The Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission: Advancing Our Understanding of the Earth's Radiation Belts

We describe NASA's Radiation Belt Storm Probe (RBSP) mission, whose primary science objective is to understand, ideally to the point of predictability, the dynamics of relativistic electrons and penetrating ions in the Earth's radiation belts resulting from variable solar activity. The overarching scientific questions addressed include: 1. the physical processes that produce radiation belt enhancement events, 2. the dominant mechanisms for relativistic electron loss, and 3. how the ring current and other geomagnetic processes affect radiation belt behavior. The RBSP mission comprises two spacecraft which will be launched during Fall 2012 into low inclination lapping equatorial orbits. The orbit periods are about 9 hours, with perigee altitudes and apogee radial distances of 600 km and 5.8 RE respectively. During the two-year primary mission, the spacecraft orbits precess once around the Earth and lap each other twice in each local time quadrant. The spacecraft are each equipped with identical comprehensive instrumentation packages to measure, electrons, ions and wave electric and magnetic fields. We provide an overview of the RBSP mission, onboard instrumentation and science prospects and invite scientific collaboration

Influence of Cue Exposure on Inhibitory Control and Brain Activation in Patients with Alcohol Dependence

Alcohol dependence is a serious condition characterized by persistent desires to drink and unsuccessful efforts to control alcohol consumption despite the knowledge of dysfunction through the usage. The study at hand examined the influence of an alcohol exposure on inhibitory processes. Research provides evidence that trying to resist the temptation to drink exerts self-control, a limited resource which is used during all acts of inhibition. In line with this, studies demonstrate an impaired ability to regulate an already initiated response in alcohol-dependent and healthy subjects when confronted with alcohol-related stimuli. The related neuronal correlates in alcohol-dependent patients remain to be elucidated. The inhibition performance of 11 male alcohol-dependent patients during an alcohol exposure was compared with the task performance during a control condition. Behavioral data and neural brain activation during task performance were acquired by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging. The alcohol cue exposure led to subjectively stronger urges to drink which was accompanied by differential neural activation in amygdala and hippocampus. Moreover, the results revealed typical neural activation during inhibition performance across both conditions. Anyhow, we could not detect any behavioral deficits and only subtle neural differences between induction conditions during the performance of the inhibition task within the inferior frontal cortex. The results suggest that although the sample reports a subjectively stronger urge to drink after the alcohol cue exposure this effect was not strong enough to significantly impair task performance. Coherently, we discover only subtle differential brain activation between conditions during the inhibition task. In opposition to findings in literature our data do not reveal that an exposure to alcohol-related cues and thereby elicited cue reactivity results in impaired inhibition abilities

Zika virus infection and Guillain-Barré syndrome in three patients from Suriname

We present three patients from Suriname who were diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) during the Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in this country. One patient had a positive ZIKV urine real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) result. The other two patients had a negative ZIKV urine qRT-PCR but a positive virus neutralization test and presence of IgG antibodies against ZIKV in the serum. Considering the evidence of a past ZIKV infection and absence of evidence for recent infections with the most common preceding infections of GBS, it is very likely that these GBS cases were triggered by ZIKV

Re-evaluation of routine dengue virus serology in travelers in the era of Zika virus emergence

Background Diagnostic requests for both Zika virus (ZIKV) and dengue virus (DENV) infections in returning travelers have significantly increased during the recent ZIKV outbreak in the Americás. These flaviviruses have overlapping clinical syndromes and geographical distribution, but diagnostic differentiation is important because of different clinical consequences. As flaviviruses are known to have a short viremic period, diagnostics often rely on serological methods, which are challenging due to extensive cross-reactive antibodies. Objective To re-evaluate the performance of DENV serological assays in laboratory confirmed ZIKV-infected travelers. Study design The extent of cross-reactivity of the DENV NS1 antigen, IgM and IgG ELISA was analyzed in 152 clinical blood samples collected from 69 qRT-PCR and 24 virus neutralization titer (VNT) confirmed ZIKV-infected travelers. Results The majority of travelers in the presented cohort returned to the Netherlands from Suriname and presented with symptoms of fever and rash. Twenty-three percent of the female travelers were pregnant. None of the 39 ZIKV RNA positive blood samples were cross-reactive in the DENV NS1 antigen ELISA. The rates of cross-reactivity of the DENV IgM and IgG ELISÁs were 31% and 54%, respectively, after excluding travelers with (potential) previous DENV exposure. Conclusions Althoug

Solar Wind Excitation of Pc5 Fluctuations in the Magnetosphere and on the Ground

The primary purpose of this paper is to show the strong link between solar wind compressional fluctuations in the 1-8 mHz frequency range and Pc5 fluctuations in the magnetosphere near the magnetopause, at geosynchronous orbit, over the poles, and on the ground. We focus on a time interval in March and April 2002 when there was a favorable alignment of satellites combined with ten high speed solar wind streams. We used the S3C Great Observatory: specifically, ACE and Wind in the solar wind, Geotail near the magnetopause, GOES 8 and 10 at geosynchronous orbit, Cluster over the poles, and CANOPUS/CARISMA ground stations near the footpoints of magnetic field lines connected to either the magnetopause or the GOES satellites. Using four examples and a statistical survey we show that magnetospheric Pc5 fluctuations exist regardless of IMF orientation and for a wide range of speeds and dynamic pressures; the amplitude and power of magnetospheric fluctuations depends primarily on the amplitude and power of solar wind dynamic pressure fluctuations. The driving and response frequency of these geoeffective fluctuations is in the range 0.5 - 4 mHz. The most striking magnetospheric response occurs when the solar wind speed, dynamic pressure, and dynamic pressure fluctuations all increase at approximately the same time, as frequently occurs near the leading edge of high speed streams. We show evidence of oscillating Poynting Flux at the magnetopause determined using Geotail data that both excites a FLR and propagates evanescently inward. These observations suggest that, at least for this time interval at spring equinox, the entry path is from the dayside equatorial magnetopause inward; multiple field line resonances may be excited from the magnetopause to geosynchronous orbit by propagating compressional waves, with the power decreasing inward away from the magnetopause