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First Evidence That Monkeys Wonder What Might Have Been
Monkeys playing a game similar to "Let"s Make A Deal" have revealed that their brains register missed opportunities and learn from their mistakes.
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What Rorschach Tests Really Tell Us
One of the most well-known psychological tools is the Rorschach Inkblot Test. A viewer looks at ten inkblots, one at a time, and describes what they see. The rationale behind this test is the idea that certain aspects of the subject"s personality will be exposed as they are interpreting the images, allowing for the possible diagnosis of various psychological disorders. However, does the inkblot really reveal all? Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, published an exhaustive review of all data on the Rorschach (and other similar "projective" tests) in 2000. Such meta-analyses are major undertakings, so although this report is a few years old, it remains the most definitive word on the Rorschach. According to authors Scott O. Lilienfeld of Emory University, James M. Wood of University of Texas at El Paso, and Howard N. Garb of the University of Pittsburgh, despite its popularity, the Rorschach may not be the best diagnostic tool and practitioners need to be cautious in how they use this technique and interpret their results.
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Pharmacy Bodies Call For Reinstatement Of Community Pharmacists To The Shortage Occupations List, UK
The CCA, AIMp, BPSA, and NPA are appealing for an immediate reinstatement of community pharmacists to the Shortage Occupations List after the removal of community pharmacists from the list by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) last month.
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Patients With Sleep Apnea Should Avoid Driving After A Bad Night's Sleep & Even Small Amounts Of Alcohol

Patients with undiagnosed or untreated obstructive sleep apnea are especially vulnerable to the effects of sleep deprivation and even legal doses of alcohol when it comes to lowered driving performance and increased risk of vehicular accidents, according to new research to be announced on May 19 at the American Thoracic Society"s 105th International Conference in San Diego. Andrew Vakulin, a Ph.D. candidate at the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health, and colleagues investigated the effects of sleep restriction and moderate alcohol exposure on patients with OSA with respect to their performance on a simulated driving task. Driver sleepiness is already known to contribute to about one in three car accidents, and OSA patients are known to be at greater risk. However, the extent to which OSA exacerbates the effects of normal sleepiness or alcohol consumption on driving ability was not previously known. "We found that patients with OSA had a significantly poorer performance than their peers without OSA on the driving task after sleep restriction or alcohol exposure, even though the alcohol dose was clearly within the limits imposed by most state laws about equal to having two drinks for a woman or three for a man over the course of an hour," said Mr. Vakulin. Patients with OSA were recruited following a standard diagnostic sleep study at the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health prior to commencement of treatment. Healthy volunteers were randomly recruited from the community through newspaper advertisements and were matched by age and sex to the patient group. There were a total of 38 OSA patients and 20 healthy individuals tested. All subjects completed a 90-minute mid-afternoon simulated driving course after normal sleep (about eight hours), sleep restriction (about four hours) and consumption of alcohol (to blood alcohol levels of approximately 0.05g/dL). The road course simulated a country night-time drive on a predominantly straight dual-lane road with bends occurring at 10 minute intervals, each taking approximately 30 seconds to negotiate. There was no oncoming traffic or traffic lights. After sleep restriction, individuals with OSA performed significantly more poorly on steering than the 20 healthy individuals. Subjects with OSA were also more likely to crash than control subjects after undergoing both sleep restriction and alcohol exposure. "While this research could only ethically examine driving performance in a simulated setting, it raises some red flags that have strong real-world implications," said Mr. Vakulin. "In OSA patients, microsleeps [brief episodes of sleep] and prolonged eye closures (greater than two seconds) were significant predictors of having a crash incidents with adjusted odds ratios of 19.2 and 7.2, respectively. "Clearly this data indicates that people with suspected or untreated sleep apnea should avoid driving if they have not had a full night"s sleep, and should avoid driving after consuming even a small amount of alcohol," said Mr. Vakulin. American Thoracic Society (ATS)


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