Age-dependent attentional style and arousal regulate reportability of spontaneous mental states

editorial reviewedThe reportability of spontaneous thoughts relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences than MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily distracted participants. MW was also linked to higher arousal (pupil dilation) and MB was linked to lower arousal (pupil constriction) independently of attentional style. In seniors though, MW was more prevalent in participants with higher focused style. As participants were more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal and MB with higher arousal. We postulate that these effects in seniors may result from intentional MW, during which they allocate attentional resources inwards, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by intrusive thoughts leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight opposite mechanisms by which attentional style regulates the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age. They also point towards the role of attentional style in mediating the impact of arousal on spontaneous thinking in the senior population

Age-dependent attentional style and arousal regulate reportability of spontaneous mental states

editorial reviewedThe reportability of spontaneous thoughts relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed behaviorally with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal physiologically with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences compared to MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily distracted participants. MW was also linked to higher arousal (pupil dilation) and MB was linked to lower arousal (pupil constriction) independently of attentional style. In seniors though, MW was more prevalent in participants reporting higher focused style. As participants were more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal (pupil constriction) instead and MB with higher arousal (pupil dilation). We postulate that these effects in seniors may be a result of intentional MW, during which they allocate attentional resources inwards in order to stay on task, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by intrusive thoughts leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight opposite mechanisms by which attentional style regulates the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age. They also point towards the role of attentional style in mediating the impact of arousal on spontaneous thinking in the senior population

Age-dependent attentional style and pupil-linked arousal regulate the reportability of spontaneous mental states

The reportability of spontaneous thinking relies significantly on attention and arousal. As these cognitive faculties change with age, we aimed at testing how spontaneous mental state reportability is influenced accordingly. Using experience sampling, 20 senior (65-75yrs) and 20 young participants (20-30yrs) were prompted to report mind-wandering (MW), mind-blanking (MB), or sensory-related (S) mental states at random times. Attention was assessed with the Attentional Style Questionnaire, and arousal with continuous monitoring of pupil diameter. First, we found more MW occurrences than MB or S across all participants. For young responders, we replicated that MW was more prevalent in easily-distracted participants. In seniors, though, MW was more prevalent in participants with a higher focused attentional style. In senior participants who reported being more easily distracted, MW was associated with lower arousal (pupil constriction) and MB with higher arousal (pupil dilation), reversing the pattern found for young adults and focused seniors. We propose that these effects may result from intentional MW, during which senior participants allocate attentional resources to mentally engage inwards, as opposed to younger participants who get more easily distracted by their own mental activity leading to unintentional MW. Together, our results highlight age-dependent mechanisms by which attentional style and pupil-linked arousal regulate the reportability of spontaneous mental states across age

Access to high cost medicines in Australia: ethical perspectives

Access to "high cost medicines" through Australia's Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) is tightly regulated. It is inherently difficult to apply any criteria-based system of control in a way that provides a fair balance between efficient use of limited resources for community needs and equitable individual access to care. We suggest, in relation to very high cost medicines, that the present arrangements be re-considered in order to overcome potential inequities. The biological agents for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis are used as an example by which to discuss the ethical issues associated with the current scheme. Consideration of ethical aspects of the PBS and similar programs is important in order to achieve the fairest outcomes for individual patients, as well as for the community

High Quality Care and Ethical Pay-for-Performance: A Society of General Internal Medicine Policy Analysis

BACKGROUND: Pay-for-performance is proliferating, yet its impact on key stakeholders remains uncertain. OBJECTIVE: The Society of General Internal Medicine systematically evaluated ethical issues raised by performance-based physician compensation. RESULTS: We conclude that current arrangements are based on fundamentally acceptable ethical principles, but are guided by an incomplete understanding of health-care quality. Furthermore, their implementation without evidence of safety and efficacy is ethically precarious because of potential risks to stakeholders, especially vulnerable patients. CONCLUSION: We propose four major strategies to transition from risky pay-for-performance systems to ethical performance-based physician compensation and high quality care. These include implementing safeguards within current pay-for-performance systems, reaching consensus regarding the obligations of key stakeholders in improving health-care quality, developing valid and comprehensive measures of health-care quality, and utilizing a cautious evaluative approach in creating the next generation of compensation systems that reward genuine quality

Genetic variants associated with subjective well-being, depressive symptoms, and neuroticism identified through genome-wide analyses

Very few genetic variants have been associated with depression and neuroticism, likely because of limitations on sample size in previous studies. Subjective well-being, a phenotype that is genetically correlated with both of these traits, has not yet been studied with genome-wide data. We conducted genome-wide association studies of three phenotypes: subjective well-being (n = 298,420), depressive symptoms (n = 161,460), and neuroticism (n = 170,911). We identify 3 variants associated with subjective well-being, 2 variants associated with depressive symptoms, and 11 variants associated with neuroticism, including 2 inversion polymorphisms. The two loci associated with depressive symptoms replicate in an independent depression sample. Joint analyses that exploit the high genetic correlations between the phenotypes (|ρ^| ≈ 0.8) strengthen the overall credibility of the findings and allow us to identify additional variants. Across our phenotypes, loci regulating expression in central nervous system and adrenal or pancreas tissues are strongly enriched for association.</p

Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry of Seabird Guano Fertilization: Results from Growth Chamber Studies with Maize (Zea Mays)

Stable isotope analysis is being utilized with increasing regularity to examine a wide range of issues (diet, habitat use, migration) in ecology, geology, archaeology, and related disciplines. A crucial component to these studies is a thorough understanding of the range and causes of baseline isotopic variation, which is relatively poorly understood for nitrogen (δ(15)N). Animal excrement is known to impact plant δ(15)N values, but the effects of seabird guano have not been systematically studied from an agricultural or horticultural standpoint.This paper presents isotopic (δ(13)C and δ(15)N) and vital data for maize (Zea mays) fertilized with Peruvian seabird guano under controlled conditions. The level of (15)N enrichment in fertilized plants is very large, with δ(15)N values ranging between 25.5 and 44.7‰ depending on the tissue and amount of fertilizer applied; comparatively, control plant δ(15)N values ranged between -0.3 and 5.7‰. Intraplant and temporal variability in δ(15)N values were large, particularly for the guano-fertilized plants, which can be attributed to changes in the availability of guano-derived N over time, and the reliance of stored vs. absorbed N. Plant δ(13)C values were not significantly impacted by guano fertilization. High concentrations of seabird guano inhibited maize germination and maize growth. Moreover, high levels of seabird guano greatly impacted the N metabolism of the plants, resulting in significantly higher tissue N content, particularly in the stalk.The results presented in this study demonstrate the very large impact of seabird guano on maize δ(15)N values. The use of seabird guano as a fertilizer can thus be traced using stable isotope analysis in food chemistry applications (certification of organic inputs). Furthermore, the fertilization of maize with seabird guano creates an isotopic signature very similar to a high-trophic level marine resource, which must be considered when interpreting isotopic data from archaeological material

Polygenic prediction of educational attainment within and between families from genome-wide association analyses in 3 million individuals

We conduct a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of educational attainment (EA) in a sample of ~3 million individuals and identify 3,952 approximately uncorrelated genome-wide-significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A genome-wide polygenic predictor, or polygenic index (PGI), explains 12-16% of EA variance and contributes to risk prediction for ten diseases. Direct effects (i.e., controlling for parental PGIs) explain roughly half the PGI's magnitude of association with EA and other phenotypes. The correlation between mate-pair PGIs is far too large to be consistent with phenotypic assortment alone, implying additional assortment on PGI-associated factors. In an additional GWAS of dominance deviations from the additive model, we identify no genome-wide-significant SNPs, and a separate X-chromosome additive GWAS identifies 57