Faster maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents : Converging behavioral and event-related potential evidence

Previous work suggests that musical training in childhood is associated with enhanced executive functions. However, it is unknown whether this advantage extends to selective attention-another central aspect of executive control. We recorded a well-established event-related potential (ERP) marker of distraction, the P3a, during an audio-visual task to investigate the maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents aged 10-17 years and a control group of untrained peers. The task required categorization of visual stimuli, while a sequence of standard sounds and distracting novel sounds were presented in the background. The music group outperformed the control group in the categorization task and the younger children in the music group showed a smaller P3a to the distracting novel sounds than their peers in the control group. Also, a negative response elicited by the novel sounds in the N1/MMN time range (similar to 150-200 ms) was smaller in the music group. These results indicate that the music group was less easily distracted by the task-irrelevant sound stimulation and gated the neural processing of the novel sounds more efficiently than the control group. Furthermore, we replicated our previous finding that, relative to the control group, the musically trained children and adolescents performed faster in standardized tests for inhibition and set shifting. These results provide novel converging behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from a cross-modal paradigm for accelerated maturation of selective attention in musically trained children and adolescents and corroborate the association between musical training and enhanced inhibition and set shifting.Peer reviewe

Brain Basis of Psychopathy in Criminal Offenders and General Population.

Psychopathy is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy, and egotistical traits. These traits vary also in normally functioning individuals. Here, we tested whether such antisocial personalities are associated with similar structural and neural alterations as those observed in criminal psychopathy. Subjects were 100 non-convicted well-functioning individuals, 19 violent male offenders, and 19 matched controls. Subjects underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and viewed movie clips with varying violent content during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Psychopathic traits were evaluated with Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (controls) and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (offenders). Psychopathic offenders had lower gray matter density (GMD) in orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula. In the community sample, affective psychopathy traits were associated with lower GMD in the same areas. Viewing violence increased brain activity in periaqueductal grey matter, thalamus, somatosensory, premotor, and temporal cortices. Psychopathic offenders had increased responses to violence in thalamus and orbitofrontal, insular, and cingulate cortices. In the community sample, impulsivity-related psychopathy traits were positively associated with violence-elicited responses in similar areas. We conclude that brain characteristics underlying psychopathic spectrum in violent psychopathy are related to those observed in well-functioning individuals with asocial personality features

Novel facultative Methylocella strains are active methane consumers at terrestrial natural gas seeps

Natural gas seeps contribute to global climate change by releasing substantial amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane and other climate-active gases including ethane and propane to the atmosphere. However, methanotrophs, bacteria capable of utilising methane as the sole source of carbon and energy, play a significant role in reducing the emissions of methane from many environments. Methylocella-like facultative methanotrophs are a unique group of bacteria that grow on other components of natural gas (i.e. ethane and propane) in addition to methane but a little is known about the distribution and activity of Methylocella in the environment. The purposes of this study were to identify bacteria involved in cycling methane emitted from natural gas seeps and, most importantly, to investigate if Methylocella-like facultative methanotrophs were active utilisers of natural gas at seep sites

Ice stream behaviour and deglaciation of the Scandinavian Ice Sheet in the Kuittijärvi area, Russian Karelia

Glacial landforms of the Lake Kuittijärvi area, Russian Karelia, which covers an area of more than 7000 km2 , were studied in detail using aerial photography and satellite imagery methods and on-site field observations. This was done to reconstruct a detailed history of Scandinavian ice sheet behaviour in the Lake Kuittijärvi area. The results indicate that the Lake Tuoppajärvi sub-ice stream (TIS) that formed the northern part of the Kuusamo-White Sea ice stream and the Lake Kuittijärvi sub-ice stream (KIS), which was part of the Northern Karelian ice stream, operated in the area during the last deglaciation. Subglacially formed lineation patterns associated with other indicative landforms such as end moraines and esker ridges indicate a clear age relationship between the ice streams’ activity and that the KIS was active after the linear landforms were created by the TIS. It is estimated that deglaciation of the TIS from the Kalevala end moraine to the Lake Pääjärvi end moraine took place between ca. 11 300 – 10 900 calendar years ago. It seems that the terminus of the KIS marker by the Kalevala end moraine was also formed around 11 300 calendar years ago but the KIS remained active longer than the TIS. Both of these sub-ice streams terminated into a glacial lake that was part of a larger White Sea Basin ice lake

Factors affecting the dynamics of the North Karelian/Oulu Ice Lobe, Central Finland, during the last deglaciation – a LiDAR and DEM interpretation of subglacial lineation patterns

The SIS (Scandinavian Ice Sheet) became divided into several active, semi-independent ice lobes during the last deglaciation ca 13 000–10 000 years ago. The largest of them, the North Karelian/Oulu Ice Lobe (NKIL/OIL), covered vast areas in central Finland and in northwest Russian Karelia. This paper studies the behaviour and subglacial conditions of the NKIL/OIL with the inversion modelling method. The method is based on the identification and interpretation of mapped glacigenic streamlined lineations, formed during active flow stages of the NKIL/OIL. DEM and LiDAR data on lineations was obtained from seven subsets in different zones of the NKIL/OIL. Results indicate that the NKIL/OIL dynamics were strongly affected by pre-existing Quaternary sediment thickness, bedrock lithology, structures and topography. Due to these factors, the NKIL/ OIL operated through several flow corridors and had several retreat and re-advance cycles throughout its life span

High-resolution LiDAR mapping of glacial landforms and ice stream lobes in Finland

Newly available high resolution airborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) technology is generating unprecedented next-generation imagery of Earth surface features. LiDAR datasets are being employed by the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) as part of a new national geological initiative (Glacier Dynamic database: GDdatabase) to rapidly and cost-effectively map glacial landforms and sediments left by the last (Late Weichselian) Fennoscandian Ice Sheet (FIS). There is a high demand for such data in hydrogeological, geoengineering and mineral exploration projects and also for the identification of glacial landforms that provide key information regarding ice sheet rheology, growth and decay. An important step forward with this new technique is the recognition of paleo- ice stream corridors with fast flowing ice (> 3 km yr-1 based on modern ice sheets), surrounded by stagnant or sluggish-flowing ice. Precise geomorphic criteria are now available for recognition of paleo-ice streams, based on the elongation of subglacial streamlined bedforms and the presence of megascale glacial lineations. Flow sets of drumlins and megascale glacial lineations can now be mapped in high resolution using LiDAR and are now seen as genetically related forms in a continuum that records increasing ice flow velocity and the creation of a low friction bed. This paper briefly outlines the nature of the GDdatabase and the methodology behind its construction and provides examples of principal bedform types that record the dynamic interplay of paleo-ice stream lobes in the Finnish sector of the last FIS

Baltic Ice Lake levels and a LiDAR/DEM-based estimate of the glacio-isostatic uplift gradient of the Salpausselkä zone, SE Finland

Abstract Glaciofluvial ice-contact deltas were mapped and altitudes of the highest shorelines defined in the eastern arc of the Salpausselkä zone, southern Finland, using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR)-based digital elevation models and GIS tools. Mapping of deltas and the highest shorelines in the Salpausselkä zone were undertaken in order to calculate and define the glacio-isostatic uplift palaeo-isobases, uplift gradients and equidistant diagrams (distance diagrams) for the Salpausselkä zone. The results indicate that the glacio-isostatic uplift palaeo-isobases were orientated NE-SW (50°–230°) and the uplift gradients for both the First and the Second Salpausselkä in the eastern arc, are virtually the same, namely 0.6 mkm-1. This suggests that both Salpausselkä ridge complexes, which were originally laid down in front of the Finnish Lake District Ice Lobe (FLDIL) in relatively shallow water, were deposited within a short time period during the Late Weichselian Younger Dryas Stadial. The results also suggest that the Baltic Ice Lake water level regressed 7.5 metres from Baltic Ice Lake level B I to level B III as the ice retreated in its eastern arc from the First to the Second Salpausselkä