Similarly to humans, rhesus macaques engage in mother-infant face-to-face interactions. However, no previous studies have described the naturally occurring structure and development of mother-infant ...interactions in this population and used a comparative-developmental perspective to directly compare them to the ones reported in humans. Here, we investigate the development of infant communication, and maternal responsiveness in the two groups. We video-recorded mother-infant interactions in both groups in naturalistic settings and analysed them with the same micro-analytic coding scheme. Results show that infant social expressiveness and maternal responsiveness are similarly structured in humans and macaques. Both human and macaque mothers use specific mirroring responses to specific infant social behaviours (modified mirroring to communicative signals, enriched mirroring to affiliative gestures). However, important differences were identified in the development of infant social expressiveness, and in forms of maternal responsiveness, with vocal responses and marking behaviours being predominantly human. Results indicate a common functional architecture of mother-infant communication in humans and monkeys, and contribute to theories concerning the evolution of specific traits of human behaviour.
We aimed to investigate the differences in plasma concentrations and in intakes of amino acids between male meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the Oxford arm of the European ...Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition.
This cross-sectional analysis included 392 men, aged 30-49 years. Plasma amino acid concentrations were measured with a targeted metabolomic approach using mass spectrometry, and dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire. Differences between diet groups in mean plasma concentrations and intakes of amino acids were examined using analysis of variance, controlling for potential confounding factors and multiple testing.
In plasma, concentrations of 6 out of 21 amino acids varied significantly by diet group, with differences of -13% to +16% between meat-eaters and vegans. Concentrations of methionine, tryptophan and tyrosine were highest in fish-eaters and vegetarians, followed by meat-eaters, and lowest in vegans. A broadly similar pattern was seen for lysine, whereas alanine concentration was highest in fish-eaters and lowest in meat-eaters. For glycine, vegans had the highest concentration and meat-eaters the lowest. Intakes of all 18 dietary amino acids differed by diet group; for the majority of these, intake was highest in meat-eaters followed by fish-eaters, then vegetarians and lowest in vegans (up to 47% lower than in meat-eaters).
Men belonging to different habitual diet groups have significantly different plasma concentrations of lysine, methionine, tryptophan, alanine, glycine and tyrosine. However, the differences in plasma concentrations were less marked than and did not necessarily mirror those seen for amino acid intakes.
We consider the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process with initial conditions generating a shock. The fluctuations of particle positions are asymptotically governed by the randomness around the ...two characteristic lines joining at the shock. Unlike in previous papers, we describe the correlation in space-time
without
employing the mapping to the last passage percolation, which fails to exists already for the partially asymmetric model. We then consider a special case, where the asymptotic distribution is a cut-off of the distribution of the largest eigenvalue of a finite GUE matrix. Finally we discuss the strength of the probabilistic and physically motivated approach and compare it with the mathematical difficulties of a direct computation.
Summary
The association of overweight and obesity with premenopausal breast cancer remained unclear, ethnicity could play a role. A MEDLINE and PUBMED search of all studies on obesity and ...premenopausal breast cancer published from 2000 to 2010 was conducted. Dose‐response meta‐analysis was used to determine the risk of premenopausal breast cancer associated with different anthropometric measurements in different ethnic groups. For body mass index (BMI), each 5 kg m−2 increase was inversely associated with the risk of premenopausal breast cancer (RR = 0.95, 95% confidence interval CI: 0.94, 0.97). After stratification by ethnicity, the inverse association remained significant only among Africans (RR = 0.95, 95% CI: 0.91, 0.98) and Caucasians (RR = 0.93, 95% CI: 0.91, 0.95). In contrast, among Asian women, a significant positive association was observed. For waist‐to‐hip ratio (WHR), each 0.1 unit increase was positively associated with premenopausal breast cancer (RR = 1.08, 95% CI: 1.01, 1.16); the largest effect was detected in Asian women (RR = 1.19, 95% CI: 1.15, 1.24), while small effects of 5% and 6% were observed in African and Caucasian women, respectively. Our results suggest the importance of considering both fat distribution and ethnicity when studying premenopausal breast cancer.
Insufficient awareness of hypertension guidelines by physicians may be an impediment to achieving adequate blood pressure (BP) control rates in clinical practice. We therefore conducted an open ...intervention survey among primary care physicians in 1596 centres from 16 countries in four different continents to prospectively assess what is the BP goal defined by physicians for individual patients and what are the reasons for not intensifying antihypertensive treatment when BP goals are not achieved. Enrolled patients (N=35,302) were either not treated to goal (N=22,887) or previously untreated (N=12,250). Baseline systolic and diastolic BP averaged 159/95+/-15/12 mm Hg. BP goals defined by physicians averaged 136+/-6 mm Hg for systolic and 86+/-5 mm Hg for diastolic BP. Patients' individual risk stratification determined BP goals. At last visit BP averaged 132/81+/-11/8 mm Hg and values of <or=140/90 were reached in 92% of untreated and 80% of previously uncontrolled treated hypertensives. The main reasons for not intensifying antihypertensive treatment when BP remained above goal were the assumption that the time after starting the new drug was too short to attain its full effect, the satisfaction with a clear improvement of BP or with a BP nearing the goal, and the acceptance of good self-measurements. In this open intervention program in primary care, a large proportion of patients achieved recommended BP goals. The belief that a clear improvement in BP is acceptable and that the full drug effect may take up to several weeks to be reached are frequent reasons for treatment inertia when goals are not achieved.
•The mouth and hand MN sectors have distinct and specific connections.•Unlike hand MNs, mouth MNs do not receive their visual input from parietal regions.•Facial/communicative visual input could ...reach mouth MNs through VLPF.•Mouth MN sector has strong connections with limbic structures.
The vast majority of functional studies investigating mirror neurons (MNs) explored their properties in relation to hand actions, and very few investigated how MNs respond to mouth actions or communicative gestures. Since hand and mouth MNs were recorded in two partially overlapping sectors of the ventral precentral cortex of the macaque monkey, there is a general assumption that they share a same neuroanatomical network, with the parietal cortex as a main source of visual information. In the current review, we challenge this perspective and describe the connectivity pattern of mouth MN sector. The mouth MNs F5/opercular region is connected with premotor, parietal areas mostly related to the somatosensory and motor representation of the face/mouth, and with area PrCO, involved in processing gustatory and somatosensory intraoral input. Unlike hand MNs, mouth MNs do not receive their visual input from parietal regions. Such information related to face/communicative behaviors could come from the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Further strong connections derive from limbic structures involved in encoding emotional facial expressions and motivational/reward processing. These brain structures include the anterior cingulate cortex, the anterior and mid-dorsal insula, orbitofrontal cortex and the basolateral amygdala. The mirror mechanism is therefore composed and supported by at least two different anatomical pathways: one is concerned with sensorimotor transformation in relation to reaching and hand grasping within the traditional parietal-premotor circuits; the second one is linked to the mouth/face motor control and is connected with limbic structures, involved in communication/emotions and reward processing.
We consider time correlation for KPZ growth in 1 + 1 dimensions in a neighborhood of a characteristics. We prove convergence of the covariance with droplet, flat and stationary initial profile. In ...particular, this provides a rigorous proof of the exact formula of the covariance for the stationary case obtained in Ferrari and Spohn (
2011
). Furthermore, we prove the universality of the first order correction when the two observation times are close and provide a rigorous bound of the error term. This result holds also for random initial profiles which are not necessarily stationary.
Yawn contagion in humans has been proposed to be related to our capacity for empathy. It is presently unclear whether this capacity is uniquely human or shared with other primates, especially ...monkeys. Here, we show that in gelada baboons (Theropithecus gelada) yawning is contagious between individuals, especially those that are socially close, i.e., the contagiousness of yawning correlated with the level of grooming contact between individuals. This correlation persisted after controlling for the effect of spatial association. Thus, emotional proximity rather than spatial proximity best predicts yawn contagion. Adult females showed precise matching of different yawning types, which suggests a mirroring mechanism that activates shared representations. The present study also suggests that females have an enhanced sensitivity and emotional tuning toward companions. These findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning reveals an emotional connection between individuals. This phenomenon, here demonstrated in monkeys, could be a building block for full-blown empathy.
Background
Coronavirus Disease‐2019 (COVID‐19) has been associated with myocardial injury and higher risk of arrhythmic complications. However, no reports are available about the effect of the ...ongoing pandemic on arrhythmias in patients at risk.
Objective
To describe the effect of COVID‐19 pandemic on arrhythmic burden among high‐risk patients.
Methods
This is a cross‐sectional study on the incidence of ventricular arrhythmia (VA) during the pandemic outbreak (study period), compared to the same timeframe in 2019 (reference period). Inclusion criteria were age (>18 years) and having an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD).
Results
Among 455 patients enrolled (mean age 64.9 ± 15.7 years; 25.1% females and 39.6% with CRTD), in the study period, 45 (9.9%) patients experienced a total of 86 VA; 8 patients (1.7%) required antitachycardia‐pacing (ATP) and 6 (1.3%) at least one shock. In the reference period, a total of 69 events occurred in 36 patients (7.9%). Six patients (1.3%) required ATP and three (0.7%) at least one shock. The number of patients that suffered from any arrhythmic events in the study period (9.9% vs 7.9%) did not significantly differ from the reference period (χ2 = 1.09, P = .29). The main predictor of VA during the COVID‐19 pandemic was the previous history of any ICD therapy (OR = 3.84, P < .001).
Conclusions
No evidence of an increase of arrhythmic burden was found during the COVID‐19 pandemic among patients with an ICD.
Among 455 patients (mean age 64.9 ± 15.7 years), 25.1% were females and 39.6% had a CRTD. The number of patients that suffered from any arrhythmic events in the study period (9.9 vs 7.9%) did not significantly differ from the reference period (χ2 = 1.09, P = .29). No evidence of an increase of arrhythmic burden was found during the COVID‐19 epidemic.
For stationary KPZ growth in 1 + 1 dimensions, the height fluctuations are governed by the Baik–Rains distribution. Using the totally asymmetric single step growth model, alias TASEP, we investigate ...height fluctuations for a general class of spatially homogeneous random initial conditions. We prove that for TASEP there is a one-parameter family of limit distributions, labeled by the diffusion coefficient of the initial conditions. The distributions are defined through a variational formula. We use Monte Carlo simulations to obtain their numerical plots. Also discussed is the connection to the six-vertex model at its conical point.
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