Electroencephalography (EEG) for neurological prognostication after cardiac arrest and targeted temperature management; rationale and study design.

BACKGROUND: Electroencephalography (EEG) is widely used to assess neurological prognosis in patients who are comatose after cardiac arrest, but its value is limited by varying definitions of pathological patterns and by inter-rater variability. The American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS) has recently proposed a standardized EEG-terminology for critical care to address these limitations. METHODS/DESIGN: In the TTM-trial, 399 post cardiac arrest patients who remained comatose after rewarming underwent a routine EEG. The presence of clinical seizures, use of sedatives and antiepileptic drugs during the EEG-registration were prospectively documented. DISCUSSION: A well-defined terminology for interpreting post cardiac arrest EEGs is critical for the use of EEG as a prognostic tool. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The TTM-trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01020916)

Distributed Neural Representations of Conditioned Threat in the Human Brain

Detecting and responding to threat engages several neural nodes including the amygdala, hippocampus, insular cortex, and medial prefrontal cortices. Recent propositions call for the integration of more distributed neural nodes that process sensory and cognitive facets related to threat. Integrative, sensitive, and reproducible distributed neural decoders for the detection and response to threat and safety have yet to be established. We combine functional MRI data across varying threat conditioning and negative affect paradigms from 1465 participants with multivariate pattern analysis to investigate distributed neural representations of threat and safety. The trained decoders sensitively and specifically distinguish between threat and safety cues across multiple datasets. We further show that many neural nodes dynamically shift representations between threat and safety. Our results establish reproducible decoders that integrate neural circuits, merging the well-characterized \u27threat circuit\u27 with sensory and cognitive nodes, discriminating threat from safety regardless of experimental designs or data acquisition parameters

How predation shapes the social interaction rules of shoaling fish

Predation is thought to shape the macroscopic properties of animal groups, making moving groups more cohesive and coordinated. Precisely how predation has shaped individuals' fine-scale social interactions in natural populations, however, is unknown. Using high-resolution tracking data of shoaling fish (Poecilia reticulata) from populations differing in natural predation pressure, we show how predation adapts individuals' social interaction rules. Fish originating from high predation environments formed larger, more cohesive, but not more polarized groups than fish from low predation environments. Using a new approach to detect the discrete points in time when individuals decide to update their movements based on the available social cues, we determine how these collective properties emerge from individuals' microscopic social interactions. We first confirm predictions that predation shapes the attraction–repulsion dynamic of these fish, reducing the critical distance at which neighbours move apart, or come back together. While we find strong evidence that fish align with their near neighbours, we do not find that predation shapes the strength or likelihood of these alignment tendencies. We also find that predation sharpens individuals' acceleration and deceleration responses, implying key perceptual and energetic differences associated with how individuals move in different predation regimes. Our results reveal how predation can shape the social interactions of individuals in groups, ultimately driving differences in groups' collective behaviour.</jats:p

Carotenoids and chlorophyll content in natural soap with addition of vegetative raw material

In the present study, we performed quantitative and qualitative determination of carotenoids and chlorophyll in five samples of natural soap with addition of vegetative raw material: Green tea, Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub, Trifolium pratense L., Alchemilla vulgaris L. and Urtica dioica L. There was developed the method of quantitative content of carotenoids and chlorophyll using spectrophotometry with analytical wavelength at 450 nm (carotenoids) and 667 nm (chlorophyll). Qualitative determination was carried out by the comparative TLC analysis. As mobile phases were used in the experiment following a mixed solvent of hexane-acetone (3: 1). Identification of carotenoids was carried out according to standard samples β -carotene and literature data