Common-onset visual masking in infancy: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence

Common-onset visual masking (COVM) occurs when a mask and a target have common onset but delayed offset, with the mask persisting beyond the duration of the target [Di Lollo, V., Enns, J. T., & Rensink, R. A. Competition for consciousness among visual events: The psychophysics of reentrant visual events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 129, 481–507, 2000]. We report the first behavioral and electrophysiological evidence of COVM in infants. An initial behavioral study included a familiarization phase during which a visual pattern (the target) surrounded by four black dots (the mask) was flashed 15 times to the infant. In the “unmasked” condition, the mask disappeared with the target. In the “masked” condition, the mask remained on the screen after deletion of the target for a further 93 msec. During the test phase, the familiar target pattern was paired with a new pattern. Infants in the unmasked condition showed a significant familiarity preference, suggesting that they had encoded the target during familiarization, whereas those in the masked condition showed no preference, suggesting that they had not encoded the target during familiarization. In the second experiment, high-density event-related potentials were used to investigate the electrophysiological pattern of activity that accompanies COVM. Six-month-old infants viewed both masked and unmasked conditions. Electrophysiological data indicated that over posterior channels the masked condition elicited a larger amplitude positive wave around 300 msec after stimulus onset than trials in the unmasked condition

Views of parents, adults born preterm and professionals on linkage of real-world data of preterm babies

Objective To explore views of parents of preterm babies, adults born preterm and professionals, on the linkage of real-world health and education data for research on improving future outcomes of babies born preterm. Design Three-stage mixed-methods participatory design involving focus groups, a national survey and interviews. Survey participants who expressed uncertainty or negative views were sampled purposively for invitation to interview. Mixed methods were used for data analysis. Setting and participants All data collection was online. Participants were: focus groups—17 parents; survey—499 parents, 44 adults born preterm (total 543); interviews—6 parents, 1 adult born preterm, 3 clinicians, 2 teachers. Results Three key themes were identified: (1) Data linkage and opt-out consent make sense for improving future outcomes. We found clear demand for better information on long-term outcomes and strong support for data linkage with opt-out consent as a means of achieving this. (2) Information requirements—what, how and when. There was support for providing information in different formats and discussing linkage near to, or following discharge from, the neonatal unit, but not sooner. (3) Looking to the future; the rights of young people. We identified a desire for individuals born preterm to be consulted in the future on the use of their data. Conclusion With appropriate information provision, at the right time, parents, adults born preterm and professionals are supportive of data linkage for research, including where temporary identifiers and opt-out consent are used. Resources are being co-produced to improve communication about routine data linkage

A neural signature of the unique hues

Since at least the 17th century there has been the idea that there are four simple and perceptually pure “unique” hues: red, yellow, green, and blue, and that all other hues are perceived as mixtures of these four hues. However, sustained scientific investigation has not yet provided solid evidence for a neural representation that separates the unique hues from other colors. We measured event-related potentials elicited from unique hues and the ‘intermediate’ hues in between them. We find a neural signature of the unique hues 230 ms after stimulus onset at a post-perceptual stage of visual processing. Specifically, the posterior P2 component over the parieto-occipital lobe peaked significantly earlier for the unique than for the intermediate hues (Z = -2.9, p = .004). Having identified a neural marker for unique hues, fundamental questions about the contribution of neural hardwiring, language and environment to the unique hues can now be addressed

Automated office blood pressure measurements in primary care are misleading in more than one third of treated hypertensives: The VALENTINE-Greece Home Blood Pressure Monitoring study

Abstract Background This study assessed the diagnostic reliability of automated office blood pressure (OBP) measurements in treated hypertensive patients in primary care by evaluating the prevalence of white coat hypertension (WCH) and masked uncontrolled hypertension (MUCH) phenomena. Methods Primary care physicians, nationwide in Greece, assessed consecutive hypertensive patients on stable treatment using OBP (1 visit, triplicate measurements) and home blood pressure (HBP) measurements (7 days, duplicate morning and evening measurements). All measurements were performed using validated automated devices with bluetooth capacity (Omron M7 Intelli-IT). Uncontrolled OBP was defined as ≥140/90 mmHg, and uncontrolled HBP was defined as ≥135/85 mmHg. Results A total of 790 patients recruited by 135 doctors were analyzed (age: 64.5 ± 14.4 years, diabetics: 21.4%, smokers: 20.6%, and average number of antihypertensive drugs: 1.6 ± 0.8). OBP (137.5 ± 9.4/84.3 ± 7.7 mmHg, systolic/diastolic) was higher than HBP (130.6 ± 11.2/79.9 ± 8 mmHg; difference 6.9 ± 11.6/4.4 ± 7.6 mmHg, p Conclusions In primary care, automated OBP measurements are misleading in approximately 40% of treated hypertensive patients. HBP monitoring is mandatory to avoid overtreatment of subjects with WCH phenomenon and prevent undertreatment and subsequent excess cardiovascular disease in MUCH

Reprint of: Minimizing noise in pediatric task-based functional MRI; Adolescents with developmental disabilities and typical development

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) represents a powerful tool with which to examine brain functioning and development in typically developing pediatric groups as well as children and adolescents with clinical disorders. However, fMRI data can be highly susceptible to misinterpretation due to the effects of excessive levels of noise, often related to head motion. Imaging children, especially with developmental disorders, requires extra considerations related to hyperactivity, anxiety and the ability to perform and maintain attention to the fMRI paradigm. We discuss a number of methods that can be employed to minimize noise, in particular movement-related noise. To this end we focus on strategies prior to, during and following the data acquisition phase employed primarily within our own laboratory. We discuss the impact of factors such as experimental design, screening of potential participants and pre-scan training on head motion in our adolescents with developmental disorders and typical development. We make some suggestions that may minimize noise during data acquisition itself and finally we briefly discuss some current processing techniques that may help to identify and remove noise in the data. Many advances have been made in the field of pediatric imaging, particularly with regard to research involving children with developmental disorders. Mindfulness of issues such as those discussed here will ensure continued progress and greater consistency across studies

Categorical perception of facial expressions by 7-month-old infants.

Recent research indicates that adults show categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion. It is not known whether this is a basic characteristic of perception that is present from the earliest weeks of life, or whether it is one that emerges more gradually with experience in perceiving and interpreting expressions. We report two experiments designed to investigate whether young infants, like adults, show categorical perception of facial expressions. 7-month-old infants were shown photographic quality continua of interpolated (morphed) facial expressions derived from two prototypes of fear and happiness. In the first experiment, we used a visual-preference technique to identify the infants' category boundary between happiness and fear. In the second experiment, we used a combined familiarisation-visual-preference technique to compare infants' discrimination of pairs of expressions that were equally physically different but that did or did not cross the emotion-category boundary. The results suggest that 7-month-old infants (i) show evidence of categorical perception of facial expressions of emotion, and (ii) show persistent interest in looking at fearful expressions

Patient Derived Xenografts (PDX) for personalized treatment of pancreatic cancer: emerging allies in the war on a devastating cancer?

The prognosis of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the eighth most lethal cancer for men and ninth for women worldwide, remains dismal. The increasing rates of deaths by PDAC indicate that the overall management of the disease in 21st century is still insufficient. Thus it is obvious that there is an unmet need to improve management of PDAC by finding new biomarkers to screen high risk patients, confirm diagnosis, and predict response to treatment as well more efficacious and safer treatments. Patient Derived Xenografts (PDX) have been developed as a new promising tool in an effort to mirror genetics, tumor heterogeneity and cancer microenvironment of the primary tumor. Herein we aim to give an updated overview of the current status and the perspectives of PDX in the search for the identification of novel biomarkers and improved therapeutic outcomes for PDAC but also their use as a valuable tool towards individualized treatments to improve the outcome of the disease. Furthermore, we critically review the applications, advantages, limitations, and perspectives of PDX in the research towards an improved management of PDAC. Significance: This review provides a comprehensive overview of the current status and the potential role as well as the challenges of PDX in the road to fight one of the most lethal cancers in the developed countries, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. © 2018 Elsevier B.V

Show and Tell: The Role of Language in Categorizing Facial Expression of Emotion

We review evidence that language is involved in the establishment and maintenance of adult categories of facial expressions of emotion. We argue that individual and group differences in facial expression interpretation are too great for a fully specified system of categories to be universal and hardwired. Variations in expression categorization, across individuals and groups, favor a model in which an initial ?core? system recognizes only the grouping of positive versus negative emotional expressions. The subsequent development of a rich representational structure may require the integration of a verbal categorization system with a perceptual processing system that is category-agnostic. Such a model may reconcile many strands of apparently conflicting behavioral, physiological, and neuroscience evidence concerning our understanding of facial expressions of emotion