Maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with neonatal auditory ERPs

Poor maternal sleep quality during pregnancy may act as a prenatal stress factor for the fetus and associate with neonate neurocognition, for example via fetal programming. The impacts of worsened maternal sleep on neonatal development and, more specifically on neonatal auditory brain responses, have not been studied. A total of 155 mother-neonate dyads drawn from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study participated in our study including maternal self-report questionnaires on sleep at gestational week 24 and an event-related potential (ERP) measurement among 1-2-day-old neonates. For sleep quality assessment, the Basic Nordic Sleep Questionnaire (BNSQ) was used and calculated scores for (1) insomnia, (2) subjective sleep loss and (3) sleepiness were formed and applied in the analyses. In the auditory ERP protocol, three emotionally uttered pseudo words (in happy, angry and sad valence) were presented among neutrally uttered pseudo words. To study the relations between prenatal maternal sleep quality and auditory emotion-related ERP responses, mixed-effects regression models were computed for early (100-200 ms) and late (300-500 ms) ERP response time-windows. All of the selected BNSQ scores were associated with neonatal ERP responses for happy and angry emotion stimuli (sleep loss and sleepiness in the early, and insomnia, sleep loss and sleepiness in the late time-window). For sad stimuli, only maternal sleep loss predicted the neonatal ERP response in the late time-window, likely because the overall ERP was weakest in the sad condition. We conclude that maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with changes in neonatal auditory ERP responses.Peer reviewe

Culture change in elite sport performance teams: Examining and advancing effectiveness in the new era

Reflecting the importance of optimizing culture for elite teams, Fletcher and Arnold (2011) recently suggested the need for expertise in culture change. Acknowledging the dearth of literature on the specific process, however, the potential effectiveness of practitioners in this area is unknown. The present paper examines the activity's precise demands and the validity of understanding in sport psychology and organizational research to support its delivery. Recognizing that sport psychologists are being increasingly utilized by elite team management, initial evidence-based guidelines are presented. Finally, to stimulate the development of ecologically valid, practically meaningful knowledge, the paper identifies a number of future research directions

Maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with neonatal auditory ERPs

Poor maternal sleep quality during pregnancy may act as a prenatal stress factor for the fetus and associate with neonate neurocognition, for example via fetal programming. The impacts of worsened maternal sleep on neonatal development and, more specifically on neonatal auditory brain responses, have not been studied. A total of 155 mother-neonate dyads drawn from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study participated in our study including maternal self-report questionnaires on sleep at gestational week 24 and an event-related potential (ERP) measurement among 1-2-day-old neonates. For sleep quality assessment, the Basic Nordic Sleep Questionnaire (BNSQ) was used and calculated scores for (1) insomnia, (2) subjective sleep loss and (3) sleepiness were formed and applied in the analyses. In the auditory ERP protocol, three emotionally uttered pseudo words (in happy, angry and sad valence) were presented among neutrally uttered pseudo words. To study the relations between prenatal maternal sleep quality and auditory emotion-related ERP responses, mixed-effects regression models were computed for early (100–200 ms) and late (300–500 ms) ERP response time-windows. All of the selected BNSQ scores were associated with neonatal ERP responses for happy and angry emotion stimuli (sleep loss and sleepiness in the early, and insomnia, sleep loss and sleepiness in the late time-window). For sad stimuli, only maternal sleep loss predicted the neonatal ERP response in the late time-window, likely because the overall ERP was weakest in the sad condition. We conclude that maternal sleep quality during pregnancy is associated with changes in neonatal auditory ERP responses.</p

Comparison of the Ki-67 score and S-phase fraction as prognostic variables in soft-tissue sarcoma

Immunohistochemically determined Ki-67 scores and flow cytometrically determined S-phase fractions were successfully evaluated from the primary tumours of 123 patients with soft-tissue sarcoma. All patients had either limb or superficial trunk tumours. Ki-67 score correlated strongly with ploidy, S-phase fraction and grade. Ki-67 did not correlate with the size of the primary tumour. When analysed as a continuous variable, Ki-67 was a stronger predictor of both metastasis-free survival and disease-specific overall survival (P= 0.003 and 0.04 respectively) than was the S-phase fraction (P= 0.06 and 0.07 respectively). We tested the relevance of different cut-point values by dividing the whole material into two parts at every 10% (e.g. 10% of patients vs. the remaining 90%, 20% vs. 80%, etc.). We counted the relative risk and confidence interval at all these cut-off points. Ki-67 had good prognostic discriminating power irrespective of the cut-point value, but S-phase fraction lost its prognostic power at higher cut-point values. In conclusion, we found that Ki-67 is a useful prognostic tool in the treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma patients irrespective of the cut-point value. S-phase fraction can be used at lower cut-point values. © 1999 Cancer Research Campaig

Haptic subitizing across the fingers

Numerosity judgments of small sets of items (≤ 3) are generally fast and errorfree, while response times and error rates increase rapidly for larger numbers of items. We investigated an efficient process used for judging small numbers of items (known as subitizing) in active touch. We hypothesized that this efficient process for numerosity judgment might be related to stimulus properties that allow for efficient (parallel) search. Our results showed that subitizing was not possible forraised lines among flat surfaces, whereas this type of stimulus could be detected in parallel over the fingers. However, subitizing was possible when the number of fingers touching a surface had to be judged while the other fingers were lowered in mid-air. In the latter case, the lack of tactile input is essential, since subitizing was not enabled by differences in proprioceptive information from the fingers. Our results show that subitizing using haptic information from the fingers is possible only whensome fingers receive tactile information while other fingers do not

Down-regulation of frizzled-7 expression decreases survival, invasion and metastatic capabilities of colon cancer cells

BackgroundThe canonical Wnt signalling pathway is activated in most sporadic colorectal cancers (CRCs). We previously reported that FZD7 functions as a receptor for the canonical Wnt signalling pathway in colon cancer cells.Methods and resultsIn this study, we examined the function of FZD7 in survival, invasion and metastatic capabilities of colon cancer cells. FZD7_siRNA transfection decreased cell viability of HT-29 and HCT-116 colon cancer cells. Expression of c-Jun, phosphorylation of JNK and c-Jun, and activation of RhoA were suppressed after FZD7_siRNA transfection into HCT-116 cells. In vitro invasion activity and Wnt target gene expression were also reduced in HCT-116 cells transfected with FZD7_siRNA. Liver metastasis of stable FZD7_siRNA HCT-116 cell transfectants in scid mice was decreased to 40-50% compared to controls. The mRNA levels of FZD7 in 135 primary CRC tissues were examined by real-time PCR. FZD7 mRNA levels were significantly higher in stage II, III or IV tumours than in non-tumour tissues (P&lt;0.005), and overall survival was shorter in those patients with higher FZD7 expression (P&lt;0.001).ConclusionThese data suggest that FZD7 may be involved in enhancement of survival, invasion and metastatic capabilities of colon cancer cells through non-canonical Wnt signalling pathways as well as the canonical pathway

Genomic instability and proliferative activity as risk factors for distant metastases in breast cancer

The role of genomic instability and proliferative activity for development of distant metastases in breast cancer was analysed, and the relative contribution of these two risk factors was quantified. A detailed quantitative comparison was performed between Ki67 and cyclin A as proliferative markers. The frequency of Ki67 and cyclin A-positive cells was scored in the same microscopic areas in 428 breast tumours. The frequency of Ki67-positive cells was found to be highly correlated with the frequency of cyclin A-positive cells, and both proliferation markers were equally good to predict risk of distant metastases. The relative contribution of degree of aneuploidy and proliferative activity as risk markers for developing distant metastases was studied independently. Although increased proliferative activity in general was associated with an increased risk of developing distant metastases, ploidy level was found to be an independent and even stronger marker when considering the group of small (T1) node negative tumours. By combining proliferative activity and ploidy level, a large group of low risk breast tumours (39%) could be identified in which only a few percentage of the tumours (5%) developed distant metastases during the 9-year follow-up time period

Ki-67 as prognostic marker in early breast cancer: a meta-analysis of published studies involving 12 155 patients

The Ki-67 antigen is used to evaluate the proliferative activity of breast cancer (BC); however, Ki-67's role as a prognostic marker in BC is still undefined. In order to better define the prognostic value of Ki-67/MIB-1, we performed a meta-analysis of studies that evaluated the impact of Ki-67/MIB-1 on disease-free survival (DFS) and/or on overall survival (OS) in early BC. Sixty-eight studies were identified and 46 studies including 12 155 patients were evaluable for our meta-analysis; 38 studies were evaluable for the aggregation of results for DFS, and 35 studies for OS. Patients were considered to present positive tumours for the expression of Ki-67/MIB-1 according to the cut-off points defined by the authors. Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity is associated with higher probability of relapse in all patients (HR=1.93 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.74–2.14); P<0.001), in node-negative patients (HR=2.31 (95% CI: 1.83–2.92); P<0.001) and in node-positive patients (HR=1.59 (95% CI: 1.35–1.87); P<0.001). Furthermore, Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity is associated with worse survival in all patients (HR=1.95 (95% CI: 1.70–2.24; P<0.001)), node-negative patients (HR=2.54 (95% CI: 1.65–3.91); P<0.001) and node-positive patients (HR=2.33 (95% CI: 1.83–2.95); P<0.001). Our meta-analysis suggests that Ki-67/MIB-1 positivity confers a higher risk of relapse and a worse survival in patients with early BC