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Recent studies have linked non-invasive transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) with altered neural processing near the site of stimulation and across a distributed network of brain regions, with some evidence for a possible therapeutic role. However, negative results also exist and the potential impacts on motor-related neural oscillations have rarely been studied. Herein, we applied high-definition tDCS to the left primary motor cortex of 62 healthy adults in three sessions (anodal, cathodal and sham). Participants then performed a motor task with two conditions (i.e. cognitive interference and no interference) during magnetoencephalography (MEG). The MEG data were imaged in the time-frequency domain and whole-brain, voxel-wise maps were probed for task condition and stimulation effects. Our results indicated the classic pattern of slower behavioural responses and stronger neural oscillations in frontal and parietal cortices during interference relative to no-interference trials. Importantly, we found task condition-by-stimulation interactions involving motor-related gamma oscillations, with weaker interference effects after cathodal stimulation relative to anodal and sham in the right prefrontal, left temporoparietal junction and left cerebellar cortices. Conversely, stronger gamma interference responses were found in the right motor and superior parietal cortices following anodal relative to cathodal and sham. Lastly, main effects of stimulation indicated stronger beta oscillations following anodal stimulation in the left supplementary motor area. Taken together, these data provide key mechanistic insight into the polarity-specific effects of tDCS on the neural oscillatory dynamics serving motor control. Such findings reflect the modulatory effects of tDCS on population-level neural oscillatory responses distant from the stimulation site. KEY POINTS: Neurophysiological studies have indicated that beta and gamma oscillations are critical to motor control and that their dynamics are modulated by higher-order features of the task. Recent investigations have shown that transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) affects neural activity both locally and in brain regions distant from the stimulation site, but the mechanisms remain poorly understood. Sixty-two adults underwent anodal, cathodal and sham high-definition tDCS of the left motor cortices and completed a motor task with two levels of cognitive interference during magnetoencephalography (MEG). Task condition by stimulation-type interactions on movement-related gamma oscillations were observed across a distributed network of higher-order brain regions, including parietal cortices, right prefrontal and left temporoparietal junction. In sum, our results indicate polarity-specific effects on beta and gamma oscillations across a distributed network of brain regions that contribute to motor control in the context of interference and hold implications for understanding the therapeutic capacity of tDCS., (© 2025 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology © 2025 The Physiological Society.)

Acoustic communication is one of the primary ways birds transmit and acquire important information. Birds living in urban environments are limited in the transmission and recognition of vocalizations due to intense low-frequency anthropogenic noise, but the Acoustic Adaptation Hypothesis (AAH) suggests that birds mitigate the masking effects of noise by modifying the structure and properties of their vocalizations. Although these adaptations can increase the efficiency of communication, they also impose potential fitness costs on the sender and receiver, which can negatively impact survival. The contact and alarm calls of tree sparrows have a frequency range of 1-10 kHz, which makes them likely to be partially masked by urban noise, limiting communication between individuals and interactions within populations. Thus, based on the AAH, we examined the modifications of contact and alarm calls in response to urban noise and confirmed the potential fitness costs of these modifications in tree sparrows. We recorded two contact calls and an alarm call at 80 sites with varying urban noise levels in Gwangju, Naju, and Damyang from March to April 2023. Both types of contact calls tended to have higher peak frequencies and shorter durations as urban noise increased. Alarm calls tended to increase in the number of notes and duration with increasing urban noise. These results indicate that tree sparrows respond to noisy environments through modifications of the spectral and temporal characteristics of their vocalizations. However, these adaptations impose potential fitness costs on both the sender and the receiver., Competing Interests: Declarations. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2025. The Author(s).)

The legalization of recreational cannabis use has expanded the availability of this psychoactive substance in the United States. Research has shown that chronic cannabis use is associated with altered working memory function, however, the brain areas and neural dynamics underlying these affects remain poorly understood. In this study, we leveraged magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate neurophysiological activity in 45 participants (22 heavy cannabis users) during a numerical WM task, whereby participants were asked to either maintain or manipulate (i.e., rearrange in ascending order) a group of visually presented numbers. Significant oscillatory responses were imaged using a beamformer and subjected to whole-brain ANOVAs. Notably, we found that cannabis users exhibited significantly weaker alpha oscillations in superior parietal, occipital, and other regions during the encoding phase relative to nonusers. Interestingly, during the maintenance phase, there was a group-by-condition interaction in the right inferior frontal gyrus, left prefrontal, parietal, and other regions, such that cannabis users exhibited weaker alpha and beta oscillations relative to nonusers during maintain trials. Additionally, chronic cannabis users exhibited stronger alpha and beta maintenance responses in these same brain regions and prolonged reaction times during manipulate relative to maintain trials, while no such differences were found in nonusers. Neurobehavioral relationships were also detected in the prefrontal cortices of nonusers, but not cannabis users. In sum, chronic cannabis users exhibit weaker neural oscillations during working memory encoding but may compensate for these deficiencies through stronger oscillatory responses during memory maintenance, especially during strenuous tasks such as manipulating the to-be remembered items., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors of this manuscript acknowledged no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise., (Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Noninvasive brain stimulation of the primary motor cortex has been shown to alter therapeutic outcomes in stroke and other neurological conditions, but the precise mechanisms remain poorly understood. Determining the impact of such neurostimulation on the neural processing supporting motor control is a critical step toward further harnessing its therapeutic potential in multiple neurological conditions affecting the motor system. Herein, we leverage the excellent spatio-temporal precision of magnetoencephalographic (MEG) imaging to identify the spectral, spatial, and temporal effects of high-definition transcranial direct current stimulation (HD-tDCS) on the neural responses supporting motor control. Participants (N = 67) completed three HD-tDCS visits (anode, cathode, sham), with each involving 20 min of left primary motor cortex stimulation and performance of a simple/complex motor sequencing task during MEG. Whole-brain statistical analyses of beta oscillatory responses revealed stimulation-by-task interaction effects in the left primary motor cortex, right occipitotemporal, and the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices. Broadly, anodal stimulation induced significantly stronger beta oscillatory responses in these regions during simple movement sequences, while neural responses to complex sequences were not affected by stimulation. En masse, these data suggest that the beta oscillations serving motor planning (i.e., pre-movement) are particularly sensitive to the polarity of noninvasive stimulation and that the impact varies based on the difficulty of the movement sequence., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors of this manuscript acknowledge no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise., (Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adolescence is a period of profound biopsychosocial development, with pubertally-driven neural reorganization as social demands increase in peer contexts. The explosive increase in social media access has fundamentally changed peer interactions among youth, creating an urgent need to understand its impact on neurobiological development and mental health. Extant literature indicates that using social media promotes social comparison and feedback seeking (SCFS) behaviors in youth, which portend increased risk for mental health disorders, but little is known about its impact on neurobiological development. We assessed social media behaviors, mental health symptoms, and spontaneous cortical activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 80 typically developing youth (8-16 years) and tested how self-reported pubertal stage moderates their relationship. More mature adolescents who engaged in more SCFS showed weaker fusiform/parahippocampal alpha and medial prefrontal beta activity, and increased symptoms of anxiety and attention problems. Engaging in SCFS on social media during adolescence may thus relate to developmental differences in brain regions that undergo considerable development during puberty. These results are consistent with works indicating altered neurodevelopmental trajectories within association cortices surrounding the onset of many mental health disorders. Importantly, later pubertal stages may be most sensitive to the detrimental effects of social media use., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Research has shown age-related declines in cognitive control in the context of interference, but these studies have focused on frontoparietal networks and less is known about impacts on motor response-related dynamics in the face of distractors. Thus, we examined whether healthy aging affected connectivity between attention networks and motor circuitry using a multisource interference task and magnetoencephalography in 72 healthy-aging participants (28-63 years-old). Our results indicated stronger beta connectivity with increasing age between bilateral primary motor (M1) and occipital cortices, as well as stronger gamma fronto-motor connectivity during flanker-type interference. Regarding Simon-type interference, stronger beta interactions were observed between left M1 and right temporal and right M1 and left parietal with increasing age. Finally, the superadditivity effect (flanker + Simon presented simultaneously) indicated weaker beta connectivity between right M1 and left premotor with increasing age. These findings suggest exhaustion of age-related compensatory adaptations in the fronto-parieto-motor network with greater interference., Competing Interests: Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

Despite effective antiretroviral therapy, cognitive impairment remains prevalent among people with HIV (PWH) and decrements in executive function are particularly prominent. One component of executive function is cognitive flexibility, which integrates a variety of executive functions to dynamically adapt one's behavior in response to changing contextual demands. Though substantial work has illuminated HIV-related aberrations in brain function, it remains unclear how the neural oscillatory dynamics serving cognitive flexibility are affected by HIV-related alterations in neural functioning. Herein, 149 participants (PWH: 74; seronegative controls: 75) between the ages of 29-76 years completed a perceptual feature matching task that probes cognitive flexibility during high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG). Neural responses were decomposed into the time-frequency domain and significant oscillatory responses in the theta (4-8 Hz), alpha (10-16 Hz), and gamma (74-98 Hz) spectral windows were imaged using a beamforming approach. Whole-brain voxel-wise comparisons were then conducted on these dynamic functional maps to identify HIV-related differences in the neural oscillatory dynamics supporting cognitive flexibility. Our findings indicated group differences in alpha oscillatory activity in the cingulo-opercular cortices, and differences in gamma activity were found in the cerebellum. Across all participants, alpha and gamma activity in these regions were associated with performance on the cognitive flexibility task. Further, PWH who had been treated with antiretroviral therapy for a longer duration and those with higher current CD4 counts had alpha responses that more closely resembled those of seronegative controls, suggesting that optimal clinical management of HIV infection is associated with preserved neural dynamics supporting cognitive flexibility., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest SHB reports scientific advisory to Gilead Sciences and research grants to her institution from ViiV Healthcare and Janssen. All other authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Verbal working memory (vWM) is an essential limited-capacity cognitive system that spans the fronto-parietal network and utilizes the subprocesses of encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. With the recent widespread use of noninvasive brain stimulation techniques, multiple recent studies have examined whether such stimulation may enhance cognitive abilities such as vWM, but the findings to date remain unclear in terms of both behavior and critical brain regions. In the current study, we applied high-definition direct current stimulation to the left and right parietal cortices of 39 healthy adults in three separate sessions (left anodal, right anodal, and sham). Following stimulation, participants completed a vWM task during high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG). Significant neural responses at the sensor-level were imaged using a beamformer and whole-brain ANOVAs were used to identify the specific neuromodulatory effects of the stimulation conditions on neural responses serving distinct phases of vWM. We found that right stimulation had a faciliatory effect relative to left stimulation and sham on theta oscillations during encoding in the right inferior frontal, while the opposite pattern was observed for left supramarginal regions. Stimulation also had a faciliatory effect on theta in occipital regions and alpha in temporal regions regardless of the laterality of stimulation. In summary, our data suggest that parietal HD-tDCS both facilitates and interferes with neural responses underlying both the encoding and maintenance phases of vWM. Future studies are warranted to determine whether specific tDCS parameters can be tuned to accentuate the facilitation responses and attenuate the interfering aspects., (© 2024 The Author(s). Human Brain Mapping published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

Age-related changes in the neurophysiology underlying motor control are well documented, but whether these changes are specific to motor function or more broadly reflect age-related alterations in fronto-parietal circuitry serving attention and other higher-level processes remains unknown. Herein, we collected high-density magnetoencephalography (MEG) in 72 healthy adults (age 28-63 years) as they completed an adapted version of the multi-source interference task that involved two subtypes of cognitive interference (i.e., flanker and Simon) and their integration (i.e., multi-source). All MEG data were examined for age-related changes in neural oscillatory activity using a whole-brain beamforming approach. Our primary findings indicated robust behavioral differences in task performance based on the type of interference, as well as stronger beta oscillations with increasing age in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (flanker and multi-source conditions), left parietal (flanker and Simon), and medial parietal regions (multi-source). Overall, these data indicate that healthy aging is associated with alterations in higher-order association cortices that are critical for attention and motor control in the context of cognitive interference., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to American Aging Association.)

Tidal flats provide critical habitat for migratory waterbird species; however, populations of migratory waterbirds have significantly declined due to tidal flat loss and degradation caused by human activities, particularly in Asia. Gochang getbol is one of tidal flats located on the southwest coast of South Korea and a center of clam production. Using bird monitoring data collected at five zones (zone1 to zone5) established across Gochang getbol and near coastal area, we examined distribution patterns of migratory bird diversity and conservation-related species along the coast of Gochang getbol. The intensity of human activity ‒ mudflat culture (mostly bivalve) and aquaculture was relatively high at zone2 and zone3, occupying > 30% of 2km circular area surrounding most sample points of these zones. Zone1 and particularly zone4 contained more natural/semi-natural habitats (less disturbed mudflats and wetlands) and zone5 had smallest mudflat than others. Shannon diversity, species richness, and abundance of migratory birds differed between zones (Anova test, P ≤ 0.02) except Shannon diversity in winter. In fall, all values were higher at zone4 than zone3 and zone5. In winter, zone1 showed greatest species richness and higher abundance than zone2, zone3, and zone5. In spring, while most differences were found between zone4 and zone5, abundance at zone4 was somewhat higher than zone2. The results from the fourth corner analysis indicated that abundance of species foraging at mudflat level was positively associated with zone1 (winter) but negatively with zone3 (fall). Sandpipers were positively associated with zone4. Abundance distribution maps of conservation-related species, created by inverse distance-weighted interpolation modeling, also showed high abundance of most conservation-related species at zone4 and 1. The findings of our study suggest the importance of natural/semi-natural habitat, and the possible link between human activity and distribution patterns of migratory birds in Gochang getbol. While we need further investigation on direct response of migratory birds to human activity, areas with low human activity with more natural/semi-natural habitat, e.g., zone4 and zone1 may be crucial for the conservation of migratory birds., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2024 Lee et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

Throughout childhood and adolescence, the brain undergoes significant structural and functional changes that contribute to the maturation of multiple cognitive domains, including selective attention. Selective attention is crucial for healthy executive functioning and while key brain regions serving selective attention have been identified, their age-related changes in neural oscillatory dynamics and connectivity remain largely unknown. We examined the developmental sensitivity of selective attention circuitry in 91 typically developing youth aged 6 - 13 years old. Participants completed a number-based Simon task while undergoing magnetoencephalography (MEG) and the resulting data were preprocessed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant oscillatory brain responses were imaged using a beamforming approach, and task-related peak voxels in the occipital, parietal, and cerebellar cortices were used as seeds for subsequent whole-brain connectivity analyses in the alpha and gamma range. Our key findings revealed developmentally sensitive connectivity profiles in multiple regions crucial for selective attention, including the temporoparietal junction (alpha) and prefrontal cortex (gamma). Overall, these findings suggest that brain regions serving selective attention are highly sensitive to developmental changes during the pubertal transition period., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest All authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Hypertension-related changes in brain function place individuals at higher risk for cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. The existing functional neuroimaging literature has identified important neural and behavioural differences between normotensive and hypertensive individuals. However, previously-used methods (i.e. magnetic resonance imaging, functional near-infrared spectroscopy) rely on neurovascular coupling, which is a useful but indirect measure of neuronal activity. Furthermore, most studies fail to distinguish between controlled and uncontrolled hypertensive individuals, who exhibit significant behavioural and clinical differences. To partially remedy this gap in the literature, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to directly examine neuronal activity that is invariant to neurovascular coupling changes induced by hypertension. Our study included 52 participants (19 healthy controls, 15 controlled hypertensives, 18 uncontrolled hypertensives) who completed a modified flanker attention task during MEG. We identified significant oscillatory neural responses in two frequencies (alpha: 8-14 Hz, gamma: 48-60 Hz) for imaging and used grand-averaged images to determine seeds for whole-brain connectivity analysis. We then conducted Fisher-z tests for each pair of groups, using the relationship between the neural connectivity and behavioural attention effects. This highlighted a distributed network of regions associated with cognitive control and selective attention, including frontal-occipital and interhemispheric occipital connections. Importantly, the inferior frontal cortex exhibited a unique neurobehavioural relationship that distinguished the uncontrolled hypertensive group from the controlled hypertensive and normotensive groups. This is the first investigation of hypertension using MEG and identifies critical whole-brain connectivity differences based on hypertension profiles. KEY POINTS: Structural and functional changes in brain circuitry scale with hypertension severity and increase the risk of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. We harness the excellent spatiotemporal precision of magnetoencephalography (MEG) to directly quantify dynamic functional connectivity in healthy control, controlled hypertensive and uncontrolled hypertensive groups during a flanker task. In the first MEG study of hypertension, we show that there are neurobehavioural relationships that distinguish the uncontrolled hypertensive group from healthy and controlled hypertensive group in the prefrontal cortex. These results provide novel insights into the differential impact of hypertension on brain dynamics underlying selective attention., (© 2024 The Authors. The Journal of Physiology © 2024 The Physiological Society.)

Over the past decade, transdiagnostic indicators in relation to neurobiological processes have provided extensive insight into youth's risk for psychopathology. During development, exposure to childhood trauma and dysregulation (i.e., so-called AAA symptomology: anxiety, aggression, and attention problems) puts individuals at a disproportionate risk for developing psychopathology and altered network-level neural functioning. Evidence for the latter has emerged from resting-state fMRI studies linking mental health symptoms and aberrations in functional networks (e.g., cognitive control (CCN), default mode networks (DMN)) in youth, although few of these investigations have used longitudinal designs. Herein, we leveraged a three-year longitudinal study to identify whether traumatic exposures and concomitant dysregulation trigger changes in the developmental trajectories of resting-state functional networks involved in cognitive control ( N = 190; 91 females; time 1 M age = 11.81). Findings from latent growth curve analyses revealed that greater trauma exposure predicted increasing connectivity between the CCN and DMN across time. Greater levels of dysregulation predicted reductions in within-network connectivity in the CCN. These findings presented in typically developing youth corroborate connectivity patterns reported in clinical populations, suggesting there is predictive utility in using transdiagnostic indicators to forecast alterations in resting-state networks implicated in psychopathology.

Selective attention is an important component of cognitive control and is essential for day-to-day functioning. The Simon task is a common test of visual selective attention that has been widely used to probe response selection, inhibition and cognitive control. However, to date, there is a dearth of literature that has focused on the oscillatory dynamics serving task performance in the selective attention component of this task. In this study, 32 healthy adults (mean age: 33.09 years, SD: 7.27 years) successfully completed a modified version of the Simon task during magnetoencephalography. All magnetoencephalographic data were pre-processed and transformed into the time-frequency domain. Significant oscillatory brain responses were imaged using a beamforming approach, and peak task-related neural activity was extracted to examine the temporal dynamics. Across both congruent and Simon conditions, our results indicated robust decreases in alpha (8-12 Hz) activity in the bilateral occipital regions and cuneus during task performance, while increases in theta (3-6 Hz) oscillatory activity were detected in regions of the dorsal frontoparietal attention network, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal eye fields and insula. Lastly, whole-brain condition-wise analyses showed Simon interference effects in the theta range in the superior parietal region and the alpha range in the posterior cingulate and inferior frontal cortices. These findings provide network-specific insights into the oscillatory dynamics serving visual selective attention., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest., (© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Guarantors of Brain.)

The default mode network (DMN) plays a crucial role in internal self-processing, rumination, and social functions. Disruptions to DMN connectivity have been linked with early adversity and the emergence of psychopathology in adolescence and early adulthood. Herein, we investigate how subclinical psychiatric symptoms can impact DMN functional connectivity during the pubertal transition. Resting-state fMRI data were collected annually from 190 typically-developing youth (9-15 years-old) at three timepoints and within-network DMN connectivity was computed. We used latent growth curve modeling to determine how self-reported depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms predicted rates of change in DMN connectivity over the three-year period. In the baseline model without predictors, we found no systematic changes in DMN connectivity over time. However, significant modulation emerged after adding psychopathology predictors; greater depressive symptomatology was associated with significant decreases in connectivity over time, whereas posttraumatic stress symptoms were associated with significant increases in connectivity over time. Follow-up analyses revealed that these effects were driven by connectivity changes involving the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex subnetwork. In conclusion, these data suggest that subclinical depressive and posttraumatic symptoms alter the trajectory of DMN connectivity, which may indicate that this network is a nexus of clinical significance in mental health disorders., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Blood transfusion is performed by cheating athletes to rapidly increase oxygen delivery to exercise muscles and enhance their performance. This method is banned by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA). Heterologous or allogenic blood transfusion happens when blood from a different person is transfused. The method used to detect this type of doping is based on flow cytometry, by identifying variations in blood group minor antigens present on the red blood cells' surface. Transfusion practices have regained interest since the introduction of human recombinant erythropoietin detection method. It has been reported that the number of occurrences of two athletes sharing an identical phenotype in the same sport was five times higher than the theoretical populational probability. The present work describes the prevalence of 10 erythrocytes surface antigens in a population of 261 athletes from all five continents. The matching phenotype per sport is also described., (© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Subcrestal placement of implants may have interproximal bone proximity issues that interfere with the submucosal contour of implant-supported zirconia restorations during delivery of the restorations. Modification of the mesial distal submucosal areas may be necessary to fully seat the restoration without impingement of the interproximal bone. Our aim was to determine if modification of submucosal cervical contour of implant supported zirconia-titanium base (Zi-Ti base) restorations resulted in a significant change in fracture strength compared with Zi-Ti base restorations without any modification near the cervical submucosal area. Implant Zi-Ti base restorations designed in the form of a maxillary premolar were made for the Straumann implant lab analog. Zirconia samples were cemented onto the Ti-base and the test group (N = 20) underwent recontouring and polishing at the junction of the Zi-Ti base cervical areas. The control group (N = 20) did not undergo any modifications. All 40 samples underwent fracture testing with an Instron machine. We assessed differences between modified and unmodified implants restorations using a 2-tailed t test for independent samples. Fracture strength values (N) ranged from 4354.68 to 6412.49 in the test group (N = 20) and from 5400.31 to 6953.22 in the control group (N = 20). The average fracture strength in the control group (6154.84 ± 320.50) was higher than in the modified group (5593.13 ± 486.51; P < .001). Modification of submucosal contour significantly decreased fracture strength. However, the average fracture strength exceeded the masticatory forces of humans.

Abstract: Our aim was to investigate the newest generation anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibody 3.1 assay in diagnosing rheumatoid arthritis (RA) compared with other autoimmune and non-autoimmune diseases. We performed a retrospective observational chart review of patients with a positive CCP level over a one-year period at a single academic institution and assessed the associated diagnoses after at least six-months of follow-up. Of the 281 CCP positive patients during that period, 48% had a diagnosis of RA. The positive predictive value of RA in patients with a high CCP 3.1 assay was 0.619 compared to 0.248 with a low positive CCP 3.1 assay (P < .0001). Overall, there was a lower than expected positive predictive value of CCP 3.1 level with an RA diagnosis, though the likelihood of having an RA diagnosis was higher with a higher CCP level., Competing Interests: No conflicts of interest or funding disclosures to report., (Copyright © 2021 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Wearable devices provide a means of tracking hand position in relation to the head, but have mostly relied on wrist-worn inertial measurement unit sensors and proximity sensors, which are inadequate for identifying specific locations. This limits their utility for accurate and precise monitoring of behaviors or providing feedback to guide behaviors. A potential clinical application is monitoring body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs), recurrent, injurious behaviors directed toward the body, such as nail biting and hair pulling, which are often misdiagnosed and undertreated. Here, we demonstrate that including thermal sensors achieves higher accuracy in position tracking when compared against inertial measurement unit and proximity sensor data alone. Our Tingle device distinguished between behaviors from six locations on the head across 39 adult participants, with high AUROC values (best was back of the head: median (1.0), median absolute deviation (0.0); worst was on the cheek: median (0.93), median absolute deviation (0.09)). This study presents preliminary evidence of the advantage of including thermal sensors for position tracking and the Tingle wearable device's potential use in a wide variety of settings, including BFRB diagnosis and management., Competing Interests: Competing interestsThe authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Selective Mutism (SM) is an anxiety disorder often diagnosed in early childhood and characterized by persistent failure to speak in certain social situations but not others. Diagnosing SM and monitoring treatment response can be quite complex, due in part to changing definitions of and scarcity of research about the disorder. Subjective self-reports and parent/teacher interviews can complicate SM diagnosis and therapy, given that similar speech problems of etiologically heterogeneous origin can be attributed to SM. The present perspective discusses the potential for passive audio capture to help overcome psychiatry's current lack of objective and quantifiable assessments in the context of SM. We present supportive evidence from two pilot studies indicating the feasibility of using a digital wearable device to quantify child vocalization features affected by SM. We also highlight comparative analyses of passive audio capture and its potential to enhance diagnostic characterizations for SM, as well as possible limitations of such technologies.

Data sharing is increasingly recommended as a means of accelerating science by facilitating collaboration, transparency, and reproducibility. While few oppose data sharing philosophically, a range of barriers deter most researchers from implementing it in practice. To justify the significant effort required for sharing data, funding agencies, institutions, and investigators need clear evidence of benefit. Here, using the International Neuroimaging Data-sharing Initiative, we present a case study that provides direct evidence of the impact of open sharing on brain imaging data use and resulting peer-reviewed publications. We demonstrate that openly shared data can increase the scale of scientific studies conducted by data contributors, and can recruit scientists from a broader range of disciplines. These findings dispel the myth that scientific findings using shared data cannot be published in high-impact journals, suggest the transformative power of data sharing for accelerating science, and underscore the need for implementing data sharing universally.

Oxidative stress (OS) is a primary pathogenic mechanism of nigral dopaminergic (DA) cell death in Parkinson's disease (PD). Oxidative damage, Lewy body formation and decreased mitochondrial complex I activity are the consistent pathological findings in PD. In nigral DA neurons, however, it is unknown whether any gene expressional changes induced by OS contribute to the typical PD pathology. Here, using microarray analysis, we identified several groups of genes in the nigral DA cell line, SN4741 [J. Neurosci. 19 (1999) 10; J. Neurochem. 76 (2001) 1010], that were regulated by OS. Approximately 36 significantly regulated genes that encode functional molecules of nuclear subunits of mitochondrial complex I, exocytosis and membrane trafficking proteins, markers for OS and oxidoreductases, regulatory molecules of apoptosis and unidentified EST clones were further analysed. OS modulated the expression of specific genes, of which physiological dysfunctions have been implicated in PD. For instance, the expression of the nuclear-encoded subunits of mitochondrial complex I, B8 and B17, were significantly down-regulated by OS, possibly contributing to selective defect in mitochondrial complex I activity in PD. Furthermore, syntaxin 8 and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) are most dramatically up-regulated by OS in DA cells. Syntaxin 8 is a SNARE protein, regulating lipid vesicle docking and fusion as well as early endosome membrane recycling. Lipid membranes are significantly oxidative-damaged in PD. HO-1 is an important cytoplasmic constituent of Lewy bodies, a pathological hallmark of idiopathic PD. Thus, our findings provide novel molecular probes that may be useful in unraveling the molecular mechanism(s) of OS-induced pathogenesis in PD. Further functional characterization of the affected genes including ESTs can help elucidate the underlying molecular pathology as well as develop biomarkers for monitoring degenerating DA neurons in PD.

The functional role of the alpha8 loop residues in domain II of Bacillus thuringiensis Cry1Ac toxin was examined. Alanine substitution mutations were introduced in the residues from 275 to 293. Among the mutant toxins, substitutions at R281 and R289 affected toxicity to Manduca sexta and Lymantria dispar. Loss of toxicity by these mutant toxins was well correlated with reductions in binding affinity for brush border membrane vesicles and the purified receptor, aminopeptidase N (APN), from both insects. These data suggest that the two arginine residues in the alpha8 loop region are important in toxicity and APN binding in L. dispar and M. sexta.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by the selective loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in the substantia nigral brain region. Currently, there is no cure or treatment that prevents such neuronal loss. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has been found to support the survival of DA neurons in animal models and in primary cell cultures. However, the large molecular size of BDNF, coupled with the blood brain barrier, prevents its delivery to DA neurons to promote cell survival in the PD brain. The nigral DA neurons have the ability to produce BDNF for neuroprotection via either autocrine or paracrine mechanisms. Low mol. wt compounds were tested to see whether they could increase the production of BDNF in the DA neurons. The compounds tested include neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, intracellular signaling agents, known neuroprotective agents and growth factors. Our results demonstrate that salicyclic acid, cGMP analog, okadaic acid, IBMX, dipyridamole and glutamate significantly enhance BDNF production in DA neuronal cells.