Niveles de inteligencia emocional en estudiantes de la carrera de psicología de una universidad pública peruana / Levels of emotional intelligence in psychology students at a Peruvian public university

Objetivo: El objetivo de esta investigación fue determinar los niveles de inteligencia emocional en estudiantes hombres y mujeres de la carrera de psicología, de una universidad pública de Lambayeque. Métodos: Se compararon sus niveles, según sexo, edad y ciclo académico. El estudio fue de tipo descriptivo, con un muestreo no probabilístico denominado bola de nieve, con una muestra conformada por 112 participantes. Se utilizó el Inventario del Coeficiente Emocional de BarOn-(I-CE) de 133 ítems, de respuesta tipo Likert. Resultados: Los resultados indicaron que en general, el 27.7% de los estudiantes presentan inteligencia emocional en un nivel promedio, y el 10.7% se ubica en un nivel alto. Con respecto al sexo, los hombres presentan un nivel más alto (43%) en comparación con las mujeres (22%). No obstante, el 30% de los hombres y el 26.8% de las mujeres se ubican en nivel promedio. En cuanto a la edad, los resultados indican que el 50% de los estudiantes entre 27 y 31 años de edad se ubican en un nivel promedio. Igualmente, el 32.40% de los estudiantes de ciclos avanzados reportan un nivel promedio de inteligencia emocional. Conclusiones: Finalmente, se concluye que, casi un tercio de los estudiantes presentan un nivel de inteligencia emocional nivel promedio y; otro grupo en menor medida, en un nivel alto.

Objetives: This study investigated the levels of emotional intelligence in undergraduate psychology students, both males and females of a public university in Lambayeque as well as the levels of emotional intelligence according to sex, age and academic semester. Methodology: It is a descriptive study, which type of sampling was non probabilistic, snow ball type sampling for which participated 112 undergraduate students. The instrument used was the Baron Ice Emotional Intelligence Inventory of 133 items, 5-point Likert-scale. The findings show that 27.7% of the students report an average level of emotional intelligence and 10.7/% report a high level. Results: Regarding the levels according to sex, men presented a higher level of emotional intelligence (43%) in comparison to women (22%). Nevertheless, both sexes present an average level (30% and 26.8% respectively). With respect to age, results suggest that older students present an average level of emotional intelligence, according to 50% of the participants, for ages 27 and 31. Likewise, 32.40% of advanced semester students report an average level of emotional intelligence. Conclusions: Finally, it is concluded that the curricular training of psychology students must implement activities toward the development of emotional intelligence for future professional performance, considering the socio-cultural variables.

Neuro-Oncology Patients as Human Research Subjects: Ethical Considerations for Cognitive and Behavioral Testing for Research Purposes.

Language, cognition, and behavioral testing have become a fundamental component of standard clinical care for brain cancer patients. Many existing publications have identified and addressed potential ethical issues that are present in the biomedical setting mostly centering around the enrollment of vulnerable populations for therapeutic clinical trials. Well-established guides and publications have served as useful tools for clinicians; however, little has been published for researchers who share the same stage but administer tests and collect valuable data solely for non-therapeutic investigational purposes derived from voluntary patient participation. Obtaining informed consent and administering language, cognition, and behavioral tasks for the sole purpose of research involving cancer patients that exhibit motor speech difficulties and cognitive impairments has its own hardships. Researchers may encounter patients who experience emotional responses during tasks that challenge their existing impairments. Patients may have difficulty differentiating between clinical testing and research testing due to similarity of task design and their physician's dual role as a principal investigator in the study. It is important for researchers to practice the proposed methods emphasized in this article to maintain the overall well-being of patients while simultaneously fulfilling the purpose of the study in a research setting.

Functional alterations in cortical processing of speech in glioma-infiltrated cortex.

Recent developments in the biology of malignant gliomas have demonstrated that glioma cells interact with neurons through both paracrine signaling and electrochemical synapses. Glioma-neuron interactions consequently modulate the excitability of local neuronal circuits, and it is unclear the extent to which glioma-infiltrated cortex can meaningfully participate in neural computations. For example, gliomas may result in a local disorganization of activity that impedes the transient synchronization of neural oscillations. Alternatively, glioma-infiltrated cortex may retain the ability to engage in synchronized activity in a manner similar to normal-appearing cortex but exhibit other altered spatiotemporal patterns of activity with subsequent impact on cognitive processing. Here, we use subdural electrocorticography to sample both normal-appearing and glioma-infiltrated cortex during speech. We find that glioma-infiltrated cortex engages in synchronous activity during task performance in a manner similar to normal-appearing cortex but recruits a diffuse spatial network. On a temporal scale, we show that signals from glioma-infiltrated cortex have decreased entropy, which may affect its ability to encode information during nuanced tasks such as production of monosyllabic versus polysyllabic words. Furthermore, we show that temporal decoding strategies for distinguishing monosyllabic from polysyllabic words were feasible for signals arising from normal-appearing cortex but not from glioma-infiltrated cortex. These findings inform our understanding of cognitive processing in chronic disease states and have implications for neuromodulation and prosthetics in patients with malignant gliomas.

Convergence of heteromodal lexical retrieval in the lateral prefrontal cortex.

Lexical retrieval requires selecting and retrieving the most appropriate word from the lexicon to express a desired concept. Few studies have probed lexical retrieval with tasks other than picture naming, and when non-picture naming lexical retrieval tasks have been applied, both convergent and divergent results emerged. The presence of a single construct for auditory and visual processes of lexical retrieval would influence cognitive rehabilitation strategies for patients with aphasia. In this study, we perform support vector regression lesion-symptom mapping using a brain tumor model to test the hypothesis that brain regions specifically involved in lexical retrieval from visual and auditory stimuli represent overlapping neural systems. We find that principal components analysis of language tasks revealed multicollinearity between picture naming, auditory naming, and a validated measure of word finding, implying the existence of redundant cognitive constructs. Nonparametric, multivariate lesion-symptom mapping across participants was used to model accuracies on each of the four language tasks. Lesions within overlapping clusters of 8,333 voxels and 21,512 voxels in the left lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) were predictive of impaired picture naming and auditory naming, respectively. These data indicate a convergence of heteromodal lexical retrieval within the PFC.

The impact of high functional connectivity network hub resection on language task performance in adult low- and high-grade glioma.

OBJECTIVE: Gliomas are intrinsic brain tumors with the hallmark of diffuse white matter infiltration, resulting in short- and long-range network dysfunction. Preoperative magnetoencephalography (MEG) can assist in maximizing the extent of resection while minimizing morbidity. While MEG has been validated in motor mapping, its role in speech mapping remains less well studied. The authors assessed how the resection of intraoperative electrical stimulation (IES)-negative, high functional connectivity (HFC) network sites, as identified by MEG, impacts language performance. METHODS: Resting-state, whole-brain MEG recordings were obtained from 26 patients who underwent perioperative language evaluation and glioma resection that was guided by awake language and IES mapping. The functional connectivity of an individual voxel was determined by the imaginary coherence between the index voxel and the rest of the brain, referenced to its contralesional pair. The percentage of resected HFC voxels was correlated with postoperative language outcomes in tasks of increasing complexity: text reading, 4-syllable repetition, picture naming, syntax (SYN), and auditory stimulus naming (AN). RESULTS: Overall, 70% of patients (14/20) in whom any HFC tissue was resected developed an early postoperative language deficit (mean 2.3 days, range 1-8 days), compared to 33% of patients (2/6) in whom no HFC tissue was resected (p = 0.16). When bifurcated by the amount of HFC tissue that was resected, 100% of patients (3/3) with an HFC resection > 25% displayed deficits in AN, compared to 30% of patients (6/20) with an HFC resection < 25% (p = 0.04). Furthermore, there was a linear correlation between the severity of AN and SYN decline with percentage of HFC sites resected (p = 0.02 and p = 0.04, respectively). By 2.2 months postoperatively (range 1-6 months), the correlation between HFC resection and both AN and SYN decline had resolved (p = 0.94 and p = 1.00, respectively) in all patients (9/9) except two who experienced early postoperative tumor progression or stroke involving inferior frontooccipital fasciculus. CONCLUSIONS: Imaginary coherence measures of functional connectivity using MEG are able to identify HFC network sites within and around low- and high-grade gliomas. Removal of IES-negative HFC sites results in early transient postoperative decline in AN and SYN, which resolved by 3 months in all patients without stroke or early tumor progression. Measures of functional connectivity may therefore be a useful means of counseling patients about postoperative risk and assist with preoperative surgical planning.

Assessment of wakefulness during awake craniotomy to predict intraoperative language performance.

OBJECTIVE: Maximal safe tumor resection in language areas of the brain relies on a patient's ability to perform intraoperative language tasks. Assessing the performance of these tasks during awake craniotomies allows the neurosurgeon to identify and preserve brain regions that are critical for language processing. However, receiving sedation and analgesia just prior to experiencing an awake craniotomy may reduce a patient's wakefulness, leading to transient language and/or cognitive impairments that do not completely subside before language testing begins. At present, the degree to which wakefulness influences intraoperative language task performance is unclear. Therefore, the authors sought to determine whether any of 5 brief measures of wakefulness predicts such performance during awake craniotomies for glioma resection. METHODS: The authors recruited 21 patients with dominant hemisphere low- and high-grade gliomas. Each patient performed baseline wakefulness measures in addition to picture-naming and text-reading language tasks 24 hours before undergoing an awake craniotomy. The patients performed these same tasks again in the operating room following the cessation of anesthesia medications. The authors then conducted statistical analyses to investigate potential relationships between wakefulness measures and language task performance. RESULTS: Relative to baseline, performance on 3 of the 4 objective wakefulness measures (rapid counting, button pressing, and vigilance) declined in the operating room. Moreover, these declines appeared in the complete absence of self-reported changes in arousal. Performance on language tasks similarly declined in the intraoperative setting, with patients experiencing greater declines in picture naming than in text reading. Finally, performance declines on rapid counting and vigilance wakefulness tasks predicted performance declines on the picture-naming task. CONCLUSIONS: Current subjective methods for assessing wakefulness during awake craniotomies may be insufficient. The administration of objective measures of wakefulness just prior to language task administration may help to ensure that patients are ready for testing. It may also allow neurosurgeons to identify patients who are at risk for poor intraoperative performance.