Distractions in Hearing: Measuring Impulsivity in Service Members with mTBI

Service Members who have experienced mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) tend to experience a degradation of focus and attention capabilities. The purpose of this initial pilot study is to measure the false alarm rates and thresholds of Service Members with mTBI during contralateral and informational masking tests and compare their outcomes to adults without mTBI. Contralateral and informational masking tasks both involve different levels of uncertainty and different forms of central masking. These two tasks will be used to quantify the participants’ accuracy in identifying the target stimulus and their associated levels of distractibility and impulsivity. Preliminary data obtained from Service Members diagnosed with mTBI suggested that there is likely an effect of mTBI on the masking measures. The eventual goal of this research is to train the participants to be less distracted and to strengthen their ability to focus on a set task

Massively parallel rare disease genetics

A report on the 'Genomic Disorders 2011 - The Genomics of Rare Diseases' meeting, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK, 23-26 March 201

Great exaptations

Long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs) are among the most successful parasitic genetic sequences in higher organisms. Recent work has discovered many instances of LINE incorporation into exons, reminding us of the hazards they pose to genes in their vicinity as well as their potential to be co-opted for the host's purposes

Mobilizing diversity: transposable element insertions in genetic variation and disease

Transposable elements (TEs) comprise a large fraction of mammalian genomes. A number of these elements are actively jumping in our genomes today. As a consequence, these insertions provide a source of genetic variation and, in rare cases, these events cause mutations that lead to disease. Yet, the extent to which these elements impact their host genomes is not completely understood. This review will summarize our current understanding of the mechanisms underlying transposon regulation and the contribution of TE insertions to genetic diversity in the germline and in somatic cells. Finally, traditional methods and emerging technologies for identifying transposon insertions will be considered