The brain's ability to extract information from multiple sensory channels is crucial to perception and effective engagement with the environment, but the individual differences observed in ...multisensory processing lack mechanistic explanation. We hypothesized that, from the perspective of information theory, individuals with more effective multisensory processing will exhibit a higher degree of shared information among distributed neural populations while engaged in a multisensory task, representing more effective coordination of information among regions. To investigate this, healthy young adults completed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment task to measure their temporal binding window (TBW), which quantifies the ability to distinguish fine discrepancies in timing between auditory and visual stimuli. EEG was then recorded during a second run of the simultaneity judgment task, and partial least squares was used to relate individual differences in the TBW width to source-localized EEG measures of local entropy and mutual information, indexing local and distributed processing of information, respectively. The narrowness of the TBW, reflecting more effective multisensory processing, was related to a broad pattern of higher mutual information and lower local entropy at multiple timescales. Furthermore, a small group of temporal and frontal cortical regions, including those previously implicated in multisensory integration and response selection, respectively, played a prominent role in this pattern. Overall, these findings suggest that individual differences in multisensory processing are related to widespread individual differences in the balance of distributed versus local information processing among a large subset of brain regions, with more distributed information being associated with more effective multisensory processing. The balance of distributed versus local information processing may therefore be a useful measure for exploring individual differences in multisensory processing, its relationship to higher cognitive traits, and its disruption in neurodevelopmental disorders and clinical conditions.
•Elevated low frequency power is best explained by steepening of the aperiodic slope.•Patients also exhibit alpha slowing and reduced beta power.•Abnormalities in perilesional tissue relate to ...cognitive impairment.•Abnormalities are focused near lesion, but are detectable more broadly.
Decades of electrophysiological work have demonstrated the presence of “spectral slowing” in stroke patients – a prominent shift in the power spectrum towards lower frequencies, most evident in the vicinity of the lesion itself. Despite the reliability of this slowing as a marker of dysfunctional tissue across patient groups as well as animal models, it has yet to be explained in terms of the pathophysiological processes of stroke. To do so requires clear understanding of the neural dynamics that these differences represent, acknowledging the often overlooked fact that spectral power reflects more than just the amplitude of neural oscillations. To accomplish this, we used a combination of frequency domain and time domain measures to disambiguate and quantify periodic (oscillatory) and aperiodic (non-oscillatory) neural dynamics in resting state magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings from chronic stroke patients. We found that abnormally elevated low frequency power in these patients was best explained by a steepening of the aperiodic component of the power spectrum, rather than an enhancement of low frequency oscillations, as is often assumed. However, genuine oscillatory activity at higher frequencies was also found to be abnormal, with patients showing alpha slowing and diminished oscillatory activity in the beta band. These aperiodic and periodic abnormalities were found to covary, and could be detected even in the un-lesioned hemisphere, however they were most prominent in perilesional tissue, where their magnitude was predictive of cognitive impairment. This work redefines spectral slowing as a pattern of changes involving both aperiodic and periodic neural dynamics and narrows the gap in understanding between non-invasive markers of dysfunctional tissue and disease processes responsible for altered neural dynamics.
The biopsychosocial model of challenge and threat (BPS-CT) is a powerful framework linking psychological processes to reliable patterns of cardiovascular responses during motivated performance ...situations. Specifically, the BPS-CT poses challenge and threat as two motivational states that can emerge in response to a demanding, self-relevant task, where greater challenge arises when perceived resources are higher than demands, and greater threat arises when perceived resources are lower than demands. By identifying unique patterns of physiological responses associated with challenge and threat, respectively, the BPS-CT affords insight into subjective appraisals of resources and demands, and their determinants, during motivated performance situations. Despite its broad utility, lack of familiarity with physiological concepts and difficulty with identifying clear guidelines in the literature are barriers to wider uptake of this approach by behavioral researchers. Our goal is to remove these barriers by providing a comprehensive, step-by-step tutorial on conducting an experiment using the challenge and threat model, offering concrete recommendations for those who are new to the method, and serving as a centralized collection of resources for those looking to deepen their understanding. The tutorial spans five parts, covering theoretical introduction, lab setup, data collection, data analysis, and appendices offering additional details about data analysis and equipment. With this, we aim to make challenge and threat research, and the insights it offers, more accessible to researchers throughout the behavioral sciences.
The human mind harbors various mechanisms for coping with stress, but what role does physical behavior play? Inspired by ethological observations of autogrooming activity across species, we offer a ...general hypothesis: cleaning attenuates effects of stressful events. Preregistered behavioral and psychophysiological experiments (N = 3,066 in United Kingdom, United States, and Canada) found that (a) concrete visual simulation of cleaning behavior alleviated residual anxiety from a stress-inducing physical scene, an effect distinct from touch, and (b) actual cleaning behavior enhanced adaptive cardiovascular reactivity to a highly stressful context of social performance/evaluation, which provides the first physiological evidence for the attenuation of stress-related effects by cleaning. Overall, actual cleaning and simulated cleaning attenuate effects of physical or psychological stressors, even when they have nothing to do with contamination or disease and would not be resolved by cleaning. Daily cleaning behavior may facilitate coping with stressors like physical risks and psychological threats to the self.
Since September 2017, I have been volunteering at the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park (JTGSF 2020). I work with the head gardener, seasoned bonsai devotees, and a master ...gardener to prune trees, mend fences, beat back bamboo, pull weeds, catch koi fish, and clean ponds. These tasks may not seem relevant to engineering teams, but my time in the Japanese Tea Garden has allowed me to observe how the garden is managed, maintained, and expanded. I am a business owner and engineer first, so I am continually on the hunt for competitive advantages and valuable lessons. The Japanese Tea Garden is a continually operating business. It does not close for maintenance or holidays. It is not a trivial business either; as of 2019, the Japanese Tea Garden receives around 600,000 visitors yearly. Work must happen while the garden is open, which sets constraints on execution. These constraints have led the garden to adopt a working and planning style similar to the agile and extreme programming movements.
Dupuytren's disease (DD) is a common fibrotic condition of the palmar fascia, leading to deposition of collagen-rich cords and progressive flexion of the fingers. The molecular mechanisms underlying ...the disease are poorly understood. We have previously shown altered expression of extracellular matrix-degrading proteases (matrix metalloproteases, MMPs, and ‘a disintegrin and metalloprotease domain with thrombospondin motifs’, ADAMTS, proteases) in palmar fascia from DD patients compared to control and shown that the expression of a sub-set of these genes correlates with post-operative outcome. In the current study we used an in vitro model of collagen contraction to identify the specific proteases which mediate this effect. We measured the expression of all MMPs, ADAMTSs and their inhibitors in fibroblasts derived from the palmar fascia of DD patients, both in monolayer culture and in the fibroblast-populated collagen lattice (FPCL) model of cell-mediated contraction. Key proteases, previously identified in our tissue studies, were expressed in vitro and regulated by tension in the FPCL, including MMP1, 2, 3, 13 and 14. Knockdown of MMP2 and MMP14 (but not MMP1, 3 and 13) inhibited cell-mediated contraction, and knockdown of MMP14 inhibited proMMP-2 activation. Interestingly, whilst collagen is degraded during the FPCL assay, this is not altered upon knockdown of any of the proteases examined. We conclude that MMP-14 (via its ability to activate proMMP-2) and MMP-2 are key proteases in collagen contraction mediated by fibroblasts in DD patients. These proteases may be drug targets or act as biomarkers for disease progression.
► MMP and TIMP expression was measured in Dupuytren's disease FPCL assays. ► Collagen-degrading MMPs were individually knocked down in the FPCL using siRNA. ► Knockdown of MMP-2 and MMP-14 inhibited cell-mediated contraction. ► Knockdown of MMP-1 potentiated cell-mediated contraction. ► Knockdown of individual MMPs had no effect on collagen degradation.
Many teams in businesses skip crucial development processes and justify it with scheduling pressure or by blaming the boss. There will always be scheduling pressure, so teams must adjust their ...approaches, or they will continue to flounder. Bugs are expensive in time, money, and morale. Debugging accounts for 40 to 50 percent of most project costs and schedules. Anything practitioners can do to keep bugs out of their code or catch them as early as possible will save time and money. The goal is to identify and resolve defects as early as possible. Here, five simple quality improvement processes that are cheap or free to implement and applicable for any languages and platforms are offered including fixing all warnings, setting up statistic analysis support for project, measuring and tackling complexity in software, creating automated code formatting rules and reviewing codes.
Purpose We have previously demonstrated that gene expression levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), related metalloproteinases “a disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospontin motifs” ...(ADAMTSs), and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) differed when comparing palmar fascia from 19 patients with Dupuytren's disease (DD) with 19 disease-free controls. We undertook to investigate whether the extent of this altered gene expression was related to clinical outcome. Methods All the patients with DD were followed up for an average of 14 months from their primary fasciectomy. Clinical outcome was scored by measuring range of motion to assess total extension deficit (fixed flexion deformity FFD of the affected digit), total further flexion, and grip strength, and using 3 validated outcome scores: the Disability of Arm, Shoulder and Hand (DASH) questionnaire, the Michigan Hand Questionnaire (MHQ), and the Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS). Results We found a considerable correlation between levels of gene expression of several of the MMPs (MMP2, MMP13, MMP14, MMP16, MMP 19) and ADAMTSs (ADAMTS2, ADAMTS4, ADAMTS5, ADAMTS14, ADAMTS16) and the recurrence of FFD over the follow-up period. The expression of all these genes had been shown to be increased in DD samples compared with controls. We also found that the expression levels of several of these genes correlated with 2 other preoperative measurements, total further flexion (digital roll-up) and grip strength. Conclusions These findings suggest that gene expression levels of key MMPs and ADAMTSs could be used to predict 1-year clinical outcome in terms of recurrent FFD of the affected finger following fasciectomy for DD. This implies that knowledge of these expression levels could be used to direct appropriate surgical and adjuvant intervention for DD. This study also provides further evidence to support the functional link between metalloproteinase gene expression and symptomatic progression or recurrence. Type of study/level of evidence Prognostic IV.
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