Multisensory control of ingestive movements and the myth of food addiction in obesity. Comment on Nazim Keven and Kathleen Akins, Neonatal imitation in context: sensory-motor development in the perinatal period

Some individuals have a neurogenetic vulnerability to developing strong facilitation of ingestive movements by learned configurations of biosocial stimuli. Condemning food as addictive is mere polemic, ignoring the contextualised sensory control of the mastication of each mouthful. To beat obesity, the least fattening of widely recognised eating patterns need to be measured and supported

Temporal binding and the perception/cognition boundary

Temporal binding occurs when people observe two events that they believe to be causally connected: They underestimate the length of the interval between those two events, when compared with their estimates of the length of intervals between events they believe to be causally unrelated. I discuss temporal binding in the context of Dennett and Kinsbourne’s (1992) influential argument levelled at what they call ‘Cartesian Materialism’. In particular, I argue that Dennett and Kinsbourne’s argument trades on a representational conception of perceptual experience, which blurs the boundary between perception and judgement, and that temporal binding can serve as a case study for developing an alternative, relational, conception of perceptual experience and of its relation to judgement. Based on research on the mechanisms underlying temporal binding, I provide an explanation of the phenomenon in which perception and judgement play clearly distinct roles

On piranhas, narcissism and mental representation: An essay on intentionality and naturalism.

This dissertation is motivated by the following question: Is the portrayal of mind/brain processes as representations--as entities that in some sense reflect, correspond with, or symbolize the world--particularily apt? Through detailed examples from the neuroscientific literature, with an emphasis on sensory processing, I argue that this way of viewing brain functioning is typically misleading. It depicts neural functioning as a bipartite process: first the production of a set of neural "calibrational" states with properties in the world, and then their interpretation by "higher" functions. On the contrary, even at the transducer level, sensory organs cannot be characterized as relay mechanisms for the brute facts. The form and content of all information gleaned about the external world conforms to the particular needs, hence neural functions, of the organism. Evolution, it seems, is not concerned with "the truth", but only with that which proves necessary or expedient. Relaxing the grip of the representational metaphor, I argue, affords us the means to reconstrue or even dissolve some st and ard philosophical questions about content and intentionality. The questions that plague causal or information theories of content less become daunting: e.g. "What are the raw data, the given, of our thoughts?" "How and where does a percept become a belief, an intentional entity?" and "How is misrepresentation possible?" Further, the central question of intentionality, of how a mental state could be about an external event, can be broken into several more tractable questions, some of which require "naturalistic", reductive explanations, some of which do not.Ph.D.PhilosophyUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162161/1/8920491.pd

Cognition and the brain: The philosophy and neuroscience movement

This volume provides an up to date and comprehensive overview of the philosophy and neuroscience movement, which applies the methods of neuroscience to traditional philosophical problems and uses philosophical methods to illuminate issues in neuroscience. At the heart of the movement is the conviction that basic questions about human cognition, many of which have been studied for millennia, can be answered only by a philosophically sophisticated grasp of neuroscience’s insights into the processing of information by the human brain. Essays in this volume are clustered around five major themes: data and theory in neuroscience; neural representation and computation; visuomotor transformations; color vision; and consciousness

Utilization Patterns of Conventional and Complementary/Alternative Treatments in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Developmental Disabilities in a Population-Based Study

ObjectiveTo compare the utilization of conventional treatments and utilization of complementary and alternative medicine in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other developmental disabilities (DD).MethodsParticipants were 578 children who were part of an ongoing population-based, case-control study of 2- to 5-year olds with ASD, DD, and the general population. Parents completed an interview on past and current services.ResultsFour hundred fifty-three children with ASD and 125 DD children were included. ASD families received more hours of conventional services compared with DD families (17.8 vs 11; p < .001). The use of psychotropic medications was low in both groups (approximately 3%). Overall, complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use was not significantly different in ASD (39%) versus DD (30%). Hispanic families in both groups used CAM less often than non-Hispanic families. Variables such as level of function, immunization status, and the presence of an identified neurogenetic disorder were not predictive of CAM use. A higher level of parental education was associated with an increased CAM use in ASD and DD. Families who used >20 hours per week of conventional services were more likely to use CAM, including potentially unsafe or disproven CAM. Underimmunized children were marginally more likely to use CAM but not more likely to have received potentially unsafe or disproven CAM.ConclusionUse of CAM is common in families of young children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and it is predicted by higher parental education and non-Hispanic ethnicity but not developmental characteristics. Further research should address how health care providers can support families in making decisions about CAM use

Nurses’ Attitudes Toward Caring for Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Hospitalized to Inpatient Medical Settings: A Systematic Review

Objective. The purpose of this systematic review was to elucidate current evidence regarding nurses’ attitudes about providing care to adults with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) who are hospitalized in medical settings. Background. Individuals who have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or IDD are hospitalized 6 times more often than the general population, 1.44 times more likely to die in the hospital than are those in the general population and face higher hospital costs. Furthermore, the number of individuals having IDD is increasing in the United States. Studies revealed that nurses report more negative emotions about providing care to individuals with IDD. Methods. A seven-person team consisting of faculty and doctoral students conducted extensive literature search strategies to locate and appraise relevant literature reporting original data studies. The data were appraised using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Results. Eight articles published up to November 2019 were included. Improved training, consistent patient information, and improved communication is needed. Conclusion. This systematic review illuminates the critical gaps in the scientific body of knowledge regarding effective interventions to address the persistent disparity in attitudes of registered nurses regarding caring for patients with IDD. Research data to inform the implementation of interventions to improve the attitude and emotions toward adults with IDD among nurses employed in acute care facilities is lacking. This dearth hinders the delivery of effective healthcare which results in an impaired nurse-patient relationship and increased costs. Grants. This study was not grant funded

RNA Sequencing of Contaminated Seeds Reveals the State of the Seed Permissive for Pre-Harvest Aflatoxin Contamination and Points to a Potential Susceptibility Factor

Pre-harvest aflatoxin contamination (PAC) is a major problem facing peanut production worldwide. Produced by the ubiquitous soil fungus, Aspergillus flavus, aflatoxin is the most naturally occurring known carcinogen. The interaction between fungus and host resulting in PAC is complex, and breeding for PAC resistance has been slow. It has been shown that aflatoxin production can be induced by applying drought stress as peanut seeds mature. We have implemented an automated rainout shelter that controls temperature and moisture in the root and peg zone to induce aflatoxin production. Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), seeds meeting the following conditions were selected: infected with Aspergillus flavus and contaminated with aflatoxin; and not contaminated with aflatoxin. RNA sequencing analysis revealed groups of genes that describe the transcriptional state of contaminated vs. uncontaminated seed. These data suggest that fatty acid biosynthesis and abscisic acid (ABA) signaling are altered in contaminated seeds and point to a potential susceptibility factor, ABR1, as a repressor of ABA signaling that may play a role in permitting PAC