Functional neuroimaging in psychiatry.

Functional neuroimaging is one of the most powerful means available for investigating the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders. In this review, we shall focus on the different ways that it can be employed to this end, describing the major findings in the field in the context of different methodological approaches. We will also discuss practical issues that are particular to studying psychiatric disorders and the potential contribution of functional neuroimaging to future psychiatric research.     

Neuroimaging studies of autobiographical event memory

Commonalities and differences in findings across neuroimaging studies of autobiographical event memory are reviewed. In general terms, the overall pattern across studies is of medial and left-lateralized activations associated with retrieval of autobiographical event memories. It seems that the medial frontal cortex and left hippocampus in particular are responsive to such memories. However, there are also inconsistencies across studies, for example in the activation of the hippocampus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. It is likely that methodological differences between studies contribute to the disparate findings. Quantifying and assessing autobiographical event memories presents a challenge in many domains, including neuroimaging. Methodological factors that may be pertinent to the interpretation of the neuroimaging data and the design of future experiments are discussed. Consideration is also given to aspects of memory that functional neuroimaging might be uniquely disposed to examine. These include assessing the functionality of damaged tissue in patients and the estimation of inter-regional communication (effective connectivity) between relevant brain regions.     

Imaging implicit perception: promise and pitfalls

The study of implicit perception - perception in the absence of awareness - has a long history. Decades of behavioural work have identified crucial theoretical and methodological issues that must be considered when evaluating claims of implicit perception. Neuroimaging methods provide an important new avenue for illuminating our understanding of perception both with and without awareness, but most imaging experiments have not met the rigorous conditions that the behavioural work has shown are necessary for inferring implicit perception. Here, we review the literature of both behavioural and neuroimaging studies, and note the pitfalls of studying implicit perception as well as the promise that neuroimaging studies have for providing insights about implicit perception when combined with appropriately rigorous behavioural measures of awareness.     

Reaching a Consensus: Terminology and Concepts Used in Coordination and Decision-Making Research

Research on coordination and decision-making in humans and nonhuman primates has increased considerably throughout the last decade. However, terminology has been used inconsistently, hampering the broader integration of results from different studies. In this short article, we provide a glossary containing the central terms of coordination and decision-making research. The glossary is based on previous definitions that have been critically revised and annotated by the participants of the symposium “Where next? Coordination and decision-making in primate groups” at the XXIIIth Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS) in Kyoto, Japan. We discuss a number of conceptual and methodological issues and highlight consequences for their implementation. In summary, we recommend that future studies on coordination and decision-making in animal groups do not use the terms “combined decision” and “democratic/despotic decision-making.” This will avoid ambiguity as well as anthropocentric connotations. Further, we demonstrate the importance of 1) taxon-specific definitions of coordination parameters (initiation, leadership, followership, termination), 2) differentiation between coordination research on individual-level process and group-level outcome, 3) analyses of collective action processes including initiation and termination, and 4) operationalization of successful group movements in the field to collect meaningful and comparable data across different species.     

The development of face expertise

Recent neuroimaging studies in adults indicate that visual areas selective for recognition of faces can be recruited through expertise for nonface objects. This reflects a new emphasis on experience in theories of visual specialization. In addition, novel work infers differences between categories of nonface objects, allowing a re-interpretation of differences seen between recognition of faces and objects. Whether there are experience-independent precursors of face expertise remains unclear; indeed, parallels between literature for infants and adults suggest that methodological issues need to be addressed before strong conclusions can be drawn regarding the origins of face recognition.     

Reviews of Functional MRI: The Ethical Dimensions of Methodological Critique

Neuroimaging studies involving human subjects raise a range of ethics issues. Many of these issues are heightened in the context of neuroimaging research involving persons with mental health disorders. There has been growing interest in these issues among legal scholars, philosophers, social scientists, and as well as neuroimagers over the last decade. Less clear, however, is the extent to which members of the neuroimaging community are engaged with these issues when they undertake their research and report results. In this study, we analyze the peer-reviewed review literature involving fMRI as applied to the study of mental health disorders. Our hypothesis is that, due to the critical orientation of reviews, and the vulnerability of mental health population, the penetrance of neuroethics will be higher in the review literature in this area than it is in the primary fMRI research literature more generally. We find that while authors of reviews do focus a great deal of attention on the methodological limitations of the studies they discussed, contrary to our hypothesis, they do not frame concerns in ethical terms despite their ethical significance. We argue that an ethics lens on such discussion would increase the knowledge-value of this scholarly work.     

Ab Initio Coordination Chemistry for Nickel Chelation Motifs

Chelation therapy is one of the most appreciated methods in the treatment of metal induced disease predisposition. Coordination chemistry provides a way to understand metal association in biological structures. In this work we have implemented coordination chemistry to study nickel coordination due to its high impact in industrial usage and thereby health consequences. This paper reports the analysis of nickel coordination from a large dataset of nickel bound structures and sequences. Coordination patterns predicted from the structures are reported in terms of donors, chelate length, coordination number, chelate geometry, structural fold and architecture. The analysis revealed histidine as the most favored residue in nickel coordination. The most common chelates identified were histidine based namely HHH, HDH, HEH and HH spaced at specific intervals. Though a maximum coordination number of 8 was observed, the presence of a single protein donor was noted to be mandatory in nickel coordination. The coordination pattern did not reveal any specific fold, nevertheless we report preferable residue spacing for specific structural architecture. In contrast, the analysis of nickel binding proteins from bacterial and archeal species revealed no common coordination patterns. Nickel binding sequence motifs were noted to be organism specific and protein class specific. As a result we identified about 13 signatures derived from 13 classes of nickel binding proteins. The specifications on nickel coordination presented in this paper will prove beneficial for developing better chelation strategies.     

Functional neuroimaging of emotional learning and autonomic reactions

This article provides a selective overview of the functional neuroimaging literature with an emphasis on emotional activation processes. Emotions are fast and flexible response systems that provide basic tendencies for adaptive action. From the range of involved component functions, we first discuss selected automatic mechanisms that control basic adaptational changes. Second, we illustrate how neuroimaging work has contributed to the mapping of the network components associated with basic emotion families (fear, anger, disgust, happiness), and secondary dimensional concepts that organise the meaning space for subjective experience and verbal labels (emotional valence, activity/intensity, approach/withdrawal, etc.). Third, results and methodological difficulties are discussed in view of own neuroimaging experiments that investigated the component functions involved in emotional learning. The amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and striatum form a network of reciprocal connections that show topographically distinct patterns of activity as a correlate of up and down regulation processes during an emotional episode. Emotional modulations of other brain systems have attracted recent research interests. Emotional neuroimaging calls for more representative designs that highlight the modulatory influences of regulation strategies and socio-cultural factors responsible for inhibitory control and extinction. We conclude by emphasising the relevance of the temporal process dynamics of emotional activations that may provide improved prediction of individual differences in emotionality.     

Does dishonesty really invite third-party punishment? Results of a more stringent test

Many experiments have demonstrated that people are willing to incur cost to punish norm violators even when they are not directly harmed by the violation. Such altruistic third-party punishment is often considered an evolutionary underpinning of large-scale human cooperation. However, some scholars argue that previously demonstrated altruistic third-party punishment against fairness-norm violations may be an experimental artefact. For example, envy-driven retaliatory behaviour (i.e. spite) towards better-off unfair game players may be misidentified as altruistic punishment. Indeed, a recent experiment demonstrated that participants ceased to inflict third-party punishment against an unfair player once a series of key methodological problems were systematically controlled for. Noticing that a previous finding regarding apparently altruistic third-party punishment against honesty-norm violations may have been subject to methodological issues, we used a different and what we consider to be a more sound design to evaluate these findings. Third-party punishment against dishonest players withstood this more stringent test.     

AidAdom: Supporting Inter-Organizational Coordination for Home Help and Healthcare Services Through a Web Platform

Purpose

From temporary need of help for household chores after a short stay at the hospital to complex healthcare due to chronic conditions, an important number of professional caregivers belonging to different organizations are involved in providing help and healthcare services at home. Despite the well-defined role of each professional, these organizations are complaining of a lack of coordination and visibility of each other work, especially in case of incident. Coordination between organizations appears here as essential but is at the same time the responsibility of all and of no one of the involved professionals. In this context, our research aims at supporting coordination for home care work through the design and implementation of a web platform.

Architecture of the two metal-binding sites in prolactin

Metal binding by members of the growth hormone (GH) family of hematopoietic cytokines has been a subject of considerable interest. However, beyond appreciation of its role in reversible packing of GH proteins in secretory granules, the molecular mechanisms of metal binding and granule formation remain poorly understood. Here, we investigate metal binding by a GH family member prolactin (PRL) using paramagnetic metal titration and chelation experiments. Cu²⁺-mediated paramagnetic relaxation enhancement measurements identified two partial metal-binding sites on the opposite faces of PRL composed of residues H30/H180 and E93/H97, respectively. Coordination of metal ions by these two sites causes formation of inter-molecular bridges between the PRL protomers and enables formation of reversible higher aggregates. These findings in vitro suggest a model for reversible packaging of PRL in secretory granules. The proposed mechanism of metal-promoted PRL aggregation lends insight and support to the previously suggested role of metal coordination in secretory granule formation by GH proteins.     

Multistable coordination of feeding motor rhythms in semi-intact preparation of Lymnaea stagnalis. Short communication

It is well known that most rhythm-generating neuronal ensembles are multifunctional and can generate different motor rhythms in different contexts. This implies that coordination of multifunctional networks must also be flexible or multistable. Coordination of radula movements and gut contractions was studied in semi-intact preparations of L. stagnalis using video registration and an event recorder. Several context-dependent stable variants of radula-gut coordination were detected. Our data suggest that this preparation is a promising model for studying mechanisms of multistable motor rhythm coordination.     

Psychological functioning and aging. Learning from longitudinal studies

Population-based longitudinal studies are very useful tools for investigating the characteristics of the aging process among different geographical and socio-cultural contexts. On the other hand, these kind of projects look at a wide range of key issues of aging. In this review, most recent psychological findings in this field are analysed. The increasing interest in longitudinal studies for psychological variables is shown, as well as explicit links with other areas of study. Finally, main areas of improvement are identified according to future analysis of psychological variables, regarding both conceptual and methodological issues.     

Towards a new attenuating compound: a potentiometric, spectrophotometric and NMR equilibrium study on Fe(III), Al(III) and a new tetradentate mixed bisphosphonate-hydroxypyridinonate ligand

Coordination properties toward Fe(III) and Al(III) of a mixed bisphosphonate-hydroxypyridinonate ligand are presented. Potentiometric, spectrophotometric and NMR results allowed to conclude that Fe(III) and Al(III) coordination takes place on the pyridinone moiety. The high steric hindrance prevents the possibility of simultaneous coordination of both groups to the same metal ion. Quantum mechanical calculations confirm this finding allowing to determine the minimal length of the linker necessary for a stable conformation of complexes in which Fe(III) is coordinated both by pyridinone and bisphosphonate groups.     

An evolving view of duplex vision: separate but interacting cortical pathways for perception and action

In 1992, Goodale and Milner proposed a division of labour in the visual pathways of the primate cerebral cortex between a dorsal stream specialised for the visual control of action and a ventral stream dedicated to the perception of the visual world. In the years since this original proposal, support for the perception-action hypothesis has come from neuroimaging experiments, human neuropsychology, monkey neurophysiology, and human psychophysical experiments. Indeed, some of the strongest support for this hypothesis has come from behavioural experiments showing that visually guided actions are largely refractory to perceptual illusions. Although controversial, the findings from this literature both support the original hypothesis and suggest important modifications. The ongoing challenge for neurobiologists is to map these behavioural findings onto their corresponding neural substrates.     

Incidental findings in neuroimaging research: a framework for anticipating the next frontier

While strategies for handling unusual and possibly clinically significant anatomical findings on brain scans of research volunteers have been developed and implemented across neuroimaging laboratories worldwide, few concrete steps have been taken to consider the next frontier: functional anomalies. Drawing on the genetics literature, early work in neuroimaging considered actionability to be a driving force for determining if and when findings should be disclosed to individuals in whom they are detected, as inherent uncertainty raises potential ethical dilemmas of misdiagnosing and mislabelling people as patients. Here we consider the possibility of incidental findings in brain function during the resting state. Our approach does not anchor the resting state as the sine qua non of functional incidental findings, but as a path to thinking about where they may emerge in the future and how our professional communities need to think about thinking about them. We suggest that considering the issues proactively today, within a framework that is maximally flexible and open to modification, is better than responding reactively after the fact and with no framework at all. We argue that there is a duty to consider possible incidental findings despite the ambiguities of data interpretation, while working hard to prevent unnecessary alarm.