Green consumer markets in the fight against climate change

Climate change has become one of the greatest threats to environmental security, as attested by the growing frequency of severe flooding and storms, extreme temperatures and droughts. Accordingly, the European Union’s (EU) 6th Environment Action Programme (2010) lists tackling climate change as its first priority. A key aim of the EU has been to cut CO2 emissions, a major factor in climate change, by 8% until 2012 and 20% until 2020. The European Commission has proposed the encouragement of private consumer market for green products and services as one of several solutions to this problem. However, existing research suggests that the market share of these products has been only 3%, although 30% of individuals favour environmental and ethical goods. This article uses Public Goods Theory to explain why the contribution of the green consumer market to fighting climate change has been and possibly may remain limited without further public intervention

Optic radiation tractography and vision in anterior temporal lobe resection.

Anterior temporal lobe resection (ATLR) is an effective treatment for refractory temporal lobe epilepsy but may result in a contralateral superior visual field deficit (VFD) that precludes driving in the seizure-free patient. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography can delineate the optic radiation preoperatively and stratify risk. It would be advantageous to incorporate display of tracts into interventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to guide surgery

GSK3-mediated raptor phosphorylation supports amino acid-dependent Q2 mTORC1-directed signalling

The mammalian or mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) complex 1 (mTORC1) is a ubiquitously expressed multimeric protein kinase complex that integrates nutrient and growth factor signals for the co-ordinated regulation of cellular metabolism and cell growth. Herein, we demonstrate that suppressing the cellular activity of glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3), by use of pharmacological inhibitors or shRNA-mediated gene silencing, results in substantial reduction in amino acid (AA)-regulated mTORC1-directed signalling, as assessed by phosphorylation of multiple downstream mTORC1 targets. We show that GSK3 regulates mTORC1 activity through its ability to phosphorylate the mTOR-associated scaffold protein raptor (regulatory-associated protein of mTOR) on Ser(859). We further demonstrate that either GSK3 inhibition or expression of a S859A mutated raptor leads to reduced interaction between mTOR and raptor and under these circumstances, irrespective of AA availability, there is a consequential loss in phosphorylation of mTOR substrates, such as p70S6K1 (ribosomal S6 kinase 1) and uncoordinated-51-like kinase (ULK1), which results in increased autophagic flux and reduced cellular proliferation

A functional magnetic resonance imaging study mapping the episodic memory encoding network in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging has demonstrated reorganization of memory encoding networks within the temporal lobe in temporal lobe epilepsy, but little is known of the extra-temporal networks in these patients. We investigated the temporal and extra-temporal reorganization of memory encoding networks in refractory temporal lobe epilepsy and the neural correlates of successful subsequent memory formation. We studied 44 patients with unilateral temporal lobe epilepsy and hippocampal sclerosis (24 left) and 26 healthy control subjects. All participants performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging memory encoding paradigm of faces and words with subsequent out-of-scanner recognition assessments. A blocked analysis was used to investigate activations during encoding and neural correlates of subsequent memory were investigated using an event-related analysis. Event-related activations were then correlated with out-of-scanner verbal and visual memory scores. During word encoding, control subjects activated the left prefrontal cortex and left hippocampus whereas patients with left hippocampal sclerosis showed significant additional right temporal and extra-temporal activations. Control subjects displayed subsequent verbal memory effects within left parahippocampal gyrus, left orbitofrontal cortex and fusiform gyrus whereas patients with left hippocampal sclerosis activated only right posterior hippocampus, parahippocampus and fusiform gyrus. Correlational analysis showed that patients with left hippocampal sclerosis with better verbal memory additionally activated left orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and left posterior hippocampus. During face encoding, control subjects showed right lateralized prefrontal cortex and bilateral hippocampal activations. Patients with right hippocampal sclerosis showed increased temporal activations within the superior temporal gyri bilaterally and no increased extra-temporal areas of activation compared with control subjects. Control subjects showed subsequent visual memory effects within right amygdala, hippocampus, fusiform gyrus and orbitofrontal cortex. Patients with right hippocampal sclerosis showed subsequent visual memory effects within right posterior hippocampus, parahippocampal and fusiform gyri, and predominantly left hemisphere extra-temporal activations within the insula and orbitofrontal cortex. Correlational analysis showed that patients with right hippocampal sclerosis with better visual memory activated the amygdala bilaterally, right anterior parahippocampal gyrus and left insula. Right sided extra-temporal areas of reorganization observed in patients with left hippocampal sclerosis during word encoding and bilateral lateral temporal reorganization in patients with right hippocampal sclerosis during face encoding were not associated with subsequent memory formation. Reorganization within the medial temporal lobe, however, is an efficient process. The orbitofrontal cortex is critical to subsequent memory formation in control subjects and patients. Activations within anterior cingulum and insula correlated with better verbal and visual subsequent memory in patients with left and right hippocampal sclerosis, respectively, representing effective extra-temporal recruitment

Preembryo Personhood: An Assessment of the President’s Council Arguments

The President’s Council on Bioethics has addressed the moral status of human preembryos in its reports on stem cell research and human therapeutic cloning. Although the Council has been criticized for being hand-picked to favor the right-to-life viewpoint concerning human preembryos, it has embraced the idea that the right-to-life position should be defended in secular terms. This is an important feature of the Council’s work, and it demonstrates a recognition of the need for genuine engagement between opposing sides in the debate over stem cell research. To promote this engagement, the Council has stated in secular terms several arguments for the personhood of human preembryos. This essay presents and critiques those arguments, and it concludes that they are unsuccessful. If the best arguments in support of the personhood of human preembryos have been presented by the Council, then there are no reasonable secular arguments in support of that view

Social pain and social gain in the adolescent brain: A common neural circuitry underlying both positive and negative social evaluation

Social interaction inherently involves the subjective evaluation of cues salient to social inclusion and exclusion. Testifying to the importance of such social cues, parts of the neural system dedicated to the detection of physical pain, the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (AI), have been shown to be equally sensitive to the detection of social pain experienced after social exclusion. However, recent work suggests that this dACC-AI matrix may index $\textit{any}$ socially pertinent information. We directly tested the hypothesis that the dACC-AI would respond to cues of $\textit{both}$ inclusion and exclusion, using a novel social feedback fMRI paradigm in a population-derived sample of adolescents. We show that the dACC and left AI are commonly activated by feedback cues of inclusion and exclusion. Our findings suggest that theoretical accounts of the dACC-AI network as a neural alarm system restricted within the social domain to the processing of signals of exclusion require significant revision.This work was supported by grants from Friends of Peterhouse Medical Fund Cambridge (RG 51114), the Wellcome Trust (RG 074296), and the UK Medical Research Council (MC US A060 0019)

Neural correlates of working memory in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy--an fMRI study.

It has traditionally been held that the hippocampus is not part of the neural substrate of working memory (WM), and that WM is preserved in Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE). Recent imaging and neuropsychological data suggest this view may need revision. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural correlates of WM in TLE using functional MRI (fMRI). We used a visuo-spatial 'n-back' paradigm to compare WM network activity in 38 unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (HS) patients (19 left) and 15 healthy controls. WM performance was impaired in both left and right HS groups compared to controls. The TLE groups showed reduced right superior parietal lobe activity during single- and multiple-item WM. No significant hippocampal activation was found during the active task in any group, but the hippocampi progressively deactivated as the task demand increased. This effect was bilateral for controls, whereas the TLE patients showed progressive unilateral deactivation only contralateral to the side of the hippocampal sclerosis and seizure focus. Progressive deactivation of the posterior medial temporal lobe was associated with better performance in all groups. Our results suggest that WM is impaired in unilateral HS and the underlying neural correlates of WM are disrupted. Our findings suggest that hippocampal activity is progressively suppressed as the WM load increases, with maintenance of good performance. Implications for understanding the role of the hippocampus in WM are discussed

Civil society mobilisation after Cyclone Tracy, Darwin 1974

Major disasters challenge or exceed the capacity of the official emergency management sector to provide needed rescue services, support and relief. Emergency services in most jurisdictions do not have the surge capacity for unusual or extreme events without drawing on other jurisdictions or local people from outside the formal emergency management organisations. In such circumstances, those in the affected area need to organise themselves and make maximum use of local resources to cope with the immediate aftermath of impact. To find the required surge capacity, this suggests a whole of society response with the official system working with the capacities of people, commerce and organisations outside the emergency sector. An example is provided by the destruction of the northern Australian capital city of Darwin by Cyclone Tracy in December 1974. Informal volunteering and emergent leadership in Darwin and across Australia were critical to the immediate response and relief. Volunteering was widespread and worked well alongside official emergency management. With today’s information and communication technologies and a strong national resilience narrative, we would expect to do at least as well. However, governments now exercise much more control over civil society. We examine the implications for surge capacity and adaptability