138 research outputs found
Neural Processing of Emotional Musical and Nonmusical Stimuli in Depression
Background Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum are part of the emotional neural circuitry implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). Music is often used for emotion regulation, and pleasurable music listening activates the dopaminergic system in the brain, including the ACC. The present study uses functional MRI (fMRI) and an emotional nonmusical and musical stimuli paradigm to examine how neural processing of emotionally provocative auditory stimuli is altered within the ACC and striatum in depression.
Method Nineteen MDD and 20 never-depressed (ND) control participants listened to standardized positive and negative emotional musical and nonmusical stimuli during fMRI scanning and gave subjective ratings of valence and arousal following scanning.
Results ND participants exhibited greater activation to positive versus negative stimuli in ventral ACC. When compared with ND participants, MDD participants showed a different pattern of activation in ACC. In the rostral part of the ACC, ND participants showed greater activation for positive information, while MDD participants showed greater activation to negative information. In dorsal ACC, the pattern of activation distinguished between the types of stimuli, with ND participants showing greater activation to music compared to nonmusical stimuli, while MDD participants showed greater activation to nonmusical stimuli, with the greatest response to negative nonmusical stimuli. No group differences were found in striatum.
Conclusions These results suggest that people with depression may process emotional auditory stimuli differently based on both the type of stimulation and the emotional content of that stimulation. This raises the possibility that music may be useful in retraining ACC function, potentially leading to more effective and targeted treatments
The Physics of LIGO
In the spring term of 1994, I organized a course at Caltech on the The Physics of LIGO (i.e., the physics of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory). The course consisted of eighteen 1.5-hour-long tutorial lectures, delivered by members of the LIGO team and others, and it was aimed at advanced undergraduates and graduate students in physics, applied physics and in engineering and applied sciences and also at interested postdoctoral fellows, research staff, and faculty
Just What is Sprawl, Anyway?
Urban sprawl is a hot-button issue in the U.S. Though the term is widely used to describe the distaste for contemporary American suburban and urban development, a select few group of researchers, academics and practitioners have led the response to the argument against sprawl. This paper seeks to characterize sprawl from the perspective of landscape architecture while focusing on quantitative measurements and definitions of sprawl. At its core it examines the issue of the evolution of urban form through time, and offers options for addressing the debates over the negative or positive ramifications of sprawl
Small Platforms, High Return: The Need to Enhance Investment in Small Satellites for Focused Science, Career Development, and Improved Equity
In the next decade, there is an opportunity for very high return on
investment of relatively small budgets by elevating the priority of smallsat
funding in heliophysics. We've learned in the past decade that these missions
perform exceptionally well by traditional metrics, e.g., papers/year/\$M
(Spence et al. 2022 -- arXiv:2206.02968). It is also well established that
there is a "leaky pipeline" resulting in too little diversity in leadership
positions (see the National Academies Report at
https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/increasing-diversity-in-the-leadership-of-competed-space-missions).
Prioritizing smallsat funding would significantly increase the number of
opportunities for new leaders to learn -- a crucial patch for the pipeline and
an essential phase of career development. At present, however, there are far
more proposers than the available funding can support, leading to selection
ratios that can be as low as 6% -- in the bottom 0.5th percentile of selection
ratios across the history of ROSES. Prioritizing SmallSat funding and
substantially increasing that selection ratio are the fundamental
recommendations being made by this white paper.Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space
Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 6 pages, 1 figur
New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.
Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms
Multiscale habitat relationships of snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) in the mixed conifer landscape of the Northern Rockies, USA: Cross‐scale effects of horizontal cover with implications for forest management
Abstract Snowshoe hares (Lepus americanus) are an ecologically important herbivore because they modify vegetation through browsing and serve as a prey resource for multiple predators. We implemented a multiscale approach to characterize habitat relationships for snowshoe hares across the mixed conifer landscape of the northern Rocky Mountains, USA. Our objectives were to (1) assess the relationship between horizontal cover and snowshoe hares, (2) estimate how forest metrics vary across the gradient of snowshoe hare use and horizontal cover, and (3) model and map snowshoe hare occupancy and intensity of use. Results indicated that both occupancy and intensity of use by snowshoe hares increased with horizontal cover and that the effect became stronger as intensity of use increased. This underscores the importance of dense horizontal cover to achieve high use, and likely density, of snowshoe hares. Forest structure in areas with high snowshoe hare use and horizontal cover was characterized as multistoried with dense canopy cover and medium‐sized trees (e.g., 12.7–24.4 cm). The abundance of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) was associated with snowshoe hare use within a mixed conifer context, and the only species to increase in abundance with horizontal cover was Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) and subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa). Our landscape‐level modeling produced similar patterns in that we observed a positive effect of lodgepole pine and horizontal cover on both occupancy and use by snowshoe hares, but we also observed a positive yet parabolic effect of snow depth on snowshoe hare occupancy. This work is among the first to characterize the multiscale habitat relationships of snowshoe hares across a mixed conifer landscape as well as to map their occupancy and intensity of use. Moreover, our results provide stand‐ and landscape‐level insights that directly relate to management agencies, which aids in conservation efforts of snowshoe hares and their associated predators
Neural Processing of Emotional Musical and Nonmusical Stimuli in Depression.
BACKGROUND:Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and striatum are part of the emotional neural circuitry implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD). Music is often used for emotion regulation, and pleasurable music listening activates the dopaminergic system in the brain, including the ACC. The present study uses functional MRI (fMRI) and an emotional nonmusical and musical stimuli paradigm to examine how neural processing of emotionally provocative auditory stimuli is altered within the ACC and striatum in depression. METHOD:Nineteen MDD and 20 never-depressed (ND) control participants listened to standardized positive and negative emotional musical and nonmusical stimuli during fMRI scanning and gave subjective ratings of valence and arousal following scanning. RESULTS:ND participants exhibited greater activation to positive versus negative stimuli in ventral ACC. When compared with ND participants, MDD participants showed a different pattern of activation in ACC. In the rostral part of the ACC, ND participants showed greater activation for positive information, while MDD participants showed greater activation to negative information. In dorsal ACC, the pattern of activation distinguished between the types of stimuli, with ND participants showing greater activation to music compared to nonmusical stimuli, while MDD participants showed greater activation to nonmusical stimuli, with the greatest response to negative nonmusical stimuli. No group differences were found in striatum. CONCLUSIONS:These results suggest that people with depression may process emotional auditory stimuli differently based on both the type of stimulation and the emotional content of that stimulation. This raises the possibility that music may be useful in retraining ACC function, potentially leading to more effective and targeted treatments
Correction: Neural Processing of Emotional Musical and Nonmusical Stimuli in Depression.
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0156859.]
Shifts in Forest Structure in Northwest Montana from 1972 to 2015 Using the Landsat Archive from Multispectral Scanner to Operational Land Imager
There is a pressing need to map changes in forest structure from the earliest time period possible given forest management policies and accelerated disturbances from climate change. The availability of Landsat data from over four decades helps researchers study an ecologically meaningful length of time. Forest structure is most often mapped utilizing lidar data, however these data are prohibitively expensive and cover a narrow temporal window relative to the Landsat archive. Here we describe a technique to use the entire length of the Landsat archive from Multispectral Scanner to Operational Land Imager (M2O) to produce three novel outcomes: (1) we used the M2O dataset and standard change vector analysis methods to classify annual forest structure in northwestern Montana from 1972 to 2015, (2) we improved the accuracy of each yearly forest structure classification by applying temporal continuity rules to the whole time series, with final accuracies ranging from 97% to 68% respectively for two and six-category classifications, and (3) we demonstrated the importance of pre-1984 Landsat data for long-term change studies. As the Landsat program continues to acquire Earth imagery into the foreseeable future, time series analyses that aid in classifying forest structure accurately will be key to the success of any land management changes in the future
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