Death is common, so is understanding it: the concept of death in other species

Mortality Awareness: New Directions

Thinking about our own death and its salience in relation to decision making has become a fruitful area of multidisciplinary research across the breadth of psychological science. By bringing together experts from philosophy, cognitive and affective neuroscience, clinical and computational psychiatry we have attempted to set out the current state of the art and point to areas of further enquiry. One stimulus for doing this is the need to engage with policy makers who are now having to consider guidelines on suicide and assisted suicide so that they may be aware of their own as well as the wider populations' cognitive processes when confronted with the ultimate truth of mortality.

How Cultural Practices Influence the Understanding and Emotional Intensity of Mexican Children's Memories of Death Events

This study assessed whether a sample of 43 children in Puebla, Mexico would show the Fading Affect Bias (FAB) for memories of the death of loved ones or pets and for general negative memories. FAB is a phenomenon in which emotional intensity associated with unpleasant memories fades faster than affect in pleasant memories. Mexican children showed FAB across negative and death memories. Younger children showed lower fading for general negative memories when compared to older children. A second aim of this work assessed whether younger (ages 4.83-9) and older (ages 10-13) children in Mexico would show biological and spiritual understanding of death, and findings indicated that Mexican children's understanding included both biological and spiritual subcomponents. Younger children showed lower comprehension of the death subcomponents Inevitability and Irreversibility. Higher depression, anxiety, and social stress scores as measured with the BASC-2 predicted lower FAB, lateralized to negative memories.

"How long is life worth living for the horse?" A focus group study on how Austrian equine stakeholders assess quality of life for chronically ill or old horses

BACKGROUND

Quality of life (QoL) provides a comprehensive concept underpinning veterinary decision-making that encompasses factors beyond physical health. It becomes particularly pertinent when seeking responsible choices for chronically ill or old horses that emphasise their well-being and a good QoL over the extension of life. How different stakeholders use the concept of QoL is highly relevant when considering the complexity of these decisions in real-life situations.

METHODS

Seven focus group discussions (N = 39) were conducted to gain insights into how stakeholders assess and use equine QoL in veterinary care decisions for chronically ill and/or old horses. The discussions included horse owners (n = 17), equine veterinarians (n = 7), veterinary officers (n = 6), farriers (n = 4), and horse caregivers (n = 5). The combination of deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis of the group discussions focused on identifying both similarities and differences in the views of these groups regarding QoL for old and/or chronically ill horses.

RESULTS

Findings show agreement about two issues: the importance of the individuality of the horse for assessing QoL and the relevance of QoL in making decisions about veterinary interventions. We identified differences between the groups with respect to three issues: the time required to assess QoL, stakeholders' contributions to QoL assessments, and challenges resulting from those contributions. While owners and caregivers of horses emphasised their knowledge of a horse and the relevance of the time they spend with their horse, the veterinarians in the study focused on the differences between their own QoL assessments and those of horse owners. In response to challenges regarding QoL assessments and decision-making, stakeholders described different strategies such as drawing comparisons to human experiences.

CONCLUSIONS

Differences between stakeholders regarding equine QoL assessments contribute to challenges when making decisions about the care of chronically ill or old horses. The results of this study suggest that individual and collaborative reflection about a horse's QoL should be encouraged, for example by developing practicable QoL assessment tools that support relevant stakeholders in this process.

Specimens as individuals: Four interventions and recommendations for great ape skeletal collections research and curation

Extensive discourse surrounds the ethics of human skeletal research and curation, but there has yet to be a similar discussion of the treatment of great ape skeletal remains, despite the clear interest in their ethical treatment when alive. Here we trace the history of apes who were killed and collected for natural history museums during the early 20th century and showcase how the guiding research questions of the colonial era continue to influence scholarship. We discuss best practices for improving industry and academic standards of research on, and the curation of, ape remains. The suggested interventions involve restoring individual identity and narrative to great apes while engaging with contextual reflexivity and decolonial theory. The resulting recommendations include contextualizing the individual, piecing individuals back together, challenging/questioning the captive-wild dichotomy, and collaborative international conversations. Our objective is to encourage a conversation regarding ethical and theoretical considerations in great ape skeletal remains research.

It's Complicated-Adolescent Grief in the Time of Covid-19

Presently, there is a real possibility of a second pandemic occurring: a grief pandemic. There are estimated to be over 1 million children and young people experiencing bereavement because of Covid-19. Adolescent grief is unique due to bio-psycho-social factors such as increased risk-taking, identity-formation, and limited capacity for emotional regulation. In this article, we will argue that adolescents are at increased risk of developing complicated grief during the Covid-19 pandemic, and that it is vital that services are improved to recognize and address this need before secondary problems emerge, including anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Complicated grief in adolescents is widely underrecognized and often misdiagnosed as a range of mental health problems, addictions, and offending behavior. For example, 25% of <20 year olds who commit suicide have experienced childhood bereavement, whilst 41% of youth offenders have experienced childhood bereavement; this is in comparison with only 4% of the general population. Many of the broader risk factors for complicated grief were already increasing prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, including increased loneliness amongst young people, and the collapse of collective structures to help people manage grief. We propose that this pandemic could be a catalyst for mental health professionals to support and nurture the caring communities emerging in this time as an essential resource to prevent the onset of a grief pandemic.