Successful non-native speech perception is linked to frequency following response phase consistency

Some people who attempt to learn a second language in adulthood meet with greater success than others. The causes driving these individual differences in second language learning skill continue to be debated. In particular, it remains controversial whether robust auditory perception can provide an advantage for non-native speech perception. Here, we tested English speech perception in native Japanese speakers through the use of frequency following responses, the evoked gamma band response, and behavioral measurements. Participants whose neural responses featured less timing jitter from trial to trial performed better on perception of English consonants than participants with more variable neural timing. Moreover, this neural metric predicted consonant perception to a greater extent than did age of arrival and length of residence in the UK, and neural jitter predicted independent variance in consonant perception after these demographic variables were accounted for. Thus, difficulties with auditory perception may be one source of problems learning second languages in adulthood

英語授業の教授言語 : 過去３０年の日本語使用と英語使用の傾向

本研究の目的は，英語教師の教室教授言語（instructional speech ［IS］，日本語と英語による教育的支援）を現在（２０２０年）と過去の２時点（１９９０年初頭と２０１０年代初頭，前者はコミュニカティブ教授法の初めての導入時期，後者は高校の原則英語授業の導入時期）で比較し，そのパターンを同定することである。中学高校の３名の教師の発話から１単元分が収集され，Kaneko（１９９２）及び表（２０１１） の結果と比較された。分析では，(1)日英 IS 比の比較，さらに(2) Ellis（１９８４）の教授目標の３区分に基づくカテゴリ化を用いて IS の機能が比較された。その結果，時代を追う毎の日本語減少の傾向に加え，言語別の発話機能のパターンにも違いがみられた。これらの結果から過去３０年間の教育目標 の変遷を基に教授日本語をどのように洗練させ，また教授英語をどう拡充するべきかについてのいく つかの示唆を得た。This paper aims at a brief observation by comparing English teacher s instructional speech (IS, an instructional support in English and Japanese) of the present time (2019) with the past two times (three decades ago, the timing of the advent of the communicative teaching method, and a decade ago when the policy of English only in the English classroom was introduced). Data collected from three ISs through one course unit at the level of junior and senior high school were compared with Kaneko (1992) and Omote (2011). Analyses were conducted twofold: first, (1) to compare the ratio of instructional Japanese speech to instructional English speech, and then, based on the three pedagogical goals in the classroom (Ellis, 1984), (2) to compare the function of the IS. Results revealed an association between the pattern of the three goals and the IS ratio, as well as the tendency of decreased Japanese speech over time. The findings suggest that the pattern (teacher s behaviour in the Japanese and English utterances) might have changed in some way or another, as the educational goal in English instruction trends for the past thirty years. Implication was presented about how teachers should refine instructional Japanese and expand instructional English

The whole blood transcriptional regulation landscape in 465 COVID-19 infected samples from Japan COVID-19 Task Force

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19患者由来の血液細胞における遺伝子発現の網羅的解析 --重症度に応じた遺伝子発現の変化には、ヒトゲノム配列の個人差が影響する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-23.Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently-emerged infectious disease that has caused millions of deaths, where comprehensive understanding of disease mechanisms is still unestablished. In particular, studies of gene expression dynamics and regulation landscape in COVID-19 infected individuals are limited. Here, we report on a thorough analysis of whole blood RNA-seq data from 465 genotyped samples from the Japan COVID-19 Task Force, including 359 severe and 106 non-severe COVID-19 cases. We discover 1169 putative causal expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) including 34 possible colocalizations with biobank fine-mapping results of hematopoietic traits in a Japanese population, 1549 putative causal splice QTLs (sQTLs; e.g. two independent sQTLs at TOR1AIP1), as well as biologically interpretable trans-eQTL examples (e.g., REST and STING1), all fine-mapped at single variant resolution. We perform differential gene expression analysis to elucidate 198 genes with increased expression in severe COVID-19 cases and enriched for innate immune-related functions. Finally, we evaluate the limited but non-zero effect of COVID-19 phenotype on eQTL discovery, and highlight the presence of COVID-19 severity-interaction eQTLs (ieQTLs; e.g., CLEC4C and MYBL2). Our study provides a comprehensive catalog of whole blood regulatory variants in Japanese, as well as a reference for transcriptional landscapes in response to COVID-19 infection

DOCK2 is involved in the host genetics and biology of severe COVID-19

「コロナ制圧タスクフォース」COVID-19疾患感受性遺伝子DOCK2の重症化機序を解明 --アジア最大のバイオレポジトリーでCOVID-19の治療標的を発見--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2022-08-10.Identifying the host genetic factors underlying severe COVID-19 is an emerging challenge. Here we conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) involving 2, 393 cases of COVID-19 in a cohort of Japanese individuals collected during the initial waves of the pandemic, with 3, 289 unaffected controls. We identified a variant on chromosome 5 at 5q35 (rs60200309-A), close to the dedicator of cytokinesis 2 gene (DOCK2), which was associated with severe COVID-19 in patients less than 65 years of age. This risk allele was prevalent in East Asian individuals but rare in Europeans, highlighting the value of genome-wide association studies in non-European populations. RNA-sequencing analysis of 473 bulk peripheral blood samples identified decreased expression of DOCK2 associated with the risk allele in these younger patients. DOCK2 expression was suppressed in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis (n = 61 individuals) identified cell-type-specific downregulation of DOCK2 and a COVID-19-specific decreasing effect of the risk allele on DOCK2 expression in non-classical monocytes. Immunohistochemistry of lung specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia showed suppressed DOCK2 expression. Moreover, inhibition of DOCK2 function with CPYPP increased the severity of pneumonia in a Syrian hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, characterized by weight loss, lung oedema, enhanced viral loads, impaired macrophage recruitment and dysregulated type I interferon responses. We conclude that DOCK2 has an important role in the host immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and the development of severe COVID-19, and could be further explored as a potential biomarker and/or therapeutic target