The Bodily Expressive Action Stimulus Test (BEAST). Construction and Validation of a Stimulus Basis for Measuring Perception of Whole Body Expression of Emotions

Whole body expressions are among the main visual stimulus categories that are naturally associated with faces and the neuroscientific investigation of how body expressions are processed has entered the research agenda this last decade. Here we describe the stimulus set of whole body expressions termed bodily expressive action stimulus test (BEAST), and we provide validation data for use of these materials by the community of emotion researchers. The database was composed of 254 whole body expressions from 46 actors expressing 4 emotions (anger, fear, happiness, and sadness). In all pictures the face of the actor was blurred and participants were asked to categorize the emotions expressed in the stimuli in a four alternative-forced-choice task. The results show that all emotions are well recognized, with sadness being the easiest, followed by fear, whereas happiness was the most difficult. The BEAST appears a valuable addition to currently available tools for assessing recognition of affective signals. It can be used in explicit recognition tasks as well as in matching tasks and in implicit tasks, combined either with facial expressions, with affective prosody, or presented with affective pictures as context in healthy subjects as well as in clinical populations

The Facial Expressive Action Stimulus test:A test battery for the assessment of face memory, face and object perception, configuration processing, and facial expression recognition

There are many ways to assess face perception skills. In this study, we describe a novel task battery FEAST (Facial Expressive Action Stimulus Test) developed to test recognition of identity and expressions of human faces as well as stimulus control categories. The FEAST consists of a neutral and emotional face memory task, a face and shoe identity matching task, a face and house part-to-whole matching task, and a human and animal facial expression matching task. The identity and part-to-whole matching tasks contain both upright and inverted conditions. The results provide reference data of a healthy sample of controls in two age groups for future users of the FEAST

Virtual burglary:exploring the potential of virtual reality to study burglary in action

Objectives: This article explores the potential of virtual reality (VR) to study burglary by measuring user responses on the subjective, physiological, and behavioral levels. Furthermore, it examines the influence of individual dispositions, such as sensation seeking and self-control, on behavior during a virtual burglary event. Methods: Participants, male university undergraduates (N ¼ 77), could freely move around a virtual neighborhood wearing a VR headset and using a game controller and were instructed to burgle one of the houses in the neighborhood. Participant movement, items stolen from the house, and heart rate (HR) were recorded throughout the burglary event. Individual dispositions were measured before, and subjective user responses were measured after, the event. Additionally, we experimentally varied whether there was an alarm sounding and participants’ beliefs about the chance of getting caught (deterrence). Results: Participants reacted subjectively to the burglary event by reporting high levels of presence in the virtual environment (VE) and physiologically by showing increased HRs. In terms of behavior, high deterrence resulted in fewer items being stolen and a shorter burglary. Furthermore, sensation seekers stole more valuable items, while participants high in conscientiousness stole fewer items. Conclusions: The results suggest that VEs have substantial potential for studying criminal behavior

The Constructive Nature of Affective Vision: Seeing Fearful Scenes Activates Extrastriate Body Area

It is part of basic emotions like fear or anger that they prepare the brain to act adaptively. Hence scenes representing emotional events are normally associated with characteristic adaptive behavior. Normally, face and body representation areas in the brain are modulated by these emotions when presented in the face or body. Here, we provide neuroimaging evidence (using functional magnetic resonance imaging) that the extrastriate body area (EBA) is highly responsive when subjects observe isolated faces presented in emotional scenes. This response of EBA to threatening scenes in which no body is present gives rise to speculation about its function. We discuss the possibility that the brain reacts proactively to the emotional meaning of the scene

The influence of the diagnostic technique on the histopathological diagnosis in malignant mesothelioma

In the histopathology of malignant mesotheliomas three different types (epithelial, connective tissue and mixed type) are distinguished. Some authors believe all tumours to be of mixed type, but consider that due to inadequate sampling or small biopsies this may be missed frequently. In this study the relationship between the histopathological diagnosis and the amount of tissue examined was investigated. In a series of 124 cases of malignant pleural mesothelioma a high percentage of mixed type tumours was found (55%). In cases where the decisive diagnostic procedure had been an Abrams biopsy (the "small-specimen" technique) mixed-type histology was found in 36%. If thoracoscopy, thoracotomy or autopsy (the "large-specimen" techniques) had delivered a definite diagnosis, mixed-type histology was found in 63%. Apparently diagnosing the mixed-type variety depends on the amount of tumour tissue obtained. However, the assumption that all mesotheliomas are of mixed type cannot be confirmed

Pharmacological treatment of Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome

Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS) is a very rare antibody-mediated autoimmune disease of the neuromuscular junction. Therapy can be divided in symptomatic treatment and immunosuppressive treatment. Symptomatic treatment with amifampridine is the only therapy currently authorized for use in LEMS patients. In the Netherlands the first choice drug is amifampridine base in an extended release formulation instead of the currently authorized amifampridine phosphate. This formulation has lower costs and is possibly safer due to lower peak concentrations. Other therapy used in LEMS patients is prescribed off-label and is based on experience in patients with myasthenia gravis. In many cases pyridostigmine is added as symptomatic treatment. In almost half of patients immunosuppressive therapy is started, mostly corticosteroids with or without azathioprine. Intravenous immunoglobulins and plasma exchange are used as emergency treatment. Currently no randomized clinical trials with new therapies are ongoing or announced in patients with LEMS, although multiple new therapies for myasthenia gravis are being investigated. These future therapies can be differentiated in symptomatic and immunomodulating drugs. The immunomodulating drugs can be further differentiated in early stage drugs which target the B-cell, later stage drugs which target the circulating antibodies and targeted therapy which have a disease-specific target. Some early and later stage immunomodulating drugs show promising results in myasthenia gravis although high cost and uncertain long term safety may be limiting for incorporating these drugs in LEMS treatment guidelines. Clinical trials in LEMS patients are lacking due to the rarity of the disease and we suggest the following requirements for future trials of potential new treatments: Sufficient power by performing multicenter or n-of-1 trials when appropriate, a cross-over design to reduce the number of patients and using a LEMS-specific quantitative primary outcome measure like the 3TUG score

Outcomes of haploidentical stem cell transplantation for chronic lymphocytic leukemia: a retrospective study on behalf of the chronic malignancies working party of the EBMT

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HCT) may result in long-term disease control in high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Recently, haploidentical HCT is gaining interest because of better outcomes with post-transplantation cyclophosphamide (PTCY). We analyzed patients with CLL who received an allogeneic HCT with a haploidentical donor and whose data were available in the EBMT registry. In total 117 patients (74% males) were included; 38% received PTCY as GVHD prophylaxis. For the whole study cohort OS at 2 and 5 yrs was 48 and 38%, respectively. PFS at 2 and 5 yrs was 38 and 31%, respectively. Cumulative incidence (CI) of NRM in the whole group at 2 and 5 years were 40 and 44%, respectively. CI of relapse at 2 and 5 yrs were 22 and 26%, respectively. All outcomes were not statistically different in patients who received PTCY compared to other types of GVHD prophylaxis. In conclusion, results of haploidentical HCT in CLL seem almost identical to those with HLA-matched donors. Thereby, haploidentical HCT is an appropriate alternative in high risk CLL patients with a transplant indication but no available HLA-matched donor. Despite the use of PTCY, the CI of relapse seems not higher than observed after HLA-matched HCT