A Theory of Mind investigation into the appreciation of visual jokes in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND: There is evidence that groups of people with schizophrenia have deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities. Previous studies have found these to be linked to psychotic symptoms (or psychotic symptom severity) particularly the presence of delusions and hallucinations. METHODS: A visual joke ToM paradigm was employed where subjects were asked to describe two types of cartoon images, those of a purely Physical nature and those requiring inferences of mental states for interpretation, and to grade them for humour and difficulty. Twenty individuals with a DSM-lV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 20 healthy matched controls were studied. Severity of current psychopathology was measured using the Krawiecka standardized scale of psychotic symptoms. IQ was estimated using the Ammons and Ammons quick test. RESULTS: Individuals with schizophrenia performed significantly worse than controls in both conditions, this difference being most marked in the ToM condition. No relationship was found for poor ToM performance and psychotic positive symptomatology, specifically delusions and hallucinations. CONCLUSION: There was evidence for a compromised ToM capability in the schizophrenia group on this visual joke task. In this instance this could not be linked to particular symptomatology

Honest advocacy for nature: presenting a persuasive narrative for conservation.

Conservation scientists are increasingly recognising the value of communicating policy-relevant knowledge to policy-makers. Whilst considerable progress has been made in offering practical advice for scientists seeking to engage more closely with decision-makers, researchers have provided few tangible examples to learn from. This paper uses an English case study, but draws out important high-level messages relevant to conservation scientists worldwide. The case study looks at how the Lawton Review presented knowledge persuasively about the suitability of England's ecological network to deal with future pressures. Through skilful framing of rigorous scientific knowledge it was able to make a significant impact on government policy. Impact was achieved through: (1) selecting politically salient frames through which to communicate; (2) using clear, accessible language, and; (3) conducting rigorous science using an authoritative team of experts. Although its publication coincided with a favourable policy window, the Lawton Review seized on this opportunity to communicate a rigorously argued, persuasive and practical conservation message; in other words, it performed 'honest advocacy'. Thus, whilst it remains important to conduct scientific research with technical rigour, conservation scientists could also benefit from identifying salient frames for conservation and communicating clearly.This work is taken from a PhD project in the Department of Geography funded by ESRC (grant number ES/I901957/1) and Homerton College (Charter Scholarship). Thomas Pryke is studying for a PhD in the Department of Geography funded jointly by ESRC and NERC (No: ES/J500033/1).This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Springer at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1163-1

Neuromodulation and Mitochondrial Transport: Live Imaging in Hippocampal Neurons over Long Durations

To understand the relationship between mitochondrial transport and neuronal function, it is critical to observe mitochondrial behavior in live cultured neurons for extended durations1-3. This is now possible through the use of vital dyes and fluorescent proteins with which cytoskeletal components, organelles, and other structures in living cells can be labeled and then visualized via dynamic fluorescence microscopy. For example, in embryonic chicken sympathetic neurons, mitochondrial movement was characterized using the vital dye rhodamine 1234. In another study, mitochondria were visualized in rat forebrain neurons by transfection of mitochondrially targeted eYFP5. However, imaging of primary neurons over minutes, hours, or even days presents a number of issues. Foremost among these are: 1) maintenance of culture conditions such as temperature, humidity, and pH during long imaging sessions; 2) a strong, stable fluorescent signal to assure both the quality of acquired images and accurate measurement of signal intensity during image analysis; and 3) limiting exposure times during image acquisition to minimize photobleaching and avoid phototoxicity

Cultivating Water Literacy in STEM Education: Undergraduates’ Socio-Scientific Reasoning about Socio-Hydrologic Issues

Water-literate individuals effectively reason about the hydrologic concepts that underlie socio-hydrological issues (SHI), but functional water literacy also requires concomitant reasoning about the societal, non-hydrological aspects of SHI. Therefore, this study explored the potential for the socio-scientific reasoning construct (SSR), which includes consideration of the complexity of issues, the perspectives of stakeholders involved, the need for ongoing inquiry, skepticism about information sources, and the affordances of science toward the resolution of the issue, to aid undergraduates in acquiring such reasoning skills. In this fixed, embedded mixed methods study (N = 91), we found SHI to hold great potential as meaningful contexts for the development of water literacy, and that SSR is a viable and useful construct for better understanding undergraduates’ reasoning about the hydrological and non-hydrological aspects of SHI. The breadth of reasoning sources to which participants referred and the depth of the SSR they exhibited in justifying those sources varied within and between the dimensions of SSR. A number of participants’ SSR was highly limited. Implications for operationalizing, measuring, and describing undergraduate students’ SSR, as well as for supporting its development for use in research and the classroom, are discussed

The disabilities of chronic schizophrenia: A search for neurological correlates

This study was designed to define in standardised fashion, the deficits of chronic schizophrenia and the correlates of these, and to evaluate two neurological parameters - spontaneous involuntary movements and lateral ventricular enlargement - in relation to the illness and its treatment. The study population comprised all those schizophrenics receiving long-term care in the one mental hospital who conformed to the St. Louis criteria for schizophrenia and who had been in-patients for at least 1 year continuously. This basic group consisted of 510 subjects. Analysis of standardised assessments covering mental state, cognition, neurological status and behaviour showed these patients to be extremely impaired. While historical correlates of functioning in particular spheres could be identified, the present clinical picture was in general related to the form of the initial illness and to factors reflecting the passage of time. Past physical treatment was not related to present deficits. Two broad patterns of disability were established. While the presence of prominent productive features in the mental state was not associated with the presence of deficits in other areas examined, prominent 'negative' features were related to the presence of cognitive impairment, extrapyramidal neurological signs and behavioural deterioration. Involuntary movements were assessed in 411 subjects using two standardised recording schedules. Abnormality was extremely common. The base-line prevalence of disorder in those with no history of neuroleptic exposure was comparable with that of those treated with neuroleptics, although with factors reflecting the passage of time accounted for, movement disorder was associated with past neuroleptic treatment. In addition however, the presence of abnormal movements related to features of the illness itself - namely 'negative' mental state features, cognitive impairment and behavioural deterioration. C.T. scans from 110 of the total population described above and controls representing non-institutionalised out-patient (18) and first episode (8) schizophrenics, institutionalised and out-patient manic-depressives (10 and 22 respectively) and neurotic out-patients (19), demonstrated that schizophrenia is associated with enlargement of the lateral ventricles, although only the institutionalised schizophrenics differed significantly from the neurotic controls. The group mean differences were not great and there was considerable overlap between groups. There was no evidence of a characteristic radiological change associated with schizophrenia. Lateral ventricular enlargement in schizophrenia was not consequent upon physical treatments administered in the past. The historical and examination variables which related to increased ventricular size in the long-stay schizophrenic population were few and the nature of certain relationships surprising. While behavioural deterioration and involuntary movements were significantly and linearly associated with ventricular enlargement, 'negative' mental state features, cognitive impairment and an absence of hallucinations were more commonly found in those at both extremes of ventricle size. The results suggest that although brain structure is genuinely altered in certain schizophrenics, the relationship between cerebral structure and clinical aspects of the condition is not straightforward. This study indicates that both neurological abnormality and structural brain change can be related to certain clinical features of established schizophrenia when other potentially relevant historical and treatment variables are accounted for. Such a general conclusion refers to statistical associations within large groups of patients and the relationship between neurology and psychopathology is complex. Nonetheless, the findings lend support to the view that in some patients at least, schizophrenia is a brain disorder whose cerebral basis can be inferred from the nature of some of the associated multiple deficits

HDAC6 Regulates Mitochondrial Transport in Hippocampal Neurons

Background: Tubulin is a major substrate of the cytoplasmic class II histone deacetylase HDAC6. Inhibition of HDAC6 results in higher levels of acetylated tubulin and enhanced binding of the motor protein kinesin-1 to tubulin, which promotes transport of cargoes along microtubules. Microtubule-dependent intracellular trafficking may therefore be regulated by modulating the activity of HDAC6. We have shown previously that the neuromodulator serotonin increases mitochondrial movement in hippocampal neurons via the Akt-GSK3b signaling pathway. Here, we demonstrate a role for HDAC6 in this signaling pathway. Methodology/Principal Findings: We found that the presence of tubacin, a specific HDAC6 inhibitor, dramatically enhanced mitochondrial movement in hippocampal neurons, whereas niltubacin, an inactive tubacin analog, had no effect. Compared to control cultures, higher levels of acetylated tubulin were found in neurons treated with tubacin, and more kinesin-1 was associated with mitochondria isolated from these neurons. Inhibition of GSK3b decreased cytoplasmic deacetylase activity and increased tubulin acetylation, whereas blockade of Akt, which phosphorylates and down-regulates GSK3b, increased cytoplasmic deacetylase activity and decreased tubulin acetylation. Concordantly, the administration of 5-HT, 8-OH-DPAT (a specific 5-HT1A receptor agonist), or fluoxetine (a 5-HT reuptake inhibitor) increased tubulin acetylation. GSK3b was found to co-localize with HDAC6 in hippocampal neurons, and inhibition of GSK3b resulted in decrease

Speciation and Extinction Drive the Appearance of Directional Range Size Evolution in Phylogenies and the Fossil Record

The appearance of directional trends in the evolution of species range sizes can arise from stochastic models and need not imply the existence of underlying trends

Chimeric piggyBac transposases for genomic targeting in human cells.

Integrating vectors such as viruses and transposons insert transgenes semi-randomly and can potentially disrupt or deregulate genes. For these techniques to be of therapeutic value, a method for controlling the precise location of insertion is required. The piggyBac (PB) transposase is an efficient gene transfer vector active in a variety of cell types and proven to be amenable to modification. Here we present the design and validation of chimeric PB proteins fused to the Gal4 DNA binding domain with the ability to target transgenes to pre-determined sites. Upstream activating sequence (UAS) Gal4 recognition sites harbored on recipient plasmids were preferentially targeted by the chimeric Gal4-PB transposase in human cells. To analyze the ability of these PB fusion proteins to target chromosomal locations, UAS sites were randomly integrated throughout the genome using the Sleeping Beauty transposon. Both N- and C-terminal Gal4-PB fusion proteins but not native PB were capable of targeting transposition nearby these introduced sites. A genome-wide integration analysis revealed the ability of our fusion constructs to bias 24% of integrations near endogenous Gal4 recognition sequences. This work provides a powerful approach to enhance the properties of the PB system for applications such as genetic engineering and gene therapy

Robust Machine Learning Applied to Astronomical Datasets I: Star-Galaxy Classification of the SDSS DR3 Using Decision Trees

We provide classifications for all 143 million non-repeat photometric objects in the Third Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) using decision trees trained on 477,068 objects with SDSS spectroscopic data. We demonstrate that these star/galaxy classifications are expected to be reliable for approximately 22 million objects with r < ~20. The general machine learning environment Data-to-Knowledge and supercomputing resources enabled extensive investigation of the decision tree parameter space. This work presents the first public release of objects classified in this way for an entire SDSS data release. The objects are classified as either galaxy, star or nsng (neither star nor galaxy), with an associated probability for each class. To demonstrate how to effectively make use of these classifications, we perform several important tests. First, we detail selection criteria within the probability space defined by the three classes to extract samples of stars and galaxies to a given completeness and efficiency. Second, we investigate the efficacy of the classifications and the effect of extrapolating from the spectroscopic regime by performing blind tests on objects in the SDSS, 2dF Galaxy Redshift and 2dF QSO Redshift (2QZ) surveys. Given the photometric limits of our spectroscopic training data, we effectively begin to extrapolate past our star-galaxy training set at r ~ 18. By comparing the number counts of our training sample with the classified sources, however, we find that our efficiencies appear to remain robust to r ~ 20. As a result, we expect our classifications to be accurate for 900,000 galaxies and 6.7 million stars, and remain robust via extrapolation for a total of 8.0 million galaxies and 13.9 million stars. [Abridged]Comment: 27 pages, 12 figures, to be published in ApJ, uses emulateapj.cl

Secondary Science and Mathematics Teachers’ Environmental Issues Engagement through SocioScientific Reasoning

Among the many responsibilities of K-12 educators is to promote the development of environmental literacy among their students. Contentious environmental issues are often considered socioscientific issues (SSI; e.g., climate change) in that they are rooted in science, but a myriad of non-scientific (e.g., cultural, political, economic, etc.) factors must be addressed if those issues are to be successfully resolved. Teachers often report being ill-equipped to address these non-scientific factors, which may be due to struggles with employing socioscientific reasoning (SSR). SSR includes understanding the complexity of SSI, engaging in perspective-taking and ongoing inquiry about SSI, employing skepticism when dealing with potentially biased information concerning SSI, and recognizing the affordances of science and non-science considerations in resolving those issues. In this study, mathematics and science teachers who engaged in an SSI-oriented professional development demonstrated a range of sophistication across the dimensions of SSR, with science teachers tending to exhibit more sophistication in their SSR than mathematics teachers. Herein, we share and discuss the results of the study, including the prompts and scoring rubrics with exemplars, which can be used to prepare teachers to teach about contentious SSI and enable them to more effectively instruct and evaluate their students when doing so