Personalised ecology

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Elsevier via the DOI in this recordThe field of ecology has focused on understanding characteristics of natural systems in a manner as free as possible from biases of human observers. However, demand is growing for knowledge of human–nature interactions at the level of individual people. This is particularly driven by concerns around human health consequences due to changes in positive and negative interactions. This requires attention to the biased ways in which people encounter and experience other organisms. Here we define such a ‘personalised ecology’, and discuss its connections to other aspects of the field. We propose a framework of focal research topics, shaped by whether the unit of analysis is a single person, a single population, or multiple populations, and whether a human or nature perspective is foremost.Natural Environment Research Council (NERC

The effect of sertraline on emotional processing: secondary analyses of the PANDA randomised controlled trial

Background. According to the cognitive neuropsychological model, antidepressants reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety by increasing positive relative to negative information processing. Most studies of whether antidepressants alter emotional processing use small samples of healthy individuals, which lead to low statistical power and selection bias and are difficult to generalise to clinical practice. We tested whether the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) sertraline altered recall of positive and negative information in a large randomised controlled trial (RCT) of patients with depressive symptoms recruited from primary care. Methods. The PANDA trial was a pragmatic multicentre double-blind RCT comparing sertraline with placebo. Memory for personality descriptors was tested at baseline and 2 and 6 weeks after randomisation using a computerised emotional categorisation task followed by a free recall. We measured the number of positive and negative words correctly recalled (hits). Poisson mixed models were used to analyse longitudinal associations between treatment allocation and hits. Results. A total of 576 participants (88% of those randomised) completed the recall task at 2 and 6 weeks. We found no evidence that positive or negative hits differed according to treatment allocation at 2 or 6 weeks (adjusted positive hits ratio = 0.97, 95% CI 0.90–1.05, p = 0.52; adjusted negative hits ratio = 0.99, 95% CI 0.90–1.08, p = 0.76). Conclusions. In the largest individual placebo-controlled trial of an antidepressant not funded by the pharmaceutical industry, we found no evidence that sertraline altered positive or negative recall early in treatment. These findings challenge some assumptions of the cognitive neuropsychological model of antidepressant action

Variation in recognition of happy and sad facial expressions and self-reported depressive symptom severity: A prospective cohort study

Objective: Cognitive theories suggest people with depression interpret self-referential social information negatively. However, it is unclear whether these biases precede or follow depression. We investigated whether facial expression recognition was associated with depressive symptoms cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Methods: Prospective cohort study of people who had visited UK primary care in the past year reporting depressive symptoms (n = 509). Depressive symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) at four time-points, 2 weeks apart. A computerised task assessed happy and sad facial expression recognition at three time-points (n = 505 at time 1). The unbiased hit rate measured ability to recognise emotions accounting for any general tendency to identify the emotion when it was not present. Results: The sample included the full range of depressive symptom severity, with 45% meeting diagnostic criteria for depression. There was no evidence that happy or sad unbiased hit rates were associated with concurrent or subsequent depressive symptoms. There was weak evidence that, for every additional face incorrectly classified as happy, concurrent PHQ-9 scores reduced by 0.05 of a point (95% CI = -0.10 to 0.002, p = 0.06 after adjustment for confounders). This association was strongest for more ambiguous facial expressions (interaction term p<0.001). Limitations: This was an observational study with relatively short follow-up (6 weeks) and small changes in depressive symptoms and emotion recognition. Only 7% of invited patients consented to participate. Conclusions: Reduced misclassifications of ambiguous faces as happy could be a state marker of depression, but was not associated with subsequent depressive symptoms. Future research should focus on the interpretation of ambiguous social informatio

Multidisciplinary teams, and parents, negotiating common ground in shared-care of children with long-term conditions: A mixed methods study

Background: Limited negotiation around care decisions is believed to undermine collaborative working between parents of children with long-term conditions and professionals, but there is little evidence of how they actually negotiate their respective roles. Using chronic kidney disease as an exemplar this paper reports on a multi-method study of social interaction between multidisciplinary teams and parents as they shared clinical care. Methods. Phases 1 and 2: a telephone survey mapping multidisciplinary teams' parent-educative activities, and qualitative interviews with 112 professionals (Clinical-psychologists, Dietitians, Doctors, Nurses, Play-specialists, Pharmacists, Therapists and Social-workers) exploring their accounts of parent-teaching in the 12 British children's kidney units. Phase 3: six ethnographic case studies in two units involving observations of professional/parent interactions during shared-care, and individual interviews. We used an analytical framework based on concepts drawn from Communities of Practice and Activity Theory. Results: Professionals spoke of the challenge of explaining to each other how they are aware of parents' understanding of clinical knowledge, and described three patterns of parent-educative activity that were common across MDTs: Engaging parents in shared practice; Knowledge exchange and role negotiation, and Promoting common ground. Over time, professionals had developed a shared repertoire of tools to support their negotiations with parents that helped them accomplish common ground during the practice of shared-care. We observed mutual engagement between professionals and parents where a common understanding of the joint enterprise of clinical caring was negotiated. Conclusions: For professionals, making implicit knowledge explicit is important as it can provide them with a language through which to articulate more clearly to each other what is the basis of their intuition-based hunches about parents' support needs, and may help them to negotiate with parents and accelerate parents' learning about shared caring. Our methodology and results are potentially transferrable to shared management of other conditions. © 2013 Swallow et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Bioluminescence Imaging of Angiogenesis in a Murine Orthotopic Pancreatic Cancer Model

Angiogenesis is essential for physiological processes as well as for carcinogenesis. New approaches to cancer therapy include targeting angiogenesis. One target is VEGF-A and its receptor VEGFR2. In this study, we sought to investigate pancreatic cancer angiogenesis in a genetically modified VEGFR2-luc-KI mouse

UK Lung Cancer RCT Pilot Screening Trial: baseline findings from the screening arm provide evidence for the potential implementation of lung cancer screening.

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer screening using low-dose CT (LDCT) was shown to reduce lung cancer mortality by 20% in the National Lung Screening Trial. METHODS: The pilot UK Lung Cancer Screening (UKLS) is a randomised controlled trial of LDCT screening for lung cancer versus usual care. A population-based questionnaire was used to identify high-risk individuals. CT screen-detected nodules were managed by a pre-specified protocol. Cost effectiveness was modelled with reference to the National Lung Cancer Screening Trial mortality reduction. RESULTS: 247 354 individuals aged 50-75 years were approached; 30.7% expressed an interest, 8729 (11.5%) were eligible and 4055 were randomised, 2028 into the CT arm (1994 underwent a CT). Forty-two participants (2.1%) had confirmed lung cancer, 34 (1.7%) at baseline and 8 (0.4%) at the 12-month scan. 28/42 (66.7%) had stage I disease, 36/42 (85.7%) had stage I or II disease. 35/42 (83.3%) had surgical resection. 536 subjects had nodules greater than 50 mm(3) or 5 mm diameter and 41/536 were found to have lung cancer. One further cancer was detected by follow-up of nodules between 15 and 50 mm(3) at 12 months. The baseline estimate for the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of once-only CT screening, under the UKLS protocol, was £8466 per quality adjusted life year gained (CI £5542 to £12 569). CONCLUSIONS: The UKLS pilot trial demonstrated that it is possible to detect lung cancer at an early stage and deliver potentially curative treatment in over 80% of cases. Health economic analysis suggests that the intervention would be cost effective-this needs to be confirmed using data on observed lung cancer mortality reduction. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN 78513845

Can Machines Think? Interaction and Perspective Taking with Robots Investigated via fMRI

Krach S, Hegel F, Wrede B, Sagerer G, Binkofski F, Kircher T. Can Machines Think? Interaction and Perspective Taking with Robots Investigated via fMRI. PLoS ONE. 2008;3(7): e2597.Background When our PC goes on strike again we tend to curse it as if it were a human being. Why and under which circumstances do we attribute human-like properties to machines? Although humans increasingly interact directly with machines it remains unclear whether humans implicitly attribute intentions to them and, if so, whether such interactions resemble human-human interactions on a neural level. In social cognitive neuroscience the ability to attribute intentions and desires to others is being referred to as having a Theory of Mind (ToM). With the present study we investigated whether an increase of human-likeness of interaction partners modulates the participants' ToM associated cortical activity. Methodology/Principal Findings By means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (subjects n = 20) we investigated cortical activity modulation during highly interactive human-robot game. Increasing degrees of human-likeness for the game partner were introduced by means of a computer partner, a functional robot, an anthropomorphic robot and a human partner. The classical iterated prisoner's dilemma game was applied as experimental task which allowed for an implicit detection of ToM associated cortical activity. During the experiment participants always played against a random sequence unknowingly to them. Irrespective of the surmised interaction partners' responses participants indicated having experienced more fun and competition in the interaction with increasing human-like features of their partners. Parametric modulation of the functional imaging data revealed a highly significant linear increase of cortical activity in the medial frontal cortex as well as in the right temporo-parietal junction in correspondence with the increase of human-likeness of the interaction partner (computer<functional robot<anthropomorphic robot<human). Conclusions/Significance Both regions correlating with the degree of human-likeness, the medial frontal cortex and the right temporo-parietal junction, have been associated with Theory-of-Mind. The results demonstrate that the tendency to build a model of another's mind linearly increases with its perceived human-likeness. Moreover, the present data provides first evidence of a contribution of higher human cognitive functions such as ToM in direct interactions with artificial robots. Our results shed light on the long-lasting psychological and philosophical debate regarding human-machine interaction and the question of what makes humans being perceived as human

CD105 is a prognostic marker and valid endothelial target for microbubble platforms in cholangiocarcinoma

Purpose The current treatment outcomes in cholangiocarcinoma are poor with cure afforded only by surgical extirpation. The efficacy of targeting the tumoural endothelial marker CD105 in cholangiocarcinoma, as a basis for potential microbubble-based treatment, is unknown and was explored here. Methods Tissue expression of CD105 was quantified using immunohistochemistry in 54 perihilar cholangiocarcinoma samples from patients who underwent resection in a single centre over a ten-year period, and analysed against clinicopathological data. In vitro flow assays using microbubbles functionalised with CD105 antibody were conducted to ascertain specificity of binding to murine SVR endothelial cells. Finally, CD105-microbubbles were intravenously administered to 10 Balb/c nude mice bearing heterotopic subcutaneous human extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (TFK-1 and EGI-1) xenografts after which in vivo binding was assessed following contrast-enhanced destruction replenishment ultrasound application. Results Though not significantly associated with any examined clinicopathological variable, we found that higher CD105 expression was independently associated with poorer patient survival (median 12 vs 31 months; p = 0.002). In vitro studies revealed significant binding of CD105-microbubbles to SVR endothelial cells in comparison to isotype control (p = 0.01), as well as in vivo to TFK-1 (p = 0.02) and EGI-1 (p = 0.04) mouse xenograft vasculature. Conclusion Our results indicate that CD105 is a biomarker eminently suitable for cholangiocarcinoma targeting using functionalised microbubbles