The role of the right temporoparietal junction in perceptual conflict: detection or resolution?

The right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) is a polysensory cortical area that plays a key role in perception and awareness. Neuroimaging evidence shows activation of rTPJ in intersensory and sensorimotor conflict situations, but it remains unclear whether this activity reflects detection or resolution of such conflicts. To address this question, we manipulated the relationship between touch and vision using the so-called mirror-box illusion. Participants' hands lay on either side of a mirror, which occluded their left hand and reflected their right hand, but created the illusion that they were looking directly at their left hand. The experimenter simultaneously touched either the middle (D3) or the ring finger (D4) of each hand. Participants judged, which finger was touched on their occluded left hand. The visual stimulus corresponding to the touch on the right hand was therefore either congruent (same finger as touch) or incongruent (different finger from touch) with the task-relevant touch on the left hand. Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was delivered to the rTPJ immediately after touch. Accuracy in localizing the left touch was worse for D4 than for D3, particularly when visual stimulation was incongruent. However, following TMS, accuracy improved selectively for D4 in incongruent trials, suggesting that the effects of the conflicting visual information were reduced. These findings suggest a role of rTPJ in detecting, rather than resolving, intersensory conflict

A fourth generation, anomalous like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry and the LHC

A fourth chiral generation, with $m_{t^\prime}$ in the range $\sim (300 - 500)$ GeV and a moderate value of the CP-violating phase can explain the anomalous like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry observed recently by the D0 collaboration. The required parameters are found to be consistent with constraints from other $B$ and $K$ decays. The presence of such quarks, apart from being detectable in the early stages of the LHC, would also have important consequences in the electroweak symmetry breaking sector.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, Figure 1 is modified, more discussions are added in section 2. new references adde

FCNC Effects in a Minimal Theory of Fermion Masses

As a minimal theory of fermion masses we extend the SM by heavy vectorlike fermions, with flavor-anarchical Yukawa couplings, that mix with chiral fermions such that small SM Yukawa couplings arise from small mixing angles. This model can be regarded as an effective description of the fermionic sector of a large class of existing flavor models and thus might serve as a useful reference frame for a further understanding of flavor hierarchies in the SM. Already such a minimal framework gives rise to FCNC effects through exchange of massive SM bosons whose couplings to the light fermions get modified by the mixing. We derive general formulae for these corrections and discuss the bounds on the heavy fermion masses. Particularly stringent bounds, in a few TeV range, come from the corrections to the Z couplings.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

The Impact of Flavour Changing Neutral Gauge Bosons on B->X_s gamma

The branching ratio of the rare decay B->X_s gamma provides potentially strong constraints on models beyond the Standard Model. Considering a general scenario with new heavy neutral gauge bosons, present in particular in Z' and gauge flavour models, we point out two new contributions to the B->X_s gamma decay. The first one originates from one-loop diagrams mediated by gauge bosons and heavy exotic quarks with electric charge -1/3. The second contribution stems from the QCD mixing of neutral current-current operators generated by heavy neutral gauge bosons and the dipole operators responsible for the B->X_s gamma decay. The latter mixing is calculated here for the first time. We discuss general sum rules which have to be satisfied in any model of this type. We emphasise that the neutral gauge bosons in question could also significantly affect other fermion radiative decays as well as non-leptonic two-body B decays, epsilon'/epsilon, anomalous (g-2)_mu and electric dipole moments.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures; version published on JHEP; added magic QCD numbers for flavour-violating Z gauge boson contribution to B -> X_s gamm

Cognitive loading affects motor awareness and movement kinematics but not locomotor trajectories during goal-directed walking in a virtual reality environment.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive loading on movement kinematics and trajectory formation during goal-directed walking in a virtual reality (VR) environment. The secondary objective was to measure how participants corrected their trajectories for perturbed feedback and how participants' awareness of such perturbations changed under cognitive loading. We asked 14 healthy young adults to walk towards four different target locations in a VR environment while their movements were tracked and played back in real-time on a large projection screen. In 75% of all trials we introduced angular deviations of ±5° to ±30° between the veridical walking trajectory and the visual feedback. Participants performed a second experimental block under cognitive load (serial-7 subtraction, counter-balanced across participants). We measured walking kinematics (joint-angles, velocity profiles) and motor performance (end-point-compensation, trajectory-deviations). Motor awareness was determined by asking participants to rate the veracity of the feedback after every trial. In-line with previous findings in natural settings, participants displayed stereotypical walking trajectories in a VR environment. Our results extend these findings as they demonstrate that taxing cognitive resources did not affect trajectory formation and deviations although it interfered with the participants' movement kinematics, in particular walking velocity. Additionally, we report that motor awareness was selectively impaired by the secondary task in trials with high perceptual uncertainty. Compared with data on eye and arm movements our findings lend support to the hypothesis that the central nervous system (CNS) uses common mechanisms to govern goal-directed movements, including locomotion. We discuss our results with respect to the use of VR methods in gait control and rehabilitation

Do Gravity-Related Sensory Information Enable the Enhancement of Cortical Proprioceptive Inputs When Planning a Step in Microgravity?

International audienceWe recently found that the cortical response to proprioceptive stimulation was greater when participants were planning a step than when they stood still, and that this sensory facilitation was suppressed in microgravity. The aim of the present study was to test whether the absence of gravity-related sensory afferents during movement planning in microgravity prevented the proprioceptive cortical processing to be enhanced. We reestablished a reference frame in microgravity by providing and translating a horizontal support on which the participants were standing and verified whether this procedure restored the proprioceptive facilitation. The slight translation of the base of support (lateral direction), which occurred prior to step initiation, stimulated at least cutaneous and vestibular receptors. The sensitivity to proprioceptive stimulation was assessed by measuring the amplitude of the cortical somatosensory-evoked potential (SEP, over the Cz electrode) following the vibration of the leg muscle. The vibration lasted 1 s and the participants were asked to either initiate a step at the vibration offset or to remain still. We found that the early SEP (90–160 ms) was smaller when the platform was translated than when it remained stationary, revealing the existence of an interference phenomenon (i.e., when proprioceptive stimulation is preceded by the stimulation of different sensory modalities evoked by the platform translation). By contrast, the late SEP (550 ms post proprioceptive stimulation onset) was greater when the translation preceded the vibration compared to a condition without pre-stimulation (i.e., no translation). This suggests that restoring a body reference system which is impaired in microgravity allowed a greater proprioceptive cortical processing. Importantly, however, the late SEP was similarly increased when participants either produced a step or remained still. We propose that the absence of step-induced facilitation of proprioceptive cortical processing results from a decreased weight of proprioception in the absence of balance constraints in microgravity

Response to imatinib rechallenge in a patient with a recurrent gastrointestinal stromal tumor after adjuvant therapy: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Adjuvant imatinib improves recurrence-free survival of patients following resection of primary KIT-positive gastrointestinal stromal tumors. However, it is unknown whether patients who previously received adjuvant imatinib therapy will respond to imatinib rechallenge as treatment for recurrent disease. Here we present the first report documenting the benefits of imatinib rechallenge in a patient previously exposed to imatinib during adjuvant treatment.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 51-year-old Asian woman with a wedge-resected primary gastric gastrointestinal stromal tumor at high risk of relapse underwent two years of adjuvant treatment with imatinib. Only 10 months after the completion of adjuvant imatinib treatment, a computed tomography scan revealed gastrointestinal stromal tumor recurrence in this patient, with multiple peritoneal nodules in the upper abdomen being detected. Our patient was rechallenged with imatinib 400 mg/day and had a partial response after one month of treatment. Imatinib rechallenge was well tolerated by our patient; the only adverse events she experienced were grade 1 edema, anemia and fatigue. Our patient maintained a partial response two years and six months after the imatinib rechallenge. However, computed tomography scans three months later showed that our patient had disease progression.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This case report demonstrates that a patient with a gastrointestinal stromal tumor who had previously received adjuvant imatinib therapy responded to imatinib rechallenge as treatment for her recurrent disease. These results indicate that imatinib sensitivity can be maintained in a patient with previous exposure to adjuvant imatinib therapy.</p

RNA profiling of cyclooxygenases 1 and 2 in colorectal cancer

Cyclooxygenases (particularily Cox-2) are involved in carcinogenesis and metastatic cancer progression. The expression profiles of the cyclooxygenases and the roles they play in established tumours of similar stage remains unclear. We report that Cox-1 and Cox-2 expression is highly variable in Dukes' C tumours, and changes in Cox-1 expression may be of importance

Treatment of gastrointestinal stromal tumours in paediatric and young adult patients with sunitinib: a multicentre case series

Background: Gastrointestinal stromal tumours (GIST) are rarely encountered mesenchymal tumours of the gastrointestinal tract (1.5 people per 100,000/year) that are even more rarely seen in paediatric patients (1-2% of all cases). The standard treatment for advanced adult GIST is imatinib with sunitinib as a second-line option. Although the efficacy and tolerability of sunitinib in adults with GIST has been established, little is known of the profile of sunitinib in paediatric/young adult patients with GIST given the rarity of this disease. Methods: Paediatric/young adult patients aged up to 21 years with diagnosis of GIST who were treated with sunitinib were identified from retrospective records from three centres in Europe and the US. Most patients commenced sunitinib in a 6-week cycle, however, dosing could be reduced, delayed, changed to (or initiated with) a continuous schedule. Objective response (Response Evaluation Criteria In Solid Tumours [RECIST]) and adverse events were recorded. Results: We identified 9 paediatric/young adult patients (aged 11-21 years) with GIST who were treated with sunitinib de novo (n = 1) or following failure of imatinib (n = 8). Progressive disease was previously documented for all patients including 7 patients during imatinib therapy. Baseline patient and tumour profile characteristics showed a distinct profile (notably all were wild-type KIT/PDGFR) compared to that established for adults. Sunitinib treatment was associated with a best response of stable disease for 7 patients, with disease stabilisation lasting from 1 month to > 73 months and a median progression free survival time of 15 months. There was some evidence of better disease control for sunitinib when compared to prior imatinib. Most adverse events with sunitinib were manageable and all were consistent with the known profile of the agent. Conclusion: The ability to draw firm conclusions from this case series is limited by the small number of patients and the use of retrospective data which is largely reflective of the rarity of this condition. However, our findings provide initial evidence of clinical benefit and a generally manageable toxicity profile for sunitinib when administered to paediatric/young adult patients with GIST, most of whom had documented progressive disease during prior imatinib treatment