Genome-Wide SNP Analysis Reveals Distinct Origins of Trypanosoma evansi and Trypanosoma equiperdum.

YesTrypanosomes cause a variety of diseases in man and domestic animals in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. In the Trypanozoon subgenus, Trypanosoma brucei gambiense and Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense cause human African trypanosomiasis, whereas Trypanosoma brucei brucei, Trypanosoma evansi, and Trypanosoma equiperdum are responsible for nagana, surra, and dourine in domestic animals, respectively. The genetic relationships between T. evansi and T. equiperdum and other Trypanozoon species remain unclear because the majority of phylogenetic analyses has been based on only a few genes. In this study, we have conducted a phylogenetic analysis based on genome-wide SNP analysis comprising 56 genomes from the Trypanozoon subgenus. Our data reveal that T. equiperdum has emerged at least once in Eastern Africa and T. evansi at two independent occasions in Western Africa. The genomes within the T. equiperdum and T. evansi monophyletic clusters show extremely little variation, probably due to the clonal spread linked to the independence from tsetse flies for their transmission.Funding was received from the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO, grants 1501413N and 1101614N) and the European DG Health and Food Safety (SANTE). We thank the Center of Medical Genetics at the University of Antwerp for hosting the NGS facility

Reading during the composition of multi-sentence texts: an eye-movement study

Writers composing multi-sentence texts have immediate access to a visual representation of what they have written. Little is known about the detail of writers’ eye movements within this text during production. We describe two experiments in which competent adult writers’ eye-movements were tracked while performing short expository writing tasks. These are contrasted with conditions in which participants read and evaluated researcher-provided texts. Writers spent a mean of around 13% of their time looking back into their text. Initiation of these look-back sequences was strongly predicted by linguistically important boundaries in their ongoing production (e.g., writers were much more likely to look back immediately prior to starting a new sentence). 36% of look-back sequences were associated with sustained reading and the remainder with less patterned forward and backward saccades between words ("hopping"). Fixation and gaze durations and the presence of word-length effects suggested lexical processing of fixated words in both reading and hopping sequences. Word frequency effects were not present when writers read their own text. Findings demonstrate the technical possibility and potential value of examining writers’ fixations within their just-written text. We suggest that these fixations do not serve solely, or even primarily, in monitoring for error, but play an important role in planning ongoing production

The repeatability of cognitive performance:A meta-analysis

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from The Royal Society via the DOI in this record.Behavioural and cognitive processes play important roles in mediating an individual's interactions with its environment. Yet, while there is a vast literature on repeatable individual differences in behaviour, relatively little is known about the repeatability of cognitive performance. To further our understanding of the evolution of cognition, we gathered 44 studies on individual performance of 25 species across six animal classes and used meta-analysis to assess whether cognitive performance is repeatable. We compared repeatability (R) in performance (1) on the same task presented at different times (temporal repeatability), and (2) on different tasks that measured the same putative cognitive ability (contextual repeatability). We also addressed whether R estimates were influenced by seven extrinsic factors (moderators): type of cognitive performance measurement, type of cognitive task, delay between tests, origin of the subjects, experimental context, taxonomic class and publication status. We found support for both temporal and contextual repeatability of cognitive performance, with mean R estimates ranging between 0.15 and 0.28. Repeatability estimates were mostly influenced by the type of cognitive performance measures and publication status. Our findings highlight the widespread occurrence of consistent inter-individual variation in cognition across a range of taxa which, like behaviour, may be associated with fitness outcomes.PKYC is supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (PE1801); JOvH was funded by an ERC consolidator grant (616474). MC and this research was supported by a grant from the Human Frontier Science Program to ASC and JM-F (RGP0006/2015)

Listening to music reduces eye movements

Listening to music can change the way that people visually experience the environment, probably as a result of an inwardly directed shift of attention. We investigated whether this attentional shift can be demonstrated by reduced eye movement activity, and if so, whether that reduction depends on absorption. Participants listened to their preferred music, to unknown neutral music, or to no music while viewing a visual stimulus (a picture or a film clip). Preference and absorption were significantly higher for the preferred music than for the unknown music. Participants exhibited longer fixations, fewer saccades, and more blinks when they listened to music than when they sat in silence. However, no differences emerged between the preferred music condition and the neutral music condition. Thus, music significantly reduces eye movement activity, but an attentional shift from the outer to the inner world (i.e., to the emotions and memories evoked by the music) emerged as only one potential explanation. Other explanations, such as a shift of attention from visual to auditory input, are discussed

The time-course of recovery from interruption during reading: Eye movement evidence for the role of interruption lag and spatial memory

Two experiments examined how interruptions impact reading and how interruption lags and the reader's spatial memory affect the recovery from such interruptions. Participants read paragraphs of text and were interrupted unpredictably by a spoken news story while their eye movements were monitored. Time made available for consolidation prior to responding to the interruption did not aid reading resumption. However, providing readers with a visual cue that indicated the interruption location did aid task resumption substantially in Experiment 2. Taken together, the findings show that the recovery from interruptions during reading draws on spatial memory resources and can be aided by processes that support spatial memory. Practical implications are discussed

Assessment of the safety and immunogenicity of Rhodococcus equi-secreted proteins combined with either a liquid nanoparticle (IMS 3012) or a polymeric (PET GEL A) water-based adjuvant in adult horses and foals--identification of promising new candidate antigens.

International audienceRhodococcus equi is the most common infectious cause of mortality in foals between 1 and 6 months of age. Because of an increase in the number of antibiotic-resistant strains, the optimization of a prophylactic strategy is a key factor in the comprehensive management of R. equi pneumonia. The objectives of this study were to assess the safety and immunogenicity of R. equi-secreted proteins (ReSP) co-administered with either the nanoparticular adjuvant Montanide™ IMS 3012 VG, or a new polymeric adjuvant Montanide™ PET GEL A, and to further investigate the most immunogenic proteins for subsequent immunization/challenge experiments in the development of a vaccine against rhodoccocal pneumonia. The approach involved two phases. The first phase aimed to investigate the safety of vaccination in six adult horses. The second phase aimed to determine the safety and immunogenicity of vaccination in twelve 3-week-old foals. We set out to develop a method based on ultrasound measurements for safety assessment in adult horses in order to evaluate any in situ changes at the injection site, in the skin or the underlying muscle, with quantitative and qualitative data revealing that administration of ReSP combined with the Pet Gel A adjuvant led to an increase in local inflammation, associated with 4- to 7-fold higher levels of anti-R. equi IgGa, IgGb and IgGT, compared to administration of ReSP associated with IMS 3012 adjuvant, but without any impact on animal demeanor. Investigations were then performed in foals with serological and clinical follow-up until 6 months of age. Interestingly, we observed in foals a much lower incidence of adverse local tissue reactions at the injection site than in adult horses, with transient and moderate swelling for the group that received ReSP combined with Pet Gel A. Immunized foals with Pet Gel A adjuvant exhibited a similar response in both IgGa and IgGT levels, but a lower response in IgGb levels, compared to adult horses, with a subisotype profile that may however reflect a bias favorable to R. equi resistance. From the crude extract of secreted proteins, dot-blot screening enabled identification of cholesterol oxidase, mycolyl transferase 3, and PSP (probable secreted protein) as the most immunogenic candidates. Taken together, these results are encouraging in developing a vaccine for foals