Neurodevelopmental Changes in Social Reinforcement Processing: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study.

ObjectiveIn the current study we investigated neurodevelopmental changes in response to social and non-social reinforcement.MethodsFifty-three healthy participants including 16 early adolescents (age, 10-15 years), 16 late adolescents (age, 15-18 years), and 21 young adults (age, 21-25 years) completed a social/non-social reward learning task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants responded to fractal image stimuli and received social or non-social reward/non-rewards according to their accuracy. ANOVAs were conducted on both the blood oxygen level dependent response data and the product of a context-dependent psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analysis involving ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and bilateral insula cortices as seed regions.ResultsEarly adolescents showed significantly increased activation in the amygdala and anterior insula cortex in response to non-social monetary rewards relative to both social reward/non-reward and monetary non-rewards compared to late adolescents and young adults. In addition, early adolescents showed significantly more positive connectivity between the vmPFC/bilateral insula cortices seeds and other regions implicated in reinforcement processing (the amygdala, posterior cingulate cortex, insula cortex, and lentiform nucleus) in response to non-reward and especially social non-reward, compared to late adolescents and young adults.ConclusionIt appears that early adolescence may be marked by: (i) a selective increase in responsiveness to non-social, relative to social, rewards; and (ii) enhanced, integrated functioning of reinforcement circuitry for non-reward, and in particular, with respect to posterior cingulate and insula cortices, for social non-reward

The influence of barefoot and barefoot inspired footwear on the kinetics and kinematics of running in comparison to conventional running shoes.

Barefoot running has experienced a resurgence in footwear biomechanics literature, based on the supposition that it serves to reduce the occurrence of overuse injuries in comparison to conventional shoe models. This consensus has lead footwear manufacturers to develop shoes which aim to mimic the mechanics of barefoot locomotion. This study compared the impact kinetics and 3-D joint angular kinematics observed whilst running: barefoot, in conventional cushioned running shoes and in shoes designed to integrate the perceived benefits of barefoot locomotion. The aim of the current investigation was therefore to determine whether differences in impact kinetics exist between the footwear conditions and whether shoes which aim to simulate barefoot movement patterns can closely mimic the 3-D kinematics of barefoot running. Twelve participants ran at 4.0 m.s-1±5% in each footwear condition. Angular joint kinematics from the hip, knee and ankle in the sagittal, coronal and transverse planes were measured using an eight camera motion analysis system. In addition simultaneous tibial acceleration and ground reaction forces were obtained. Impact parameters and joint kinematics were subsequently compared using repeated measures ANOVAs. The kinematic analysis indicates that in comparison to the conventional and barefoot inspired shoes that running barefoot was associated significantly greater plantar-flexion at footstrike and range of motion to peak dorsiflexion. Furthermore, the kinetic analysis revealed that compared to the conventional footwear impact parameters were significantly greater in the barefoot condition. Therefore this study suggests that barefoot running is associated with impact kinetics linked to an increased risk of overuse injury, when compared to conventional shod running. Furthermore, the mechanics of the shoes which aim to simulate barefoot movement patterns do not appear to closely mimic the kinematics of barefoot locomotion

CAEP 2015 Academic Symposium: Leadership within the emergency medicine academic community and beyond

OBJECTIVES: A panel of emergency medicine (EM) leaders endeavoured to define the key elements of leadership and its models, as well as to formulate consensus recommendations to build and strengthen academic leadership in the Canadian EM community in the areas of mentorship, education, and resources

First Operation of a Resistive Shell Liquid Argon Time Projection Chamber -- A new Approach to Electric-Field Shaping

We present a new technology for the shaping of the electric field in Time Projection Chambers (TPCs) using a carbon-loaded polyimide foil. This technology allows for the minimisation of passive material near the active volume of the TPC and thus is capable to reduce background events originating from radioactive decays or scattering on the material itself. Furthermore, the high and continuous electric resistivity of the foil limits the power dissipation per unit area and minimizes the risks of damages in the case of an electric field breakdown. Replacing the conventional field cage with a resistive plastic film structure called 'shell' decreases the number of components within the TPC and therefore reduces the potential points of failure when operating the detector. A prototype liquid argon (LAr) TPC with such a resistive shell and with a cathode made of the same material was successfully tested for long term operation with electric field values up to about 1.5 kV/cm. The experiment shows that it is feasible to successfully produce and shape the electric field in liquefied noble-gas detectors with this new technology.Comment: 13 page

Teachers' classroom feedback: still trying to get it right

This article examines feedback traditionally given by teachers in schools. Such feedback tends to focus on children's acquisition and retrieval of externally prescribed knowledge which is then assessed against mandated tests. It suggests that, from a sociocultural learning perspective, feedback directed towards such objectives may limit children's social development. In this article, I draw on observation and interview data gathered from a group of 27 9- to 10-year olds in a UK primary school. These data illustrate the children's perceived need to conform to, rather than negotiate, the teacher's feedback comments. They highlight the children's sense that the teacher's feedback relates to school learning but not to their own interests. The article also includes alternative examples of feedback which draw on children's own inquiries and which relate to the social contexts within which, and for whom, they act. It concludes by suggesting that instead of looking for the right answer to the question of what makes teachers' feedback effective in our current classrooms, a more productive question might be how a negotiation can be opened up among teachers and learners themselves, about how teachers' feedback could support children's learning most appropriately

Bupropion and Nicotine Patch as Smoking Cessation Aids in Alcoholics

This is a double blind placebo controlled study of sustained release bupropion as a smoking cessation aid in alcoholics undergoing treatment for their alcoholism. Participants (N=58) were enrolled within one week of entry into alcohol treatment from community and Veterans Affairs Substance Use Disorder programs. All participants received nicotine patch and were invited to attend a smoking cessation lecture and group. Cigarette smoking and alcohol outcomes were measured at six months. Bupropion when added to nicotine patch did not improve smoking outcomes. One-third of participants on bupropion reported discontinuing the drug during weeks 1-4. Participants reported cigarette outcomes with nicotine patch which are similar to those seen in the general population. All study participants significantly reduced cigarette use. Co-morbid affective disorder or antipersonality disorder did not affect outcomes. Alcohol outcomes were improved in those who discontinued cigarettes

A Very Ambiguous Empire:Russia’s Hybrid Exceptionalism

Legal rules are often designed to provide different incentives to plaintiffs and defendants. With regard to prejudgment interest, however, it is not clear why there should be a bias in either direction. Absent a convincing argument for leaning toward one party or the other, we conclude that as a normative matter, the ideal rule for prejudgment interest should be neutral with regard to delay: plaintiffs are compensated fully for delay and defendants pay the market rate for the benefits they implicitly derive from holding money that belongs to the plaintiff. This simple “neutrality rule” implies, of course, that all claims should be treated equally with regard to applying prejudgment interest; that there should not be a legislatively-set prejudgment rate or legislative mandating of simple, rather than compound, interest; and that prospective damages should be discounted to the date of injury and not the date of trial. We conclude this Article with another admonition from the Eleventh Circuit: “Symmetrical treatment should be given to the estimated lost earnings both before and after trial so that neither party can benefit by delaying the final judgment.”161 Utah could substantially reduce the problems and inconsistencies that derive from the current legal treatment of prejudgment interest if it were to adopt a simple principle: other than adding prejudgment interest, if a change in the trial date increases or decreases estimated damages, the methodology being used embeds an inconsistency concerning the treatment of time

Cellular Models of Aggregation-Dependent Template-Directed Proteolysis to Characterize Tau Aggregation Inhibitors for Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Copyright © 2015, The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Acknowledgements-We thank Drs Timo Rager and Rolf Hilfiker (Solvias, Switzerland) for polymorph analyses.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The association between frailty, care receipt and unmet need for care with the risk of hospital admissions

Background: Frailty is characterised by a decline in physical, cognitive, energy, and health reserves and is linked to greater functional dependency and higher social care utilisation. However, the relationship between receiving care, or receiving insufficient care among older people with different frailty status and the risk of unplanned admission to hospital for any cause, or the risk of falls and fractures remains unclear. Methods and findings: This study used information from 7,656 adults aged 60 and older participating in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) waves 6-8. Care status was assessed through received care and self-reported unmet care needs, while frailty was measured using a frailty index. Competing-risk regression analysis was used (with death as a potential competing risk), adjusted for demographic and socioeconomic confounders. Around a quarter of the participants received care, of which approximately 60% received low levels of care, while the rest had high levels of care. Older people who received low and high levels of care had a higher risk of unplanned admission independent of frailty status. Unmet need for care was not significantly associated with an increased risk of unplanned admission compared to those receiving no care. Older people in receipt of care had an increased risk of hospitalisation due to falls but not fractures, compared to those who received no care after adjustment for covariates, including frailty status. Conclusions: Care receipt increases the risk of hospitalisation substantially, suggesting this is a group worthy of prevention intervention focus

Assessing the Impact of Blood Pressure on Cardiac Function Using Interpretable Biomarkers and Variational Autoencoders

Maintaining good cardiac function for as long as possible is a major concern for healthcare systems worldwide and there is much interest in learning more about the impact of different risk factors on cardiac health. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of systolic blood pressure (SBP) on cardiac function while preserving the interpretability of the model using known clinical biomarkers in a large cohort of the UK Biobank population. We propose a novel framework that combines deep learning based estimation of interpretable clinical biomarkers from cardiac cine MR data with a variational autoencoder (VAE). The VAE architecture integrates a regression loss in the latent space, which enables the progression of cardiac health with SBP to be learnt. Results on 3,600 subjects from the UK Biobank show that the proposed model allows us to gain important insight into the deterioration of cardiac function with increasing SBP, identify key interpretable factors involved in this process, and lastly exploit the model to understand patterns of positive and adverse adaptation of cardiac function