Making sense: dopamine activates conscious self-monitoring through medial prefrontal cortex

When experiences become meaningful to the self, they are linked to synchronous activity in a paralimbic network of self-awareness and dopaminergic activity. This network includes medial prefrontal and medial parietal/posterior cingulate cortices, where transcranial magnetic stimulation may transiently impair self-awareness. Conversely, we hypothesize that dopaminergic stimulation may improve self-awareness and metacognition (i.e., the ability of the brain to consciously monitor its own cognitive processes). Here, we demonstrate improved noetic (conscious) metacognition by oral administration of 100 mg dopamine in minimal self-awareness. In a separate experiment with extended self-awareness dopamine improved the retrieval accuracy of memories of self-judgment (autonoetic, i.e., explicitly self-conscious) metacognition. Concomitantly, magnetoencephalography (MEG) showed increased amplitudes of oscillations (power) preferentially in the medial prefrontal cortex. Given that electromagnetic activity in this region is instrumental in self-awareness, this explains the specific effect of dopamine on explicit self-awareness and autonoetic metacognition

Injury Patterns among Individuals Diagnosed with Infantile Autism during Childhood: A Case-Control Study

Background: To date, injury risk among people with infantile autism (IA) has been a relatively poorly researched issue. Objective: The purpose of our study was to compare the prevalence and types of injuries in a clinical sample of 118 patients diagnosed with IA during childhood with those of 336 age- and sex-matched controls from the general population. Method: All participants were screened through the nationwide Danish National Hospital Register. The average amount of time that the participants were observed was 30.3 years (range, 27.3 to 30.4 years), and the mean patient age at the end of the observation period was 42.7 years (range, 27.3 to 57.3 years). Results: Among the 118 patients with IA, a total of 52 (44.1%) were registered in the Danish National Hospital Register with at least one injury diagnosis. In the comparison group, 226 of 336 individuals (67.3%) had at least one such diagnosis. The difference is statistically significant (P < .0001; odds ratio, 0.4; 95% confidence interval, 0.3 to 0.6), and the nature of the injuries also seems to differ. Gender, intellectual level, and concurrent epilepsy were not predictive of injury risk. Conclusions: Our results lend support to the notion that injuries that require medical attention are not uncommon among an adult population of people diagnosed with IA during childhood, but they are less common than the rate found in a comparison group from the general population. It is proposed that a diagnosis of IA is related to the likelihood of institutional care, which may have a protective effect with respect to acute hospital use

Mutual open-mindedness set in motion in Afghanistan

I essayet forklares, hvordan organisationerne "Global Education through Sport" og "Afghan Street Working Children and New Approach" giver børn og unge i Kabul som arbejder på gaden, mulighed for at dyrke sport og udvikle sociale, psykiske og fysiske færdigheder

Automated Decision-Support System for Prediction of Treatment Responders in Acute Ischemic Stroke

MRI is widely used in the assessment of acute ischemic stroke. In particular, it identifies the mismatch between hypoperfused and the permanently damaged tissue, the PWI-DWI mismatch volume. It is used to help triage patients into active or supportive treatment pathways. COMBAT Stroke is an automated software tool for estimating the mismatch volume and ratio based on MRI. Herein, we validate the decision made by the software with actual clinical decision rendered. Furthermore, we evaluate the association between treatment decisions (both automated and actual) and outcomes. COMBAT Stroke was used to determine PWI-DWI mismatch volume and ratio in 228 patients from two European multi-center stroke databases. We performed confusion matrix analysis to summarize the agreement between the automated selection and the clinical decision. Finally, we evaluated the clinical and imaging outcomes of the patients in the four entries of the confusion matrix (true positive, true negative, false negative, and false positive). About 186 of 228 patients with acute stroke underwent thrombolytic treatment, with the remaining 42 receiving supportive treatment only. Selection based on radiographic criteria using COMBAT Stroke classified 142 patients as potential candidates for thrombolytic treatment and 86 for supportive treatment; 60% sensitivity and 29% specificity. The patients deemed eligible for thrombolytic treatment by COMBAT Stroke demonstrated significantly higher rates of compromised tissue salvage, less neurological deficit, and were more likely to experience thrombus dissolving and reestablishment of normal blood flow at 24 h follow-up compared to those who were treated without substantial PWI-DWI mismatch. These results provide evidence that COMBAT Stroke, in addition to clinical assessment, may offer an optimal framework for a fast, efficient, and standardized clinical support tool to select patients for thrombolysis in acute ischemic stroke

Barnehagestyrers betydning for avdekking av vold mot barn

En kvalitativ studie av barnehagestyrers arbeid med forebygging og avdekking av vold mot barn