In this article, we establish a new phenomenon of “inattentional deafness” and highlight the level of load on visual attention as a critical determinant of this phenomenon. In three experiments, we ...modified an inattentional blindness paradigm to assess inattentional deafness. Participants made either a low- or high-load visual discrimination concerning a cross shape (respectively, a discrimination of line color or of line length with a subtle length difference). A brief pure tone was presented simultaneously with the visual task display on a final trial. Failures to notice the presence of this tone (i.e., inattentional deafness) reached a rate of 79% in the high-visual-load condition, significantly more than in the low-load condition. These findings establish the phenomenon of inattentional deafness under visual load, thereby extending the load theory of attention (e.g., Lavie,
Journal of Experimental Psychology. Human Perception and Performance, 25, 596–616,
1995
) to address the cross-modal effects of visual perceptual load.
Correspondence to Dr James P MacDonald, Division of Sports Medicine, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio, USA; James.MacDonald@nationwidechildrens.org As guest editors and as members of ...the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM), we welcome you to this BJSM-AMSSM edition of the journal. From AMSSM authors comes a systematic review on extracorporeal shockwave therapy (see page 154) and a scoping review on health disparity research in North America (see page 154) . Global contributions include a systematic review on the effect of fasting in Ramadan on health related indices and athletic performance (see page 136) , and original research investigating the epidemiology of lower extremity injuries in elite women’s football (see page 136) .
Dr Piyaporn ‘Taya’ Pramuksun, who is affiliated with the Royal Thai Air Force Hospital, subsequently arranged to have the Air Force fund a 1-year fellowship in MSKUS, taught by Dr Monaco, in New ...Jersey3 (figure 2). For 2 weeks, Dr Monaco taught Thai physicians MSKUS, orthobiological injection techniques and general sports medicine. ...the AMSSM grant took him to Phuket, Dr Monaco had typically worked in Bangkok on his semi-annual educational journeys. 2 Ruhling N. Icing the competition: how sports medicine doctors give elite US figure skating athletes a competitive edge. 2022.
...11 million individuals were admitted to prisons or jails in the USA in 2016.2 The experience of incarceration affects more than the individual. Astoundingly, in the USA more children (5.3 million) ...will experience this adverse child experience than will have asthma (5.1 million).3 The US Supreme Court has established that incarcerated individuals have a constitutional right to ‘reasonably adequate’ healthcare. There is a debate, however, over the definition of ‘reasonably adequate’, and disparity persists in the quality of care related to comfort, health privacy, and informed decision-making for incarcerated patients versus non-incarcerated patients.4–6 A conversation with Dr Rouzier and a lawyer friend about the Massachusetts correctional system ensued.
Groundwater forms the basis of water supplies across much of Africa and its development is rising as demand for secure water increases. Recharge rates are a key component for assessing groundwater ...development potential, but have not been mapped across Africa, other than from global models. Here we quantify long-term average (LTA) distributed groundwater recharge rates across Africa for the period 1970-2019 from 134 ground-based estimates and upscaled statistically. Natural diffuse and local focussed recharge, where this mechanism is widespread, are included but discrete leakage from large rivers, lakes or from irrigation are excluded. We find that measurable LTA recharge is found in most environments with average decadal recharge depths in arid and semi-arid areas of 60 mm (30-140 mm) and 200 mm (90-430 mm) respectively. A linear mixed model shows that at the scale of the African continent only LTA rainfall is related to LTA recharge-the inclusion of other climate and terrestrial factors do not improve the model. Kriging methods indicate spatial dependency to 900 km suggesting that factors other than LTA rainfall are important at local scales. We estimate that average decadal recharge in Africa is 15 000 km3 (4900-45 000 km3), approximately 2% of estimated groundwater storage across the continent, but is characterised by stark variability between high-storage/low-recharge sedimentary aquifers in North Africa, and low-storage/high-recharge weathered crystalline-rock aquifers across much of tropical Africa. African water security is greatly enhanced by this distribution, as many countries with low recharge possess substantial groundwater storage, whereas countries with low storage experience high, regular recharge. The dataset provides a first, ground-based approximation of the renewability of groundwater storage in Africa and can be used to refine and validate global and continental hydrological models while also providing a baseline against future change.
Competitive bacteria-bacteriophage interactions have resulted in the evolution of a plethora of bacterial defense systems preventing phage propagation. In recent years, computational and ...bioinformatic approaches have underpinned the discovery of numerous novel bacterial defense systems. Anti-phage systems are frequently encoded together in genomic loci termed defense islands. Here we report the identification and characterisation of a novel anti-phage system, that we have termed Shield, which forms part of the Pseudomonas defensive arsenal. The Shield system comprises the core component ShdA, a membrane-bound protein harboring an RmuC domain. Heterologous production of ShdA alone is sufficient to mediate bacterial immunity against several phages. We demonstrate that Shield and ShdA confer population-level immunity and that they can also decrease transformation efficiency. We further show that ShdA homologues can degrade DNA in vitro and, when expressed in a heterologous host, can alter the organisation of the host chromosomal DNA. Use of comparative genomic approaches identified how Shield can be divided into four subtypes, three of which contain additional components that in some cases can negatively affect the activity of ShdA and/or provide additional lines of phage defense. Collectively, our results identify a new player within the Pseudomonas bacterial immunity arsenal that displays a novel mechanism of protection, and reveals a role for RmuC domains in phage defense.
The occipital alpha rhythm (∼10 Hz) is the most prominent electrophysiological activity in the awake human brain 1, yet its functional role 2–4 and relation to visual perception 5 are little ...understood. Transient stimuli normally elicit a short series of positive and negative deflections lasting between 300 and 500 ms 6–8: the visual-evoked potential (VEP). Alpha oscillations, on the other hand, are generally suppressed by transient visual input 1, 8; they only augment in response to periodic (“steady-state”) inputs around 10 Hz 9, 10. Here, we applied reverse-correlation techniques to the visual presentation of random, nonperiodic dynamic stimulation sequences and found that the brain response to each stimulus transient was not merely a short-lived VEP but also included a strong ∼10 Hz oscillation that lasted for more than 1 s. In other words, the alpha rhythm implements an “echo” or reverberation of the input sequence. These echoes are correlated in magnitude and frequency with the observer's occipital alpha rhythm, are enhanced by visual attention, and can be rendered perceptually apparent in the form of ∼10 Hz flicker. These findings suggest a role for the alpha rhythm in the maintenance of sensory representations over time.
► EEG responses to random visual inputs contain a 10 Hz echo of the stimulation ► These echoes last up to 1 s (much longer than classic visual-evoked potentials) ► The echoes are tied to the occipital alpha rhythm but enhanced by attention ► The alpha rhythm may serve a role in maintaining sensory representations over time
New findings
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What is the central question of this study?
Heart failure is associated with persistent sterile inflammation that worsens disease severity; however, the molecular mechanisms behind ...cytokine recruitment and their relevance in the diseased myocardium remain unknown.
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What is the main finding and its importance?
We show that interleukin‐1β is activated downstream of the Nlrp3 inflammasome in calcineurin‐transgene‐induced structural heart disease. Genetic deletion of Nlrp3 abrogated inflammasome signalling and interleukin‐1β release, improving function. The role of Nlrp3 in non‐ischaemic cardiomyopathy and the utility of inflammasome antagonism have not yet been explored, revealing potential for translational application.
Heart failure is associated with a low‐grade and chronic cardiac inflammation that impairs function; however, the mechanisms by which this sterile inflammation occurs in structural heart disease remain poorly defined. Cardiac‐specific heterozygous overexpression of the calcineurin transgene (CNTg) in mice results in cardiac hypertrophy, inflammation, apoptosis and ventricular dilatation. We hypothesized that activation of the Nlrp3 inflammasome, an intracellular danger‐sensing pathway required for processing the pro‐inflammatory cytokine interleukin‐1β (IL‐1β), may contribute to myocardial dysfunction and disease progression. Here we report that Nlrp3 mRNA was increased in CNTg mice compared with wild‐type. Consistent with inflammasome activation, CNTg animals had increased conversion of pro‐caspase‐1 to cleaved and activated forms, as well as markedly increased serum IL‐1β. Blockade of IL‐1β signalling via chronic IL‐1 receptor antagonist therapy reduced cardiac inflammation and myocyte pathology in CNTg mice, resulting in improved systolic performance. Furthermore, genetic ablation of Nlrp3 in CNTg mice reduced pro‐inflammatory cytokine maturation and cardiac inflammation, as well as improving systolic performance. These findings indicate that activation of the Nlrp3 inflammasome in CNTg mice promotes myocardial inflammation and systolic dysfunction through the production of pro‐inflammatory IL‐1β. Blockade of IL‐1β signalling with the IL‐1 receptor antagonist reverses these phenotypes and offers a possible therapeutic approach in the management of heart failure.
A lack of information on the etiology of anemia has hampered the design and monitoring of anemia-control efforts.
We aimed to evaluate predictors of anemia in preschool children (PSC) (age range: ...6–59 mo) by country and infection-burden category.
Cross-sectional data from 16 surveys (n = 29,293) from the Biomarkers Reflecting Inflammation and Nutritional Determinants of Anemia (BRINDA) project were analyzed separately and pooled by category of infection burden. We assessed relations between anemia (hemoglobin concentration <110 g/L) and severe anemia (hemoglobin concentration <70 g/L) and individual-level (age, anthropometric measures, micronutrient deficiencies, malaria, and inflammation) and household-level predictors; we also examined the proportion of anemia with concomitant iron deficiency (defined as an inflammation-adjusted ferritin concentration <12 μg/L). Countries were grouped into 4 categories on the basis of risk and burden of infectious disease, and a pooled multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted for each group.
Iron deficiency, malaria, breastfeeding, stunting, underweight, inflammation, low socioeconomic status, and poor sanitation were each associated with anemia in >50% of surveys. Associations between breastfeeding and anemia were attenuated by controlling for child age, which was negatively associated with anemia. The most consistent predictors of severe anemia were malaria, poor sanitation, and underweight. In multivariable pooled models, child age, iron deficiency, and stunting independently predicted anemia and severe anemia. Inflammation was generally associated with anemia in the high- and very high–infection groups but not in the low- and medium-infection groups. In PSC with anemia, 50%, 30%, 55%, and 58% of children had concomitant iron deficiency in low-, medium-, high-, and very high–infection categories, respectively.
Although causal inference is limited by cross-sectional survey data, results suggest anemia-control programs should address both iron deficiency and infections. The relative importance of factors that are associated with anemia varies by setting, and thus, country-specific data are needed to guide programs.
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