Did depressive symptoms affect recognition of emotional prosody in Parkinson’s disease?

Objective: Evaluate the influence of depressive symptoms on the recognition of emotional prosody in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients, and identify types of emotion on spoken sentences. Methods: Thirty-five PD patients and 65 normal participants were studied. Dementia was checked with the Mini Mental State Examination, Clinical Dementia Rating scale, and DSM IV. Recognition of emotional prosody was tested by asking subjects to listen to 12 recorded statements with neutral affective content that were read with a strong affective expression. Subjects had to recognize the correct emotion by one of four descriptors (angry, sad, cheerful, and neutral). The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was employed to rate depressive symptoms with the cutoff 14. Results: Total ratings of emotions correctly recognized by participants below and above the BDI cutoff were similar among PD patients and normal individuals. PD patients who correctly identified neutral and anger infl ections presented higher rates of depressive symptoms (p = 0.011 and 0.044, respectively). No significant differences were observed in the normal group. Conclusions: Depression may modify some modalities of emotional prosody perception in PD, by increasing the perception of non-pleasant emotions or lack of affection, such as anger or indifference

Cutaneous Leishmaniasis and Sand Fly Fluctuations Are Associated with El Nino in Panama

BackgroundCutaneous Leishmaniasis (CL) is a neglected tropical vector-borne disease. Sand fly vectors (SF) and Leishmania spp parasites are sensitive to changes in weather conditions, rendering disease transmission susceptible to changes in local and global scale climatic patterns. Nevertheless, it is unclear how SF abundance is impacted by El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and how these changes might relate to changes in CL transmission.Methodology and FindingsWe studied association patterns between monthly time series, from January 2000 to December 2010, of: CL cases, rainfall and temperature from Panama, and an ENSO index. We employed autoregressive models and cross wavelet coherence, to quantify the seasonal and interannual impact of local climate and ENSO on CL dynamics. We employed Poisson Rate Generalized Linear Mixed Models to study SF abundance patterns across ENSO phases, seasons and eco-epidemiological settings, employing records from 640 night-trap sampling collections spanning 2000?2011. We found that ENSO, rainfall and temperature were associated with CL cycles at interannual scales, while seasonal patterns were mainly associated with rainfall and temperature. Sand fly (SF) vector abundance, on average, decreased during the hot and cold ENSO phases, when compared with the normal ENSO phase, yet variability in vector abundance was largest during the cold ENSO phase. Our results showed a three month lagged association between SF vector abundance and CL cases.ConclusionAssociation patterns of CL with ENSO and local climatic factors in Panama indicate that interannual CL cycles might be driven by ENSO, while the CL seasonality was mainly associated with temperature and rainfall variability. CL cases and SF abundance were associated in a fashion suggesting that sudden extraordinary changes in vector abundance might increase the potential for CL epidemic outbreaks, given that CL epidemics occur during the cold ENSO phase, a time when SF abundance shows its highest fluctuations

Indian Ocean Dipole drives malaria resurgence in East African highlands

Malaria resurgence in African highlands in the 1990s has raised questions about the underlying drivers of the increase in disease incidence including the role of El-Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, climatic anomalies other than the ENSO are clearly associated with malaria outbreaks in the highlands. Here we show that the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), a coupled ocean-atmosphere interaction in the Indian Ocean, affected highland malaria re-emergence. Using cross-wavelet coherence analysis, we found four-year long coherent cycles between the malaria time series and the dipole mode index (DMI) in the 1990s in three highland localities. Conversely, we found a less pronounced coherence between malaria and DMI in lowland localities. The highland/lowland contrast can be explained by the effects of mesoscale systems generated by Lake Victoria on its climate basin. Our results support the need to consider IOD as a driving force in the resurgence of malaria in the East African highlands

Comparing Models for Early Warning Systems of Neglected Tropical Diseases

Early Warning Systems (EWS) are management tools to predict the occurrence of epidemics. They are based on the dependence of a given infectious disease on environmental variables. Although several neglected tropical diseases are sensitive to the effect of climate, our ability to predict their dynamics has been barely studied. In this paper, we use several models to determine if the relationship between cases and climatic variability is robust—that is, not simply an artifact of model choice. We propose that EWS should be based on results from several models that are to be compared in terms of their ability to predict future number of cases. We use a specific metric for this comparison known as the predictive R2, which measures the accuracy of the predictions. For example, an R2 of 1 indicates perfect accuracy for predictions that perfectly match observed cases. For cutaneous leishmaniasis, R2 values range from 72% to77%, well above predictions using mean seasonal values (64%). We emphasize that predictability should be evaluated with observations that have not been used to fit the model. Finally, we argue that EWS should incorporate climatic variables that are known to have a consistent relationship with the number of observed cases

Fine-Scale Variation in Vector Host Use and Force of Infection Drive Localized Patterns of West Nile Virus Transmission

The influence of host diversity on multi-host pathogen transmission and persistence can be confounded by the large number of species and biological interactions that can characterize many transmission systems. For vector-borne pathogens, the composition of host communities has been hypothesized to affect transmission; however, the specific characteristics of host communities that affect transmission remain largely unknown. We tested the hypothesis that vector host use and force of infection (i.e., the summed number of infectious mosquitoes resulting from feeding upon each vertebrate host within a community of hosts), and not simply host diversity or richness, determine local infection rates of West Nile virus (WNV) in mosquito vectors. In suburban Chicago, Illinois, USA, we estimated community force of infection for West Nile virus using data on Culex pipiens mosquito host selection and WNV vertebrate reservoir competence for each host species in multiple residential and semi-natural study sites. We found host community force of infection interacted with avian diversity to influence WNV infection in Culex mosquitoes across the study area. Two avian species, the American robin (Turdus migratorius) and the house sparrow (Passer domesticus), produced 95.8% of the infectious Cx. pipiens mosquitoes and showed a significant positive association with WNV infection in Culex spp. mosquitoes. Therefore, indices of community structure, such as species diversity or richness, may not be reliable indicators of transmission risk at fine spatial scales in vector-borne disease systems. Rather, robust assessment of local transmission risk should incorporate heterogeneity in vector host feeding and variation in vertebrate reservoir competence at the spatial scale of vector-host interaction

Malaria transmission pattern resilience to climatic variability is mediated by insecticide-treated nets

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Malaria is an important public-health problem in the archipelago of Vanuatu and climate has been hypothesized as important influence on transmission risk. Beginning in 1988, a major intervention using insecticide-treated bed nets (ITNs) was implemented in the country in an attempt to reduce <it>Plasmodium </it>transmission. To date, no study has addressed the impact of ITN intervention in Vanuatu, how it may have modified the burden of disease, and whether there were any changes in malaria incidence that might be related to climatic drivers.</p> <p>Methods and findings</p> <p>Monthly time series (January 1983 through December 1999) of confirmed <it>Plasmodium falciparum </it>and <it>Plasmodium vivax </it>infections in the archipelago were analysed. During this 17 year period, malaria dynamics underwent a major regime shift around May 1991, following the introduction of bed nets as a control strategy in the country. By February of 1994 disease incidence from both parasites was reduced by at least 50%, when at most 20% of the population at risk was covered by ITNs. Seasonal cycles, as expected, were strongly correlated with temperature patterns, while inter-annual cycles were associated with changes in precipitation. Following the bed net intervention, the influence of environmental drivers of malaria dynamics was reduced by 30–80% for climatic forces, and 33–54% for other factors. A time lag of about five months was observed for the qualitative change ("regime shift") between the two parasites, the change occurring first for <it>P. falciparum</it>. The latter might be explained by interspecific interactions between the two parasites within the human hosts and their distinct biology, since <it>P. vivax </it>can relapse after a primary infection.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The Vanuatu ITN programme represents an excellent example of implementing an infectious disease control programme. The distribution was undertaken to cover a large, local proportion (~80%) of people in villages where malaria was present. The successful coverage was possible because of the strategy for distribution of ITNs by prioritizing the free distribution to groups with restricted means for their acquisition, making the access to this resource equitable across the population. These results emphasize the need to implement infectious disease control programmes focusing on the most vulnerable populations.</p

State–Space Forecasting of Schistosoma haematobium Time-Series in Niono, Mali

Adequate forecasting and early warning systems are based upon observations of human behavior, population, disease time-series, climate, environment, and/or a combination thereof, whichever option best compromises among realism, feasibility, robustness, and parsimony. Fully automatic and user-friendly state–space forecasting frameworks, incorporating myriad options (e.g., expert opinion, univariate, multivariate, and spatial-temporal), could considerably enhance disease control and hazard mitigation efforts in regions where vulnerability to neglected tropical diseases is pervasive and statistical expertise is scarce. The operational simplicity, generality, and flexibility of state–space frameworks, encapsulating multiple methods, could conveniently allow for 1) unsupervised model selection without disease-specific methodological tailoring, 2) on-line adaptation to disease time-series fluctuations, and 3) automatic switches between distinct forecasting methods as new time-series perturbations dictate. In this investigation, a univariate state–space framework with the aforementioned properties was successfully applied to the Schistosoma haematobium time-series for the district of Niono, Mali, to automatically generate contemporaneous on-line forecasts and hence, providing a basis for local re-organization and strengthening public health programs in this and potentially other Sahelian districts

A Systematic Review of Mosquito Coils and Passive Emanators: Defining Recommendations for Spatial Repellency Testing Methodologies.

Mosquito coils, vaporizer mats and emanators confer protection against mosquito bites through the spatial action of emanated vapor or airborne pyrethroid particles. These products dominate the pest control market; therefore, it is vital to characterize mosquito responses elicited by the chemical actives and their potential for disease prevention. The aim of this review was to determine effects of mosquito coils and emanators on mosquito responses that reduce human-vector contact and to propose scientific consensus on terminologies and methodologies used for evaluation of product formats that could contain spatial chemical actives, including indoor residual spraying (IRS), long lasting insecticide treated nets (LLINs) and insecticide treated materials (ITMs). PubMed, (National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine, NIH), MEDLINE, LILAC, Cochrane library, IBECS and Armed Forces Pest Management Board Literature Retrieval System search engines were used to identify studies of pyrethroid based coils and emanators with key-words "Mosquito coils" "Mosquito emanators" and "Spatial repellents". It was concluded that there is need to improve statistical reporting of studies, and reach consensus in the methodologies and terminologies used through standardized testing guidelines. Despite differing evaluation methodologies, data showed that coils and emanators induce mortality, deterrence, repellency as well as reduce the ability of mosquitoes to feed on humans. Available data on efficacy outdoors, dose-response relationships and effective distance of coils and emanators is inadequate for developing a target product profile (TPP), which will be required for such chemicals before optimized implementation can occur for maximum benefits in disease control