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This article describes a novel method of evaluating claims of sexual abuse in custody/visitation disputes wherein the wife is both the accuser and the alleged victim. The method relies on a perceptual bias for abuse imagery that characterizes the perceptual processing of Rorschach stimuli by women with histories of sexual abuse. Results demonstrated that abuse imagery was significantly related to the personal experience of sexual abuse (68.4% of women alleging marital sexual abuse and 77.8% of sexually traumatized women with a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). By comparison, the incidence of abuse imagery was strikingly low (6.4%) among women whose exposure to sexual abuse stemmed from parenting a child alleging paternal sexual abuse. This custody sample was indistinguishable from a non-custody sample of women (7.9%) matched for a history of no sexual abuse. The findings support the premise that preoccupation with sexual abuse does not affect the perception of people who have not personally experienced sexual abuse. In balancing the charges and countercharges that permeate custody disputes, those investigating and evaluating claims of spousal sexual abuse may find perceptual information, that is unrelated to common knowledge, a valuable data source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several recent studies have indicated that patients who report a history of sexual abuse, on the basis of recovered or delayed recall of memory, process Rorschach stimuli in ways that substantially deviate from non-ahused patients. Trey exhibited sensitivity to threat-relevant imagery that was highly similar to the biased perceptual processing found among patients with continuously held memories of sexual abuse. In the present study, perceptual processing of threat-relevant imagery was examined as an artifact of media exposure in 40 patients who recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse as adults and in 40 patients who were not sexually abused. The two patient samples were divided into high and low media groups on the basis of a composite measure of media exposure. The results indicated that information gained from media exposure was unrelated to patients' responses to Rorschach stimuli. Recovered memory patients produced threat-relevant imagery that is reminiscent of trauma irrespective of the level of media exposure; non-abused patients did not. That this imagery remained essentially unnoticed by even the most active consumers of the sexual abuse media among non-abused patients suggests that the popular media does not play a contagious role in the perceptual processing of threat-relevant imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This commentary reviews two studies carried out by Stephen Ceci, PhD, and colleagues which concluded that brief fantasy exercises can create false memories in preschool children. They proffered source misattribution as the causative error in the production of false memories. These studies raise important issues about the credibility of 'memory-creation' research, with preschool children. There is a decided social cost in perpetuating information derived from studies that were not appropriately designed to adequately test either source misattribution theory or false memory creation. The lack of customary control groups was but one of the many methodological grounds on which these studies can be faulted. Further, the necessity of reconciling their formulations with an extensive literature supporting the beneficial effects of fantasy on childhood development was never addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study in which male rats (Rattus norvegicus) were given continuous access to estrous female rats for each day for 10 days. Method; Subjects; Apparatus; Procedure; Results; Discussion.

Cost factors were examined in 157 patients with work-related spine injuries who were referred to a second opinion program between 1985 and 1991. The independent medical examination (IME) included a history, physical examination, and review of imaging and other studies. Data on demographic variables, litigation, work, injury history, physical examination, and imaging studies were recorded. A standard measure of psychological status (Low Back Pain Symptom Check List) was filled out. The instrument uses pain language as a clinical marker of psychological disturbance linked to a range of conflictual issues such as suppressed anger, burdensome feeling of inferiority, damaged self-esteem, role confusion, abnormal mentation, fear of responsibility or intimacy, gender issues, sexual concerns, disturbing arousal, and the like. Since it relies exclusively on pain language for diagnosis, it does not identify the specific nature of the psychological conflict. Data on treatment, final resolution, and cost were obtained from computerized files of the insurance company. The total cost incurred was $6,551,139. This averaged to $41,727 per case. More expensive cases were associated with a surgical intervention, psychological disturbance, litigation, motor weakness, and positive radiographs. These five variables accounted for 48% of the cost variance. Surgery accounted for 19.9% of the variance and contained the most expensive cases ($68,310 vs. $31,423). Psychological disturbance was detected in 27% of the sample and accounted for 10.5% of the cost variance. Litigation was present in 72% of the cases and accounted for 9.1% of the cost variance. Motor strength and radiographs taken together accounted for 8.4% of the variance. The usefulness of this information was explored from an actuarial and medical perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: A straight cervical spine is an underappreciated and often overlooked finding in fibromyalgia. The aim of this medical records review study was to evaluate the cervical curvature on radiographs of patients with fibromyalgia., Methods: A consecutive series of 270 cervical spine radiographs of patients with neck pain from 2015 to 2018 were retrospectively analyzed for cervical curvature using the Cobb angle measurement. One hundred fifty-five patients met full American College of Rheumatology criteria for fibromyalgia, whereas 115 subjects with other rheumatic diseases who were similar in age and education served as control subjects., Results: Mean cervical curvature in fibromyalgia was 6.4 ± 5.2 degrees and 13.8 ± 7.4 degrees in control subjects. The more than 7-degree difference was significant ( p < 0.001). Curvature in the magnitude of 21 degrees is at the low end of normal. At ≤10 degrees, where the cervical spine is essentially straight, there were 129 fibromyalgia patients (83.2%) and 37 control subjects (32.2%). The 51% difference was significant ( p < 0.001)., Conclusion: Most patients with fibromyalgia share an abnormality in common that is verifiable by a simple radiograph. In 83.2% of the patients, the cervical spine was essentially straight (Cobb angle ≤10 degrees). In fibromyalgia patients, the loss of cervical curvature was approximately 6.5 times greater than in control subjects (50.3% vs. 7.8%). A straight neck without other radiographic abnormalities may be a major anatomical abnormality in fibromyalgia that has gone unnoticed. It may assist in the diagnosis, as well as suggest increased muscle tension/pressure as a possible etiology., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Objective: Widespread pain in fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is conventionally viewed as arising from disordered central processing. This study examines intramuscular pressure in the trapezius as an alternative mechanism for understanding FMS pain., Methods: One hundred eight patients who satisfied the American College of Rheumatology criteria for FMS and 30 patients who met the ACR criteria for another rheumatic disease comprised the study groups. Muscle pressure was measured in mmHg using a pressure gauge attached to a no. 22 needle inserted into the mid-portion of the trapezius muscle. In addition, patients with FMS and rheumatic disease controls had dolorimetry testing, digital palpation, and reported pain scores., Results: Muscle pressure was substantially higher in patients with FMS with a mean value of 33.48 ± 5.90 mmHg. Only 2 of 108 patients had muscle pressure of < 23 mmHg. The mean pressure in rheumatic disease controls was 12.23 ± 3.75 mmHg, with a range from 3-22 mmHg. Patients with FMS were more tender than controls based on both dolorimetry ( P < 0.001) and digital palpation ( P < 0.001). The mean pain score in patients with FMS and controls was 6.68 ± 1.91 and 1.43 ± 1.79, respectively ( P < 0.001)., Conclusion: Pressure in the trapezius muscle of patients with FMS is remarkably elevated and may be an intrinsic feature of FMS that could be monitored as part of the diagnostic evaluation. The burden of the pressure abnormality may help explain the diffuse muscle pain of FMS. Therefore, FMS as a disorder of exclusively central pain processing should be revisited. Therapeutically, the reduction of muscle pressure may change the clinical picture significantly., (Copyright © 2021 by the Journal of Rheumatology.)

Background: Cognitive dysfunction is a signature feature of fibromyalgia. Many who develop cognitive problems in their middle years are concerned that it is prodromal to Alzheimer's disease., Objective: To determine if deficits in episodic memory and progressive cognitive decline, hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, are prominent in the cognitive makeup of fibromyalgia patients., Methods: In a cross-sectional study, performance on 15 neurocognitive (NC) measures was evaluated in 2 cohorts of fibromyalgia subjects. The first cohort contained 94 subjects with a short duration of cognitive problems (≤12 months). The second cohort contained 55 subjects with a long duration of cognitive problems (≥84 months)., Results: The 2 groups were similar in education (14.9 ± 2.3 vs 14.9 ± 2.4), vocabulary scale score (11.2 ± 2.3 vs 11.6 ± 2.7), and depression (17.9 ± 9.8 vs 17.7 ± 9.4). The mean durations of cognitive problems in the short- and long-term group were 7.3 ± 3.9 months and 13.3 ± 7.1 years, respectively. There was no evidence of decline on 14 of 15 measures in the fibromyalgia group with an additional 12.6 years of cognitive dysfunction. Normality of function was in evidence on 4 measures of episodic memory in both cohorts., Conclusions: Fibromyalgia patients' fear of developing Alzheimer's disease was not borne out by the data. The cognitive pattern of fibromyalgia appears distinct from that of Alzheimer's disease. Fibrofog is not associated with either episodic memory loss on standard tests of episodic memory or progressive cognitive decline. Patients with fibrofog remember personally experienced events termed episodic memory at a normal rate in quiet, distraction-free conditions. Patients with Alzheimer's disease do not. They forget the essential elements of short stories just read to them in environments free of distractions. In Alzheimer's disease, the brain mechanisms responsible for encoding personally experienced events into memory are irreversibly impaired. In fibrofog, the encoding mechanisms are intact. At the heart of memory loss in fibromyalgia is the inability to appropriately filter out relevant distractions. Encoding mechanisms that otherwise operate normally in forming episodic memories for everyday events in fibromyalgia appear to malfunction when 2 streams of information operate concurrently (relevant information and a source of distraction overlap). The findings should allay the worries of many with fibromyalgia who fear that fibrofog is the start of a dementing process.