Functional neuroimaging after severe anoxic brain injury in children may reveal preserved, yet covert, cognitive function

A growing body of evidence has confirmed that, after severe brain injury in adults, motoric and task-dependent factors that are essential for reliable communication, frequently interfere with an accurate assessment of cognitive status. In the current study, resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in children who have sustained an anoxic brain injury following a near drowning incident suggests a similar pattern; preserved cognition amidst severe motoric impairment that effectively precludes accurate clinical diagnosis at the bedside. Hum Brain Mapp 38:4832–4833, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Disruption to Functional Networks in Neonates With Perinatal Brain Injury Predicts Motor Skills at 8 Months

Objective: Functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging (fcMRI) of neonates with perinatal brain injury could improve prediction of motor impairment before symptoms manifest, and establish how early brain organization relates to subsequent development. This cohort study is the first to describe and quantitatively assess functional brain networks and their relation to later motor skills in neonates with a diverse range of perinatal brain injuries. Methods: Infants ( Results: Disruption to connectivity of the somatomotor and frontoparietal executive networks predicted motor impairment at 4 and 8 months. This disruption in functional connectivity was not found to be driven by differences between clinical groups, or by any of the specific measures we captured to describe the clinical course. Conclusion: fcMRI was predictive over and above other clinical measures available at discharge from the NICU, including structural MRI. Motor learning was affected by disruption to somatomotor networks, but also frontoparietal executive networks, which supports the functional importance of these networks in early development. Disruption to these two networks might be best addressed by distinct intervention strategies

Extreme weather‐year sequences have nonadditive effects on environmental nitrogen losses

The frequency and intensity of extreme weather years, characterized by abnormal precipitation and temperature, are increasing. In isolation, these years have disproportionately large effects on environmental N losses. However, multi-year sequences of extreme weather years (e.g., wet-dry vs. dry-wet) and annual crop rotation (legume-cereal vs. cereal-legume) may interact to affect cumulative N losses across the complete crop rotation sequence. We calibrated and validated the DAYCENT model with a comprehensive set of biogeophysical measurements from a maizesoybean rotation managed at three different N fertilizer inputs with and without a winter cereal rye cover crop in Iowa, USA. Our objectives were to determine: i) how two-year sequences of extreme weather years interact with annual crop rotation sequence to affect two-year cumulative N losses, and ii) if the inclusion of a winter cover crop between corn and soybean and N fertilizer management mitigate the effect of extreme weather on N losses. Using historical weather data (1951-2013), we created nine two-year weather scenarios with all possible combinations of the hottest and driest (‘dry’), coolest and wettest (‘wet’), and average (‘normal’) weather years. We analyzed the effects of these scenarios following a period of relatively normal weather. Compared to the normal-normal two-year weather scenario, two-year extreme weather scenarios affected two-year cumulative NO3- leaching (range: -28 to +295%) more than N2O emissions (range: -54 to +21%). Moreover, the two-year weather scenarios had non-additive effects on N losses: although dry weather decreased NO3- leaching in isolation, two-year cumulative NO3- losses from the dry-wet scenario were 89% greater than the normal-normal scenario. Cover crops reduced the effect of extreme weather on NO3- leaching, but not N2O emissions. As the frequency of extreme weather events is expected to increase, understanding of interactions between crop rotation and interannual weather patterns can be used to mitigate the effect of extreme weather on environmental N losses

Standardized research protocols enable transdisciplinary research of climate variation impacts in corn production systems

The important questions about agriculture, climate, and sustainability have become increasingly complex and require a coordinated, multifaceted approach for developing new knowledge and understanding. A multistate, transdisciplinary project was begun in 2011 to study the potential for both mitigation and adaptation of corn-based cropping systems to climate variations. The team is measuring the baseline as well as change of the system\u27s carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and water footprints, crop productivity, and pest pressure in response to existing and novel production practices. Nine states and 11 institutions are participating in the project, necessitating a well thought out approach to coordinating field data collection procedures at 35 research sites. In addition, the collected data must be brought together in a way that can be stored and used by persons not originally involved in the data collection, necessitating robust procedures for linking metadata with the data and clearly delineated rules for use and publication of data from the overall project. In order to improve the ability to compare data across sites and begin to make inferences about soil and cropping system responses to climate across the region, detailed research protocols were developed to standardize the types of measurements taken and the specific details such as depth, time, method, numbers of samples, and minimum data set required from each site. This process required significant time, debate, and commitment of all the investigators involved with field data collection and was also informed by the data needed to run the simulation models and life cycle analyses. Although individual research teams are collecting additional measurements beyond those stated in the standardized protocols, the written protocols are used by the team for the base measurements to be compared across the region. A centralized database was constructed to meet the needs of current researchers on this project as well as for future use for data synthesis and modeling for agricultural, ecosystem, and climate sciences

Facial Identity Recognition in the Broader Autism Phenotype

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms are associated with human directed social behavior in dogs (Canis familiaris)

The oxytocin system has a crucial role in human sociality; several results prove that polymorphisms of the oxytocin receptor gene are related to complex social behaviors in humans. Dogs' parallel evolution with humans and their adaptation to the human environment has made them a useful species to model human social interactions. Previous research indicates that dogs are eligible models for behavioral genetic research, as well. Based on these previous findings, our research investigated associations between human directed social behaviors and two newly described (−212AG, 19131AG) and one known (rs8679684) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the regulatory regions (5′ and 3′ UTR) of the oxytocin receptor gene in German Shepherd (N = 104) and Border Collie (N = 103) dogs. Dogs' behavior traits have been estimated in a newly developed test series consisting of five episodes: Greeting by a stranger, Separation from the owner, Problem solving, Threatening approach, Hiding of the owner. Buccal samples were collected and DNA was isolated using standard protocols. SNPs in the 3′ and 5′ UTR regions were analyzed by polymerase chain reaction based techniques followed by subsequent electrophoresis analysis. The gene–behavior association analysis suggests that oxytocin receptor gene polymorphisms have an impact in both breeds on (i) proximity seeking towards an unfamiliar person, as well as their owner, and on (ii) how friendly dogs behave towards strangers, although the mediating molecular regulatory mechanisms are yet unknown. Based on these results, we conclude that similarly to humans, the social behavior of dogs towards humans is influenced by the oxytocin system

Viewing Loved Faces Inhibits Defense Reactions: A Health-Promotion Mechanism?

We have known for decades that social support is associated with positive health outcomes. And yet, the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying this association remain poorly understood. The link between social support and positive health outcomes is likely to depend on the neurophysiological regulatory mechanisms underlying reward and defensive reactions. The present study examines the hypothesis that emotional social support (love) provides safety cues that activate the appetitive reward system and simultaneously inhibit defense reactions. Using the startle probe paradigm, 54 undergraduate students (24 men) viewed black and white photographs of loved (romantic partner, father, mother, and best friend), neutral (unknown), and unpleasant (mutilated) faces. Eye–blink startle, zygomatic major activity, heart rate, and skin conductance responses to the faces, together with subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance, were obtained. Viewing loved faces induced a marked inhibition of the eye-blink startle response accompanied by a pattern of zygomatic, heart rate, skin conductance, and subjective changes indicative of an intense positive emotional response. Effects were similar for men and women, but the startle inhibition and the zygomatic response were larger in female participants. A comparison between the faces of the romantic partner and the parent who shares the partner’s gender further suggests that this effect is not attributable to familiarity or arousal. We conclude that this inhibitory capacity may contribute to the health benefits associated with social support.This research was funded by grant P07-SEJ-02964 from Junta de Andalucía (Spain)

Neural Representations of Personally Familiar and Unfamiliar Faces in the Anterior Inferior Temporal Cortex of Monkeys

To investigate the neural representations of faces in primates, particularly in relation to their personal familiarity or unfamiliarity, neuronal activities were chronically recorded from the ventral portion of the anterior inferior temporal cortex (AITv) of macaque monkeys during the performance of a facial identification task using either personally familiar or unfamiliar faces as stimuli. By calculating the correlation coefficients between neuronal responses to the faces for all possible pairs of faces given in the task and then using the coefficients as neuronal population-based similarity measures between the faces in pairs, we analyzed the similarity/dissimilarity relationship between the faces, which were potentially represented by the activities of a population of the face-responsive neurons recorded in the area AITv. The results showed that, for personally familiar faces, different identities were represented by different patterns of activities of the population of AITv neurons irrespective of the view (e.g., front, 90° left, etc.), while different views were not represented independently of their facial identities, which was consistent with our previous report. In the case of personally unfamiliar faces, the faces possessing different identities but presented in the same frontal view were represented as similar, which contrasts with the results for personally familiar faces. These results, taken together, outline the neuronal representations of personally familiar and unfamiliar faces in the AITv neuronal population

Does oxytocin lead to emotional interference during a working memory paradigm?

FSW - Self-regulation models for health behavior and psychopathology - ou