Despite the overall benefits of deep brain stimulation (DBS) in Parkinson's disease (PD), its effects on speech production have been mixed when examined using auditory-perceptual and acoustic ...measures. This study investigated the effects of DBS on the lip and jaw kinematics during sentence production in individuals with dysarthria secondary to PD.
Twenty-seven participants from three groups were included in the study: (a) individuals with PD and without DBS (PD group), (b) individuals with PD and with DBS (PD-DBS group), and (c) neurologically healthy control speakers (HC group). Lip and jaw movements during speech were recorded using optical motion capture and analyzed for path distance, speed, duration, articulatory stability, and interarticulator coordination.
The PD-DBS group showed (a) increased path distance compared with the PD and HC groups and (b) increased speed compared with the PD group but not the HC group. Both PD and PD-DBS groups exhibited lengthened sentence duration compared with the HC group. Articulatory stability was greater for the two PD groups, PD and PD-DBS, compared with the HC group. Spatial, but not temporal, coordination was lower for the PD group than for the other two groups. The only kinematic changes between the DBS on and off conditions within the PD-DBS group were increases in spatial coordination.
These data suggest that DBS primarily affects the amplitude scaling of articulatory movements, but not the temporal scaling, in individuals with PD. The findings are discussed with respect to the DBS-induced neural changes and their effects on speech motor control in PD.
Abstract It has been suggested that the weight loss seen in individuals who receive Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery may be due, at least in part, to changes in patient food selection, and that this ...change may stem from effects of the operation on the sense of taste. In this review, we evaluate the literature examining postoperative changes in food intake and food choice. While some evidence suggests that gastric bypass leads to altered food selection and taste perceptions, a clear picture regarding these changes remains to be elucidated and is blurred by inconsistencies, which may be rooted in the diverse subject pools within and between studies as well as in the indirect measures used to assess ingestive behavior. We argue that complementing current assessment tools with more direct measures of intake, food selection, and taste-related behavior might help provide some clarity and also facilitate translation between findings from animal models, in which similar measures are available, and clinical research.
•Developed and tested TOSS, an online intervention targeting hostile interpretations.•TOSS was associated with faster reductions in interpretations than control.•Significant indirect effect of TOSS ...on anger and aggression via hostility.•Brief computerized treatment may offer an alternative approach for hostility.
Hostility is a trait-level construct characterized by a generally suspicious and cynical view of other people that results in a tendency to interpret ambiguous social situations in hostile or threatening ways. Cognitive behavioral treatments for hostility have high dropout rates, which may be due to hostile beliefs interfering with treatment engagement. As such, there is a need for an alternative approach to prevent dropout and enhance engagement. The current study therefore developed and tested a 1-session, 40-minute online intervention targeting hostility. It was hypothesized that the hostility intervention would be rated as acceptable as indexed by self-report and completion rates. It was also hypothesized that the hostility intervention would be associated with greater reductions in hostility as compared to a control intervention. Finally, it was hypothesized there would be indirect effects of intervention condition on anger and aggression via changes in hostility.
Undergraduates (N = 101) who reported elevated hostility and hazardous alcohol use were randomized to complete either the hostility intervention or a control condition targeting physical health habits. Results showed that individuals randomized to the hostility intervention found the intervention to be highly acceptable and all participants completed the intervention in its entirety. The hostility intervention was associated with significantly faster reductions in hostile interpretations than the control condition with medium to large effects. There were significant indirect effects of intervention condition on month one follow-up anger and aggression via changes in hostile cognitions. This proof-of-concept study provides initial evidence that a brief, single-session intervention may be a promising approach for reducing hostility and its correlates.
Concern over global climate change is widespread, but quantifying relationships between temperature change and animal fitness has been a challenge for scientists. Our approach to this challenge was ...to study migratory Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchusspp.), fish whose lifetime fitness hinges on a once‐in‐a‐lifetime river migration to natal spawning grounds. Here, we suggest that their thermal optimum for aerobic scope is adaptive for river migration at the population level. We base this suggestion on several lines of evidence. The theoretical line of evidence comes from a direct association between the temperature optimum for aerobic metabolic scope and the temperatures historically experienced by three Fraser River salmon populations during their river migration. This close association was then used to predict that the occurrence of a period of anomalously high river temperatures in 2004 led to a complete collapse of aerobic scope during river migration for a portion of one of the sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) populations. This prediction was corroborated with empirical data from our biotelemetry studies, which tracked the migration of individual sockeye salmon in the Fraser River and revealed that the success of river migration for the same sockeye population was temperature dependent. Therefore, we suggest that collapse of aerobic scope was an important mechanism to explain the high salmon mortality observed during their migration. Consequently, models based on thermal optima for aerobic scope for ectothermic animals should improve predictions of population fitness under future climate scenarios.
We coupled physiological biopsy and positional
telemetry to examine survival to reach spawning grounds in relation to water
temperature, timing, physiological condition, and holding location (river ...or
lake) in adult migrating sockeye salmon (
Oncorhynchus
nerka
). We tracked 83 fish across a large temperature range
(13.5-21.5 °C), which included record highs. Only early-timed
migrants that held in Harrison Lake survived to reach spawning grounds (16%, or
n = 4). Normal-timed fish, those that migrated at historically
observed times, survived at higher levels if they held in Harrison River (72%,
or n = 18). Mortalities were identified on the bottoms of both
the lake and river. Hypothetical degree-day (DD) accumulation revealed that
early-timed river fish would have greatly surpassed (~800 °C DD)
a critical disease threshold value (~500 °C DD). There was no
difference in hypothetical DD accumulation between normal-timed river fish and
early-timed lake fish. Early-timed sockeye had elevated physiological stress
(e.g., plasma lactate, glucose, and hematocrit), which may have contributed to
high levels of mortality. By using lakes as thermal refugia, early-timed fish
likely reduce rates of disease development and may better recover from
physiological stress associated with high encountered temperatures.
With few exceptions, previously conducted research on hazardous drinking among Veterans has employed samples in which the majority of participants identify as male. In addition, past studies have ...solely focused on alcohol consumption, rather than associated risk for dependence. In this study, we expanded upon the extant literature by investigating sex differences in trajectories and predictors of change in alcohol consumption and dependence risk among post-9/11 Veterans.
A national sample of 1649 Veterans (50.0% female) were recruited in a five-wave longitudinal study that followed Veterans for up to 16 years after deployment. We used growth curve modeling to investigate trajectories of change in alcohol consumption and dependence risk among men and women Veterans. We examined predictors of growth, including demographics, support and resources, psychiatric symptoms, and trauma exposure.
Among male Veterans, alcohol consumption and dependence risk remained stagnant, which is in contrast to past work using non-Veteran samples. For female Veterans, consumption exhibited initial reductions that decelerated, and dependence risk reduced at a continuous rate. PTSD diagnosis was a significant predictor of individual differences in growth for men. Psychiatric symptoms (i.e., PTSD diagnosis, probable depression diagnosis, suicidal ideation) and psychosocial functioning were significant predictors of decreasing alcohol use for women.
Results highlight important sex differences in patterns and predictors of change in alcohol consumption and dependence risk among post-9/11 Veterans. Findings are discussed in relation to screening for hazardous alcohol use and intervention strategies in this at-risk population.
•Modeled growth trajectories and processes in alcohol-related outcomes among Veterans.•Among male Veterans, alcohol consumption and dependence risk was stable.•Among female Veterans, alcohol-related variables reduced over time.•PTSD diagnosis was a significant predictor of individual differences in growth.•Other psychiatric symptoms (e.g., depression) were indicators of growth for female Veterans.
The adverse impact of common diseases like diabetes mellitus and acute hyperglycemia on morbidity and mortality from myocardial infarction (MI) has been well documented over the past years of ...research. In the clinical setting, the relationship between blood glucose and mortality appears linear, with amplifying risk associated with increasing blood glucose levels. Further, this seems to be independent of a diagnosis of diabetes. In the experimental setting, various comorbidities seem to impact ischemic and pharmacological conditioning strategies, protecting the heart against ischemia and reperfusion injury. In this translational experimental approach from bedside to bench, we set out to determine whether acute and/or prolonged hyperglycemia have an influence on the protective effect of transferred human RIPC-plasma and, therefore, might obstruct translation into the clinical setting. Control and RIPC plasma of young healthy men were transferred to isolated hearts of young male Wistar rats in vitro. Plasma was administered before global ischemia under either short hyperglycemic (HGs Con, HGs RIPC) conditions, prolonged hyperglycemia (HGl Con, HGl RIPC), or under normoglycemia (Con, RIPC). Infarct sizes were determined by TTC staining. Control hearts showed an infarct size of 55 ± 7%. Preconditioning with transferred RIPC plasma under normoglycemia significantly reduced infarct size to 25 ± 4% (p < 0.05 vs. Con). Under acute hyperglycemia, control hearts showed an infarct size of 63 ± 5%. Applying RIPC plasma under short hyperglycemic conditions led to a significant infarct size reduction of 41 ± 4% (p < 0.05 vs. HGs Con). However, the cardioprotective effect of RIPC plasma under normoglycemia was significantly stronger compared with acute hyperglycemic conditions (RIPC vs. HGs RIPC; p < 0.05). Prolonged hyperglycemia (HGl RIPC) completely abolished the cardioprotective effect of RIPC plasma (infarct size 60 ± 7%; p < 0.05 vs. HGl Con; HGl Con 59 ± 5%).
Here we assessed how intake reductions induced by Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB) occur within and across access periods by examining drinking microstructure. After training, RYGB (n = 8-10) ...or sham-operated (SHAM, n = 12) rats were given 60-min access first to 0.3 M sucrose, then to 5% Intralipid, and finally to milk-chocolate Ensure Plus across 5 days each. Initially, total licks taken during the first meal of sucrose and Intralipid by RYGB and SHAM rats did not differ, but, across subsequent test periods, RYGB rats licked less than SHAM rats. First Ensure meal size also did not differ between RYGB and SHAM rats, but SHAM rats increased licking across test periods while the behavior of RYGB rats remained stable. The intake differences between the surgical groups, when they occurred, were most often due to smaller burst sizes in RYGB rats. Importantly, the surgical-group difference in sucrose and Intralipid intakes could not be explained by altered palatability of these solutions because, throughout testing, both groups had similar early meal licking behavior thought to represent the motivational potency of stimulus orosensory features. Although, overall, RYGB rats displayed lower early meal licking of Ensure relative to the SHAM rats, this appeared to be driven primarily by increases in the latter group across test periods; the RYGB group stayed relatively stable. Collectively, these results suggest that some level of postoral experience with these stimuli and/or their components is necessary before intake differences emerge between surgical groups, and, even when differences occur, often immediate taste-motivated ingestive behavior remains unaltered.
The nucleophile-intercepted Beckmann fragmentation (NuBFr) has the potential to be broadly applicable to the synthesis of indoline alkaloid-based natural products. However, the reaction has not been ...widely adopted, in part, because of limitations associated with the availability of appropriate promoter–Nu reagents. We have devised a stereospecific Ag(I)-promoted reaction for functionalizing NuBFr products to give novel compositions of matter that may be useful in synthesis and medicinal chemistry. With unhindered amine nucleophiles, structurally unique 2.2.2-bicycloamidines are generated. We also disclose for the first time detailed density functional theory studies, which shed light on the mechanism of the NuBFr and Ag-promoted substitution reaction that supports an unusual aziridinium ion as a key intermediate.
Objective: Although it is well known that Parkinson's disease (PD) with dementia results in functional decline, little is known about the impact of mild cognitive impairment in PD (PD-MCI) on ...day-to-day functioning. Method: Forty-one individuals with PD-MCI, 56 PD patients with normal cognition (PD-NC), and 47 healthy older adults were administered two performance-based measures of instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) that evaluated medication and financial management. Informants of the PD patients were also administered an IADL questionnaire. Results: There were no significant differences between PD-NC and healthy older adults on the performance-based measures of medication and financial management. However, PD-MCI patients demonstrated significantly lower scores on the performance-based measures of medication and financial management compared with healthy older adults. PD-MCI patients were also impaired compared with PD-NC patients on performance-based medication management, but no difference between these groups was observed for ability to manage finances. Performance-based financial and medication management did not correlate with scores on neuropsychological measures in PD-MCI patients. PD-MCI and PD-NC patients showed comparable scores on the informant-based IADL questionnaire. Conclusions: Performance-based measures of IADLs, particularly medication management ability, are sensitive to subtle functional declines in PD-MCI. Although impairment in performance-based measures is associated with cognitive status in PD, IADLs may be a separate domain of functioning from cognitive functioning in PD-MCI as these measures did not correlate with performance on the neuropsychological measures. Overall, performance-based assessment of IADLs may add to the clinical evaluation of PD-MCI.
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