Food Catches the Eye but Not for Everyone: A BMI–Contingent Attentional Bias in Rapid Detection of Nutriments

An organism's survival depends crucially on its ability to detect and acquire nutriment. Attention circuits interact with cognitive and motivational systems to facilitate detection of salient sensory events in the environment. Here we show that the human attentional system is tuned to detect food targets among nonfood items. In two visual search experiments participants searched for discrepant food targets embedded in an array of nonfood distracters or vice versa. Detection times were faster when targets were food rather than nonfood items, and the detection advantage for food items showed a significant negative correlation with Body Mass Index (BMI). Also, eye tracking during searching within arrays of visually homogenous food and nonfood targets demonstrated that the BMI-contingent attentional bias was due to rapid capturing of the eyes by food items in individuals with low BMI. However, BMI was not associated with decision times after the discrepant food item was fixated. The results suggest that visual attention is biased towards foods, and that individual differences in energy consumption - as indexed by BMI - are associated with differential attentional effects related to foods. We speculate that such differences may constitute an important risk factor for gaining weight

Silencing Nuclear Pore Protein Tpr Elicits a Senescent-Like Phenotype in Cancer Cells

Background: Tpr is a large coiled-coil protein located in the nuclear basket of the nuclear pore complex for which many different functions were proposed from yeast to human. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we show that depletion of Tpr by RNA interference triggers G0–G1 arrest and ultimately induces a senescent-like phenotype dependent on the presence of p53. We also found that Tpr depletion impairs the NES [nuclear export sequence]-dependent nuclear export of proteins and causes partial co-depletion of Nup153. In addition Tpr depletion impacts on level and function of the SUMO-protease SENP2 thus affecting SUMOylation regulation at the nuclear pore and overall SUMOylation in the cell. Conclusions: Our data for the first time provide evidence that a nuclear pore component plays a role in controlling cellular senescence. Our findings also point to new roles for Tpr in the regulation of SUMO-1 conjugation at the nuclear pore and directly confirm Tpr involvement in the nuclear export of NES-proteins

Eye movements and their functions in everyday tasks

Human saccades and fixations have numerous functions in complex everyday tasks, which have sometimes been neglected in simple experimental situations. In this review I describe some of the characteristics of eye movement behaviour during real-world interactions with objects, while walking in natural environments and while holding a conversation. When performing real-world actions and walking around the world, we fixate relevant features at critical time points during the task. The eye movements between these fixations are planned and coordinated alongside head and body movements, often occurring a short time before the corresponding action. In social interactions, eye movements are both a mechanism for taking in information (for example, when looking at someone?s face or following their gaze) and for signalling one?s attention to another person. Thus eye movements are specific to a particular task context and subject to high-level planning and control during everyday actions

Visual attention and action: How cueing, direct mapping, and social interactions drive orienting

Despite considerable interest in both action perception and social attention over the last 2 decades, there has been surprisingly little investigation concerning how the manual actions of other humans orient visual attention. The present review draws together studies that have measured the orienting of attention, following observation of another’s goal-directed action. Our review proposes that, in line with the literature on eye gaze, action is a particularly strong orienting cue for the visual system. However, we additionally suggest that action may orient visual attention using mechanisms, which gaze direction does not (i.e., neural direct mapping and corepresentation). Finally, we review the implications of these gaze-independent mechanisms for the study of attention to action. We suggest that our understanding of attention to action may benefit from being studied in the context of joint action paradigms, where the role of higher level action goals and social factors can be investigated

Efeitos agudos de vários métodos de treinamento de força no lactato sanguíneo e características de cargas em homens treinados recreacionalmente Los efectos de variados métodos de entrenamiento de resistencia sobre el lactato sanguíneo y características medias en hombres entrenados de forma recreativa The acute effects of varied resistance training methods on blood lactate and loading characteristics in recreationally trained men

Diversos métodos de treinamento de força (MTF) foram desenvolvidos com o propósito de manipular os estímulos fisiológicos e obter melhores resultados com o treinamento. O propósito do presente estudo foi comparar as respostas metabólicas e mecânicas entre sete diferentes MTF descritos na literatura. Os MTF foram comparados com relação ao lactato sanguíneo, tempo sob tensão (TST) e sobrecarga total (TST x carga) em jovens treinados do sexo masculino. Os MTF testados foram 10RM, superlento, isométrico funcional, oclusão vascular adaptada, 6RM, repetições forçadas e séries descendentes. Todos os MTF produziram elevações significativas no lactato sanguíneo, sem diferenças entre eles. O método de séries descendentes produziu maior tempo sob tensão e sobrecarga total em comparação com os outros MTF testados.<br>Diversos métodos de entrenamiento de fuerza (RTM) fueron desarrollados con el propósito de manipular los estímulos fisiológicos y obtener mejores resultados con el entrenamiento. El propósito del presente estudio ha sido el de comparar las respuestas metabólicas y mecánicas entre siete diferentes RTM descritos en la literatura. Los RTM fueron comparados con respecto al lactato sanguíneo, tiempo bajo tensión (TUT) y sobrecarga total (TUT x carga) en jóvenes entrenados del sexo masculino. Los RTM evaluados fueron 10RM, superlento, pico de contracción, oclusión vascular adaptada, 6RM, repeticiones forzadas y series descendentes. Todos los RTM produjeron incrementos significativos en el lactato sanguíneo, sin diferencias entre ellos. El método de series descendente produjo mayor tiempo bajo tensión y sobrecarga total cuando comparado con los otros RTM evaluados.<br>Several resistance training methods (RTM) have been developed in order to manipulate physiological stimuli and obtain better results with training. The purpose of this study is to compare the metabolic and mechanical responses among seven different RTM reported in the literature. The RTM were compared with regard to blood lactate, time under tension (TUT) and total loading (TUT x load) in recreationally trained young men. The RTM tested were 10RM (TEN), superslow (SL), functional isometrics (FI), adapted vascular occlusion (VO), 6RM (SIX), forced repetitions (FR) and breakdowns (BD). All RTM produced significant increases in blood lactate, with no difference among them. The BD method elicited higher TUT and total loading compared to the other RTM tested