RESUMEN

As developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning become more widespread in healthcare, their potential to transform clinical outcomes also increases. Peripartum cardiomyopathy is a rare and poorly-characterised condition that presents as heart failure in the last trimester prior to delivery or within 5-6 months postpartum. The lack of a definitive understanding of the molecular causes and clinical progress of this condition suggests that bibliometrics will be well-suited to creating new insights into this serious clinical problem. We examine similarities and differences between peripartum and its closely related familial dilated cardiomyopathy and idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy. Using PubMed as the source of bibliometric data, we apply artificial intelligence-supported natural language processing to compare extracted data and genes association with these cardiomyopathies. Gene data were enhanced with additional metadata from third-party datasets and then analysed for their impact and specificity for peripartum cardiomyopathy. Artificial intelligence identified 14 genes that distinguished peripartum from both dilated and familial dilated cardiomyopathy. They are as follows: CTSD, RLN2, MMP23B*, SLC17A5, ST2*, PTHLH, CFH*, CFI, GPT, MR1, Rln1, SRI, STAT5A* and THBD. We then used the Human Protein Atlas website that uses affinity-purified rabbit polyclonal antibodies to identify genes that are expressed at the protein level (bold), or as RNA transcripts (*) in healthy human left ventricles. Additional analysis focussed on the full set of peripartum genes on linkage and specificity to cardiomyopathy yielded a different set of thirteen genes (bold font indicates those expressed in cardiomyocytes: PRL, RLN2, PLN, ST2, CTSD, F2, ACE, STAT3, TTN, SPP1, LGALS3, miR-146a, GNB3, SRI). This type of analysis can highlight new avenues for research, aimed at improving genomics-driven peripartum cardiomyopathy diagnosis as well as potential pathological and clinical sub-classification. We expect that this will allow for future improvements in identification, treatment and management of this condition. The first step in the application of these bibliometric-based artificial intelligence methods is to understand the current knowledge, and it is the aim of this paper to show how this might be achieved.

RESUMEN

OBJECTIVE: Grooming behaviours, including the application of fragranced products, are thought to reflect a means of managing social impressions and self-image. Although application of deodorants has previously been shown to make individuals appear more confident to others, few studies have specifically examined the psychological effects of such rituals on the wearer. Here, we investigated how grooming behaviours affect self-perceived body image, a central component of an individual's self-image. METHODS: In two separate experiments, using a psychophysical forced choice task, male and female participants with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI) indicated whether projected life-size images of their own body were bigger or smaller than their actual size. In the experimental condition, participants applied a fragranced deodorant before performing the task, whereas in the control condition, no product was applied. Our dependent measures were the point of subjective equality (PSE), the size at which participants report their body is subjectively equal to their actual body size, and the difference limen (DL), the amount of change in body size distortion necessary for it to be reliably detected. These measurements provide an index of attitudinal and perceptual components of body image, respectively. RESULTS: Both male and female participants who, at baseline, overestimated their body size, made significantly more accurate judgments about their body size, as measured by the PSE, following application of a fragranced deodorant or antiperspirant than they did in the control condition. This effect was seen in the absence of differences in perceptual sensitivity to changes in body size (DL) across groups and conditions. People who underestimated their body size did not show this effect. Of note, both male and female overestimators had a significantly larger BMI than underestimators. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrate that the attitudinal component of body image is malleable and can be influenced by everyday grooming routines, suggesting such behaviours have psychological benefits for both genders, beyond their basic hygiene function. However, there are individual differences in people's susceptibility to these effects, perhaps reflecting variability in self-esteem.

Asunto(s)

Imagen Corporal , Higiene , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino

RESUMEN

The observer's motor system has been shown to be involved in observing the actions of another person. Recent findings suggest that people with Parkinson's disease do not show the same motor facilitatory effects when observing the actions of another person. We studied whether Parkinson's patients were able to make unspeeded judgements about another person's action. Participants were asked to watch video clips of an actor lifting a box containing different weights (100, 200, 300 or 400 g) and to guess the weight that was being lifted on a 9-point scale. We compared the performance of 16 patients with PD with 16 healthy age-matched controls. Both groups were able to do the task, showing a significant relationship between the real weight and the guessed weight, albeit with a tendency to overestimate the lowest weight and underestimate the heaviest weight. The PD patients, however, showed a reduced slope value. These results show that despite their own motor deficits, PD patients are still able to judge the weight being lifted by another person, albeit with a slight reduction in accuracy. Further research will be required to determine whether PD patients use a motor simulation or a visual compensatory strategy to achieve this.

Asunto(s)

Juicio , Percepción de Movimiento , Actividad Motora , Enfermedad de Parkinson/psicología , Percepción Social , Anciano , Análisis de Varianza , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Psicofísica , Grabación en Video

RESUMEN

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based DNA testing of archival cervical smear slides is a useful method of retrospectively establishing the presence of the human papillomavirus (HPV) in cervical cells. A cellular DNA recovery test is performed in parallel to HPV DNA testing to ensure that sufficient cells are present and purification of sample DNA has been successfully performed. Previous studies have not comprehensively assessed DNA recovery rates in slides older than 13 years. We undertook a study to determine the factors impacting DNA recovery in 436 UK slides dating from 11 to 33 years prior to testing. Overall, a low cellular DNA recovery success rate of 29% was obtained but a strong trend was observed with increasing recovery rates the older the slides (P < 0.001). Recovery rates increased from 22% in the most recent slides collected from 1988 to 1992, to 61% in the oldest slides, collected in 1970-72. It is likely that fixation compounds incorporating acetic acid, introduced in the UK through the 1980s, have compromised subsequent attempts at PCR amplification. These findings emphasize the importance of the original fixation method in the success of DNA recovery from archival smear samples.

Asunto(s)

ADN Viral/aislamiento & purificación , Papillomaviridae/aislamiento & purificación , Manejo de Especímenes/métodos , Neoplasias del Cuello Uterino/virología , Frotis Vaginal/métodos , Femenino , Humanos , Papillomaviridae/genética , Reacción en Cadena de la Polimerasa , Estudios Retrospectivos , Factores de Tiempo , Neoplasias del Cuello Uterino/patología

RESUMEN

When orienting attention, inhibition mechanisms prevent the return of attention to previously examined stimuli. This inhibition of the return of attention (IOR) has been shown to be associated additively with location- and object-based representations. That is, when static objects are attended, IOR is associated with both the object and the location cued, and hence IOR is larger than when only spatial location is attended. Recently McAuliffe, Pratt, and O'Donnell (2001) failed to observe such additive effects except under a narrow set of conditions (at short cue-target intervals and using mixed blocks in which object- and pure location-based effects were probed in the same display). The present study shows that additive IOR effects are observed under conditions that violate all of these boundary conditions. The results also show that IOR is modulated by internal structural properties of objects. These findings are cosistent with the hypothesis that IOR operates over functionally independent object- and location-based frames of reference.

Asunto(s)

Inhibición Psicológica , Atención , Humanos , Distribución Aleatoria , Tiempo de Reacción , Percepción Visual

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: This study examined the inhibitory control mechanisms of selective attention in autism spectrum disorders. Two issues were engaged: First, we extend previous findings of normal inhibition of distractor identity in autism by examining whether inhibition of spatial location is also spared. The second issue concerns the selectivity of inhibition. In non-clinical participants inhibition is selectively directed to the properties of the distractor that compete for the control of action; we examined whether individuals with autism also show normal selectivity of inhibition. METHOD: A negative priming task was used to examine selective spatial inhibition in participants with autism relative to matched non-clinical controls. RESULTS: We discovered that inhibition of distractor spatial location is within normal limits in autism, as is the ability to selectively direct inhibition to task-relevant stimulus features. In addition, we unexpectedly found that the irrelevant perceptual feature of colour produced a facilitation effect in autism, which has not been observed previously in typical controls. CONCLUSIONS: Evidence of colour facilitation implicates more fluent, but presumably less adaptive, perceptual processes in autism.

Asunto(s)

Trastorno Autístico/complicaciones , Inhibición Psicológica , Trastornos de la Percepción/diagnóstico , Trastornos de la Percepción/etiología , Percepción Espacial , Adolescente , Adulto , Atención , Niño , Trastornos del Conocimiento/diagnóstico , Trastornos del Conocimiento/etiología , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Comunicación no Verbal , Solución de Problemas , Tiempo de Reacción , Percepción del Habla , Vocabulario

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Numerous studies have suggested, via the interpretation of negative priming effects, that subjects with schizophrenia are less able than controls to inhibit irrelevant distracting information. Further issues concerning impairment in inhibitory processes are investigated here. First, recent research has revealed that negative priming (NP) effects can be caused by different processes, distractor inhibition or perceptual review. Therefore, conclusions concerning reduced inhibition in patients with schizophrenia are not possible from previous NP research. Secondly, previous NP studies have required subjects to identify some feature of the target. This is the first study to examine NP that uses a spatial task in patients with schizophrenia. METHOD: Twenty-eight subjects with schizophrenia and 28 age and sex matched non-psychiatric control subjects completed a computerized NP task that eliminated the possible contribution of perceptual review. RESULTS: Subjects with schizophrenia had reduced levels of NP compared to control subjects on this spatial NP task (t = 2.46, P < 0.02). Current age, positive, negative or total PANNS scores did not correlate with negative priming scores, but post hoc analyses revealed that clozapine-treated patients had significantly greater levels of negative priming than patients receiving typical antipsychotic medications. CONCLUSIONS: The present experiment eliminated the contribution of perceptual review to negative priming and demonstrated that when a pure measure of inhibition is taken on a localization task, patients with schizophrenia were less able to inhibit irrelevant distracting stimuli. The fact that NP was reduced in a spatial task suggested a more diffuse reduction in inhibition than previous studies that examined only identification-based responses.

Asunto(s)

Atención , Inhibición Psicológica , Desempeño Psicomotor , Esquizofrenia/diagnóstico , Psicología del Esquizofrénico , Adulto , Antipsicóticos/efectos adversos , Atención/efectos de los fármacos , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Escalas de Valoración Psiquiátrica , Desempeño Psicomotor/efectos de los fármacos , Tiempo de Reacción , Esquizofrenia/tratamiento farmacológico , Índice de Severidad de la Enfermedad

Asunto(s)

Dieta Vegetariana , Conducta Alimentaria , Estilo de Vida , Carne , Alimentos Marinos , Adulto , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Animales , Índice de Masa Corporal , Estudios de Cohortes , Productos Lácteos , Encuestas sobre Dietas , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Estudios Prospectivos , Encuestas y Cuestionarios , Reino Unido

RESUMEN

DiNCQUMGP (Divisions National Consortium for the Quality Use of Medicines in General Practice) reports on a collaboration between doctors, pharmaceutical companies, government agencies, and medicine users to manage polypharmacy (prescribing multiple medicines to a patient) amongst older people. We have reported the outcomes of our collaboration (improving the Quality Use of Medicines) elsewhere. Here we discuss how we worked together, opened up new opportunities, and learned from one another. The first part of this article outlines a constructive new way of thinking about collaborating, that we argue is fundamentally different from current approaches. The second part describes what we did in the words of those involved.

Asunto(s)

Conducta Cooperativa , Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria/normas , Polifarmacia , Garantía de la Calidad de Atención de Salud/organización & administración , Humanos , Nueva Gales del Sur

RESUMEN

In studies of exogenous attentional orienting, response times for targets at previously cued locations are often longer than those for targets at previously uncued locations. This effect is known widely as inhibition of return (IOR). There has been debate as to whether IOR can be observed in discrimination as well as detection tasks. The experiments reported here confirm that IOR can be observed when target discrimination is required and that the cue-target interval at which IOR is observed is often longer in discrimination than in detection tasks. The results also demonstrate that the later emergence of IOR is related to perceptual discrimination rather than to response selection differences between discrimination and detection tasks. More difficult discrimination tasks lengthen the SOA at which IOR emerges. In contrast, increasing task difficulty by adding a distractor to the location opposite the target shortens the SOA at which IOR emerges. Together, the results reveal an adaptive interaction between exogenous and endogenous attentional systems, in which the action of the orienting (exogenous) system is modulated endogenously in accord with task demands.

Asunto(s)

Inhibición Psicológica , Atención , Señales (Psicología) , Discriminación en Psicología , Humanos , Tiempo de Reacción , Detección de Señal Psicológica

RESUMEN

Previous research has demonstrated that vision of a body site, without proprioceptive orienting of eye and head to that site, could affect tactile perception. The body site viewed was the hand, which can be seen directly under normal viewing conditions. The current research asked three further questions: First, can vision similarly affect tactile perception at a body site that cannot normally be viewed directly such as the face or neck? Second, does prior experience of seeing a body site, such as occurs when viewing the face in mirrors, produce larger effects of viewing than body sites rarely seen such as the back of the neck? And third, how quickly can visual information affect tactile target detection? We observe that: detection of tactile targets at these body sites was influenced by whether or not they were viewed, this effect was greater when viewing the more familiar site of the face than that of the neck, and significant effects were observed when the stimulus onset asynchrony between visual display and tactile target was as little as 200 ms.

Asunto(s)

Percepción/fisiología , Tacto/fisiología , Visión Ocular/fisiología , Adulto , Imagen Corporal , Femenino , Audición/fisiología , Humanos , Memoria , Enmascaramiento Perceptual , Distribución Aleatoria , Factores de Tiempo

RESUMEN

Negative priming has traditionally been viewed as a reflection of an inhibitory mechanism of attention. However, recent accounts have suggested that negative priming does not reflect inhibitory mechanisms. Rather, slowed reaction times on negative priming trials are either due to retrieval of incompatible response tags or of mismatching perceptual information, or due to extra processes needed to distinguish past from present information. In contrast, it is proposed that there is no firm evidence to discount inhibition models. In fact, although retrieval processes can be implicated in negative priming effects, understanding of these requires consideration of the inhibitory processes involved in selecting information for goal-directed behaviour.

Asunto(s)

Afecto , Inhibición Psicológica , Teoría Psicológica , Encéfalo/fisiología , Humanos , Procesos Mentales/fisiología , Tiempo de Reacción , Percepción del Tiempo/fisiología , Percepción Visual/fisiología

RESUMEN

The pre-motor theory suggests that, when attention is oriented to a location, the motor systems that are involved in achieving current behavioural goals are activated. For example, when a task requires accurate reaching, attention to a location activates the motor circuits controlling saccades and manual reaches. These actions involve separate neural systems for the control of eye and hand, but we believe that the selection processes acting on neural population codes within these systems are similar and can affect each other. The attentional effect can be revealed in the subsequent movement. The present study shows that the path the eye takes as it saccades to a target is affected by whether a reach to the target is also produced. This effect is interpreted as the influence of a hand-centred frame used in reaching on the spatial frame of reference required for the saccade.

Asunto(s)

Brazo/fisiología , Movimiento/fisiología , Orientación/fisiología , Desempeño Psicomotor/fisiología , Movimientos Sacádicos/fisiología , Adolescente , Adulto , Brazo/inervación , Femenino , Fijación Ocular/fisiología , Humanos , Masculino , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas , Estimulación Luminosa/métodos , Tiempo de Reacción/fisiología , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados

RESUMEN

A series of spatial localization experiments is reported that addresses the relation between negative priming and inhibition of return. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrate that slowed responses to repeated location stimuli can be obscured by repetition priming effects involving stimulus dimensions other than spatial location. The results of Experiments 2, 3A, and 3B demonstrate that these repetition priming effects may occur only when participants are required to respond to the prime display. Together, these results suggest that differences between attended and ignored repetition effects in selective attention studies of spatial localization do not provide a basis for distinguishing between spatial negative priming and inhibition of return.

Asunto(s)

Atención/fisiología , Inhibición Psicológica , Adulto , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Tiempo de Reacción , Percepción Espacial/fisiología

RESUMEN

BACKGROUND: Impaired distractor inhibition may contribute to the selective attention deficits observed in depressed patients, but studies to date have not tested the distractor inhibition theory against the possibility that processes such as transient memory review processes may account for the observed deficits. A negative priming paradigm can dissociate inhibition from such a potentially confounding process called object review. The negative priming task also isolates features of the distractor such as colour and location for independent examination. METHOD: A computerized negative priming task was used in which colour, identification and location features of a stimulus and distractor were systematically manipulated across successive prime and probe trials. Thirty-two unmedicated subjects with DSM-IV diagnoses of non-psychotic unipolar depression were compared with 32 age, sex and IQ matched controls. RESULTS: Depressed subjects had reduced levels of negative priming for conditions where the colour feature of the stimulus was repeated across prime and probe trials but not when identity or location was the repeated feature. When both the colour and location feature were the repeated feature across trials, facilitation in response was apparent. CONCLUSIONS: The pattern of results supports studies that found reduced distractor inhibition in depressed subjects, and suggests that object review is intact in these subjects. Greater impairment in negative priming for colour versus location suggests that subjects may have greater impairment in the visual stream associated with processing colour features.

Asunto(s)

Atención , Trastorno Depresivo/psicología , Adolescente , Adulto , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Pruebas de Percepción de Colores , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Procesos Mentales , Persona de Mediana Edad

RESUMEN

Most previous studies of inhibition of return (IOR) have examined reaction time (RT) and accuracy. These effects have been observed via saccades to targets or with key-press responses. In this study the authors examined, for the first time, IOR in components of a selective reaching task in which participants directly reached for and depressed target keys. When the interval between cue and target was 600 ms, robust IOR effects were observed in RT to begin the reach, but no effects were observed in the movement components (movement time to complete the reach and the path of the reach). However, when the cue-target interval was short (200 ms), hand paths deviated toward the cue. The results suggest that although RT measures of IOR appear to reveal perceptual rather than action-based processes, action-based representations may be briefly activated by irrelevant cues, which can be observed via analysis of three-dimensional reach path.

Asunto(s)

Inhibición Psicológica , Movimiento , Percepción Espacial , Adolescente , Adulto , Brazo , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Procesos Mentales , Tiempo de Reacción

RESUMEN

A location-based ('select-what, respond-where') priming task was used to examine three measures of selective attention (interference (INT), negative priming (NP), and inhibition of return (IOR)) as a function of focal brain pathology and the complexity of target selection. Control subjects showed different patterns of performance for the three attentional measures as a function of complexity, suggesting some independence among INT, NP, and IOR. Brain-damaged subjects showed significant response slowing, as well as a number of lesion-specific attentional abnormalities. Right frontal (including bifrontal) damage resulted in proportionally increased interference related to task complexity. Left posterior damage increased IOR in the most complex task, while left frontal damage reversed the control pattern of IOR as a function of complexity. Right hemisphere (right posterior and right frontal damage) pathology resulted in a virtual loss of negative priming at all levels of task complexity; left and bifrontal damage resulted in diminished NP only related to increases in the complexity of selection. INT, NP, and IOR are mediated by different brain regions and their expression can be modulated by the complexity of the selection task.

Asunto(s)

Atención/fisiología , Lesión Encefálica Crónica , Corteza Cerebral , Trastornos del Conocimiento , Inhibición Psicológica , Volición/fisiología , Análisis de Varianza , Lesión Encefálica Crónica/patología , Lesión Encefálica Crónica/fisiopatología , Estudios de Casos y Controles , Corteza Cerebral/lesiones , Corteza Cerebral/patología , Corteza Cerebral/fisiopatología , Trastornos del Conocimiento/clasificación , Trastornos del Conocimiento/patología , Trastornos del Conocimiento/fisiopatología , Señales (Psicología) , Discriminación en Psicología/fisiología , Femenino , Lóbulo Frontal/lesiones , Lóbulo Frontal/patología , Lóbulo Frontal/fisiopatología , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Modelos Neurológicos , Modelos Psicológicos , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos/fisiología , Enmascaramiento Perceptual/fisiología , Tiempo de Reacción/fisiología , Disposición en Psicología

RESUMEN

Research with normal participants has demonstrated that mechanisms of selective attention can simultaneously gain access to internal representations of spatial information defined with respect to both location- and object-based frames of reference. The present study demonstrates that patients with unilateral spatial neglect following a right-hemisphere lesion are poorer at detecting information on the contralateral left side in both location- and object-based spatial coordinates simultaneously. Moreover, the extent of the neglect is modulated by the probability of a target's appearing in either reference frame; as the probability of sampling a target in a particular frame of reference increases, so does the severity of neglect in the frame. These findings suggest that attention can be flexibly and strategically assigned to a reference frame depending on the contingencies of the task.

Asunto(s)

Atención , Área de Dependencia-Independencia , Orientación , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos , Anciano , Anciano de 80 o más Años , Daño Encefálico Crónico/diagnóstico , Dominancia Cerebral , Femenino , Hemianopsia/diagnóstico , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Pruebas Neuropsicológicas

RESUMEN

We investigated whether inhibition of return (IOR) could be observed in location-based, scene-based, and object-centered frames of reference. IOR was found to move both with a separate cued object (scene-based) and with a location within a single rotating object (object-centered). Importantly, however, IOR was also associated with the environmental location cued when cuing was of a separate object (scene-based), whereas facilitation of the cued location was found when cuing was of a component within an object. These results suggest that location is of central importance to scene-based representations of separate objects, which appear to be encoded in viewer-centered coordinates, whereas environmental locus is of little relevance when attention orients within a single object. The results also provide further evidence for the coexistence of both excitation and inhibition associated with uninformative exogenous cues.

Asunto(s)

Atención , Inhibición Psicológica , Orientación , Reconocimiento Visual de Modelos , Adulto , Percepción de Color , Aprendizaje Discriminativo , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Tiempo de Reacción

RESUMEN

Although recent fMRI and single unit recording studies have shown that attention modulates neural activity in motion sensitive areas of extrastriate cortex, these approaches cannot reveal qualitative or quantitative effects of attention on perception of motion. To investigate this, we asked observers to select one of two orthogonal directions in a brief, transparent dot display (prime) and then measured their sensitivity to global directional motion in a second uni-directional dot display (probe) presented a short time later. When probe direction matched the attended prime direction, sensitivity was degraded. But, when probe direction matched the ignored prime direction, sensitivity was enhanced, even though both components were of equal physical strength. Sensitivity was unchanged for directions opposite to either previously seen direction. Neither sensory adaptation nor opponent direction mechanisms can account for these data. Rather, processes initiated by visual selection must underlie these dramatic changes in motion sensitivity.

Asunto(s)

Adaptación Psicológica , Atención/fisiología , Percepción de Movimiento/fisiología , Adulto , Humanos , Pruebas Psicológicas