Autism as a disorder of neural information processing: directions for research and targets for therapy

The broad variation in phenotypes and severities within autism spectrum disorders suggests the involvement of multiple predisposing factors, interacting in complex ways with normal developmental courses and gradients. Identification of these factors, and the common developmental path into which theyfeed, is hampered bythe large degrees of convergence from causal factors to altered brain development, and divergence from abnormal brain development into altered cognition and behaviour. Genetic, neurochemical, neuroimaging and behavioural findings on autism, as well as studies of normal development and of genetic syndromes that share symptoms with autism, offer hypotheses as to the nature of causal factors and their possible effects on the structure and dynamics of neural systems. Such alterations in neural properties may in turn perturb activity-dependent development, giving rise to a complex behavioural syndrome many steps removed from the root causes. Animal models based on genetic, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and behavioural manipulations offer the possibility of exploring these developmental processes in detail, as do human studies addressing endophenotypes beyond the diagnosis itself

Making sense of the evolving nature of depression narratives and their inherent conflicts

Originally a psychiatric diagnosis fashioned by Western psychiatry in the 20th Century, depression evolved to encompass varying lineages of discourse and care. This article elucidates some of the current challenges – as well as emerging discourses – influencing the category of depression. Depression-like experiences are shaped by (at times conflicting) subjectivities, claims to knowledge, material realities, social contexts and access to resources. With no unified understanding of the category of ‘depression’ available, lay people, social and neuro scientists, GPs, psychiatrists, talking therapists and pharmaceutical companies all attempt to shape narratives of depression. The current paper focuses on patient narratives about depression – in the context of these wider debates – to better elucidate the ways in which depression discourses are publically developing along varying lines. In conclusion, the paper suggests that we could better conceptualise the resulting ‘depression(s)’ with concepts such as ‘society of mind’ and notions of subjectivity unbounded by individuals

Intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in the treatment of children and Adolescents - a single institution's experience and a review of the literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>While IMRT is widely used in treating complex oncological cases in adults, it is not commonly used in pediatric radiation oncology for a variety of reasons. This report evaluates our 9 year experience using stereotactic-guided, inverse planned intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) in children and adolescents in the context of the current literature.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Between 1999 and 2008 thirty-one children and adolescents with a mean age of 14.2 years (1.5 - 20.5) were treated with IMRT in our department. This heterogeneous group of patients consisted of 20 different tumor entities, with Ewing's sarcoma being the largest (5 patients), followed by juvenile nasopharyngeal fibroma, esthesioneuroblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma (3 patients each). In addition a review of the available literature reporting on technology, quality, toxicity, outcome and concerns of IMRT was performed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>With IMRT individualized dose distributions and excellent sparing of organs at risk were obtained in the most challenging cases. This was achieved at the cost of an increased volume of normal tissue receiving low radiation doses. Local control was achieved in 21 patients. 5 patients died due to progressive distant metastases. No severe acute or chronic toxicity was observed.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>IMRT in the treatment of children and adolescents is feasible and was applied safely within the last 9 years at our institution. Several reports in literature show the excellent possibilities of IMRT in selective sparing of organs at risk and achieving local control. In selected cases the quality of IMRT plans increases the therapeutic ratio and outweighs the risk of potentially increased rates of secondary malignancies by the augmented low dose exposure.</p

Visual Stability and the Motion Aftereffect: A Psychophysical Study Revealing Spatial Updating

Eye movements create an ever-changing image of the world on the retina. In particular, frequent saccades call for a compensatory mechanism to transform the changing visual information into a stable percept. To this end, the brain presumably uses internal copies of motor commands. Electrophysiological recordings of visual neurons in the primate lateral intraparietal cortex, the frontal eye fields, and the superior colliculus suggest that the receptive fields (RFs) of special neurons shift towards their post-saccadic positions before the onset of a saccade. However, the perceptual consequences of these shifts remain controversial. We wanted to test in humans whether a remapping of motion adaptation occurs in visual perception

Increasing vegetable intakes: rationale and systematic review of published interventions

Purpose While the health benefits of a high fruit and vegetable consumption are well known and considerable work has attempted to improve intakes, increasing evidence also recognises a distinction between fruit and vegetables, both in their impacts on health and in consumption patterns. Increasing work suggests health benefits from a high consumption specifically of vegetables, yet intakes remain low, and barriers to increasing intakes are prevalent making intervention difficult. A systematic review was undertaken to identify from the published literature all studies reporting an intervention to increase intakes of vegetables as a distinct food group. Methods Databases—PubMed, PsychInfo and Medline—were searched over all years of records until April 2015 using pre-specified terms. Results Our searches identified 77 studies, detailing 140 interventions, of which 133 (81 %) interventions were conducted in children. Interventions aimed to use or change hedonic factors, such as taste, liking and familiarity (n = 72), use or change environmental factors (n = 39), use or change cognitive factors (n = 19), or a combination of strategies (n = 10). Increased vegetable acceptance, selection and/or consumption were reported to some degree in 116 (83 %) interventions, but the majority of effects seem small and inconsistent. Conclusions Greater percent success is currently found from environmental, educational and multi-component interventions, but publication bias is likely, and long-term effects and cost-effectiveness are rarely considered. A focus on long-term benefits and sustained behaviour change is required. Certain population groups are also noticeably absent from the current list of tried interventions

Varying constants, Gravitation and Cosmology

Fundamental constants are a cornerstone of our physical laws. Any constant varying in space and/or time would reflect the existence of an almost massless field that couples to matter. This will induce a violation of the universality of free fall. It is thus of utmost importance for our understanding of gravity and of the domain of validity of general relativity to test for their constancy. We thus detail the relations between the constants, the tests of the local position invariance and of the universality of free fall. We then review the main experimental and observational constraints that have been obtained from atomic clocks, the Oklo phenomenon, Solar system observations, meteorites dating, quasar absorption spectra, stellar physics, pulsar timing, the cosmic microwave background and big bang nucleosynthesis. At each step we describe the basics of each system, its dependence with respect to the constants, the known systematic effects and the most recent constraints that have been obtained. We then describe the main theoretical frameworks in which the low-energy constants may actually be varying and we focus on the unification mechanisms and the relations between the variation of different constants. To finish, we discuss the more speculative possibility of understanding their numerical values and the apparent fine-tuning that they confront us with.Comment: 145 pages, 10 figures, Review for Living Reviews in Relativit

Consensus guidelines for the use and interpretation of angiogenesis assays

The formation of new blood vessels, or angiogenesis, is a complex process that plays important roles in growth and development, tissue and organ regeneration, as well as numerous pathological conditions. Angiogenesis undergoes multiple discrete steps that can be individually evaluated and quantified by a large number of bioassays. These independent assessments hold advantages but also have limitations. This article describes in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro bioassays that are available for the evaluation of angiogenesis and highlights critical aspects that are relevant for their execution and proper interpretation. As such, this collaborative work is the first edition of consensus guidelines on angiogenesis bioassays to serve for current and future reference