An evaluation between confidence judgments and differences in monitoring ability

Metacognition is the awareness of a person\u27s thinking and the ability to regulate that thinKing This study examines how confident a person is at monitoring progress during two cognitive tasks. The fast task was the feeling-of-knowing paradigm, when participants judge how accurately they can retrieve an answer in a recognition task, when they cannot retrieve the answer in free recall. The second task was a paired-associate interference paradigm. Participants were presented with a list of noun-noun pairs twice and then a new list was presented for recall. Participants were placed into three groups (high, medium, low) based on responses to the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. Results showed no significant differences between groups in either task. The results are discussed in terms of measuring strategy knowledge instead of monitoring

The development of domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive monitoring

Metacognitive monitoring may be a critical element in self-regulated learning. Two types of metacognitive monitoring have been identified: domain-specific and domain-general. Domain-specific metacognitive monitoring occurs when an individual is monitoring content-specific knowledge. Domain-general metacognitive monitoring occurs in situations when content-specific knowledge is not available. Currently no research is available that examines the developmental differences between domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive monitoring in children. This study attempted to address this issue by asking children in first, fourth, and seventh grade to make item-by-item confidence judgments while providing answers in two domain-specific tasks and two domain-general tasks. Two working memory spans tasks were also employed to control for maturational processes. Domain-specific metacognitive monitoring appeared earlier than domain-general metacognitive monitoring. Both domain-specific and domain-general metacognitive monitoring appear to benefit from experience because older students were more accurate metacognitive monitors and less overconfident than younger students. Maturational processes likely play a less significant role than experience in student improvement at metacognitive monitoring than previously thought

Heterotopic gray matter in white matter in a 62 year old

"Heterotopia" describes normal cells in an abnormal location, and in the context of neurobiology, usually refers to neurons or gray matter in the leptomeninges or in periventricular or subcortical white matter, ("Gray Matter Heterotopia"). While once thought to be quite rare, the widespread MRI availability allowed increased recognition of these malformations. Clinically, gray matter heterotopias usually manifest as seizures in the first and second decades of life and may have associated motor and cognitive developmental disturbances. We report a patient with no known prior neurologic history, who developed seizures at the age of 62, which were subsequently determined to be from a subcortical gray matter heterotopia. The patient presented to an outside hospital with episodic confusion thought to represent partial seizures, and also numbness in her left foot, leg, and arm. MRI revealed a thickened corpus callosum and abnormal signal extending into the right cingulate gyrus white matter with an infiltrative appearance suggestive of a glioma or gliomatosis. Stereotactic biopsy demonstrated white matter containing irregular islands of synaptophysin-immunopositive gray matter within which there were large dysplastic neurons. This established a diagnosis of ectopic gray matter in the subcortical white matter. To our knowledge, this is the oldest age at which a person with this congenital condition has experienced onset of related symptoms

Mutations in the Mitochondrial Methionyl-tRNA Synthetase Cause a Neurodegenerative Phenotype in Flies and a Recessive Ataxia (ARSAL) in Humans

The study of Drosophila neurodegenerative mutants combined with genetic and biochemical analyses lead to the identification of multiple complex mutations in 60 patients with a novel form of ataxia/leukoencephalopathy

SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity are associated with genetic variants affecting gene expression in a variety of tissues

Variability in SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and COVID-19 disease severity between individuals is partly due to genetic factors. Here, we identify 4 genomic loci with suggestive associations for SARS-CoV-2 susceptibility and 19 for COVID-19 disease severity. Four of these 23 loci likely have an ethnicity-specific component. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) signals in 11 loci colocalize with expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) associated with the expression of 20 genes in 62 tissues/cell types (range: 1:43 tissues/gene), including lung, brain, heart, muscle, and skin as well as the digestive system and immune system. We perform genetic fine mapping to compute 99% credible SNP sets, which identify 10 GWAS loci that have eight or fewer SNPs in the credible set, including three loci with one single likely causal SNP. Our study suggests that the diverse symptoms and disease severity of COVID-19 observed between individuals is associated with variants across the genome, affecting gene expression levels in a wide variety of tissue types

Mitochondrial physiology

As the knowledge base and importance of mitochondrial physiology to evolution, health and disease expands, the necessity for harmonizing the terminology concerning mitochondrial respiratory states and rates has become increasingly apparent. The chemiosmotic theory establishes the mechanism of energy transformation and coupling in oxidative phosphorylation. The unifying concept of the protonmotive force provides the framework for developing a consistent theoretical foundation of mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics. We follow the latest SI guidelines and those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on terminology in physical chemistry, extended by considerations of open systems and thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The concept-driven constructive terminology incorporates the meaning of each quantity and aligns concepts and symbols with the nomenclature of classical bioenergetics. We endeavour to provide a balanced view of mitochondrial respiratory control and a critical discussion on reporting data of mitochondrial respiration in terms of metabolic flows and fluxes. Uniform standards for evaluation of respiratory states and rates will ultimately contribute to reproducibility between laboratories and thus support the development of data repositories of mitochondrial respiratory function in species, tissues, and cells. Clarity of concept and consistency of nomenclature facilitate effective transdisciplinary communication, education, and ultimately further discovery

Mitochondrial physiology

As the knowledge base and importance of mitochondrial physiology to evolution, health and disease expands, the necessity for harmonizing the terminology concerning mitochondrial respiratory states and rates has become increasingly apparent. The chemiosmotic theory establishes the mechanism of energy transformation and coupling in oxidative phosphorylation. The unifying concept of the protonmotive force provides the framework for developing a consistent theoretical foundation of mitochondrial physiology and bioenergetics. We follow the latest SI guidelines and those of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) on terminology in physical chemistry, extended by considerations of open systems and thermodynamics of irreversible processes. The concept-driven constructive terminology incorporates the meaning of each quantity and aligns concepts and symbols with the nomenclature of classical bioenergetics. We endeavour to provide a balanced view of mitochondrial respiratory control and a critical discussion on reporting data of mitochondrial respiration in terms of metabolic flows and fluxes. Uniform standards for evaluation of respiratory states and rates will ultimately contribute to reproducibility between laboratories and thus support the development of data repositories of mitochondrial respiratory function in species, tissues, and cells. Clarity of concept and consistency of nomenclature facilitate effective transdisciplinary communication, education, and ultimately further discovery

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead