With the advent of modern cognitive neuroscience and new tools of studying the human brain "live," music as a highly complex, temporally ordered and rule-based sensory language quickly became a ...fascinating topic of study. The question of "how" music moves us, stimulates our thoughts, feelings, and kinesthetic sense, and how it can reach the human experience in profound ways is now measured with the advent of modern cognitive neuroscience. The goal of Rhythm, Music and the Brain is an attempt to bring the knowledge of the arts and the sciences and review our current state of study about the brain and music, specifically rhythm. The author provides a thorough examination of the current state of research, including the biomedical applications of neurological music therapy in sensorimotor speech and cognitive rehabilitation. This book will be of interest for the lay and professional reader in the sciences and arts as well as the professionals in the fields of neuroscientific research, medicine, and rehabilitation.
Medicine in the Fourth Dimension Cederroth, Christopher R.; Albrecht, Urs; Bass, Joseph ...
Cell metabolism,
08/2019, Letnik:
30, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The importance of circadian biology has rarely been considered in pre-clinical studies, and even more when translating to the bedside. Circadian biology is becoming a critical factor for improving ...drug efficacy and diminishing drug toxicity. Indeed, there is emerging evidence showing that some drugs are more effective at nighttime than daytime, whereas for others it is the opposite. This suggests that the biology of the target cell will determine how an organ will respond to a drug at a specific time of the day, thus modulating pharmacodynamics. Thus, it is now time that circadian factors become an integral part of translational research.
In this Perspective, Cederroth et al. discuss the importance of considering circadian mechanisms when performing preclinical research with the aim of translating the findings to the clinic. By integrating chronopharmacology into clinical practice, it may be possible to minimize adverse side effects and maximize therapeutic efficacy, ultimately improving patient care.
Chromosomal instability (CIN) and epigenetic alterations have been implicated in tumor progression and metastasis; yet how these two hallmarks of cancer are related remains poorly understood. By ...integrating genetic, epigenetic, and functional analyses at the single cell level, we show that progression of uveal melanoma (UM), the most common intraocular primary cancer in adults, is driven by loss of Polycomb Repressive Complex 1 (PRC1) in a subpopulation of tumor cells. This leads to transcriptional de-repression of PRC1-target genes and mitotic chromosome segregation errors. Ensuing CIN leads to the formation of rupture-prone micronuclei, exposing genomic double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) to the cytosol. This provokes tumor cell-intrinsic inflammatory signaling, mediated by aberrant activation of the cGAS-STING pathway. PRC1 inhibition promotes nuclear enlargement, induces a transcriptional response that is associated with significantly worse patient survival and clinical outcomes, and enhances migration that is rescued upon pharmacologic inhibition of CIN or STING. Thus, deregulation of PRC1 can promote tumor progression by inducing CIN and represents an opportunity for early therapeutic intervention.
Summary Background Mobile (cell) phone communication has been suggested as a method to improve delivery of health services. However, data on the effects of mobile health technology on patient ...outcomes in resource-limited settings are limited. We aimed to assess whether mobile phone communication between health-care workers and patients starting antiretroviral therapy in Kenya improved drug adherence and suppression of plasma HIV-1 RNA load. Methods WelTel Kenya1 was a multisite randomised clinical trial of HIV-infected adults initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) in three clinics in Kenya. Patients were randomised (1:1) by simple randomisation with a random number generating program to a mobile phone short message service (SMS) intervention or standard care. Patients in the intervention group received weekly SMS messages from a clinic nurse and were required to respond within 48 h. Randomisation, laboratory assays, and analyses were done by investigators masked to treatment allocation; however, study participants and clinic staff were not masked to treatment. Primary outcomes were self-reported ART adherence (>95% of prescribed doses in the past 30 days at both 6 and 12 month follow-up visits) and plasma HIV-1 viral RNA load suppression (<400 copies per mL) at 12 months. The primary analysis was by intention to treat. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT00830622. Findings Between May, 2007, and October, 2008, we randomly assigned 538 participants to the SMS intervention (n=273) or to standard care (n=265). Adherence to ART was reported in 168 of 273 patients receiving the SMS intervention compared with 132 of 265 in the control group (relative risk RR for non-adherence 0·81, 95% CI 0·69–0·94; p=0·006). Suppressed viral loads were reported in 156 of 273 patients in the SMS group and 128 of 265 in the control group, (RR for virologic failure 0·84, 95% CI 0·71–0·99; p=0·04). The number needed to treat (NNT) to achieve greater than 95% adherence was nine (95% CI 5·0–29·5) and the NNT to achieve viral load suppression was 11 (5·8–227·3). Interpretation Patients who received SMS support had significantly improved ART adherence and rates of viral suppression compared with the control individuals. Mobile phones might be effective tools to improve patient outcome in resource-limited settings. Funding US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Anthracyclines are an important component of cancer treatments; however, their use is limited by the occurrence of cardiotoxicity. There are limited data on the occurrence of heart failure and the ...value of baseline and follow-up measurements of left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction (EF) in the current era. Therefore, the objectives of the present study were twofold: (1) to characterize the occurrence of and risk factors for major adverse cardiac events (MACEs: symptomatic heart failure and cardiac death) in a large contemporaneous population of adult patients treated with anthracyclines and (2) to test the value of LVEF and LV dimensions obtained using echocardiography in the prediction of MACE. Five thousand fifty-seven patients were studied, of whom 124 (2.4%) developed MACE. Of the total cohort, 2,285 patients had an available echocardiogram pre-chemotherapy. Patients with MACE were older (p <0.0001), predominantly men (p = 0.03), and with a higher incidence of cardiovascular risk factors and cardiac treatments. Patients with hematologic cancers had a higher incidence of cardiac events than patients with breast cancer (4.2% vs 0.7%, p <0.0001). Baseline LVEF, LVEF ≤5 points above the lower limits of normal, and LV internal diameter were predictive of the rate of occurrence of MACE. In conclusion, older patients with hematologic cancers and patients with a baseline LVEF ≤5 points above the lower limit of normal have higher incidence of MACE and should be closely monitored.
In crowding, perception of an object deteriorates in the presence of nearby elements. Although crowding is a ubiquitous phenomenon, since elements are rarely seen in isolation, to date there exists ...no consensus on how to model it. Previous experiments showed that the global configuration of the entire stimulus must be taken into account. These findings rule out simple pooling or substitution models and favor models sensitive to global spatial aspects. In order to investigate how to incorporate global aspects into models, we tested a large number of models with a database of forty stimuli tailored for the global aspects of crowding. Our results show that incorporating grouping like components strongly improves model performance.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In crowding, perception of a target deteriorates in the presence of nearby flankers. Traditionally, it is thought that visual crowding obeys Bouma’s law, i.e., all elements within a certain distance ...interfere with the target, and that adding more elements always leads to stronger crowding. Crowding is predominantly studied using sparse displays (a target surrounded by a few flankers). However, many studies have shown that this approach leads to wrong conclusions about human vision. Van der Burg and colleagues proposed a paradigm to measure crowding in dense displays using genetic algorithms. Displays were selected and combined over several generations to maximize human performance. In contrast to Bouma’s law, only the target’s nearest neighbours affected performance. Here, we tested various models to explain these results. We used the same genetic algorithm, but instead of selecting displays based on human performance we selected displays based on the model’s outputs. We found that all models based on the traditional feedforward pooling framework of vision were unable to reproduce human behaviour. In contrast, all models involving a dedicated grouping stage explained the results successfully. We show how traditional models can be improved by adding a grouping stage.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
We have used precise photometric and high-dispersion spectroscopic observations to study nine candidate
γ
Doradus (
γ
Dor) stars, identified as optically variable comparison stars in our ...photometric studies of Sun-like stars. In this paper, we confirm these nine candidates as new
γ
Dor variables. All exhibit sinusoidal variability with amplitudes between 6 and 65 mmag in Johnson
B
and periods from 0.28 to 1.13 days. All lie in the same region of the H-R diagram as our previously confirmed
γ
Dor stars. Of the nine systems, one is a single-lined spectroscopic binary (SB1), two are double-lined spectroscopic binaries (SB2), and the remaining six are single stars. We present orbits for the three binary systems: HD 34415, HD 144839, and HD 182735. Their periods are 6400 days or 17.5 yr (adopted), 995 ± 7 days, and 1052.4 ± 0.2 days, respectively. We compare our photometric periods with those we derive for six of the nine stars observed with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to strengthen the confirmation of these new
γ
Dor variables. Finally, because the distribution of
γ
Dor stars in the H-R diagram overlaps with the red edge of the
δ
Scuti (
δ
Sct) instability strip, we use our ground-based photometric results for the 73
γ
Dor stars confirmed with our Automatic Photoelectric Telescopes over the past two decades to look at the incidence of hybrid
δ
Sct/
γ
Dor stars; these are highly valuable targets for asteroseismology.
Regulated migration of hematopoietic stem cells is fundamental for hematopoiesis. The molecular mechanisms underlying stem cell trafficking are poorly defined. Based on a short hairpin RNA library ...and stromal cell-derived factor-1 (SDF-1) migration screening assay, we identified the histone 3 lysine 27 demethylase UTX (Kdm6a) as a novel regulator for hematopoietic cell migration. Using hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells from our conditional UTX knockout (KO) mice, we were able to confirm the regulatory function of UTX on cell migration. Moreover, adult female conditional UTX KO mice displayed myelodysplasia and splenic erythropoiesis, whereas UTX KO males showed no phenotype. During development, all UTX KO female and a portion of UTX KO male embryos developed a cardiac defect, cranioschisis, and died in utero. Therefore, UTY, the male homolog of UTX, can compensate for UTX in adults and partially during development. Additionally, we found that UTX knockdown in zebrafish significantly impairs SDF-1/CXCR4–dependent migration of primordial germ cells. Our data suggest that UTX is a critical regulator for stem cell migration and hematopoiesis.
•UTX regulates migration and hematopoiesis.•Female UTX-KO mice show key features of myelodysplastic syndrome with chromosomal instability.
About individual differences in vision Grzeczkowski, Lukasz; Clarke, Aaron M.; Francis, Gregory ...
Vision research,
December 2017, 2017-12-00, 20171201, Letnik:
141
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
In cognition, audition, and somatosensation, performance strongly correlates between different paradigms, which suggests the existence of common factors. In contrast, visual performance in seemingly ...very similar tasks, such as visual and bisection acuity, are hardly related, i.e., pairwise correlations between performance levels are low even though test-retest reliability is high. Here we show similar results for visual illusions. Consistent with previous findings, we found significant correlations between the illusion magnitude of the Ebbinghaus and Ponzo illusions, but this relationship was the only significant correlation out of 15 further comparisons. Similarly, we found a significant link for the Ponzo illusion with both mental imagery and cognitive disorganization. However, most other correlations between illusions and personality were not significant. The findings suggest that vision is highly specific, i.e., there is no common factor. While this proposal does not exclude strong and stable associations between certain illusions and between certain illusions and personality traits, these associations seem to be the exception rather than the rule.
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