For those high in AS, however, distraction resulted in uniformly greater pain tolerance than attentional emotion-focusing. These results indicate that AS and sex may be influential in determining the relative effectiveness of distraction and emotion-based attentional strategies for pain management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Induction of immune tolerance to maintain clinical control with a minimal drug regimen is a current research focus in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Accordingly, we are developing a tolerization approach to dnaJP1, a peptide part of a pathogenic mechanism that contributes to autoimmune inflammation in RA. We undertook this study to test 2 hypotheses: 1) that mucosal induction of immune tolerance to dnaJP1 would lead to a qualitative change from a proinflammatory phenotype to a more tolerogenic functional phenotype, and 2) that immune deviation of responses to an inflammatory epitope might translate into clinical improvement. METHODS: One hundred sixty patients with active RA and with immunologic reactivity to dnaJP1 were enrolled in a pilot phase II trial. They received oral doses of 25 mg of dnaJP1 or placebo daily for 6 months. RESULTS: The dnaJP1 peptide was safe and well-tolerated. In response to treatment with dnaJP1, there was a significant reduction in the percentage of T cells producing tumor necrosis factor alpha and a corresponding trend toward an increased percentage of T cells producing interleukin-10. Coexpression of a cluster of molecules (programmed death 1 and its ligands) associated with T cell regulation was also found to be a prerequisite for successful tolerization in clinical responders. Analysis of the primary efficacy end point (meeting the American College of Rheumatology 20% improvement criteria at least once on day 112, 140, or 168) showed a difference between treatment groups that became significant in post hoc analysis using generalized estimating equations. Differences in clinical responses were also found between treatment groups on day 140 and at followup. Post hoc analysis showed that the combination of dnaJP1 and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) was superior to the combination of HCQ and placebo. CONCLUSION: Tolerization to dnaJP1 leads to immune deviation and a trend toward clinical efficacy. Susceptibility to treatment relies on the coexpression of molecules that can down-regulate adaptive immunity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

- The mean pressure in the unstimulated corpus cavernosum of monkeys was 12.1 mm Hg. Pelvic nerve stimulation at 8 to 10 Hz produced penile extension and the mean pressure increased to 64.3 mm Hg (47-84% of carotid artery pressure) after a latency of 10 s. On stopping stimulation, recovery to resting levels occurred within 2 min. The response was not blocked by atropine or propranolol. Blood flow through two 19 gauge needles inserted into the corpus cavernosum increased in parallel with the pressure changes, indicating that arterial inflow increased. Stimulation of either hypogastric nerves or the sympathetic chain produced penile retraction but increased corpus cavernosal pressure. The response to pelvic nerve stimulation was partially blocked. It was concluded that both of these nerves contract penile erectile tissue within the corpus cavernosum and constrict arterial inflow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

- A multidisciplinary study group was established to assess impotent patients. One hundred and forty-eight patients were fully assessed and 25 potent volunteers underwent measurement of nocturnal penile tumescence (NPT). This report describes the selection process and results of surgical implantation of the American Medical Systems (AMS) inflatable and the Jonas silver-silicone prostheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

- We describe the management of 17 men who developed prolonged erections following the intracorporeal injection of vasoactive drugs ( e.g. papaverine) for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Twelve men who had psychogenic impotence developed prolonged erections following injection compared with 5 who had an organic aetiology. The aspiration of 20 to 50 ml of blood from the penis together with the intracorporeal injection of 1 to 2 mg metaraminol is an effective treatment of this complication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To explore a community sample of adolescents for engagement with online pain resources. To assess if the use of the Internet to search for health information correlated with measures of coping, risk taking, catastrophizing about pain, and engaging in the self-management of pain., Design: A cross-sectional online study of community-based adolescents (n = 105) recruited via schools to examine their use of the Internet to seek pain-related information., Methods: Adolescents completed questionnaires of pain coping, catastrophic thinking, risk-taking behaviour, and medication use. Descriptive analyses were undertaken on event rates of pertinent behaviours, principally on information seeking and pain management behaviour. Correlational analyses were undertaken between coping and information seeking, and medication use., Results: Few participants engaged in online pain information seeking. Those who did were more likely to be female and scored higher on medication use, catastrophizing, risk taking, and the total score on the Pain Coping Questionnaire., Conclusions: Although adolescents are high users of the Internet, paradoxically they do not appear to use the Internet for information about pain and pain management. Further research should assess inhibitory and disinhibitory factors associated with information seeking about pain and chronic illness on the Internet., Statement of Contribution: What is already known on this subject? Internet use in adolescents is common, mobile, and displays a level of technical awareness unparalleled by adults. The internet is postulated in previous research to present a platform for the delivery of health care, particularly information to aid health decision-making for young people. What does this study add? This study explores how adolescents use the internet to look for health information, particularly on pain and where this falls in a general profile of coping with illness. Interestingly and counterintuitively, adolescents did not use the internet to look for health or pain information. We hypothesize that there may be something about information on pain management that does not readily transfer to the digital world in a way that is useful to adolescent users., (© 2012 The British Psychological Society.)

Background: Bullying is investigated as part of the individual's general framework of attitudes towards interpersonal relationships, social competition and motivation in school., Aims: It was hypothesised that bullying behaviour and pro-bullying attitudes would be associated with socially competitive attitudes in the classroom, Machiavellianism, and the personality constructs of Psychoticism and Extraversion., Samples: 198 9- to 12-year-old children from two Glasgow primary schools., Methods: Children completed several measures: a newly developed questionnaire assessing motivations behind social competition and effort in class, the Kiddie-Mach scale, the Pro-Victim scale, items from the Olweus Bullying Questionnaire, and the Junior Eysenck Personality Questionnaire., Results: A 'Desire for social success' factor (incorporating a deliberate lack of effort) was negatively correlated with support for victims of bullying, even after partialling out Machiavellianism, Psychoticism, and social desirability. Pro-victim attitudes were in turn negatively correlated with Machiavellianism and Psychoticism, and positively correlated with Lie score. Finally, children categorised as bullies scored significantly higher than controls on Machiavellianism, and significantly lower in terms of pro-victim attitudes., Conclusions: Results are discussed in terms of further study and implications for classroom practice and anti-bullying policy.