Neural correlates of enhanced visual short-term memory for angry faces: An fMRI study

Copyright: © 2008 Jackson et al.Background: Fluid and effective social communication requires that both face identity and emotional expression information are encoded and maintained in visual short-term memory (VSTM) to enable a coherent, ongoing picture of the world and its players. This appears to be of particular evolutionary importance when confronted with potentially threatening displays of emotion - previous research has shown better VSTM for angry versus happy or neutral face identities.Methodology/Principal Findings: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we investigated the neural correlates of this angry face benefit in VSTM. Participants were shown between one and four to-be-remembered angry, happy, or neutral faces, and after a short retention delay they stated whether a single probe face had been present or not in the previous display. All faces in any one display expressed the same emotion, and the task required memory for face identity. We find enhanced VSTM for angry face identities and describe the right hemisphere brain network underpinning this effect, which involves the globus pallidus, superior temporal sulcus, and frontal lobe. Increased activity in the globus pallidus was significantly correlated with the angry benefit in VSTM. Areas modulated by emotion were distinct from those modulated by memory load.Conclusions/Significance: Our results provide evidence for a key role of the basal ganglia as an interface between emotion and cognition, supported by a frontal, temporal, and occipital network.The authors were supported by a Wellcome Trust grant (grant number 077185/Z/05/Z) and by BBSRC (UK) grant BBS/B/16178

Beyond crime statistics: the construction and application of a criminogenity monitor in Amsterdam

Criminologists have devoted a great deal of attention to risk factors - also called criminogenic factors - leading to criminal offending. This paper presents a criminogenity monitor which includes 19 risk factors that underlie crime. These factors do not themselves cause criminal behaviour; rather, they must be seen as signals that crimes may be committed. After discussing how the criminogenity monitor was constructed, we apply the risk factors we examined to the situation in Amsterdam, capital city of the Netherlands. The monitor is intended to function particularly as an instrument to rationalise policy-makers' work in targeting and preventing symptoms of crime at three geographical levels: the entire city, its boroughs and its neighbourhoods. © 2012 The Author(s)

HIV Disclosure, Condom Use, and Awareness of HIV Infection Among HIV-Positive, Heterosexual Drug Injectors in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

We examined the prevalence of HIV disclosure to sexual partners by HIV-positive drug injectors (IDUs) in St. Petersburg, Russia and compared the magnitude and direction of associations of condom use with awareness of one’s HIV infection and disclosure to partners. Among 157 HIV-infected participants, awareness of infection at time of last intercourse was associated with condom use with partners perceived to be HIV-negative (aOR 6.68, 95% CI 1.60–27.88). Among the 70 participants aware of their infection prior to enrolment, disclosure to potentially uninfected sexual partners was independently and negatively associated with condom use (aOR 0.13, 95% CI 0.02–0.66). Disclosure was independently associated with having injected ≥9 years (aOR 6.04, 95% CI 1.53–23.77) and partnership with another IDU (aOR 3.61, 95% CI 1.44–9.06) or HIV-seropositive (aOR 45.12, 95% CI 2.79–730.46). Scaling up HIV testing services and interventions that increase the likelihood of individuals receiving their test results is recommended

Thrombospondins in the heart: potential functions in cardiac remodeling

Cardiac remodeling after myocardial injury involves inflammation, angiogenesis, left ventricular hypertrophy and matrix remodeling. Thrombospondins (TSPs) belong to the group of matricellular proteins, which are non-structural extracellular matrix proteins that modulate cell–matrix interactions and cell function in injured tissues or tumors. They interact with different matrix and membrane-bound proteins due to their diverse functional domains. That the expression of TSPs strongly increases during cardiac stress or injury indicates an important role for them during cardiac remodeling. Recently, the protective properties of TSP expression against heart failure have been acknowledged. The current review will focus on the biological role of TSPs in the ischemic and hypertensive heart, and will describe the functional consequences of TSP polymorphisms in cardiac disease

A ínsula e o conceito de bloco cerebral central The insula and the central core concept

A caracterização anatômica de regiões encefálicas topograficamente bem definidas é particularmente útil para a prática neurocirúrgica por propiciar melhor compreensão da tridimensionalidade das suas estruturas e das lesões que as acometem, e por incitar uma maior sistematização dos seus acessos cirúrgicos. Neste sentido, se destaca no interior de cada hemisfério cerebral, um verdadeiro bloco único composto externamente pela ínsula, internamente pelos núcleos da base e tálamo, e que abriga no seu interior a cápsula interna. Com uma conformação predominantemente biconvexa e disposto entre a cisterna silviana e as cavidades ventriculares supratentoriais, esse bloco cerebral central morfologicamente se caracteriza como uma cabeça de cada metade do tronco encefálico, encoberta por todo o manto neocortical do seu hemisfério ao qual se une através de verdadeiros istmos constituídos pelos prolongamentos das diferentes partes da cápsula interna. Anteriormente e sob o sulco limitante anterior da ínsula se dispõem as fibras que compõem o ramo anterior da cápsula interna, superiormente e sob o seu sulco limitante superior se dispõem as fibras restantes do ramo anterior e as do joelho e do ramo posterior, entre as quais se destacam em importância funcional as fibras piramidais córtico-espinhais, e sob o sulco limitante inferior da ínsula se dispõem as partes retro e sub-lentiformes da cápsula interna, que englobam as radiações auditiva e visual. Lateralmente o bloco cerebral central tem a ínsula como um verdadeiro escudo externo das principais estruturas cerebrais subcorticais. As escolhas dos acessos microneurocirúrgicos às lesões relacionadas com o bloco cerebral central devem ter como maior preocupação as suas relações topográficas com o tálamo e com as fibras da cápsula interna.<br>The caracterization of well defined and circumscribed brain regions is particularly useful for the neurosurgical practice once it enhances the tridimensional understanding of its structures and related lesions, and because it induces the development and the utilization of more standard microneurosurgical approaches. In this direction, it is noteworthy that each cerebral hemisphere harbors an evident central core constituted externally by the insula, internally by the basal ganglia and the thalamus, and with the internal capsule within. With a biconvex configuration when seen from above, and located between the sylvian cistern and the supratentorial ventricular cavities, morphologically this central core resembles a head of each brainstem half top, covered by the neocortical mantle of its hemisphere. The central core is attached to the rest of the cerebral hemisphere by isthmi constituted by the different internal capsule fibers. Anteriorly and under the anterior limiting sulcus of the insula there are fibers of the internal capsule anterior limb, superiorly and under the superior limiting sulcus there are the rest of the anterior limb fibers, and the knee and posterior limb fibers that harbors the corticonuclear and the corticospinal tracts, and inferiorly and under the insular inferior limiting sulcus there are the sub- and the retrolentiform internal capsule fibers that enclose the auditory and the optic radiations. Laterally the central core is composed by the insular surface that resembles a shield of the main cerebral subcortical structures. The options of microneurosurgical approaches to the central core related lesions should consider particularly their relationships with the thalamus and with the internal capsule fibers