Motivation for goal-directed behaviour largely depends on the expected value of the anticipated reward. The aim of the present study was to examine how different levels of reward value are coded in ...the brain for two common forms of human reward: money and social approval. To account for gender differences 16 male and 16 female participants performed an incentive delay task expecting to win either money or positive social feedback. fMRI recording during the anticipation phase revealed proportional activation of neural structures constituting the human reward system for increasing levels of reward, independent of incentive type. However, in men activation in the prospect of monetary rewards encompassed a wide network of mesolimbic brain regions compared to only limited activation for social rewards. In contrast, in women, anticipation of either incentive type activated identical brain regions. Our findings represent an important step towards a better understanding of motivated behaviour by taking into account individual differences in reward valuation.
Recent studies have reported inconsistent results regarding the loss of reward sensitivity in the aging brain. Although such an age effect might be due to a decline of physiological processes, it may ...also be a consequence of age-related changes in motivational preference for different rewards. Here, we examined whether the age effects on neural correlates of reward anticipation are modulated by the type of expected reward. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired in 24 older (60-78 years) and 24 young participants (20-28 years) while they performed an incentive delay task offering monetary or social rewards. Anticipation of either reward type recruited brain structures associated with reward, including the nucleus accumbens (NAcc). Region of interest analysis revealed an interaction effect of reward type and age group in the right NAcc: enhanced activation to cues of social reward was detected in the older subsample while enhanced activation to cues of monetary reward was detected in the younger subsample. Our results suggest that neural sensitivity to reward-predicting cues does not generally decrease with age. Rather, neural responses in the NAcc appear to be modulated by the type of reward, presumably reflecting age-related changes in motivational value attributed to different types of reward.
Purpose:
This study aims to demonstrate how multiphase postoccupancy evaluation (POE) research was integrated into multiple projects to develop a continuous learning cycle.
Background:
Despite the ...well-recognized importance of POE, few studies have reported how knowledge from POE is applied in new designs.
Method:
This study is developed as a multiphase POE that spanned 3 years and across three units. Phase I POE compared an existing unit (Unit A) in Hospital A and a new Unit B in Hospital B that has implemented innovative design features such as decentralized nurse stations. The idea was to understand the challenges of the existing facility in Hospital A and gather lessons learned from the new design in Unit B to inform the design of the Hospital A expansion (Unit C). After the new expansion was occupied, the Phase II POE was conducted using the same set of POE tools in both Unit C and Unit A. The POE applied the following methods: (1) patient room evaluations using the Center for Health Design standardized POE tools, (2) space syntax analysis of visibility, and (3) a pre- and postmove analysis of Press Ganey data.
Results:
The results demonstrated that by incorporating lessons learned from the Phase I POE, Unit C has further improvement on patient room design ratings, improved patient satisfaction, and better visibility among nurse work areas compared to Unit A and Unit B.
Conclusions:
The multiphase, multisite POE with standardized tools has demonstrated its value as an important tool for continuous design quality improvement.
Evaluation of emotional scenes requires integration of information from different modality channels, most frequently from audition and vision. Neither the psychological nor neural basis of ...auditory–visual interactions during the processing of affect is well understood. In this study, possible interactions in affective processing were investigated via event-related potential (ERP) recordings during simultaneous presentation of affective pictures (from IAPS) and affectively sung notes that either matched or mismatched each other in valence. To examine the role of attention in multisensory affect-integration ERPs were recorded in two different rating tasks (voice affect rating, picture affect rating) as participants evaluated the affect communicated in one of the modalities, while that in the other modality was ignored. Both the behavioral and ERP data revealed some, although non-identical, patterns of cross-modal influences; modulation of the ERP-component P2 suggested a relatively early integration of affective information in the attended picture condition, though only for happy picture–voice pairs. In addition, congruent pairing of sad pictures and sad voice stimuli affected the late positive potential (LPP). Responses in the voice affect rating task were overall more likely to be modulated by the concomitant picture's affective valence than vice versa.
Background
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GaGa-FAPI-46 is a promising radiopharmaceutical for in vivo detection of the fibroblast activation protein by positron emission tomography. Until now, the synthesis of
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GaGa-FAPI-46 ...has been only performed manually. Our aim was to evaluate the automated synthesis of this radiopharmaceutical on two different commercially available synthesis modules in order to make the tracer readily available for clinical application.
Results
The synthesis of
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GaGa-FAPI-46 with different amounts of precursor (10–50 μg) on the Modular Lab PharmTracer (MLPT) and Modular Lab eazy (ML eazy) from Eckert & Ziegler with a customized synthesis template and a customized single-use cassette yielded best results with 50 μg FAPI-46 for clinical multi-dose application. All relevant quality control parameters tested (e.g. sterility, stability and radiochemical purity) were in accordance with the European Pharmacopoeia.
Conclusions
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GaGa-FAPI-46 was successfully synthesized fully-automated on the synthesis modules Modular Lab PharmTracer and ML eazy and is, thus, available for multi-dose application in clinical settings.
The attachment of an ethyne substituent in the para position of phenylisocyanide, CNPhpCCH, enables the isocyanide to replace carbonyl ligands in the coordination sphere of common technetium(I) ...starting materials such as (NBu4)Tc2(μ-Cl)3(CO)6. The ligand exchange proceeds under thermal conditions and finally forms the corresponding hexakis(isocyanide)technetium(I) complex. The product undergoes a copper-catalyzed cycloaddition (“Click” reaction), e.g., with benzyl azide, which gives the Tc(CNPhazole)6+ cation. The free, uncoordinated “Click” product is obtained from a reaction of the corresponding tetrakis(CNPhazole)copper(I) complex and NaCN. It readily reacts with mer-Tc(CO)3(tht)(PPh3)2(BF4) (tht = tetrahydrothiophene) under exchange of the thioether ligand. Alternatively, Cu(CNPhazole)4+ can be used as a transmetalation reagent for the synthesis of the hexakis(isocyanide)technetium(I) complex, which is the preferable approach for the synthesis of the technetium complex with the short-lived nuclear isomer 99mTc, and a corresponding protocol for 99mTc(CNPhazole)6+ is reported. The 99Tc and copper complexes have been studied by single-crystal X-ray diffraction and/or spectroscopic methods including IR and multinuclear NMR spectroscopy.
The controlled, self-assembled synthesis of multinuclear coordination compounds can be performed via different approaches. Frequently, steric, geometric and/or electronic factors located at the ...ligand systems predefine the way in which metal ions can assemble them to large aggregates. For the compounds in the present paper, also the Pearson’s acidities and preferred coordination geometries of the metal ions were used as organization principles. The ligand under study, 2,6-dipicolinoylbis(N,N-diethylthiourea), H2L1ethyl, possesses ‘soft’ sulfur and ‘hard’ nitrogen and oxygen donors. One-pot reactions of this compound with AuCl(tht) (tht = tetrahydrothiophene) and M3+ salts (M = Sc, Y, La, Ln, Ga, In) give products with gold-based {Au3(L1ethyl)3}3+ or {Au2(L1ethyl)2}2+ coronands, which host central M3+ ions. The formation of such units is templated by the M3+ ions and the individual size of the coronand rings is dependent on the ionic radii of the central ions in a way that small ions such as Ga3+ form a Ga⊂{Au2(L1ethyl)2}+ assembly, while larger ions (starting from Sc3+/In3+) establish neutral M⊂{Au3(L1ethyl)3} units with nine-coordinate central ions.
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