Giving You the Whole Picture

David Schyner writes about Whole Communities-Whole Health and the factors of poor air quality in an article published in 2018.Office of the VP for Researc

Sexual and reproductive health and rights of Aymara women in the intercultural health system in Chile / Salud y derechos sexuales y reproductivos de las mujeres Aymara en el sistema de salud intercultural de Chile

This investigation seeks to understand how Aymara women navigate their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in Chile’s intercultural health care model. Indigenous communities have their own practices that complicate the provision of sexual and reproductive health by requiring health care providers to be aware of two different worldviews and how they may conflict, as well as what is necessary to provide respectful care. However, an ethnically and culturally pertinent framework is vital to actually assuring successful SRHR provision, whose tenants include autonomous choice and care free of discrimination, coercion or violence. These interactions were investigated through semi-structured interviews of 14 Aymara women from Putre, Chile and 3 of their health care professionals on various SRHR topics with a focus on birth and pregnancy. The women were aged 27-61 and had many different, unique experiences and relationships with their pregnancies. They used a wide range of contraceptive methods and many sought attention from both Aymara and Western doctors for prenatal exams. They had an average of 2.86 births(SD 1.5), with a range of 1-7 births. Of the participants, 50% had at least one of their births in a house either alone or with the help of a midwife and 85.8% had given birth at least once in a hospital. There was a 64%preference of home births to hospital births, although many also mentioned that the hospital offered safer and more hygienic care in case of complications. Women reported the need for more midwifery attention in hospitals and more respect and patience in the care they receive from doctors. They also conveyed that they would prefer to be able to give birth in their homes or at least at the consultorio in Putre. The results of this study suggest that while the infrastructure is present to provide ethnically competent SRHR to Aymara women in Putre, there are still gaps in its provision and execution, especially in regards to birth. The suggestions of the participants about how to improve their attention and birth care should be considered and listened to in order to improve the quality of intercultural care

Neural Representations of Gain-Loss Frequency in Older and Younger Adults

Research on the biological basis of reinforcement-learning has focused on how brain regions track expected value based on average reward. However, recent work suggests that humans are more attuned to reward frequency. Furthermore, older adults are less likely to use expected values to guide choice than younger adults. This raises the question of whether brain regions assumed to be sensitive to average reward, like the medial and lateral PFC, also track reward frequency, and whether there are age-based differences. We scanned older and younger adults performing the Soochow Gambling task, which separates reward frequency from average reward. Overall, participants preferred options that provided negative net payoffs, but frequent gains. Older adults improved less over time, were more reactive to recent negative outcomes, and showed greater frequency-related activation in several regions, including lateral PFC. We also found broader recruitment of prefrontal and parietal regions in older adults, which may indicate compensation

Neural regions associated with gain-loss frequency and average reward in older and younger adults

Research on the biological basis of reinforcement-learning has focused on how brain regions track expected value based on average reward. However, recent work suggests that humans are more attuned to reward frequency. Furthermore, older adults are less likely to use expected values to guide choice than younger adults. This raises the question of whether brain regions assumed to be sensitive to average reward, like the medial and lateral PFC, also track reward frequency, and whether there are age-based differences. Older (60-81 years) and younger (18-30 years) adults performed the Soochow Gambling task, which separates reward frequency from average reward, while undergoing fMRI. Overall, participants preferred options that provided negative net payoffs, but frequent gains. Older adults improved less over time, were more reactive to recent negative outcomes, and showed greater frequency-related activation in several regions, including DLPFC. We also found broader recruitment of prefrontal and parietal regions associated with frequency value and reward prediction errors in older adults, which may indicate compensation. The results suggest greater reliance on average reward for younger adults than older adults

Distinct hippocampal regions make unique contributions to relational memory

Neuroscientific research has shown that the hippocampus is important for binding or linking together the various components of a learning event into an integrated memory. In a prior study, we demonstrated that the anterior hippocampus is involved in memory for the relations among informational elements to a greater extent than it is involved in memory for individual elements (Giovanello, Schnyer, and Verfaellie, 2004). In the current study, we extend those findings by further specifying the role of anterior hippocampus during relational memory retrieval. Specifically, anterior hippocampal activity was observed during flexible retrieval of learned associations, whereas posterior hippocampal activity was detected during reinstatement of study episodes. These findings suggest a functional dissociation across the long axis of human hippocampus based on the nature of the mnemonic process rather than the stage of memory processing or type of stimulus

Neurocognitive therapeutics: from concept to application in the treatment of negative attention bias

There is growing interest in the use of neuroimaging for the direct treatment of mental illness. Here, we present a new framework for such treatment, neurocognitive therapeutics. What distinguishes neurocognitive therapeutics from prior approaches is the use of precise brain-decoding techniques within a real-time feedback system, in order to adapt treatment online and tailor feedback to individuals’ needs. We report an initial feasibility study that uses this framework to alter negative attention bias in a small number of patients experiencing significant mood symptoms. The results are consistent with the promise of neurocognitive therapeutics to improve mood symptoms and alter brain networks mediating attentional control. Future work should focus on optimizing the approach, validating its effectiveness, and expanding the scope of targeted disorders

Role of the medial temporal lobes in relational memory: Neuropsychological evidence from a cued recognition paradigm

In this study, we examined the role of the hippocampus in relational memory by comparing item recognition performance in amnesic patients with medial temporal lobe (MTL) damage and their matched controls. Specifically, we investigated the contribution of associative memory to item recognition using a cued recognition paradigm. Control subjects studied cue-target pairs once, whereas amnesic patients studied cue-target pairs six times. Following study, subjects made recognition judgments about targets that were presented either alone (no cue), with the originally presented cue (same cue), or with a cue that had been presented with a different target (recombined cue). Controls had higher recognition scores in the same cue than in the recombined cue condition, indicating that they benefited from the associative information provided by the same cue. By contrast, amnesic patients did not. This was true even for a subgroup of patients whose recognition performance in the no cue condition was matched to that of the controls. These data provide further support for the idea that the hippocampus plays a critical role in relational memory, even when associative information need not be retrieved intentionally