Revisited the relationship between vitamin D level and receptors of BsmI-gene polymorphism with the pathogenetic mechanisms of placental dysfunction development

The role of the calcitriol / vitamin D receptor (VD) endocrine system and the pleiotropic effects of this system in the pathogenetic mechanisms of various diseases development, in particular complications of pregnancy, has attracted researches’ increasing attention in recent years. The aim of the work: to compare the VD-status and frequency of occurrence of polymorphism of the VDR gene (BsmI (A> G, rs1544410) in patients with a physiological course of the gestation process and in patients with placental dysfunction (PD). Materials and methods. 56 pregnant women with PD (the main group) and 40 patients with a physiological pregnancy (control group) were examined. VD status was determined by ELISA at level 25 (OH) D in serum, the frequency of BsmI polymorphism of the VDR gene (rs1544410) by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Results. The average index of VD (31.40 ± 8.6) ng / ml in patients with PD is significantly lower than in patients with physiological pregnancy (43.54 ± 11.20) ng / ml, (p ≤ 0.05 ). In patients with PD, homozygous carrier for the A-allele was found in 12% of cases, in healthy pregnant women - in 16.7%, (р ≥ 0.05), for the G-allele - in 20% and 47.20%, (р ≤ 0.01) cases, respectively to groups. Heterozygous combination of A / G alleles was noted in 68% of patients with PD and in 36.10% of the control group patients. In pregnant women with BsmI polymorphism of calcitriol gene (genotype A / G) PD was 3.7 times more frequent (68% vs 36.10% : RR = 2.1, CI 1.0-6.6, OR = 3.7, CI 1.1-13.1). Conclusions. Vitamin D insufficiency or deficiency can be one of the reasons of PD formation. In carriers of BsmIgene’s polymorphism encoding VD receptor with genotype A / G, the course of pregnancy is complicated by placental dysfunction 3.7 times more often than in women without this polymorphism

Exogenous spatial precuing reliably modulates object processing but not object substitution masking

Object substitution masking (OSM) is used in behavioral and imaging studies to investigate processes associated with the formation of a conscious percept. Reportedly, OSM occurs only when visual attention is diffusely spread over a search display or focused away from the target location. Indeed, the presumed role of spatial attention is central to theoretical accounts of OSM and of visual processing more generally (Di Lollo, Enns, & Rensink, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129:481–507, 2000). We report a series of five experiments in which valid spatial precuing is shown to enhance the ability of participants to accurately report a target but, in most cases, without affecting OSM. In only one experiment (Experiment 5) was a significant effect of precuing observed on masking. This is in contrast to the reliable effect shown across all five experiments in which precuing improved overall performance. The results are convergent with recent findings from Argyropoulos, Gellatly, and Pilling (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 39:646–661, 2013), which show that OSM is independent of the number of distractor items in a display. Our results demonstrate that OSM can operate independently of focal attention. Previous claims of the strong interrelationship between OSM and spatial attention are likely to have arisen from ceiling or floor artifacts that restricted measurable performance

Human Visual Search Does Not Maximize the Post-Saccadic Probability of Identifying Targets

Researchers have conjectured that eye movements during visual search are selected to minimize the number of saccades. The optimal Bayesian eye movement strategy minimizing saccades does not simply direct the eye to whichever location is judged most likely to contain the target but makes use of the entire retina as an information gathering device during each fixation. Here we show that human observers do not minimize the expected number of saccades in planning saccades in a simple visual search task composed of three tokens. In this task, the optimal eye movement strategy varied, depending on the spacing between tokens (in the first experiment) or the size of tokens (in the second experiment), and changed abruptly once the separation or size surpassed a critical value. None of our observers changed strategy as a function of separation or size. Human performance fell far short of ideal, both qualitatively and quantitatively

Does oculomotor inhibition of return influence fixation probability during scene search?

Oculomotor inhibition of return (IOR) is believed to facilitate scene scanning by decreasing the probability that gaze will return to a previously fixated location. This “foraging” hypothesis was tested during scene search and in response to sudden-onset probes at the immediately previous (one-back) fixation location. The latencies of saccades landing within 1º of the previous fixation location were elevated, consistent with oculomotor IOR. However, there was no decrease in the likelihood that the previous location would be fixated relative to distance-matched controls or an a priori baseline. Saccades exhibit an overall forward bias, but this is due to a general bias to move in the same direction and for the same distance as the last saccade (saccadic momentum) rather than to a spatially specific tendency to avoid previously fixated locations. We find no evidence that oculomotor IOR has a significant impact on return probability during scene search

Ethnicity and Population Structure in Personal Naming Networks

Personal naming practices exist in all human groups and are far from random. Rather, they continue to reflect social norms and ethno-cultural customs that have developed over generations. As a consequence, contemporary name frequency distributions retain distinct geographic, social and ethno-cultural patterning that can be exploited to understand population structure in human biology, public health and social science. Previous attempts to detect and delineate such structure in large populations have entailed extensive empirical analysis of naming conventions in different parts of the world without seeking any general or automated methods of population classification by ethno-cultural origin. Here we show how 'naming networks', constructed from forename-surname pairs of a large sample of the contemporary human population in 17 countries, provide a valuable representation of cultural, ethnic and linguistic population structure around the world. This innovative approach enriches and adds value to automated population classification through conventional national data sources such as telephone directories and electoral registers. The method identifies clear social and ethno-cultural clusters in such naming networks that extend far beyond the geographic areas in which particular names originated, and that are preserved even after international migration. Moreover, one of the most striking findings of this approach is that these clusters simply 'emerge' from the aggregation of millions of individual decisions on parental naming practices for their children, without any prior knowledge introduced by the researcher. Our probabilistic approach to community assignment, both at city level as well as at a global scale, helps to reveal the degree of isolation, integration or overlap between human populations in our rapidly globalising world. As such, this work has important implications for research in population genetics, public health, and social science adding new understandings of migration, identity, integration and social interaction across the world