Individual differences in video game experience: Cognitive control, affective processing, and visuospatial processing

Independent groups of researchers have investigated video game effects on cognitive control (Mathews et al., 2005), affective processing (Kirsh & Mounts, 2007), and visuospatial processing (Green & Bavelier, 2003). However, no published research has studied all three domains in the same sample of gamers and non-gamers. In the current study nonviolent and violent gamers, and non-gamers performed two tasks tapping each of these three domains; the Stroop and N-back tasks for cognitive control, the picture rating and emotion search tasks for affective processing, and the enumeration and the visual short-term memory tasks for visuospatial processing. Consistent with past research (Bailey, West, & Anderson, 2009), there was a negative relationship between video game experience and proactive cognitive control that was more pronounced in the violent gamers than nonviolent gamers. There was a fundamental shift in the processing of violent and positive affective information in the violent gamers relative to the non-gamers and nonviolent gamers. The violent gamers appeared to have a greater span of apprehension and visual short-term memory capacity relative to non-gamers and nonviolent gamers, which is also consistent with past research. The findings of the current study emphasize the need to investigate the effects of different video game genres as they may not influence cognitive control, affective processing, and visuospatial processing in the same way

What would my avatar do? Video games and risky decision making

Several decades of research have established that video game experience is associated with differences in social information processing, visual-spatial processing, and cognitive control. Fewer studies have examined the relationship between video game experience and risky decision making outside of the gaming environment. The current set of studies examined the hypothesis that video game experience is associated with riskier decision making due to differential sensitivity to outcomes (i.e., reward, punishment). Study 1 was designed to explore the relationships between video game experience, risky decision making, and sensitivity to outcomes in a large sample of individuals. Study 2 was designed to investigate the association between individual differences in video game experience and the neural correlates of outcome sensitivity. Finally, Study 3 was designed to establish a causal relationship between immediate, brief experience with a video game and sensitivity to outcomes. The findings from the three studies indicate that video game experience is associated with differences in outcome sensitivity, but the relationship is complex and may depend on various factors, such as the genre of the video game and the presence of symptoms of pathological use. The data from the current set of studies should serve as a starting point for further research examining video games and risky decision making

What would my avatar do? Gaming, pathology, and risky decision making

Recent work has revealed a relationship between pathological video game use and increased impulsivity among children and adolescents. A few studies have also demonstrated increased risk-taking outside of the video game environment following game play, but this work has largely focused on one genre of video games (i.e., racing). Motivated by these findings, the aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between pathological and non-pathological video game use, impulsivity, and risky decision making. The current study also investigated the relationship between experience with two of the most popular genres of video games [i.e., first-person shooter (FPS) and strategy] and risky decision making. Consistent with previous work, ∼7% of the current sample of college-aged adults met criteria for pathological video game use. The number of hours spent gaming per week was associated with increased impulsivity on a self-report measure and on the temporal discounting (TD) task. This relationship was sensitive to the genre of video game; specifically, experience with FPS games was positively correlated with impulsivity, while experience with strategy games was negatively correlated with impulsivity. Hours per week and pathological symptoms predicted greater risk-taking in the risk task and the Iowa Gambling task, accompanied by worse overall performance, indicating that even when risky choices did not pay off, individuals who spent more time gaming and endorsed more symptoms of pathological gaming continued to make these choices. Based on these data, we suggest that the presence of pathological symptoms and the genre of video game (e.g., FPS, strategy) may be important factors in determining how the amount of game experience relates to impulsivity and risky-decision making

Spontaneous relapsing-remitting EAE in the SJL/J mouse: MOG-reactive transgenic T cells recruit endogenous MOG-specific B cells

We describe new T cell receptor (TCR) transgenic mice (relapsing-remitting [RR] mice) carrying a TCR specific for myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) peptide 92–106 in the context of I-As. Backcrossed to the SJL/J background, most RR mice spontaneously develop RR experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) with episodes often altering between different central nervous system tissues like the cerebellum, optic nerve, and spinal cord. Development of spontaneous EAE depends on the presence of an intact B cell compartment and on the expression of MOG autoantigen. There is no spontaneous EAE development in B cell–depleted mice or in transgenic mice lacking MOG. Transgenic T cells seem to expand MOG autoreactive B cells from the endogenous repertoire. The expanded autoreactive B cells produce autoantibodies binding to a conformational epitope on the native MOG protein while ignoring the T cell target peptide. The secreted autoantibodies are pathogenic, enhancing demyelinating EAE episodes. RR mice constitute the first spontaneous animal model for the most common form of multiple sclerosis (MS), RR MS

太平洋地域における大陸と島嶼の森林の種多様性

Alpha diversity, or species richness, of East Asian mainland evergreen broadleaved forests, expressed by indices of Fisher\u27s alpha (agr) and S(100), a new index showing species number in a 100-individual sample, is significantly correlated with the climatic favorableness, expressed by Kira\u27s warmth index. On the contrary, diversity values of insular forests studied on Kyushu satellites of Japan, the Bonins, the Eastern Carolines of Micronesia, and the Galapagos in the eastern Pacific, are below those expected from the climate of respective oceanic islands. Species-individual curves, comparing mainland-and insular communities, also support clearly the above conclusion of species poverty in the insular communities studied.The original publication is available at www.springerlink.co

Meta-analysis of Dense Genecentric Association Studies Reveals Common and Uncommon Variants Associated with Height

Height is a classic complex trait with common variants in a growing list of genes known to contribute to the phenotype. Using a genecentric genotyping array targeted toward cardiovascular-related loci, comprising 49,320 SNPs across approximately 2000 loci, we evaluated the association of common and uncommon SNPs with adult height in 114,223 individuals from 47 studies and six ethnicities. A total of 64 loci contained a SNP associated with height at array-wide significance (p < 2.4 × 10−6), with 42 loci surpassing the conventional genome-wide significance threshold (p < 5 × 10−8). Common variants with minor allele frequencies greater than 5% were observed to be associated with height in 37 previously reported loci. In individuals of European ancestry, uncommon SNPs in IL11 and SMAD3, which would not be genotyped with the use of standard genome-wide genotyping arrays, were strongly associated with height (p < 3 × 10−11). Conditional analysis within associated regions revealed five additional variants associated with height independent of lead SNPs within the locus, suggesting allelic heterogeneity. Although underpowered to replicate findings from individuals of European ancestry, the direction of effect of associated variants was largely consistent in African American, South Asian, and Hispanic populations. Overall, we show that dense coverage of genes for uncommon SNPs, coupled with large-scale meta-analysis, can successfully identify additional variants associated with a common complex trait

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals &lt;1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data