Query: learned helplessness

title: Learned helplessness in humans: critique and reformulation.
abstract: The learned helplessness hypothesis is criticized and reformulated. The old hypothesis, when applied to learned helplessness in humans, has two major problems: (a) It does not distinguish between cases in which outcomes are uncontrollable for all people and cases in which they are uncontrollable only for some people (univervsal vs. personal helplessness) and (b) it does not explain when helplessness is general and when specific, or when chronic and when acute. A reformulation based on a revision of attribution theory is proposed to resolve these inadequacies. According to the reformulation, once people perceive noncontingency, they attribute their helplessness to a cause. This cause can be stable or unstable, global or specific, and internal or external. The attribution chosen influences whether expectation of future helplessness will be chronic or acute, broad or narrow, and whether helplessness will lower self esteem or not. The implications of this reformulation of human helplessness for the learned helplessness model of depression are outlined.

title: Effects of perceived constraints and negotiation on learned helplessness: A study of Chinese senior outbound tourists
abstract: Learned helplessness is an important psychological construct that may influence senior tourists' subjective wellbeing while travelling. Employing a mixed method approach and a multi sample design, this study examines how Chinese senior outbound tourists' perceived travel constraints and negotiation efforts affect learned helplessness in outbound travel. We identified four perceived constraints (perceived incapability, lack of suitable travel agencies and services, lack of information and personal support, and complex travel decision making) and three negotiation strategies (seeking family support, physical/health preparation, and learning) Multiple regression analyses showed that among the four perceived constraints, only perceived incapability increased learned helplessness significantly; conversely, negotiation in general reduced learned helplessness. However, not as expected, negotiation was not founded to be a moderator between perceived constraints and learned helplessness. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

title: Lack of Antidepressant Effects of (2R,6R) Hydroxynorketamine in a Rat Learned Helplessness Model: Comparison with (R) Ketamine
abstract: (R) Ketamine exhibits rapid and sustained antidepressant effects in animal models of depression. It is stereoselectively metabolized to (R) norketamine and subsequently to (2R,6R) hydroxynorketamine in the liver. The metabolism of ketamine to hydroxynorketamine was recently demonstrated to be essential for ketamine's antidepressant actions. However, no study has compared the antidepressant effects of these 3 compounds in animal models of depression.  The effects of a single i.p. injection of (R) ketamine, (R) norketamine, and (2R,6R) hydroxynorketamine in a rat learned helplessness model were examined.  A single dose of (R) ketamine (20 mg/kg) showed an antidepressant effect in the rat learned helplessness model. In contrast, neither (R) norketamine (20 mg/kg) nor (2R,6R) hydroxynorketamine (20 and 40 mg/kg) did so.  Unlike (R) ketamine, its metabolite (2R,6R) hydroxynorketamine did not show antidepressant actions in the rat learned helplessness model. Therefore, it is unlikely that the metabolism of ketamine to hydroxynorketamine is essential for ketamine's antidepressant actions.

title: Learned helplessness moderates the relationship between environmental concern and behavior
abstract: Many concerned individuals refrain from meaningful pro environmental actions. We examined whether self reported levels of trait learned helplessness moderates this concern behavior relation. Results confirmed that learned helplessness moderated links between environmental concern and both self reported and in vivo measures of pro environmental behavior, such that concern most strongly predicted behavior when learned helplessness scores were low. Results are reliable after controlling for gender as well as depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. These findings suggest that learned helplessness acts as a barrier to pro environmental behavior in the face of environmental concern.

title: Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience.
abstract: Learned helplessness, the failure to escape shock induced by uncontrollable aversive events, was discovered half a century ago. Seligman and Maier (1967) theorized that animals learned that outcomes were independent of their responses that nothing they did mattered and that this learning undermined trying to escape. The mechanism of learned helplessness is now very well charted biologically, and the original theory got it backward. Passivity in response to shock is not learned. It is the default, unlearned response to prolonged aversive events and it is mediated by the serotonergic activity of the dorsal raphe nucleus, which in turn inhibits escape. This passivity can be overcome by learning control, with the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex, which subserves the detection of control leading to the automatic inhibition of the dorsal raphe nucleus. So animals learn that they can control aversive events, but the passive failure to learn to escape is an unlearned reaction to prolonged aversive stimulation. In addition, alterations of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex dorsal raphe pathway can come to subserve the expectation of control. We speculate that default passivity and the compensating detection and expectation of control may have substantial implications for how to treat depression.

title: Learned Helplessness and Depressive Symptoms Following Myocardial Infarction
abstract: Psychosocial factors are known to impact depressive symptoms across clinical populations. Learned helplessness has the potential of affecting depressive symptoms following acute myocardial infarction (AMI) though little is known about this relationship. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between learned helplessness and depressive symptoms in patients following an AMI. Using a descriptive cross sectional design, participants with a diagnosed AMI within the past 12 months were recruited. Standardized instruments and measures were used to evaluate learned helplessness and depressive symptoms. A statistically significant direct relationship was found between learned helplessness and depressive symptoms, suggesting that individuals with higher self reported levels of learned helplessness also reported more depressive symptoms. These results indicate learned helplessness is associated with depressive symptoms in individuals following an AMI. In developing post AMI treatment plans, health care staff should focus on psychologic points of intervention to the same extent as physiologic interventions.

title: Perceived parental psychological control and school learned helplessness: The role of frustration intolerance as a mediator factor
abstract: The present study aims to investigate the relation between perceived parental psychological control, school learned helplessness and mastery orientation, and also to test frustration intolerance as a mediator in the relation between perceived psychological control and school learned helplessness. The sample consisted of 214 (86 male and 128 female) high school students with an age range between 17 and 19 years (M 18.20; DS 0.98) Results indicated that maternal psychological control positively predicts frustration intolerance, and that in turn, frustration intolerance positively predicts school learned helplessness. Furthermore, there was a significant indirect effect of frustration intolerance in the link between maternal psychological control and school learned helplessness, pointing to an important mediating role for frustration intolerance. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

title: Early life diets with prebiotics and bioactive milk fractions attenuate the impact of stress on learned helplessness behaviours and alter gene expression within neural circuits important for stress resistance
abstract: Manipulating gut microbes may improve mental health. Prebiotics are indigestible compounds that increase the growth and activity of health promoting microorganisms, yet few studies have examined how prebiotics affect CNS function. Using an acute inescapable stressor known to produce learned helplessness behaviours such as failure to escape and exaggerated fear, we tested whether early life supplementation of a blend of two prebiotics, galactooligosaccharide (GOS) and polydextrose (PDX) and the glycoprotein lactoferrin (LAC) would attenuate behavioural and biological responses to stress later in life. Juvenile, male F344 rats were fed diets containing either GOS and PDX alone, LAC alone, or GOS, PDX and LAC. All diets altered gut bacteria, while diets containing GOS and PDX increased Lactobacillus spp. After 4 weeks, rats were exposed to inescapable stress, and either immediately killed for blood and tissues, or assessed for learned helplessness 24 h later. Diets did not attenuate stress effects on spleen weight, corticosterone and blood glucose; however, all diets differentially attenuated stress induced learned helplessness. Notably, in situ hybridization revealed that all diets reduced stress evoked cfos mRNA in the dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) a structure important for learned helplessness behaviours. In addition, GOS, PDX and LAC diet attenuated stress evoked decreases in mRNA for the 5 HT1A autoreceptor in the DRN and increased basal BDNF mRNA within the prefrontal cortex. These data suggest early life diets containing prebiotics and/or LAC promote behavioural stress resistance and uniquely modulate gene expression in corresponding circuits.

title: Metabolomics identifies perturbations in amino acid metabolism in the prefrontal cortex of the learned helplessness rat model of depression
abstract: Major depressive disorder is a serious psychiatric condition associated with high rates of suicide and is a leading cause of health burden worldwide. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms of major depression are still essentially unclear. In our study, a non targeted gas chromatography mass spectrometry based metabolomics approach was used to investigate metabolic changes in the prefrontal cortex of the learned helplessness (LH) rat model of depression. Body weight measurements and behavioral tests including the active escape test, sucrose preference test, forced swimming test, elevated plus maze and open field test were used to assess changes in the behavioral spectrum after inescapable footshock stress. Rats in the stress group exhibited significant learned helpless and depression like behaviors, while without any significant change in anxiety like behaviors. Using multivariate and univariate statistical analysis, a total of 18 differential metabolites were identified after the footshock stress protocol. Ingenuity Pathways Analysis and MetaboAnalyst were applied for predicted pathways and biological functions analysis. "Amino Acid Metabolism, Molecule Transport, Small Molecule Biochemistry" was the most significantly altered network in the LH model. Amino acid metabolism, particularly glutamate metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, arginine and proline metabolism, was significantly perturbed in the prefrontal cortex of LH rats.

title: P2X7 Receptors Drive Spine Synapse Plasticity in the Learned Helplessness Model of Depression
abstract: Major depressive disorder is characterized by structural and functional abnormalities of cortical and limbic brain areas, including a decrease in spine synapse number in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Recent studies highlighted that both genetic and pharmacological invalidation of the purinergic P2X7 receptor (P2rx7) leads to antidepressant like phenotype in animal experiments; however, the impact of P2rx7 on depression related structural changes in the hippocampus is not clarified yet.  Effects of genetic deletion of P2rx7s on depressive like behavior and spine synapse density in the dentate gyrus were investigated using the learned helplessness mouse model of depression.  We demonstrate that in wild type animals, inescapable footshocks lead to learned helplessness behavior reflected in increased latency and number of escape failures to subsequent escapable footshocks. This behavior is accompanied with downregulation of mRNA encoding P2rx7 and decrease of spine synapse density in the dentate gyrus as determined by electron microscopic stereology. In addition, a decrease in synaptopodin but not in PSD95 and NR2B/GluN2B protein level was also observed under these conditions. Whereas the absence of P2rx7 was characterized by escape deficit, no learned helpless behavior is observed in these animals. Likewise, no decrease in spine synapse number and synaptopodin protein levels was detected in response to inescapable footshocks in P2rx7 deficient animals.  Our findings suggest the endogenous activation of P2rx7s in the learned helplessness model of depression and decreased plasticity of spine synapses in P2rx7 deficient mice might explain the resistance of these animals to repeated stressful stimuli.