Electroencephalography reflects the activity of sub-cortical brain regions during approach-withdrawal behaviour while listening to music

The ability of music to evoke activity changes in the core brain structures that underlie the experience of emotion suggests that it has the potential to be used in therapies for emotion disorders. A large volume of research has identified a network of sub-cortical brain regions underlying music-induced emotions. Additionally, separate evidence from electroencephalography (EEG) studies suggests that prefrontal asymmetry in the EEG reflects the approach-withdrawal response to music-induced emotion. However, fMRI and EEG measure quite different brain processes and we do not have a detailed understanding of the functional relationships between them in relation to music-induced emotion. We employ a joint EEG – fMRI paradigm to explore how EEG-based neural correlates of the approach-withdrawal response to music reflect activity changes in the sub-cortical emotional response network. The neural correlates examined are asymmetry in the prefrontal EEG, and the degree of disorder in that asymmetry over time, as measured by entropy. Participants’ EEG and fMRI were recorded simultaneously while the participants listened to music that had been specifically generated to target the elicitation of a wide range of affective states. While listening to this music, participants also continuously reported their felt affective states. Here we report on co-variations in the dynamics of these self-reports, the EEG, and the sub-cortical brain activity. We find that a set of sub-cortical brain regions in the emotional response network exhibits activity that significantly relates to prefrontal EEG asymmetry. Specifically, EEG in the pre-frontal cortex reflects not only cortical activity, but also changes in activity in the amygdala, posterior temporal cortex, and cerebellum. We also find that, while the magnitude of the asymmetry reflects activity in parts of the limbic and paralimbic systems, the entropy of that asymmetry reflects activity in parts of the autonomic response network such as the auditory cortex. This suggests that asymmetry magnitude reflects affective responses to music, while asymmetry entropy reflects autonomic responses to music. Thus, we demonstrate that it is possible to infer activity in the limbic and paralimbic systems from pre-frontal EEG asymmetry. These results show how EEG can be used to measure and monitor changes in the limbic and paralimbic systems. Specifically, they suggest that EEG asymmetry acts as an indicator of sub-cortical changes in activity induced by music. This shows that EEG may be used as a measure of the effectiveness of music therapy to evoke changes in activity in the sub-cortical emotion response network. This is also the first time that the activity of sub-cortical regions, normally considered “invisible” to EEG, has been shown to be characterisable directly from EEG dynamics measured during music listening

Affective calibration of musical feature sets in an emotionally intelligent music composition system

Affectively driven algorithmic composition (AAC) is a rapidly growing field that exploits computer-aided composition in order to generate new music with particular emotional qualities or affective intentions. An AAC system was devised in order to generate a stimulus set covering nine discrete sectors of a two-dimensional emotion space by means of a 16-channel feed-forward artificial neural network. This system was used to generate a stimulus set of short pieces of music, which were rendered using a sampled piano timbre and evaluated by a group of experienced listeners who ascribed a two-dimensional valence-arousal coordinate to each stimulus. The underlying musical feature set, initially drawn from the literature, was subsequently adjusted by amplifying or attenuating the quantity of each feature in order to maximize the spread of stimuli in the valence-arousal space before a second listener evaluation was conducted. This process was repeated a third time in order to maximize the spread of valence-arousal coordinates ascribed to the generated stimulus set in comparison to a spread taken from an existing prerated database of stimuli, demonstrating that this prototype AAC system is capable of creating short sequences of music with a slight improvement on the range of emotion found in a stimulus set comprised of real-world, traditionally composed musical excerpts

Personalised, multi-modal, affective state detection for hybrid brain-computer music interfacing

Brain-computer music interfaces (BCMIs) may be used to modulate affective states, with applications in music therapy, composition, and entertainment. However, for such systems to work they need to be able to reliably detect their user's current affective state. We present a method for personalised affective state detection for use in BCMI. We compare it to a population-based detection method trained on 17 users and demonstrate that personalised affective state detection is significantly ( $p<0.01$p<0.01 ) more accurate, with average improvements in accuracy of 10.2 percent for valence and 9.3 percent for arousal. We also compare a hybrid BCMI (a BCMI that combines physiological signals with neurological signals) to a conventional BCMI design (one based upon the use of only EEG features) and demonstrate that the hybrid design results in a significant ( $p<0.01$p<0.01 ) 6.2 percent improvement in performance for arousal classification and a significant ( $p<0.01$p<0.01 ) 5.9 percent improvement for valence classification

High Affinity “Click” RGD Peptidomimetics as Radiolabeled Probes for Imaging αvβ3 Integrin

We thank The Development Trust, University of Aberdeen, for financial support and a fellowship to M.P. The work was also supported by the CRUK-EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre in Cambridge and Manchester (KJW Co-I; reference 16465). We thank Dr Massimiliano Baldassarre (University of Aberdeen) for helpful discussions.Peer reviewedPostprin

Affective brain–computer music interfacing

We aim to develop and evaluate an affective brain–computer music interface (aBCMI) for modulating the affective states of its users. Approach. An aBCMI is constructed to detect a userʼs current affective state and attempt to modulate it in order to achieve specific objectives (for example, making the user calmer or happier) by playing music which is generated according to a specific affective target by an algorithmic music composition system and a casebased reasoning system. The system is trained and tested in a longitudinal study on a population of eight healthy participants, with each participant returning for multiple sessions. Main results. The final online aBCMI is able to detect its users current affective states with classification accuracies of up to 65% (3 class, p < 0.01) and modulate its userʼs affective states significantly above chance level (p < 0.05). Significance. Our system represents one of the first demonstrations of an online aBCMI that is able to accurately detect and respond to userʼs affective states. Possible applications include use in music therapy and entertainmen

Transferrin receptor 2 controls bone mass and pathological bone formation via BMP and Wnt signalling

Transferrin receptor 2 (Tfr2) is mainly expressed in the liver and controls iron homeostasis. Here, we identify Tfr2 as a regulator of bone homeostasis that inhibits bone formation. Mice lacking Tfr2 display increased bone mass and mineralization independent of iron homeostasis and hepatic Tfr2. Bone marrow transplantation experiments and studies of cell-specific Tfr2 knockout mice demonstrate that Tfr2 impairs BMP-p38MAPK signaling and decreases expression of the Wnt inhibitor sclerostin specifically in osteoblasts. Reactivation of MAPK or overexpression of sclerostin rescues skeletal abnormalities in Tfr2 knockout mice. We further show that the extracellular domain of Tfr2 binds BMPs and inhibits BMP-2-induced heterotopic ossification by acting as a decoy receptor. These data indicate that Tfr2 limits bone formation by modulating BMP signaling, possibly through direct interaction with BMP either as a receptor or as a co-receptor in a complex with other BMP receptors. Finally, the Tfr2 extracellular domain may be effective in the treatment of conditions associated with pathological bone formation

A BURST-BAUS consensus document for best practice in the conduct of scrotal exploration for suspected testicular torsion : the Finding consensus for orchIdopeXy In Torsion (FIX-IT) study

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank Jacqueline Emkes and Rachel Jury for their contribution to our protocol development with respect to patient and public involvement. Similarly, the authors would like to thank Dr Matthew Coward, Department of Urology, University of North Carolina, and Dr Selcuk Sarikaya, Department of Urology, University of Ankara, for their international perspectives and input to our study protocol. We would like to acknowledge the BAUS Trustees for allowing this collaboration. Unrelated to this work, The BURST Research Collaborative would like to acknowledge funding from the BJUI, the Urology Foundation, Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Rosetrees Trust and Action Bladder Cancer UK. Veeru Kasivisvanathan is an Academic Clinical Lecturer funded by the United Kingdom National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NHS, the NIHR or the Department of Health. PubMed Indexed Collaborative Authors: Matthew Coward, Selcuk Sarikaya, Jacqueline Emkes, Rachel Jury. Research Funding Department of Health National Institute for Health Research National Institute for Health Research Rosetrees Trust Ferring Pharmaceuticals Urology Foundation University of North CarolinaPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Protective CD8+ T-cell immunity to human malaria induced by chimpanzee adenovirus-MVA immunisation.

Induction of antigen-specific CD8(+) T cells offers the prospect of immunization against many infectious diseases, but no subunit vaccine has induced CD8(+) T cells that correlate with efficacy in humans. Here we demonstrate that a replication-deficient chimpanzee adenovirus vector followed by a modified vaccinia virus Ankara booster induces exceptionally high frequency T-cell responses (median >2400 SFC/10(6) peripheral blood mononuclear cells) to the liver-stage Plasmodium falciparum malaria antigen ME-TRAP. It induces sterile protective efficacy against heterologous strain sporozoites in three vaccinees (3/14, 21%), and delays time to patency through substantial reduction of liver-stage parasite burden in five more (5/14, 36%), P=0.008 compared with controls. The frequency of monofunctional interferon-γ-producing CD8(+) T cells, but not antibodies, correlates with sterile protection and delay in time to patency (P(corrected)=0.005). Vaccine-induced CD8(+) T cells provide protection against human malaria, suggesting that a major limitation of previous vaccination approaches has been the insufficient magnitude of induced T cells