Depressive traits are associated with a reduced effect of choice on intentional binding

A sense of agency (SoA) over wilful actions is thought to be dependent on the level of choice and the nature of the outcome. In a preregistered study, we manipulated choice and valence of outcome to assess the relationship between SoA across the depression and psychosis continuum. Participants (N = 151) completed a Libet Clock task, in which they had either a free or forced choice to press one of two buttons and received either a rewarding or punishing outcome. Participants also completed questionnaires on depressive and psychosis-like traits. Rewarding outcomes increased intentional binding. The evidence favoured no effect of choice on average, but this was influenced by inter-individual differences. Individuals reporting more depressive traits had less of a difference in intentional binding between free and forced choice conditions. We show that implicit SoA is sensitive to outcome valence and the effect of choice differs across the depression continuum.

[Update on toxoplasmosis in poultry farming]

INTRODUCTION

Toxoplasmosis is a worldwide occurring zoonosis caused by the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii). All warm-blooded species, including humans, serve as intermediate hosts. Definitive hosts are exclusively cats. Farm poultry can become infected with oocysts from contaminated feed or directly from the ground, or by pecking of e.g. infected rodents. Outdoor or free-range housing of poultry increases the risk of infection with length of time. Poulty meat must be seen as a potential source of infection for humans with the increasing popularity of humane animal husbandry practices in poultry farming. This short literature review attempts to assess the current epidemiological situation in farmed poultry and to assess the possible relevance of toxoplasmosis of poultry meat and poultry meat products for human consumption.

Biomimetic reconstruction of the hematopoietic stem cell niche for in vitro amplification of human hematopoietic stem cells

Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is successfully applied since the late 1950s; however, its efficacy still needs to be increased. A promising strategy is to transplant high numbers of pluripotent hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Therefore, an improved ex vivo culture system that supports proliferation and maintains HSC pluripotency would override possible limitations in cell numbers gained from donors. To model the natural HSC niche in vitro, we optimized the HSC medium composition with a panel of cytokines and valproic acid and used an artificial 3D bone marrow-like scaffold made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). This 3D scaffold offered a suitable platform to amplify human HSCs in vitro and, simultaneously, to support their viability, multipotency and ability for self-renewal. Silicon oxide-covering of PDMS structures further improved amplification of CD34+ cells, although the conservation of naïve HSCs was better on non-covered 3D PDMS. Finally, we found that HSC cultivated on non-covered 3D PDMS generated most pluripotent colonies within colony forming unit assays. In conclusion, by combining biological and biotechnological approaches, we optimized in vitro HSCs culture conditions, resulting in improved amplification, multipotency maintenance and vitality of HSCs.

Associations between physical activity and bone structure in older adults: does the use of self-reported versus objective assessments of physical activity influence the relationship?

Associations of current and previous physical activity (PA) with bone health are unclear. In postmenopausal women with low bone mineral density (BMD), current PA was positively associated with femoral neck BMD and microarchitecture. Past PA was positively associated with tibial microarchitecture. PA appears beneficial for bone health throughout the lifespan.

INTRODUCTION

To compare associations of current and past self-reported bone-specific physical activity, and current accelerometer-determined physical activity (PA), with bone structure (bone mineral density [BMD] and microarchitecture) in postmenopausal women with osteopenia or osteoporosis.

METHODS

Fifty community-dwelling postmenopausal women (mean age 64.4 ± 7.7) with hip or spine BMD T-score < - 1.0 SD were recruited for an exercise intervention. At baseline, current, past and total Bone-specific Physical Questionnaire (BPAQ) scores were self-reported, and percentages of sedentary, light and moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) were objectively determined by accelerometer measurements. Bone structure was assessed by lumbar spine and hip dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), 3D modelling algorithms (3D-SHAPER) of hip DXA scans and distal tibial high-resolution peripheral quantitative computed tomography (HR-pQCT) scans.

RESULTS

Current BPAQ scores and MVPA were significantly positively associated with femoral neck areal BMD (β = 0.315, p = 0.031 and β = 0.311, p = 0.042, respectively) following multivariable adjustments. MVPA was also positively associated with femoral cortical surface BMD (β = 0.333, p = 0.028) and mean cortical thickness (β = 0.374, p = 0.013). Past and total BPAQ scores demonstrated positive associations with tibial trabecular number (β = 0.391, p = 0.008 and β = 0.381, p = 0.010, respectively), and negative associations with trabecular separation (β = - 0.396, p = 0.006 and β = - 0.380, p = 0.009, respectively) and distribution (β = - 0.411, p = 0.004 and β = - 0.396, p = 0.006, respectively). Current BPAQ score was positively associated with tibial cortical periosteal perimeter (β = 0.278, p = 0.014).

CONCLUSION

BPAQ scores were most consistently associated with tibial bone parameters in older women, with past PA having lasting benefits for trabecular microarchitecture, and current PA positively associated with cortical bone.

Post-discharge oral antimicrobial use among hospitalized patients across an integrated national healthcare network

OBJECTIVES

Antimicrobial stewardship programmes have focused on reducing inappropriate inpatient antimicrobial prescribing, but several small studies have found a large portion of antimicrobial exposure occurs immediately after hospital discharge. In this study, we describe the prescribing of oral antimicrobials at hospital discharge across an integrated national healthcare system. At the hospital level, we also compare total inpatient antimicrobial use and post-discharge oral antimicrobial use.

METHODS

This retrospective cross-sectional study used national administrative data to identify all acute-care admissions during 2014-2016 within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). We evaluated inpatient days of therapy (DOT) and post-discharge DOT, defined as oral outpatient antimicrobials dispensed at the time of hospital discharge. At the hospital level, inpatient DOT/100 admissions were compared with post-discharge DOT/100 admissions using Spearman's rank-order correlation.

RESULTS

There were 1 681 701 acute-care admissions across 122 hospitals, and 335 369 (19.9%) were prescribed an oral antimicrobial at discharge. Fluoroquinolones (38.3%) were the most common post-discharge antimicrobial. At the hospital level, median inpatient antimicrobial use was 331.3 (interquartile range (IQR) 284.9-367.9) DOT/100 admissions and median post-discharge use was 209.5 (IQR 181.5-239.6) DOT/100 admissions. Thirty-nine per cent of the total duration of antimicrobial exposure occurred after discharge. At the hospital-level, the metrics of inpatient DOT/100 admissions and post-discharge DOT/100 admissions were weakly positively correlated with rho=0.44 (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

A large proportion of antimicrobial exposure among hospitalized patients occurred immediately following discharge. Antimicrobial-prescribing at hospital discharge provides an opportunity for antimicrobial stewardship. Hospital-level stewardship metrics need to include both inpatient and post-discharge antimicrobial-prescribing to provide a comprehensive assessment of hospital-associated antimicrobial use.

I just lost it! Fear and anger reduce the sense of agency: a study using intentional binding

Two recent studies have demonstrated that increases in arousal states lead to an increase people's sense of agency, i.e., the subjective experience of controlling one's own voluntary actions (Minohara et al. in Front Psychol 7:1165, 2016; Wen et al. in Conscious Cogn 36:87-95, 2015). We here extend these findings by showing that arousal states with negative emotional valence, such as fear and anger, decrease sense of agency. Anger and fear are negative emotional states. Anecdotally, they are often invoked as reasons for losing control, and neuroscientific evidence confirms important effects on the brain's action control systems. Surprisingly, the subjective experience of acting in anger or fear has scarcely been investigated experimentally. Thus, the legal notion that these intense emotions may undermine normal voluntary control over actions and outcomes (the 'Loss of Control', a partial defence for murder) lacks any clear evidence base. In three laboratory experiments, we measured sense of agency using an implicit measure based on time perception (the "intentional binding" paradigm). These actions occurred in either an emotionally neutral condition, or in a fearful (experiments 1 and 2) or angry state (experiment 3). In line with our hypotheses, fear or anger reduced the subjective sense of control over an action outcome, even though the objective causal link between action and outcome remained the same. This gap between the objective facts of agency, and a reduced subjective experience of agency under emotional conditions, has important implications for society and law.

SNP panel development for genetic management of wild and domesticated white bass (Morone chrysops)

White bass (Morone chrysops), striped bass and their interspecific hybrid are important game fishes, whereas the hybrid striped bass is an important aquaculture species in the US. Numerous state, federal and private hatcheries, therefore, rear these species for stocking purposes as well as for food fish. Although striped bass populations (both wild and domesticated) have been extensively evaluated, relatively little effort has been directed toward the study and improvement of white bass. In this study, we developed SNP resources to examine the genetic relationships among a long-term domesticated white bass line and five potential founder stocks for selective breeding collected from drainages in Arkansas, Texas and Alabama. Using genotyping-by-sequencing, we generated 13 872 genome-wide SNP loci across the six populations. Stringent filtering of SNP-calling parameters identified 426 informative SNP loci. Population genetic and structure analyses using these loci revealed only moderate genetic differentiation between populations (global F_st  = 0.083) and indicated two major genetic clusters. A final 57-SNP assay was successfully designed and validated using the MassARRAY system. The developed SNP panel assigned 96 additional genotyped individuals to their population of origin with 100% accuracy. The SNP resources developed in this study should facilitate ongoing efforts in selective breeding and conservation of white bass.

Major trauma in older persons

Background

Globally, populations are ageing, creating challenges for trauma system design. Despite this, little is known about causes of injury and long-term outcomes in older injured patients. This study aims to describe temporal trends in the incidence, causes and functional outcomes of major trauma in older adults.

Methods

The population-based Victorian State Trauma Registry was used to identify patients with major trauma aged 65 years and older with a date of injury between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2016. Temporal trends in population-based incidence rates were evaluated. Functional outcome was measured using the Glasgow Outcome Scale - Extended.

Results

There were 9250 older adults with major trauma during the study period. Low falls were the most common mechanism of injury (62·5 per cent), followed by transport-related events (22·2 per cent) and high falls (9·5 per cent). The number of patients with major trauma aged 65 years and older more than doubled from 2007 to 2016, and the incidence increased by 4·3 per cent per year (incidence rate ratio 1·043, 95 per cent c.i. 1·035 to 1·050; P < 0·001). At 12 months after injury, 41·8 per cent of older adults with major trauma had died, and 52·2 per cent of those who survived to hospital discharge were not living independently.

Conclusions

The number and proportion of older adults with major trauma are increasing rapidly and this will impact on trauma system design. Given the poor long-term outcomes, there needs to be greater emphasis on ensuring that appropriate interventions are targeted to the right patients and enhanced efforts in primary prevention.

Transforming growth factor-β1 and tumor necrosis factor-α concentration in serum during disturbed lymph flow from a liver in rats

In the last decades an increasing attention has been devoted to the role of lymphatic system in pathomechanism. The disturbed lymph flow from a liver contributes to liver fibrogenesis and probably to hepatocirrhosis. Cytokines play a major role in the development of hepatic fibrosis, the wound-healing response of the liver to chronic injury. Cytokines in hepatic fibrogenesis may be pro- or antifibrogenic. Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) is pro-fibrogenic cytokine and plays a key role in liver fibrogenesis. Interferon-γ (INF-γ) is anti-fibrogenic by downregulating hepatic stellate cell activation. We described the negative correlation between tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and IFN-γ concentration in serum during disturbed lymph flow from a liver of rats. TNF-α plays a antifibrogenic role in liver fibrogenesis too. Male Albino Wistar rats weighing 250 - 300 grams were selected for the experiment. The animals were kept in stable condition and were fed a standard diet with no fluid restriction. The rats were divided into 3 groups: group B - mechanical insufficiency was obtained by ligation of hepatic trunc, group K - underwent sham operation, group 0 - rats not subjected to any surgery. The animals were sacrificed for experiment in 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 56 and 103 day after operation. During experiment TGF-β1 and TNF-α concentration in serum were assayed. We observed a positive correlation between TGF-β1 and TNF-α concentration in serum. During disturbed lymph flow from the liver TNF-α plays probably a antifibrogenic role in liver fibrogenesis.

A unified approach to fast teller queues and ATM

This paper examines a problem of importance to the telecommunications industry. In the design of modern ATM switches, it is necessary to use simulation to estimate the probability that a queue within the switch exceeds a given large value. Since these are extremely small probabilities, importance sampling methods must be used. Here we obtain a change of measure for a broad class of models with direct applicability to ATM switches.

We consider a model with A independent sources of cells where each source is modeled by a Markov renewal point process with batch arrivals. We do not assume the sources are necessarily identically distributed, nor that batch sizes are independent of the state of the Markov process. These arrivals join a queue served by multiple independent servers, each with service times also modeled as a Markov renewal process. We only discuss a time-slotted system. The queue is viewed as the additive component of a Markov additive chain subject to the constraint that the additive component remains non-negative. We apply the theory in McDonald (1999) to obtain the asymptotics of the tail of the distribution of the queue size in steady state plus the asymptotics of the mean time between large deviations of the queue size.

Eosinophil activities modulate the immune/inflammatory character of allergic respiratory responses in mice

BACKGROUND

The importance and specific role(s) of eosinophils in modulating the immune/inflammatory phenotype of allergic pulmonary disease remain to be defined. Established animal models assessing the role(s) of eosinophils as contributors and/or causative agents of disease have relied on congenitally deficient mice where the developmental consequences of eosinophil depletion are unknown.

METHODS

We developed a novel conditional eosinophil-deficient strain of mice (iPHIL) through a gene knock-in strategy inserting the human diphtheria toxin (DT) receptor (DTR) into the endogenous eosinophil peroxidase genomic locus.

RESULTS

Expression of DTR rendered resistant mouse eosinophil progenitors sensitive to DT without affecting any other cell types. The presence of eosinophils was shown to be unnecessary during the sensitization phase of either ovalbumin (OVA) or house dust mite (HDM) acute asthma models. However, eosinophil ablation during airway challenge led to a predominantly neutrophilic phenotype (>15% neutrophils) accompanied by allergen-induced histopathologies and airway hyper-responsiveness in response to methacholine indistinguishable from eosinophilic wild-type mice. Moreover, the iPHIL neutrophilic airway phenotype was shown to be a steroid-resistant allergic respiratory variant that was reversible upon the restoration of peripheral eosinophils.

CONCLUSIONS

Eosinophil contributions to allergic immune/inflammatory responses appear to be limited to the airway challenge and not to the sensitization phase of allergen provocation models. The reversible steroid-resistant character of the iPHIL neutrophilic airway variant suggests underappreciated mechanisms by which eosinophils shape the character of allergic respiratory responses.

Preparation of reference stocks suitable for evaluation of alternative NAT-based mycoplasma detection methods

AIMS

The aim of this study was to optimize conditions for preparation and cryopreservation of mycoplasma reference materials suitable to evaluate alternative nucleic acid testing (NAT)-based assays and to compare their limits of detection (LODs) with those of conventional culture-based methods.

METHODS AND RESULTS

Acholeplasma laidlawii, Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma arginini stocks with low ratios of genomic copies to colony forming units (12, 8 and 4, respectively) harvested in early stationary phases of growth were preserved with different cryoprotective agents (CPAs) under slow (1°C min(-1)), moderate (8°C min(-1)), fast (13°C min(-1)) and 'snapshot' (60°C min(-1)) cooling rates. Depending on mycoplasma species, increasing the cooling rate from slow to snapshot enhanced cell survival up to 5-fold. The addition of 10% (v/v) dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and 15% (v/v) glycerol significantly improved cell survival of all tested strains. Cryoprotected stocks maintained high and stable titres for at least 1 year during storage at -80°C. Sonication of cell cultures prior to cryopreservation enhanced cell dispersion and reduced of GC/CFU ratios.

CONCLUSIONS

It is feasible to prepare stable reference stocks of cryopreserved mycoplasma cells suitable to reliably compare NAT- and culture-based mycoplasma testing methods.

SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY

This study describes experimental results demonstrating the preparation and storage of highly viable and dispersed mycoplasma reference stocks suitable for comparing alternative NAT-and conventional culture-based mycoplasma detection methods.

Up-regulation of Neuropeptide Y Receptors in the Hypothalamus of Monosodium Glutamate-lesioned Sprague-Dawley Rats

Monosodium-glutamate (MSG) is neurotoxic for brain regions devoid of blood-brain barrier when it is injected at high doses during the neonatal period. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) neurons in the arcuate nucleus are particularly sensitive to MSG treatment. But, despite of the large decrease of this potent orexigenic peptide, feeding behavior is only slightly affected. We hypothesized that the hypothalamic NPY receptor system might be modified in these rats. The present study characterizes hypothalamic NPY and NPY receptors in normal and MSG-treated rats. MSG-treated rats were lighter (p < 0.01) and ate 17% less than the control rats (p < 0.01). NPY levels in the mediobasal and mediodorsal hypothalamus were reduced in MSG-treated rats compared to normal rats (-26% and -43%, p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively). Combined hypothalamic Y1 and Y5 NPY receptor density was increased in MSG-treated rats compared to normal rats (+25%, p < 0.04), but affinity remained unaltered. Blockade with a selective Y1 antagonist showed that the Y1 receptor subtype represented more than 90% of the combined Y1 and Y5 receptor populations. The up-regulation of the NPY receptors is an element necessary to maintain food intake at a sufficient level to allow survival and growth of the lesioned rats.

[Health-related quality of life of people with severe traumatic injury: a longitudinal study using the SF-36 health survey]

Even though 85 percent of those who have been severely injured in an accident in Germany survive, complex and serious long-term consequences are still a major problem not only for health and care insurance providers but also for the accident victims themselves because their quality of life is affected permanently. Therefore the aim of the current study is to identify factors that significantly improve the quality of life after a severe traumatic injury and to investigate whether the support by a reintegration service has a positive effect on the victims' quality of life. The sample consisted of severely injured accident victims who were supported by a reintegration service. The data collection comprised three data points. At every data point the SF-36 questionnaire was used to assess the participants' quality of life. The results indicate that an individual medical-vocational support by a reintegration service has the potential to significantly and stably improve the physical aspects of quality of life, even if the accident dates back several years. Furthermore it appears to be important to support the independence of the accident victims because assistance by a third person correlates with a lower degree of physical quality of life, regardless of severity or type of injury. Moreover it becomes clear that it is important to pay more attention to the treatment of psychological consequences of severe accidents.