Geophysical variables and behavior: XXII. The tectonogenic strain continuum of unusual events

Transient and very localized geophysical forces are hypothesized to be a major source of phenomena that have been traditionally labelled as haunts and poltergeists. They would be generated by increasing tectonic stresses and would display electromagnetic and gravitational characteristics. Materials would be influenced according to their physical properties. Dielectric materials would respond differently from conductors. Organic semiconductors, of which the human being is an important subcategory, would be affected as well. The conspicuous overlaps between (non-convulsive) complex partial epilepsy and many episodes of poltergeists and haunts are expected in light of the direct stimulation of the observer's brain by the transient, intense magnetic fields and the liability of temporal lobe structures. Implications and some general predictions for the distribution of these phenomena in time and space are discussed.

Geophysical variables and behavior: XXI. Geomagnetic variation as possible enhancement stimuli for UFO reports preceding earthtremors

The contribution of geomagnetic variation to the occurrence of UFORs (reports of UFOs) within the New Madrid States during the 6-mo. increments before increases in the numbers of IV-V or less intensity earthquakes within the central USA was determined. Although statistically significant zero-order correlations existed between measures of earthquakes, UFORs and geomagnetic variability, the association between the latter two deteriorated markedly when their shared variance with earthquakes was held constant. These outcomes are compatible with the hypothesis that geomagnetic variability (or phenomena associated with it) may enhance UFORs but only if tectonic stress and strain are increasing within the region.

Geophysical variables and behavior: XXIII. Relations between UFO reports within the Uinta Basin and local seismicity

A strong temporal correlation was found between the numbers of reports of UFOs (unidentified flying objects) and nearby seismic activity within the Uinta Basin for the year 1967. The numbers of UFO reports per month during this classic UFO flap were correlated 0.80 with the sum of the earthquake magnitudes per month for events within 150 km of the report area. Numbers of UFO reports were not correlated significantly with earthquake activity at distances greater than 150 km but less than 250 km away. The strongest correlation occurred between UFO reports and nearby seismic activity within the same month but not for previous or consequent months. Close scrutiny of daily shifts in epicenters and reports of UFOs indicate that they occurred when the locus of successive epicenters shifted across the area. These analyses were interpreted as support for the existence of strain fields whose movements generate natural phenomena that are reported as UFOs.

Propensity to report paranormal experiences is correlated with temporal lobe signs

Bivariate correlation analyses indicated that people who reported greater numbers of different types of paranormal experiences also reported greater numbers of temporal lobe signs. Whereas responses of one group (n = 108) of male and female university students gave a correlation of 0.60 between the two measures, for another group (n = 41) the correlation was 0.72. Partial correlation analyses, which involved holding the shared variance with affirmative responses to mundane psychological statements or odd sensations constant, did not alter the strength of the relationship. These results support the hypothesis that spontaneous paranormal experiences and the psychological components of complex partial (psychomotor) epilepsy may exist along the same continuum of temporal lobe sensitivity.

People who report religious experiences may also display enhanced temporal-lobe signs

Religious and god-related experiences have been hypothesized to be a portion of the continuum of phenomena that are generated by endogenous, transient electrical stimulation within deep structures of the temporal lobe. According to this hypothesis, normal people, without psychiatric history, who report intense religious experiences should also demonstrate a wide range of temporal lobe-related private behaviors. To test this prediction, a self-report inventory that contained 140 temporal-lobe-relevant information, opinion-belief, and sampled MMPI statements was administered to two separate groups (n = 108; n = 41) of male and female first-year university students. In Study I, subjects who had reported religious experiences, particularly those who did not attend church regularly, scored significantly higher on a variety of statement clusters (n = 7 to 14 items) that contained temporal-lobe symptomology relative to groups who did not report religious experiences and did not attend church regularly. In Study II subjects, regardless of church attendance, who reported religious experiences scored significantly higher on the temporal-lobe clusters. People who reported religious experiences were more likely to have kept a dairy and to enjoy poetry reading or writing. However, religious experiments and churchgoers did not score higher (in either experiment) on clusters that contained mundane psychological or proprioceptive statements, descriptions of odd sensations, or modified portions of the Lie scale from the MMPI.

Striking EEG profiles from single episodes of glossolalia and transcendental meditation

Transient, focal, epileptic-like electrical changes in the temporal lobe, without convulsions, have been hypothesized to be primary correlates of religious experiences. Given these properties, direct measurement of these phenomena within the laboratory should be rare. However, two illustrated instances have been recorded. The first case involved the occurrence of a delta-wave-dominant electrical seizure for about 10 sec. from the temporal lobe only of a Transcendental Meditation teacher during a peak experience within a routine TM episode. The second case involved the occurrence of spikes within the temporal lobe only during protracted intermittent episodes of glossolalia by a member of a pentecostal sect . Neither subject had any psychiatric history. These observations are commensurate with the hypothesis that religious experiences are natural correlates of temporal lobe transients that can be detected by routine EEG measures.

Religious and mystical experiences as artifacts of temporal lobe function: a general hypothesis

Mystical and religious experiences are hypothesized to be evoked by transient, electrical microseizures within deep structures of the temporal lobe. Although experiential details are affected by context and reinforcement history, basic themes reflect the inclusion of different amygdaloid-hippocampal structures and adjacent cortices. Whereas the unusual electrical coherence allows access to infantile memories of parents, a source of good expectations, specific stimulation evokes out-of-body experiences, space-time distortions, intense meaningfulness, and dreamy scenes. The species-specific similarities in temporal lobe properties enhance the homogeneity of cross-cultural experiences. They exist along a continuum that ranges from "early morning highs" to recurrent bouts of conversion and dominating religiosity. Predisposing factors include any biochemical or genetic factors that produce temporal lobe lability. A variety of precipitating stimuli provoke these experiences, but personal (life) crises and death bed conditions are optimal. These temporal lobe microseizures can be learned as responses to existential trauma because stimulation is of powerful intrinsic reward regions and reduction of death anxiety occurs. The implications of these transients as potent modifiers of human behavior are considered.

Degranulation of brain mast cells in young albino rats

Quantitative measurements were made of brain mast cell (MC) degranulation in juvenile albino rats. Neither acute nor chronic intraperitoneal injections of Compound 48/80 (C 48/80) evoked any clear degranulation. Fifteen to thirty minutes after the injection of either C 48/80 or physiological saline into the right anterior thalamus, frank degranulation in the leptomeninges and some degranulation in the parenchyma were evident. The injected sides contained about twice as much degranulated cells as the noninjected sides. In a second experiment, animals were killed 10, 100, 1000, and 10,000 min after a single 10-microliters injection of C 48/80 into the anterior thalamus. Although about 40% of the leptomeningeal and 20% of the parenchymal MCs were degranulated within 10 min, more than 50% of the MCs in both areas were degranulated within 100 min after the injection. More extensive degranulation was evident at both times within the parenchyma of the injected sides. Degranulated MCs were not obvious after this period although nuclei surrounded by sparse granules (in the parenchyma) or by fused, globular metachromatic material (in the leptomeninges or their ventricular processes) were still discernable 7 days later. The implications of brain mast cell degranulation for psychoneuroimmunology are considered.

Winter blahs and spring irritability: the chronic but subtle behavioral operations

Operation analyses, for which behavioral and environmental events are translated into reinforcement schedules, indicate that winter depression and spring irritability reported by people living in northern climates are dominated by four paradigms. They are (1) a shift in the ratio of negative to positive stimuli, (2) stimulus redundancy and satiation, (3) coerced hypoactivity or attenuation of free operant behavior, and (4) conditioned suppression or anxiety due to the progressive escalation of negative stimulus presentations. The chronic effects of these schedules on the behaviors of people living in cold climate during the winter season are discussed.

Pensioners who die soon after retirement can be discriminated from survivors by post-retirement activities

Questionnaires were read to the wives of 26 living pensioners and to the widows of 20 age-matched contemporaries who had died within 5 years of retirement. The two groups of men were healthy at retirement and had worked for comparable durations in similar areas of a local mining industry. Only post-retirement measures discriminated the groups. Pensioners who died after retirement demonstrated more decreased interaction with friends, hobby time, and travel activity relative to survivors' activities. A discriminant function containing seven variables correctly classified 98% of the cases. Death occurred sooner for those pensioners who decreased their activity after retirement relative to those who demonstrated no change in activity. The data indicate that compensatory increase in activity after retirement may attenuate the risk factors associated with this sudden shift in a major reinforcement schedule.

Mast cell numbers in incisional wounds in rat skin as a function of distance, time and treatment

The dynamic changes in skin mast cell (MC) numbers around incised wounds were studied, using experimental designs amenable to multiple analyses of variance. Sixty-four Wistar albino rats were shaved in the interscapular region, wounded or not wounded, and then killed 2 or 10 days later. During this period, the rats were exposed continually to a cold (2 degrees C) or control (20 degrees C) climate and treated daily over the shaved region with either tap water or a weak sulphuric acid (pH 3.5) solution. The MCs within five adjacent fields of the wound or the control reference and within the superficial and deep halves of the skin were counted (at x 400). The greatest decrease in MC numbers occurred within about 700 microns of the wound. Whereas the paucity of MCs within the wound region was evident at 2 days, near-normal levels were achieved by day 10. Cold exposure produced little effect, but MCs responded differently to the water and acid treatments as a function of distance and skin depth.

Lead in the water supply alters swimming-maze behavior in adult mice

After about two weeks of exposure to either 20 ppm or approximately 2000 ppm of lead in the drinking water or tap water only and under an ad libitum or restricted food regime, albino male and female mice (N = 48) were tested for three consecutive days (3 blocks of 3 trials per day) in a swimming maze. Body weights were not altered by lead treatments significantly. The mice treated with the lead displayed longer escape latencies and more errors than the controls on tap water. Statistically significant interactions of lead treatment by test day by test block were also apparent.

Interactions of 2-ppm lead in the water supply with food deprivation upon maze-swimming behavior of mice

Mice that had been given either tap water or 2 ppm lead in their drinking water and either severely food deprived (3 days before testing) or allowed food ad libitum demonstrated significant interactions of lead treatment by day by food condition and lead by block. Although not statistically significant, the food deprived-lead treated mice displayed more errors and longer latencies than the ad libitum-water controls. The food deprived-water controls and ad libitum-lead-treated mice displayed intermediate values. The importance of using multivariate statistical techniques that can evaluate dynamic repeated behavioral measurements is emphasized.

Finger Prints and Personality Scores

200 university students were tested to determine whether or not different types of finger prints were associated with personality test data. Comparisons were made between the three main finger-print types: loop, whorl and arch, on each of the 10 digits for each scale on the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16 PF). Subjects with arches on their left index fingers or left middle fingers scored significantly higher on the Neuroticism factor (forthright versus shrewd) than people who had whorls on these fingers. However, no obvious large or simple relationships were found in this preliminary study between the 16 PF scores and finger-print types.

Lever Pressing in Expanding or Collapsing Intervals of Nonresponse-Contingent Reward: Sensitivity to Pretraining

16 rats that had been given either one or two training days of 50, response-contingent rewards per day were placed upon one of two schedules in which the daily interval between nonresponse-contingent rewards was either increased or decreased. In the expanding time condition, the fixed interval of nonresponse-contingent reward delivery changed from 10 sec. to 14 min. over 9 consecutive days while in the collapsing-time condition, the intervals were reduced from 14 min. to 10 sec. over the same duration. Whereas both one-day and two-day training groups in the collapsing-time condition and the two-day group in the expanding-time condition demonstrated typical extinction profiles, the one-day expanding-time group maintained significantly higher total responses over the entire period.

Wild-albino hybrids and albino rats: thyroid weight but not muricide differences

Offspring of 6 wild, male (brown-coated) dump rats ( Rattus norvegicus) and laboratory albino females were compared with the offspring of albino rats on several tissue and muricide measures. At weaning, the 48 hybrid pups (all brown-coated), both vocalized and bit the experimenters' gloves; these behaviors were not apparent in the 40 albino pups. Adult hybrid rats did not kill significantly more mice than albino controls. Although hybrid rats had significantly lighter (ω2 = 55%) wet thyroid weights than albinos, they did not differ in spleen, thymus, adrenal, or body weights.

Developmental alterations in mast cell numbers and distributions within the thalamus of the albino rat

A total of 216 male and female albino Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) between 10 and 60 days old from 42 litters were studied to determine mast cell characteristics within the thalamus. Whereas the mean numbers of mast cells within both the parenchyma and leptomeninges (combined) did not change appreciably after 15 days of age, the appearance of mast cells within the parenchyma (and disappearance from the leptomeninges) is clearly age-dependent. Between 15 and 25 days of age, the relative numbers of mast cells within the thalamic parenchyma changed from 20 to 90% of the total mast cells within thalamic space.

A first order approximation of satiation time: (IRT)2/Rt

Habituation, satiation, adaptation, and boredom are a few of the words used to label the behavioral consequences of a fundamental operation: repeated and protracted presentation of a stimulus. The cumulative measure of the response associated with that stimulus is expected to display an inflection at some time Ti after which the slope approaches zero. Ti can be estimated by dividing the square of the interresponse time (IRT)2 by the duration of the response associated with reinforcement (Rt), where Rt is expressed in the nearest whole temporal unit of interresponse time. Calculated TiS for habituation to the same sexual, aggressive, or social stimuli are compatible with general observation.

Long-term effects of preweaning taurine injections in rats: interactions with strain and gender

A comparison was made of MR, MNR, and RCA strains that had been injected with either 62.5 mg/kg of taurine or comparable volumes of physiological saline between postnatal Days 8 and 20 and later tested at 100 days of age in an open field and 1-way shock avoidance situations. Taurine-injected rats displayed significant elevation in defecation score in the open field. In addition a significant Treatment X Strain interaction was due to the larger defecation numbers displayed by the taurine-injected MR rats relative to the saline-injected MR rats.

Thyroid morphology and activity does not respond to ELF electromagnetic field exposures

The hypothesis that the thyroid is the sensitive organ for extremely low freqency electromagnetic field effects was tested. Rats that had been exposed either preinatally or as adults to several intensities of 0.5 Hz magnetic fields displayed no significant alterations in thyroid morphology or circulating hormone measures.