Phylogeography and Vicariant Separation of Two River Darters, Percina uranidea and Percina vigil, from rivers that drain the North American Interior Highlands

The phylogeography and separation of two river darters, Percina uranidea and P. vigil were investigated through sequencing of the mitochondrial Cytochrome B and Cytochrome Oxidase genes. These molecular markers revealed the darters exhibit moderate genetic divergence between two large river drainage systems within the Mississippi River basin associated with the Interior Highlands of midwestern North America. An additional haplotype network analysis also supported these trends. Phylogenetic divergence dating indicated that population separation between the river systems occurred after recent Pleistocene glacial events rather than an early Pleistocene separation

A Tool for Differential Diagnosis of Childhood Apraxia of Speech and Dysarthria in Children: A Tutorial

Purpose: While there has been mounting research centered on the diagnosis of childhood apraxia of speech (CAS), little has focused on differentiating CAS from pediatric dysarthria. Because CAS and dysarthria share overlapping speech symptoms and some children have both motor speech disorders, differential diagnosis can be challenging. There is a need for clinical tools that facilitate assessment of both CAS and dysarthria symptoms in children. The goals of this tutorial are to (a) determine confidence levels of clinicians in differentially diagnosing dysarthria and CAS and (b) provide a systematic procedure for differentiating CAS and pediatric dysarthria in children. Method: Evidence related to differential diagnosis of CAS and dysarthria is reviewed. Next, a web-based survey of 359 pediatric speech-language pathologists is used to determine clinical confidence levels in diagnosing CAS and dysarthria. Finally, a checklist of pediatric auditory–perceptual motor speech features is presented along with a procedure to identify CAS and dysarthria in children with suspected motor speech impairments. Case studies illustrate application of this protocol, and treatment implications for complex cases are discussed. Results: The majority (60%) of clinician respondents reported low or no confidence in diagnosing dysarthria in children, and 40% reported they tend not to make this diagnosis as a result. Going forward, clinicians can use the feature checklist and protocol in this tutorial to support the differential diagnosis of CAS and dysarthria in clinical practice. Conclusions: Incorporating this diagnostic protocol into clinical practice should help increase confidence and accuracy in diagnosing motor speech disorders in children. Future research should test the sensitivity and specificity of this protocol in a large sample of children with varying speech sound disorders. Graduate programs and continuing education trainings should provide opportunities to practice rating speech features for children with dysarthria and CAS

Impulsive Social Influence Increases Impulsive Choices on a Temporal Discounting Task in Young Adults

Adolescents and young adults who affiliate with friends who engage in impulsive behavior are more likely to engage in impulsive behaviors themselves, and those who associate with prosocial (i.e. more prudent, future oriented) peers are more likely to engage in prosocial behavior. However, it is difficult to disentangle the contribution of peer influence vs. peer selection (i.e., whether individuals choose friends with similar traits) when interpreting social behaviors. In this study, we combined a novel social manipulation with a well-validated delay discounting task assessing impulsive behavior to create a social influence delay discounting task, in which participants were exposed to both impulsive (smaller, sooner or SS payment) and non-impulsive (larger, later or LL payment) choices from their peers. Young adults in this sample, n = 51, aged 18–25 had a higher rate of SS choices after exposure to impulsive peer influence than after exposure to non-impulsive peer influence. Interestingly, in highly susceptible individuals, the rate of non-impulsive choices did not increase after exposure to non-impulsive influence. There was a positive correlation between self-reported suggestibility and degree of peer influence on SS choices. These results suggest that, in young adults, SS choices appear to be influenced by the choices of same-aged peers, especially for individuals who are highly susceptible to influence

Patterns of Brain Activation when Mothers View Their Own Child and Dog: An fMRI Study

Neural substrates underlying the human-pet relationship are largely unknown. We examined fMRI brain activation patterns as mothers viewed images of their own child and dog and an unfamiliar child and dog. There was a common network of brain regions involved in emotion, reward, affiliation, visual processing and social cognition when mothers viewed images of both their child and dog. Viewing images of their child resulted in brain activity in the midbrain (ventral tegmental area/substantia nigra involved in reward/affiliation), while a more posterior cortical brain activation pattern involving fusiform gyrus (visual processing of faces and social cognition) characterized a mother's response to her dog. Mothers also rated images of their child and dog as eliciting similar levels of excitement (arousal) and pleasantness (valence), although the difference in the own vs. unfamiliar child comparison was larger than the own vs. unfamiliar dog comparison for arousal. Valence ratings of their dog were also positively correlated with ratings of the attachment to their dog. Although there are similarities in the perceived emotional experience and brain function associated with the mother-child and mother-dog bond, there are also key differences that may reflect variance in the evolutionary course and function of these relationships

Glycolaldehyde formation via the dimerization of the formyl radical

Glycolaldehyde, the simplest monosaccharide sugar, has recently been detected in low- and high-mass star-forming cores. Following our previous investigation into glycolaldehyde formation, we now consider a further mechanism for the formation of glycolaldehyde that involves the dimerization of the formyl radical, HCO. Quantum mechanical investigation of the HCO dimerization process upon an ice surface is predicted to be barrierless and therefore fast. In an astrophysical context, we show that this mechanism can be very efficient in star-forming cores. It is limited by the availability of the formyl radical, but models suggest that only very small amounts of CO are required to be converted to HCO to meet the observational constraints

Low-Power/High-Gain Flexible Complementary Circuits Based on Printed Organic Electrochemical Transistors

The ability to accurately extract low-amplitude voltage signals is crucial in several fields, ranging from single-use diagnostics and medical technology to robotics and the Internet of Things (IoT). The organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), which features large transconductance values at low operating voltages, is ideal for monitoring small signals. Here, low-power and high-gain flexible circuits based on printed complementary OECTs are reported. This work leverages the low threshold voltage of both p-type and n-type enhancement-mode OECTs to develop complementary voltage amplifiers that can sense voltages as low as 100 \ub5V, with gains of 30.4\ua0dB and at a power consumption of 0.1–2.7 \ub5W (single-stage amplifier). At the optimal operating conditions, the voltage gain normalized to power consumption reaches 169\ua0dB \ub5W−1, which is >50\ua0times larger than state-of-the-art OECT-based amplifiers. In a monolithically integrated two-stage configuration, these complementary voltage amplifiers reach voltage gains of 193\ua0V/V, which are among the highest for emerging complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor-like technologies operating at supply voltages below 1 V. These flexible complementary circuits based on printed OECTs define a new power-efficient platform for sensing and amplifying low-amplitude voltage signals in several emerging beyond-silicon applications

Brain Responses during the Anticipation of Dyspnea

Dyspnea is common in many cardiorespiratory diseases. Already the anticipation of this aversive symptom elicits fear in many patients resulting in unfavorable health behaviors such as activity avoidance and sedentary lifestyle. This study investigated brain mechanisms underlying these anticipatory processes. We induced dyspnea using resistive-load breathing in healthy subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Blocks of severe and mild dyspnea alternated, each preceded by anticipation periods. Severe dyspnea activated a network of sensorimotor, cerebellar, and limbic areas. The left insular, parietal opercular, and cerebellar cortices showed increased activation already during dyspnea anticipation. Left insular and parietal opercular cortex showed increased connectivity with right insular and anterior cingulate cortex when severe dyspnea was anticipated, while the cerebellum showed increased connectivity with the amygdala. Notably, insular activation during dyspnea perception was positively correlated with midbrain activation during anticipation. Moreover, anticipatory fear was positively correlated with anticipatory activation in right insular and anterior cingulate cortex. The results demonstrate that dyspnea anticipation activates brain areas involved in dyspnea perception. The involvement of emotion-related areas such as insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and amygdala during dyspnea anticipation most likely reflects anticipatory fear and might underlie the development of unfavorable health behaviors in patients suffering from dyspnea

Interactions between metabolic, reward and cognitive processes in appetite control:Implications for novel weight management therapies

Traditional models of appetite control have emphasised the role of parallel homeostatic and hedonic systems, but more recently the distinction between independent homeostatic and hedonic systems has been abandoned in favour of a framework that emphasises the cross talk between the neurochemical substrates of the two systems. In addition, evidence has emerged more recently, that higher level cognitive functions such as learning, memory and attention play an important role in everyday appetite control and that homeostatic signals also play a role in cognition. Here, we review this evidence and present a comprehensive model of the control of appetite that integrates cognitive, homeostatic and reward mechanisms. We discuss the implications of this model for understanding the factors that may contribute to disordered patterns of eating and suggest opportunities for developing more effective treatment approaches for eating disorders and weight management

High-Performance Phototransistors Based on PDIF-CN2 Solution-Processed Single Fiber and Multifiber Assembly

Here we describe the fabrication of organic phototransistors based on either single or multifibers integrated in three-terminal devices. These self-assembled fibers have been produced by solvent-induced precipitation of an air stable and solution-processable perylene di-imide derivative, i.e., PDIF-CN2. The optoelectronic properties of these devices were compared to devices incorporating more disordered spin-coated PDIF-CN2 thin-films. The single-fiber devices revealed significantly higher field-effect mobilities, compared to multifiber and thin-films, exceeding 2 cm2 V–1 s–1. Such an efficient charge transport is the result of strong intermolecular coupling between closely packed PDIF-CN2 molecules and of a low density of structural defects. The improved crystallinity allows efficient collection of photogenerated Frenkel excitons, which results in the highest reported responsivity (R) for single-fiber PDI-based phototransistors, and photosensitivity (P) exceeding 2 × 103 AW–1, and 5 × 103, respectively. These findings provide unambiguous evidence for the key role played by the high degree of order at the supramolecular level to leverage the material’s properties toward the fabrication of light-sensitive organic field-effect transistors combining a good operational stability, high responsivity and photosensitivity. Our results show also that the air-stability performances are superior in devices where highly crystalline supramolecularly engineered architectures serve as the active layer