Pattern classification based on the amygdala does not predict an individual's response to emotional stimuli

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have often recorded robust univariate group effects in the amygdala of subjects exposed to emotional stimuli. Yet it is unclear to what extent this effect also holds true when multi-voxel pattern analysis (MVPA) is applied at the level of the individual participant. Here we sought to answer this question. To this end, we combined fMRI data from two prior studies (N = 112). For each participant, a linear support vector machine was trained to decode the valence of emotional pictures (negative, neutral, positive) based on brain activity patterns in either the amygdala (primary region-of-interest analysis) or the whole-brain (secondary exploratory analysis). The accuracy score of the amygdala-based pattern classifications was statistically significant for only a handful of participants (4.5%) with a mean and standard deviation of 37% ± 5% across all subjects (range: 28–58%; chance-level: 33%). In contrast, the accuracy score of the whole-brain pattern classifications was statistically significant in roughly half of the participants (50.9%), and had an across-subjects mean and standard deviation of 49% ± 6% (range: 33–62%). The current results suggest that the information conveyed by the emotional pictures was encoded by spatially distributed parts of the brain, rather than by the amygdala alone, and may be of particular relevance to studies that seek to target the amygdala in the treatment of emotion regulation problems, for example via real-time fMRI neurofeedback training.publishedVersio

Changes in Management Lead to Improvement and Healing of Equine Squamous Gastric Disease

Equine squamous gastric disease (ESGD) is common in horses and poses a serious welfare problem. Several risk factors have been identified and ESGD is routinely treated with omeprazole. Fourteen mares, previously used as embryo recipients and diagnosed with ESGD, were selected. Horses were confined to individual stalls, exercised once daily, and fed ad libitum hay, 1 kg of a low starch compound complementary feed and a mineral supplement. Half of the horses received a compound containing hydrolysed collagen (supplement) and the other half did not (control). At the start of the study, ESGD scores were 3.57 and 3.36 for the supplement and control group, respectively. After 4 weeks, the ESGD grades were significantly reduced in both groups (1.89 and 1.43, respectively, p < 0.01), and healing (ESGD < 2) occurred in 7 out of 14 horses. No treatment effect was observed ( p = 0.75), and it was concluded that the change in husbandry overshadowed any potential effect of the compound. Severe ESGD can improve, and even heal, with the provision of a diet of ad libitum forage and a small amount of a compound complementary feed, without the use of omeprazole. A predictable daily routine, with a limited number of dedicated caretakers, may have contributed to the improvement of gastric health

Glucose management for exercise using continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and intermittently scanned CGM (isCGM) systems in type 1 diabetes: position statement of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) and of the International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes (ISPAD) endorsed by JDRF and supported by the American Diabetes Association (ADA)

Physical exercise is an important component in the management of type 1 diabetes across the lifespan. Yet, acute exercise increases the risk of dysglycaemia, and the direction of glycaemic excursions depends, to some extent, on the intensity and duration of the type of exercise. Understandably, fear of hypoglycaemia is one of the strongest barriers to incorporating exercise into daily life. Risk of hypoglycaemia during and after exercise can be lowered when insulin‐dose adjustments are made and/or additional carbohydrates are consumed. Glycaemic management during exercise has been made easier with continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and intermittently scanned continuous glucose monitoring (isCGM) systems; however, because of the complexity of CGM and isCGM systems, both individuals with type 1 diabetes and their healthcare professionals may struggle with the interpretation of given information to maximise the technological potential for effective use around exercise (ie, before, during and after). This position statement highlights the recent advancements in CGM and isCGM technology, with a focus on the evidence base for their efficacy to sense glucose around exercise and adaptations in the use of these emerging tools, and updates the guidance for exercise in adults, children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes

Report on the Workshop on Sustainable Software Sustainability 2019 (WOSSS19)

This report is based on the discussions and presentations that took place at the Workshop on Sustainable Software Sustainability (www.software.ac.uk/wosss19) in April 2019 (WOSSS19). It captures the state of the art for a range of Software Sustainability themes that were brought up by the organisers and attendees of the workshop

AngioSupport: the design of an interactive tool to allow numerical modelling in clinical decision making

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease. It is caused by the buildup of plaque in the arterial walls, which narrows the vessel and reduces blood flow to the heart muscle. The remodeling of the heart can account for these changes, however, eventually increased plaque formation can result in insufficient oxygen in the heart muscle. Over time, CAD can cause heart failure, arrhythmias, ischemia, or a heart attack. CAD often develops slowly over time and the first emerging symptom is chest pain, often only during physical activity. Treatment of CAD is either by medical therapy or revascularization. The two main revascularization techniques are coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) and percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). To visualize the coronary vasculature, a coronary angiogram (CA) is made and the Fractional Flow Reserve (FFR) is measured invasively, which has shown to be an excellent indication of the presence of ischemia resulting from blocked blood flow. Currently, for patients with multivessel CAD, clinical outcomes following invasive revascularization depend on many characteristics, such as patient age, cardiac function, coronary disease distribution, previous interventions, diabetes, and/or the number of diseased vessels. Complicated cases are therefore discussed during a heart team meeting, where at least one cardiac surgeon and one intervention-cardiologist discuss each patient. However, choices (in the position, length or diameter) for a CABG or PCI can still be very difficult based on only experience, FFR measurement, and CA. The aim of this project was to create a patient specific model based interactive tool, named AngioSupport, that could help the heart team in this process by simulating the outcome of PCI and CABG. AngioSupport is designed to fit in the current health care procedure of the Catharina Hospital Eindhoven and allows the heart team to use the models that have been developed at the Technical University of Eindhoven. In this design project, a ‘proof of concept’ has been given with a first prototype of AngioSupport, being developed at LifeTec Group. In AngioSupport, a 3D representation of the full coronary vasculature of the patient is created by segmentation and pre-processing, using the angiogram images from the patient. Segmentation of the coronary arteries is performed with the help of CAAS software from Pie Medical Imaging. This 3D representation gives a more realistic insight of the patient specific vasculature and an easier interpretation of the blockages. It also allows the use of a one dimensional computational fluid dynamics code (1D CFD code), which can calculate the patient specific pressure throughout the coronary vasculature and is originally developed at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). With this 1D CFD code, the virtual FFR (vFFR) of the patient can be calculated, which is used to assess the assess whether the heart muscle receives enough blood. AngioSupport also consists of an interface to be used during heart team meetings. The heart team only needs to load in the (pre-processed) patient data and can then start the 1D CFD code themselves. The interface also allows the heart team to virtually perform interventions and simulating the results, which greatly supports in deciding a treatment plan for each patient. AngioSupport was tested on retrospective data from 10 patients during a user survey with 9 cardiologists. The cardiologists all stated that AngioSupport gives them more insight in each patient and that the AngioSupport interface is easy to use. However, improvements are still needed in AngioSupport, especially for the segmentation of the coronary vasculature. Also the accuracy of the 1D CFD code needs to be increased and validated if AngioSupport is to be used in clinical decision making. During this project, a patient-specific model-based interactive tool has been developed that can support the heart team in clinical decision making. AngioSupport allows the heart team to use numerical models from TU/e to calculate the pre- and post-operative vFFR to support them in deciding a treatment plan for each patient

Zero-dimensional lumped approach to incorporate the dynamic part of the pressure at vessel junctions in a 1D wave propagation model

A benchmark study by Boileau et al tested 6 commonly used numerical schemes for 1D wave propagation, for their ability to capture the main features of pressure, flow, and area waveforms in large arteries. While all numerical schemes showed good agreement in pressure and flow waveforms for smaller arterial networks, the simplified trapezium rule method proposed by Kroon et al showed an overestimation for the systolic pressure of 1% in proximal regions and an underestimation of 3% in distal regions in comparison with the 5 other schemes when using a larger arterial network, published as the ADAN56 model. The authors attributed this difference to the neglection of the dynamic part of the pressure at vessel junctions. Carson et al resolved these differences by proposing 2 methods to implement the dynamic part of the pressure in the simplified trapezium rule method scheme. In the present study, an alternative method is introduced extending the work by Kroon et al. This alternative method consists of a new 0D element, which is placed at vessel junctions. The strength of this new element is the ease of implementation and its flexible coupling with other elements, without introducing additional degrees of freedom or the need of a penalty function. This new approach is compared with 5 other numerical schemes, which already have the dynamic part of the pressure incorporated. The new method shows excellent agreement with these schemes for the ADAN56 model

Onderwijs anders organiseren in regio Utrecht: Een weergave in acht unieke portretten

Dit rapport brengt met acht portretten initiatieven in de regio Utrecht in kaart, waarmee het onderwijs en/of het werk anders georganiseerd werd in een onderwijsinstelling. De volgende onderzoeksvraag stond hierbij centraal: Hoe zijn onderwijsinstellingen in de regio Utrecht hun onderwijs en/of werk anders gaan organiseren? Om deze vraag te beantwoorden, werden de volgende deelvragen bestudeerd: a. Wat was de aanleiding om anders te gaan organiseren? b. Op welke manier werd er anders georganiseerd? c. Hoe is het proces van het anders organiseren verlopen? d. Welke (eerste) resultaten heeft het anders organiseren opgeleverd