Emotion Perception in Members of Norwegian Mensa

Are people with superior intelligence also superior in interpreting the emotions of others? Some studies find that an underlying g-factor links all mental processes leading to an expectation of a positive answer to the question, while other studies find that there is a cost to giftedness. No previous study have tested social cognition among highly gifted, or the Mensa society specifically. The study measures emotion recognition in 63 members of the Norwegian Mensa and 101 community controls. The Mensa group had a higher total score on the EmoBio test and was specifically better at differentiating the anger emotion, otherwise hypothesized to be mediated by subcortical processes. There was no difference in heterogeneity between the groups, contrary to the expectation of an autistic subgroup in Mensa. The study indicate that the positive manifold extends also to social cognition, and runs counter to the concept of a cost to giftedness

Improving validity of the trail making test with alphabet support

The Trail Making Test (TMT) is commonly used worldwide to evaluate cognitive decline and car driving ability. However, it has received critique for its dependence on the Latin alphabet and thus, the risk of misclassifying some participants. Alphabet support potentially increases test validity by avoiding misclassification of executive dysfunction in participants with dyslexia and those with insufficient automatization of the Latin alphabet. However, Alphabet support might render the test less sensitive to set-shifting, thus compromising the validity of the test. This study compares two versions of the TMT: with and without alphabet support. Methods: We compared the TMT-A, TMT-B, and TMT-B:A ratios in two independent normative samples with (n = 220) and without (n = 64) alphabet support using multiple regression analysis adjusted for age and education. The sample comprised Scandinavians aged 70–84 years. Alphabet support was included by adding the Latin alphabet A–L on top of the page on the TMT-B. We hypothesized that alphabet support would not change the TMT-B:A ratio. Results: After adjusting for age and years of education, there were no significant differences between the two samples in the TMT-A, TMT-B, or the ratio score (TMT-B:A). Conclusion: Our results suggest that the inclusion of alphabet support does not alter TMT’s ability to measure set-shifting in a sample of older Scandinavian adults

Objectively Assessed Daily Steps—Not Light Intensity Physical Activity, Moderate-to-Vigorous Physical Activity and Sedentary Time—Is Associated With Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Patients With Schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia often have an unhealthy sedentary lifestyle with low level of physical activity and poor cardiorespiratory fitness—an important predictor of cardiovascular disease. We investigated the relations between cardiorespiratory fitness and both sedentary time and different aspects of physical activity, such as daily steps, light intensity physical activity, and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Using accelerometer as an objective measure of sedentary time and physical activity we estimated their relations to cardiorespiratory fitness in 62 patients with schizophrenia with roughly equal gender distribution, mean age of 36 and 15 years illness duration. We found a significant association between daily steps and cardiorespiratory fitness when accounting for gender, age, sedentary time, light intensity physical activity, and respiratory exchange ratio (maximal effort). Moderate-to-vigorous physical activity was not significantly associated with cardiorespiratory fitness. In conclusion, the amount of steps throughout the day contributes to cardiorespiratory fitness in people with schizophrenia, independently of light intensity physical activity and sedentary time. We did not find a significant relationship between moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and cardiorespiratory fitness. This may have implications for the choice of strategies when helping patients with schizophrenia improve their cardiorespiratory fitness

Alterations in inflammatory markers after a 12-week exercise program in individuals with schizophrenia—a randomized controlled trial

Background: In individuals with schizophrenia, inflammation is associated with depression, somatic comorbidity and reduced quality of life. Physical exercise is known to reduce inflammation in other populations, but we have only limited knowledge in the field of schizophrenia. We assessed inflammatory markers in plasma samples from individuals with schizophrenia participating in an exercise intervention randomized controlled trial. We hypothesized that (i) physical exercise would reduce levels of inflammatory markers and (ii) elevated inflammatory status at baseline would be associated with improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) following intervention. Method: Eighty-two individuals with schizophrenia were randomized to a 12-week intervention of either high-intensity interval training (HIIT, n = 43) or active video gaming (AVG, n = 39). Participants were assessed at baseline, post intervention and four months later. The associations between exercise and the inflammatory markers soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor, c-reactive protein, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), soluble TNF receptor 1 and interleukin 6 (IL-6) were estimated using linear mixed effect models for repeated measures. For estimating associations between baseline inflammation and change in CRF, we used linear regression models. Results: Our main findings were (i) TNF and IL-6 increased during the intervention period for both groups. Other inflammatory markers did not change during the exercise intervention period; (ii) baseline inflammatory status did not influence change in CRF during intervention, except for a positive association between baseline IL-6 levels and improvements of CRF to post intervention for both groups. Conclusion: In our study, HIIT and AVG for 12-weeks had no reducing effect on inflammatory markers. Patients with high baseline IL-6 levels had a positive change in CRF during intervention. In order to increase our knowledge regarding association between inflammatory markers and exercise in individuals with schizophrenia, larger studies with more frequent and longer exercise bout duration are warranted

Exploring low grade inflammation by soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor levels in schizophrenia: a sex-dependent association with depressive symptoms

Background - There is evidence of increased low grade inflammation (LGI) in schizophrenia patients. However, the inter-individual variation is large and the association with demographic, somatic and psychiatric factors remains unclear. Our aim was to explore whether levels of the novel LGI marker soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) were associated with clinical factors in schizophrenia and if such associations were sex-dependent. Method - In this observational study a total of 187 participants with schizophrenia (108 males, 79 females) underwent physical examination and assessment with clinical interviews (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), Calgary Depression Scale for Schizophrenia (CDSS), Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT), and Drug Use Disorder Identification Test (DUDIT)). Blood levels of suPAR, glucose, lipids, and high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) were determined and body mass index (BMI) calculated. Multivariable linear regression analyses were used adjusting for confounders, and sex interaction tested in significant variables. Results - Adjusting for sex, age, current tobacco smoking and BMI, we found that levels of hsCRP and depressive symptoms (CDSS) were positively associated with levels of suPAR (p  Conclusion - Our findings indicate that increased suPAR levels are associated with depressive symptoms in females with schizophrenia, suggesting aberrant immune activation in this subgroup. Our results warrant further studies, including longitudinal follow-up of suPAR levels in schizophrenia and experimental studies of mechanisms

Central nervous system pathology in preclinical MPS IIIB dogs reveals progressive changes in clinically relevant brain regions

Mucopolysaccharidosis type IIIB (MPS IIIB; Sanfilippo syndrome B) is an autosomal recessive lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficiency of alpha-N-acetylglucosaminidase activity, leading to increased levels of nondegraded heparan sulfate (HS). A mouse model has been useful to evaluate novel treatments for MPS IIIB, but has limitations. In this study, we evaluated the naturally occurring canine model of MPS IIIB for the onset and progression of biochemical and neuropathological changes during the preclinical stages (onset approximately 24-30 months of age) of canine MPS IIIB disease. Even by 1 month of age, MPS IIIB dogs had elevated HS levels in brain and cerebrospinal fluid. Analysis of histopathology of several disease-relevant regions of the forebrain demonstrated progressive lysosomal storage and microglial activation despite a lack of cerebrocortical atrophy in the oldest animals studied. More pronounced histopathology changes were detected in the cerebellum, where progressive lysosomal storage, astrocytosis and microglial activation were observed. Microglial activation was particularly prominent in cerebellar white matter and within the deep cerebellar nuclei, where neuron loss also occurred. The findings in this study will form the basis of future assessments of therapeutic efficacy in this large animal disease model

Self-productivity and complementarities in human development : evidence from MARS

This paper investigates the role of self-productivity and home resources in capability formation from infancy to adolescence. In addition, we study the complementarities between basic cognitive, motor and noncognitive abilities and social as well as academic achievement. Our data are taken from the Mannheim Study of Children at Risk (MARS), an epidemiological cohort study following the long-term outcome of early risk factors. Results indicate that initial risk conditions cumulate and that differences in basic abilities increase during development. Self-productivity rises in the developmental process and complementarities are evident. Noncognitive abilities promote cognitive abilities and social achievement. There is remarkable stability in the distribution of the economic and socio-emotional home resources during the early life cycle. This is presumably a major reason for the evolution of inequality in human development

Reinforcement Learning Routing Algorithm for Bluetooth Mesh Networks

Today’s office and home environments are moving towards more connected dig- ital infrastructures, meaning there are multiple heterogeneous devices that uses short-range communication to stay connected. Mobile phones, tablets, lap- tops, sensors, printers are examples of devices in such environments. From this, the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm arises, and to enable it, energy efficient machine-to-machine (M2M) communications are needed. Our study will use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology for communication between devices, and it demonstrates the impact of routing algorithms in such networks. With the goal to increase the network lifetime, a distributed and dynamic Reinforce- ment Learning (RL) routing algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is based on a RL technique called Q-learning. Performance analysis is performed in different scenarios comparing the proposed algorithm against two static and centralized reference routing algorithms. The results show that our proposed RL routing algorithm performs better as the node degree of the topology increases. Com- pared to the reference algorithms the proposed algorithm can handle a higher load on the network with significant performance improvement, due to the dy- namic change of routes. The increase in network lifetime with 75 devices is 124% and 100 devices is 349%, because of the ability to change routes as time passes which is emphasized when the node degree increases. For 35, 55 and 75 devices the average node degrees are 2.21, 2.39 and 2.54. On a lower number of devices our RL routing algorithm performs nearly as good as the best refer- ence algorithm, the Energy Aware Routing (EAR) algorithm, with a decrease in network lifetime around 19% on 35 devices and 10% on 55 devices. A decrease in the network lifetime on lower number of devices is because of the cost for learning new paths is higher than the gain from exploring multiple paths.Dagens kontors- och hemmiljöer rör sig mot mer sammankopplad digital in-frastruktur, vilket innebär att det finns många heterogena enheter som behöver kommunicera med varandra på korta avstånd. Mobiltelefoner, tablets, bärbara datorer, sensorer, skrivare är exempel på enheter i sådana miljöer. Utifrån detta uppkommer IoT, och för att möjliggöra det, behövs energieffektiva M2M kom-munikationslösningar. Vår studie kommer att anvanda BLE teknik för kommu-nikation mellan enheter, och den kommer att demonstrera effekterna av routing algoritmer i sådana nätverk. Med målet att öka livstiden för nätverket föreslås en distribuerad och dynamisk RL routing algoritm baserad på Q-learning. En jämförelse mellan den föreslagna algoritmen och de två statiska och centraliser-ade referensalgoritmerna görs i olika simulerings scenarier. Resultaten visar att vår föreslagna RL routing algoritm fungerar bättre när nod graden i topologin ökar. Jämfört med referensalgoritmerna kan den föreslagna algoritmen hantera en högre belastning på nätverket med betydande prestandaförbättring, tack vare den dynamiska förändringen av rutter som leder till en bättre belastningsbal-ans. Ökningen i nätverkslivstiden med 75 enheter är 124% och med 100 enheter är ökningen 349%, på grund av förmågan att byta rutter vilket syns tydligare när nodgraden ökar. För 35, 55 och 75 enheter är nodgraderna 2.21, 2.39 och 2.54. Vid ett lägre antal enheter presterar vår RL routing algoritm nästan lika bra som den bästa referensalgoritmen, EAR, med en minskning av nätverks livstiden på runt 19% med 35 enheter och 10% med 55 enheter. En minskning av nätverks livstiden på lägre antal enheter beror på att kostnaden för att lära sig nya vägar är högre än vinsten från att utforska flera vägar