Theories of Willpower Affect Sustained Learning

Building cognitive abilities often requires sustained engagement with effortful tasks. We demonstrate that beliefs about willpower–whether willpower is viewed as a limited or non-limited resource–impact sustained learning on a strenuous mental task. As predicted, beliefs about willpower did not affect accuracy or improvement during the initial phases of learning; however, participants who were led to view willpower as non-limited showed greater sustained learning over the full duration of the task. These findings highlight the interactive nature of motivational and cognitive processes: motivational factors can substantially affect people’s ability to recruit their cognitive resources to sustain learning over time

Routes for breaching and protecting genetic privacy

We are entering the era of ubiquitous genetic information for research, clinical care, and personal curiosity. Sharing these datasets is vital for rapid progress in understanding the genetic basis of human diseases. However, one growing concern is the ability to protect the genetic privacy of the data originators. Here, we technically map threats to genetic privacy and discuss potential mitigation strategies for privacy-preserving dissemination of genetic data.Comment: Draft for comment

UK adults' implicit and explicit attitudes towards obesity: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Anti-fat attitudes may lead to stigmatisation of and lowered self-esteem in obese people. Examining anti-fat attitudes is warranted given that there is an association with anti-fat behaviours. Previous studies, mainly outside the UK, have demonstrated that anti-fat attitudes are increasing over time. Methods: The study was cross-sectional with a sample of 2380 participants (74.2 % female; aged 18–65 years). In an online survey participants reported demographic characteristics and completed a range of implicit and explicit measures of obesity related attitudes. Results: Perceptions of obesity were more negative than reported in previously. Main effects indicated more negative perceptions in males, younger respondents and more frequent exercisers. Attitudes about obesity differed in relation to weight category, and in general were more positive in obese than non-obese respondents. Conclusions: This is the first study to demonstrate anti-fat attitudes across different sections of the UK population. As such, this study provides the first indication of the prevalence of anti-fat attitudes in UK adults. Interventions to modify these attitudes could target specific groups of individuals with more negative perceptions as identified here. Future work would be useful that increases understanding of both implicit and explicit attitudes towards obesity

ADEPT - Abnormal Doppler Enteral Prescription Trial

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pregnancies complicated by abnormal umbilical artery Doppler blood flow patterns often result in the baby being born both preterm and growth-restricted. These babies are at high risk of milk intolerance and necrotising enterocolitis, as well as post-natal growth failure, and there is no clinical consensus about how best to feed them. Policies of both early milk feeding and late milk feeding are widely used. This randomised controlled trial aims to determine whether a policy of early initiation of milk feeds is beneficial compared with late initiation. Optimising neonatal feeding for this group of babies may have long-term health implications and if either of these policies is shown to be beneficial it can be immediately adopted into clinical practice.</p> <p>Methods and Design</p> <p>Babies with gestational age below 35 weeks, and with birth weight below 10th centile for gestational age, will be randomly allocated to an "early" or "late" enteral feeding regimen, commencing milk feeds on day 2 and day 6 after birth, respectively. Feeds will be gradually increased over 9-13 days (depending on gestational age) using a schedule derived from those used in hospitals in the Eastern and South Western Regions of England, based on surveys of feeding practice. Primary outcome measures are time to establish full enteral feeding and necrotising enterocolitis; secondary outcomes include sepsis and growth. The target sample size is 400 babies. This sample size is large enough to detect a clinically meaningful difference of 3 days in time to establish full enteral feeds between the two feeding policies, with 90% power and a 5% 2-sided significance level. Initial recruitment period was 24 months, subsequently extended to 38 months.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>There is limited evidence from randomised controlled trials on which to base decisions regarding feeding policy in high risk preterm infants. This multicentre trial will help to guide clinical practice and may also provide pointers for future research.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN: 87351483</p

Reproductive health issues in rural Western Kenya

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>We describe reproductive health issues among pregnant women in a rural area of Kenya with a high coverage of insecticide treated nets (ITNs) and high prevalence of HIV (15%).</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a community-based cross-sectional survey among rural pregnant women in western Kenya. A medical, obstetric and reproductive history was obtained. Blood was obtained for a malaria smear and haemoglobin level, and stool was examined for geohelminths. Height and weight were measured.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 673 participants, 87% were multigravidae and 50% were in their third trimester; 41% had started antenatal clinic visits at the time of interview and 69% reported ITN-use. Malaria parasitemia and anaemia (haemoglobin < 11 g/dl) were detected among 36% and 53% of the women, respectively. Geohelminth infections were detected among 76% of the 390 women who gave a stool sample. Twenty percent of women were underweight, and sixteen percent reported symptoms of herpes zoster or oral thrush in the last two months. Nineteen percent of all women reported using a contraceptive method to delay or prevent pregnancy before the current pregnancy (injection 10%, pill 8%, condom 0.4%). Twenty-three percent of multigravidae conceived their current pregnancy within a year of the previous pregnancy. More than half of the multigravidae (55%) had ever lost a live born child and 21% had lost their last singleton live born child at the time of interview.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In this rural area with a high HIV prevalence, the reported use of condoms before pregnancy was extremely low. Pregnancy health was not optimal with a high prevalence of malaria, geohelminth infections, anaemia and underweight. Chances of losing a child after birth were high. Multiple interventions are needed to improve reproductive health in this area.</p

Lipid analogs reveal features critical for hemolysis and diminish granadaene mediated Group B Streptococcus infection

Although certain microbial lipids are toxins, the structural features important for cytotoxicity remain unknown. Increased functional understanding is essential for developing therapeutics against toxic microbial lipids. Group B Streptococci (GBS) are bacteria associated with preterm births, stillbirths, and severe infections in neonates and adults. GBS produce a pigmented, cytotoxic lipid, known as granadaene. Despite its importance to all manifestations of GBS disease, studies towards understanding granadaene’s toxic activity are hindered by its instability and insolubility in purified form. Here, we report the synthesis and screening of lipid derivatives inspired by granadaene, which reveal features central to toxin function, namely the polyene chain length. Furthermore, we show that vaccination with a non-toxic synthetic analog confers the production of antibodies that inhibit granadaene-mediated hemolysis ex vivo and diminish GBS infection in vivo. This work provides unique structural and functional insight into granadaene and a strategy to mitigate GBS infection, which will be relevant to other toxic lipids encoded by human pathogens.This work was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health Grants R01AI112619, R01AI133976, R01AI100989, and R21AI125907 and seed funds from Seattle Childrens Research Institute to L.

Inter-examiner reliability of the diagnosis of cervical pillar hyperplasia (CPH) and the correlation between CPH and spinal degenerative joint disease (DJD)

BACKGROUND: Cervical pillar hyperplasia (CPH) is a recently described phenomenon of unknown aetiology. Its clinical importance is poorly understood at the present time; therefore, the objective of this study was to determine (1) the inter-examiner reliability of detecting CPH and (2) if there is a clinically important correlation (r > 0.4) between the number of cervical spine levels showing signs of degenerative joint disease (DJD) and CPH. METHODS: The sample consisted of 320 radiographs of human male and female subjects who ranged from 40 to 79 years of age. The inter-examiner reliability of assessing the presence/absence of pillar hyperplasia was evaluated on 50 neutral lateral radiographs by two examiners using line drawings and it was quantified using the kappa coefficient of concordance. To determine the presence/absence of hyperplastic pillars as well as the presence/absence of DJD at each intervertebral disc and zygapophysial joint, 320 AP open mouth, AP lower cervical and neutral lateral radiographs were then examined. The unpaired t-test at the 5% level of significance was performed to test for a statistically significant difference between the number of levels affected by DJD in patients with and without hyperplasia. The Spearman's rho at the 5% level of significance was performed to quantify the correlation between DJD and age. RESULTS: The inter-examiner reliability of detecting cervical pillar hyperplasia was moderate with a kappa coefficient of 0.51. The unpaired t-test indicated that there was no statistically significant difference (p > 0.05) between the presence/absence of cervical pillar hyperplasia and the number of levels affected by DJD in an age-matched population, regardless of whether all elements were considered together, or the discs and facets were analyzed separately. A Spearman correlation rank of 0.67 (p < 0.05) suggested a moderately strong correlation between the number of elements (i.e. discs/facets) affected, and the age of the individual. CONCLUSION: Cervical pillar hyperplasia is a reasonable concept that requires further research. Its evaluation is easy to learn and acceptably reliable. Previous research has suggested that CPH may affect the cervical lordosis, and therefore, alter biomechanics which may result in premature DJD. This current study, however, indicates that, globally, CPH does not appear to be related to the development of DJD

Epstein-Barr Virus-Induced Gene 3 (EBI3): A Novel Diagnosis Marker in Burkitt Lymphoma and Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma

The distinction between Burkitt lymphoma (BL) and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), two types of mature aggressive B-cell lymphomas that require distinct treatments, can be difficult because of forms showing features intermediate between DLBCL and BL (here called BL/DLBCL). They can be discriminated by the presence of c-myc translocations characteristic of BL. However, these are not exclusive of BL and when present in DLBCL are associated with lower survival. In this study, we show that Epstein-Barr virus-induced gene 3 (EBI3) is differentially expressed among BL and DLBCL. Analysis of gene expression data from 502 cases of aggressive mature B-cell lymphomas available on Gene Expression Omnibus and immunohistochemical analysis of 184 cases of BL, BL/DLBCL or DLBCL, showed that EBI3 was not expressed in EBV-positive or -negative BL cases, whereas it was expressed by over 30% of tumoral cells in nearly 80% of DLBCL cases, independently of their subtypes. In addition, we show that c-myc overexpression represses EBI3 expression, and that DLBCL or BL/DLBCL cases with c-myc translocations have lower expression of EBI3. Thus, EBI3 immunohistochemistry could be useful to discriminate BL from DLBCL, and to identify cases of BL/DLBCL or DLBCL with potential c-myc translocations

Led into Temptation? Rewarding Brand Logos Bias the Neural Encoding of Incidental Economic Decisions

Human decision-making is driven by subjective values assigned to alternative choice options. These valuations are based on reward cues. It is unknown, however, whether complex reward cues, such as brand logos, may bias the neural encoding of subjective value in unrelated decisions. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we subliminally presented brand logos preceding intertemporal choices. We demonstrated that priming biased participants' preferences towards more immediate rewards in the subsequent temporal discounting task. This was associated with modulations of the neural encoding of subjective values of choice options in a network of brain regions, including but not restricted to medial prefrontal cortex. Our findings demonstrate the general susceptibility of the human decision making system to apparently incidental contextual information. We conclude that the brain incorporates seemingly unrelated value information that modifies decision making outside the decision-maker's awareness