Neuropsychology: music of the hemispheres

Music may be the food of love but it is also good fodder for cognitive scientists. Here we highlight a recent study of a neuropsychological patient who has lost her ability to read music, but not text, in the absence of any other musical deficit

Probing the mind with magnetism

Transcranial magnetic stimulation is a technique that can be used to interfere reversibly with cortical processing. It creates a ‘virtual lesion’, which is relatively focal in space and time and can therefore be used to address questions beyond the scope of other techniques. In this article we select a few recent experiments that highlight the added value that TMS brings to some of the core areas of cognitive neuroscience: imagery, crossmodal processing, language, plasticity, awareness and memory

Congenital amusia: all the songs sound the same

Recent evidence from individuals born with a profound musical impairment suggests that the ability to process pitch information is normally present from birth. This finding supports the idea that the perception and appreciation of music, both of which critically depend on pitch processing, have a biological basis in the brain

How do trends in mortality inequalities by deprivation and education in Scotland and England & Wales compare? A repeat cross-sectional study

Objective: To compare the trends in mortality inequalities by educational attainment with trends using area deprivation. Setting: Scotland and England & Wales (E&W). Participants: All people resident in Scotland and E&W between 1981 and 2011 aged 35–79 years. Primary outcome measures: Absolute inequalities (measured using the Slope Index of Inequality (SII)) and relative inequalities (measured using the Relative Index of Inequality (RII)) in all-cause mortality. Results: Relative inequalities in mortality by area deprivation have consistently increased for men and women in Scotland and E&W between 1981–1983 and 2010–2012. Absolute inequalities increased for men and women in Scotland, and for women in E&W, between 1981–1983 and 2000–2002 before subsequently falling. For men in E&W, absolute inequalities were more stable until 2000–2002 before a subsequent decline. Both absolute and relative inequalities were consistently higher in men and in Scotland. These trends contrast markedly with the reported declines in mortality inequalities by educational attainment and apparent improvement of Scotland’s inequalities with those in E&W. Conclusions: Trends in health inequalities differ when assessed using different measures of socioeconomic status, reflecting either genuinely variable trends in relation to different aspects of social stratification or varying error or bias. There are particular issues with the educational attainment data in Great Britain prior to 2001 that make these education-based estimates less certain

Reading music modifies spatial mapping in pianists

We used a novel musical Stroop task to demonstrate that musical notation is automatically processed in trained pianists. Numbers were superimposed onto musical notes, and participants played five-note sequences by mapping from numbers to fingers instead of from notes to fingers. Pianists’ reaction times were significantly affected by the congruence of the note/number pairing. Nonmusicians were unaffected. In a nonmusical analogue of the task, pianists and nonmusicians showed a qualitative difference on performance of a vertical-to-horizontal stimulus–response mapping task. Pianists were faster when stimuli specifying a leftward response were presented in vertically lower locations and stimuli specifying a rightward response were presented in vertically higher locations. Nonmusicians showed the reverse pattern. No group differences were found on a task that required horizontal-to-horizontal mappings. We suggest that, as a result of learning to read and play keyboard music, pianists acquire vertical-to-horizontal visuomotor mappings that generalize outside the musical context

Staying Power: The Future of Manufacturing in Massachusetts

Reviews the state's manufacturing employment since 1939; analyzes current data by industry, economic share, workers' demographics, and location; and projects trends through 2016. Based on surveys and interviews, examines manufacturers' perspectives

TMS produces two dissociable types of speech disruption

We aimed to use repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to disrupt speech with the specific objective of dissociating speech disruption according to whether or not it was associated with activation of the mentalis muscle. Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) was applied over two sites of the right and left hemisphere while divisions counted aloud and recited the days of the week, months of the year, and nursery rhymes. Analysis of EMG data and videotaped recordings showed that rTMS applied over a posterior site, lateral to the motor hand area of both the right and the left hemisphere resulted in speech disruption that was accompanied by activation of the mentalis muscle, while rTMS applied over an anterior site on the left but not the right hemisphere resulted in speech disruption that was dissociated from activation of the mentalis muscle. The findings provide a basis for the use of subthreshold stimulation over the extrarolandic speech disruption site in order to probe the functional properties of this area and to test psychological theories of linguistic function

Broadcasting Flu Messages – Citywide Transmission and Community Reception: An Evaluation of Ready New York’s pandemic influenza outreach campaign

Public health risk communication is a central feature of New York City’s pandemic flu preparedness plan. Particularly in the early stages of a pandemic, before effective therapeutic measures are available, non-pharmaceutical interventions such as social distancing, personal protective hygiene, and voluntary isolation are critical strategies for suppressing the spread of a novel viral strain. New York City health and emergency management officials have decided to use the city’s risk communication structure – the Office of Emergency Management’s Ready New York outreach and dissemination capacities – as one of the primary means to communicate pandemic flu health messages. In October 2008, NCDP contracted with Public Health Solutions and the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to evaluate the reach and effectiveness of its planned Ready NY Pandemic Flu community outreach campaign

Single molecule studies of protein unfolding in highly saline solutions

Life on earth has been found thriving in a number of extreme environments, including those of high salinity, high and low temperatures and pH, and high pressure. Organisms which live in the presence of large quantities of salt are known as halophilic (meaning salt-loving), such as in the Dead Sea. Proteins are fundamental components of all living organisms. They are large, complex molecules that carry out many processes within a cell. Halophilic proteins are of great interest due to their ability to remain soluble, flexible and functional under highly saline conditions. Intriguingly, these proteins are unstable in a low saline environment, suggesting a delicate balance between the intermolecular interactions of the protein, salt and solvent. How have halophilic proteins adapted to survive in highly saline environments? To probe the effect of salt on the mechanical stability of a protein, a combination of molecular biology and single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) was used. Protein engineering was utilised to create chimeric polyprotein constructs including a obligate halophilic and a mesophilic protein. SMFS experiments have been carried out using these polyprotein constructs in 0.5 M and 2 M KCl. The studies suggest that an increase in the hydrophobic interactions of a mesophilic protein cause an increase in its mechanical stability. The results also indicate that an obligate halophilic protein does not have an increased mechanical stability in the increased salt concentration. Further studies in combination with molecular dynamics simulations have the potential to gain atomistic information on the mechanical unfolding behaviour of a halophilic protein