Optical thickness as related to pollutant episodes and the concentration of visibility degrading pollutants

A network of six sun photometers was placed in the central and northeast United States during the months of July through October, 1931. The objective of the program was to obtain measurements of atmospheric turbidity which can be related to the concentration of visibility-degrading pollutants in the atmosphere. These measurements serve as ground truth for a program to develop remote sensing techniques for measuring the vertically integrated aerosol concentrations in pollution episodes. The sun photometers measure the direct solar radiation in four passbands: 380 nm, 500 nm, 875 nm and 940 nm. The first three passbands will be used for measuring the aerosol optical depth and the last for measuring precipitable water

Threat visibility modulates the defensive brain circuit underlying fear and anxiety

Recent theories distinguish anxiety from fear in the brain. Anxiety is associated with activation in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, while fear is associated with activation in periaqueductal gray, with amygdala involved in processing aspects of both emotional responses. These theories propose that the amount of information available about threat determines which of the two defensive responses is elicited, with fear and anxiety associated with well-defined and uncertain threats respectively. However, a direct test of this hypothesis is lacking. Here we provide such a test using fMRI to record participants’ brain activity while they performed a computer-based task which required to press a button to move an artificial agent to a target position while an artificial predator chased the agent. In one condition (associated with fear) the predator was visible, while in another condition (associated with anxiety) the predator was invisible. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and amygdala showed increased activity when the predator was invisible compared to visible, while the opposite effect was observed in periaqueductal gray. We also observed that participants with high but not low trait-anxiety showed an hippocampal activation with invisible threat at an earlier time stage during the trial. These findings help clarify the neural mechanisms that underlie different defensive emotions and shed light on how these mechanisms may contribute to exaggerated anxiety

The effects of transcranial direct current stimulation on within- and cross-paradigm transfer following multi-session backward recall training.

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been shown to enhance the efficacy and generalisation of working memory (WM) training, but there has been little systematic investigation into how coupling task-specific WM training with stimulation impacts more specifically on transfer to untrained tasks. This randomised controlled trial investigated the boundary conditions to transfer by testing firstly whether the benefits of training on backward digit recall (BDR) extend to untrained backward recall tasks and n-back tasks with different materials, and secondly which, if any, form of transfer is enhanced by tDCS. Forty-eight participants were allocated to one of three conditions: BDR training with anodal (10 min, 1 mA) or sham tDCS, or visual search training with sham tDCS, applied over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Transfer was assessed on within- (backward recall with digits, letters, and spatial locations) and cross-paradigm (n-back with digits and letters) transfer tests following three sessions of training and stimulation. On-task training gains were found, with transfer to other backward span but not n-back tasks. There was little evidence that tDCS enhanced on-task training or transfer. These findings indicate that training enhances paradigm-specific processes within WM, but that tDCS does not enhance these gains

Psychopathic traits influence amygdala-anterior cingulate cortex connectivity during facial emotion processing

There is accumulating evidence that youths with antisocial behavior or psychopathic traits show deficits in facial emotion recognition, but little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying these impairments. A number of neuroimaging studies have investigated brain activity during facial emotion processing in youths with Conduct Disorder (CD) and adults with psychopathy, but few of these studies tested for group differences in effective connectivity – i.e., changes in connectivity during emotion processing. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and psycho-physiological interaction methods, we investigated the impact of CD and psychopathic traits on amygdala activity and effective connectivity in 46 male youths with CD and 25 typically-developing controls when processing emotional faces. All participants were aged 16-21 years. Relative to controls, youths with CD showed reduced amygdala activity when processing angry or sad faces relative to neutral faces, but the groups did not significantly differ in amygdala-related effective connectivity. In contrast, psychopathic traits were negatively correlated with amygdala-ventral anterior cingulate cortex connectivity for angry versus neutral faces, but were unrelated to amygdala responses to angry or sad faces. These findings suggest that CD and psychopathic traits have differential effects on amygdala activation and functional interactions between limbic regions during facial emotion processing

Intact priors for gaze direction in adults with high-functioning autism spectrum conditions

This research was supported by the UK Medical Research Council under project code MC-A060-5PQ50 (Andrew J. Calder). IM was supported by a Leverhulme Trust Project Grant. CC was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship. SBC was supported by the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Autism Research Trust during the period of this work. The research was also supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care East of England at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust

Modulation of aggression in male mice: influence of group size and cage size

Aggression in group-housed male mice is known to be influenced by both cage size and group size. However, the interdependency of these two parameters has not been studied yet. In this study, the level of aggression in groups of three, five, or eight male BALB/c mice housed in cages with a floor size of either 80 or 125 cm2/animal was estimated weekly after cage cleaning for a period of 14 weeks. Furthermore, urine corticosterone levels, food and water intake, body weight, and number of wounds were measured weekly. At the end of the experiment, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) activity, testosterone levels, and weight of spleen, thymus, testes, and seminal vesicles were determined. Results indicate a moderate increase of intermale aggression in larger cages when compared to the smaller cages. Aggression in groups of eight animals was considerably higher than in groups of three animals. The increase of agonistic behavior was observed both in dominant and subordinate animals. Physiological parameters indicate differences in stress levels between dominant and subordinate animals. It is concluded that aggressive behavior in group-housed male BALB/c mice is best prevented by housing the animals in small groups of three to five animals, while decreasing floor size per animal may be used as a temporary solution to decrease high levels of aggression in an existing social group.

SROI in the art gallery: valuing social impact

This article considers a project that used the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology to describe and measure the social impact of Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate, a coastal town in the South East of England. The article details the reasons why the methodology was chosen by the gallery, setting this in the context of the wider debate around evaluation and social impact reporting. A section of the research and analysis, which was carried out by COaST, a consultancy and research centre based within Canterbury Christ Church University, is described in detail, allowing the reader to understand the processes involved in this type of project and the kinds of outcomes that can be delivered using this method. Finally, an account is given of the impact the work had on the management of the gallery, and the ways in which the final report was used

Personality influences the neural responses to viewing facial expressions of emotion

Cognitive research has long been aware of the relationship between individual differences in personality and performance on behavioural tasks. However, within the field of cognitive neuroscience, the way in which such differences manifest at a neural level has received relatively little attention. We review recent research addressing the relationship between personality traits and the neural response to viewing facial signals of emotion. In one section, we discuss work demonstrating the relationship between anxiety and the amygdala response to facial signals of threat. A second section considers research showing that individual differences in reward drive (behavioural activation system), a trait linked to aggression, influence the neural responsivity and connectivity between brain regions implicated in aggression when viewing facial signals of anger. Finally, we address recent criticisms of the correlational approach to fMRI analyses and conclude that when used appropriately, analyses examining the relationship between personality and brain activity provide a useful tool for understanding the neural basis of facial expression processing and emotion processing in general