Panpsychic Organicism: Sewall Wright’s Philosophy for Understanding Complex Genetic Systems

Sewall Wright first encountered the complex systems characteristic of gene combinations while a graduate student at Harvard’s Bussey Institute from 1912 to 1915. In Mendelian breeding experiments, Wright observed a hierarchical dependence of the organism’s phenotype on dynamic networks of genetic interaction and organization. An animal’s physical traits, and thus its autonomy from surrounding environmental constraints, depended greatly on how genes behaved in certain combinations. Wright recognized that while genes are the material determinants of the animal phenotype, operating with great regularity, the special nature of genetic systems contributes to the animal phenotype a degree of spontaneity and novelty, creating unpredictable trait variations by virtue of gene interactions. As a result of his experimentation, as well as his keen interest in the philosophical literature of his day, Wright was inspired to see genetic systems as conscious, living organisms in their own right. Moreover, he decided that since genetic systems maintain ordered stability and cause unpredictable novelty in their organic wholes (the animal phenotype), it would be necessary for biologists to integrate techniques for studying causally ordered phenomena (experimental method) and chance phenomena (correlation method). From 1914 to 1921 Wright developed his “method of path coefficient” (or “path analysis”), a new procedure drawing from both laboratory experimentation and statistical correlation in order to analyze the relative influence of specific genetic interactions on phenotype variation. In this paper I aim to show how Wright’s philosophy for understanding complex genetic systems (panpsychic organicism) logically motivated his 1914–1921 design of path analysis.     

Serum Metabolomics of Slow vs. Rapid Motor Progression Parkinson’s Disease: a Pilot Study

Progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is highly variable, indicating that differences between slow and rapid progression forms could provide valuable information for improved early detection and management. Unfortunately, this represents a complex problem due to the heterogeneous nature of humans in regards to demographic characteristics, genetics, diet, environmental exposures and health behaviors. In this pilot study, we employed high resolution mass spectrometry-based metabolic profiling to investigate the metabolic signatures of slow versus rapidly progressing PD present in human serum. Archival serum samples from PD patients obtained within 3 years of disease onset were analyzed via dual chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry, with data extraction by xMSanalyzer and used to predict rapid or slow motor progression of these patients during follow-up. Statistical analyses, such as false discovery rate analysis and partial least squares discriminant analysis, yielded a list of statistically significant metabolic features and further investigation revealed potential biomarkers. In particular, N8-acetyl spermidine was found to be significantly elevated in the rapid progressors compared to both control subjects and slow progressors. Our exploratory data indicate that a fast motor progression disease phenotype can be distinguished early in disease using high resolution mass spectrometry-based metabolic profiling and that altered polyamine metabolism may be a predictive marker of rapidly progressing PD.     

Supporting conservation with biodiversity research in sub-Saharan Africa’s human-modified landscapes

Protected areas (PAs) cover 12 % of terrestrial sub-Saharan Africa. However, given the inherent inadequacies of these PAs to cater for all species in conjunction with the effects of climate change and human pressures on PAs, the future of biodiversity depends heavily on the 88 % of land that is unprotected. The study of biodiversity patterns and the processes that maintain them in human-modified landscapes can provide a valuable evidence base to support science-based policy-making that seeks to make land outside of PAs as amenable as possible for biodiversity persistence. We discuss the literature on biodiversity in sub-Saharan Africa’s human-modified landscapes as it relates to four broad ecosystem categorizations (i.e. rangelands, tropical forest, the Cape Floristic Region, and the urban and rural built environment) within which we expect similar patterns of biodiversity persistence in relation to specific human land uses and land management actions. Available research demonstrates the potential contribution of biodiversity conservation in human-modified landscapes within all four ecosystem types and goes some way towards providing general conclusions that could support policy-making. Nonetheless, conservation success in human-modified landscapes is hampered by constraints requiring further scientific investment, e.g. deficiencies in the available research, uncertainties regarding implementation strategies, and difficulties of coexisting with biodiversity. However, information currently available can and should support efforts at individual, community, provincial, national, and international levels to support biodiversity conservation in human-modified landscapes.     

Zoological nomenclature in the century of extinctions: priority vs. ‘usage’

Our epoch is a crucial one for scientific knowledge of the organisms that live on our planet. The combination of the biodiversity crisis and the taxonomic gap results in taxonomic urgency. In this context, great attention should be paid to the nomenclatural rules helping taxonomists in their urgent task, rather than diverting their time and energy to secondary questions or debates. In zoology, the new criterion of ‘prevailing usage’, introduced in the 1999 edition of the Code of nomenclature to ‘protect’ some nomina, raises four kinds of problems: (1) it weakens the binding value and strength of the Code, thus indirectly bringing support to the development of alternative nomenclatural systems; (2) it encourages personal debates among taxonomists, giving undue importance to the ‘argument of authority’ in nomenclatural decisions; (3) it sends a wrong message to non-taxonomists as regards completion of the taxonomic work; (4) it acts as a threat against natural history museums, in devaluing onomatophores (type specimens), the conservation of which is one of their major ‘visible’ functions. In conclusion, it is suggested that ‘protection’ of some nomina ‘threatened’ by rules of the Code should be limited strictly to nomina well-known outside the small world of systematics. This would require new rules for the Code to clearly define categories of usage on the basis of objective criteria.     

White Matter Changes Associated with Resting Sympathetic Tone in Frontotemporal Dementia vs. Alzheimer’s Disease

Background

Resting sympathetic tone, a measure of physiological arousal, is decreased in patients with apathy and inertia, such as those with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and other frontally-predominant disorders.

Objective

To identify the neuroanatomical correlates of skin conductance levels (SCLs), an index of resting sympathetic tone and apathy, among patients with bvFTD, where SCLs is decreased, compared to those with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), where it is not.

Methods

This study analyzed bvFTD (n = 14) patients and a comparison group with early-onset AD (n = 19). We compared their resting SCLs with gray matter and white matter regions of interest and white matter measures of fiber integrity on magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging.

Results

As expected, bvFTD patients, compared to AD patients, had lower SCLs, which correlated with an apathy measure, and more gray matter loss and abnormalities of fiber integrity (fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) in frontal-anterior temporal regions. After controlling for group membership, the SCLs were significantly correlated with white matter volumes in the cingulum and inferior parietal region in the right hemisphere.

Conclusion

Among dementia patients, SCLs, and resting sympathetic tone, may correlate with quantity of white matter, rather than with gray matter or with white matter fiber integrity. Loss of white matter volumes, especially involving a right frontoparietal network, may reflect chronic loss of cortical axons that mediate frontal control of resting sympathetic tone, changes that could contribute to the apathy and inertia of bvFTD and related disorders.     

Scattered trees: a complementary strategy for facilitating adaptive responses to climate change in modified landscapes?

1.  Facilitating adaptive responses of organisms in modified landscape will be essential to overcome the negative effects of climate change and its interaction with land use change. Without such action, many organisms will be prevented from achieving the predicted range shifts they need to survive.
2.  Scattered trees are a prominent feature of many modified landscapes, and could play an important role in facilitating climate change adaptation. They are keystone structures because of the disproportionally large ecological values and ecosystem services that they provide relative to the area they occupy in these landscapes. The provision of habitat and connectivity will be particularly relevant.
3.  Scattered trees are declining in modified landscapes due to elevated tree mortality and poor recruitment often associated with intensive land use. The continuing global decline of scattered trees will undermine the capacity of many organisms to adapt to climate change.
4.   Synthesis and applications. The sustainable management of scattered trees in modified landscapes could complement other strategies for facilitating climate change adaptation. They create continuous, though sparse, vegetation cover that permits multi-directional movements of biota across landscapes and ecological networks. They have the capacity to span ecosystems and climatic gradients that cannot be captured in formal reserves alone. The management of scattered trees should be an integral part of conservation objectives and agricultural activities in modified landscapes. Public investment, through mechanisms such as agri-environmental schemes, in rotational grazing, temporary set-asides, tree-planting and regulations that reduce clearing and early mortality among standing trees will improve the capacity of biota to adapt to climate change.     

Local vs. Trans-regional Perspectives on Southeast Asian ‘Indianness’

This article is an attempt to define the concept ‘(Southeast Asian) Indianness’ through a comparative approach based on a local vs. trans-regional perspective. I shall analyse the complex relationships that develop between a translocal, urban and literate Indo-Aryan Great Tradition and a local, rural and oral Little Tradition. First, I shall tackle the question of whether literacy has any socio-religious relevance and endeavour to identify its relationship to orality. I will subsequently analyse the (re-) Indianisation process as a socio-political construct and will finally propose some re-readings of ‘Aryapheresis’ (i.e. ‘Indian [ārya] Transplant’ [phérein]), which I believe has been applied wrongly in some cases, to some Southeast Asian Indian-based socio-cultural realities.     

Survivin’s Dual Role: An Export’s View

Survivin is proposed to function as a mitotic regulator and an apoptosis inhibitor duringdevelopment and pathogenesis. As such, survivin has aroused keen interest in disparateareas of basic and translational research. Survivin acts as a subunit of the chromosomalpassenger complex (CPC), composed of the mitotic kinase Aurora-B, Borealin 5 and INCENP,and is essential for proper chromosome segregation and cytokinesis. Our recent findingsindicate that the nuclear export receptor Crm1 is critically involved in tethering the CPC to thecentromere by interacting with a leucine-rich nuclear export signal (NES), evolutionaryconserved in all mammalian survivin proteins. In addition, the survivin/Crm1 interaction10 seems to be required for the cytoprotective activity of survivin, because export deficientsurvivin fails to protect tumor cells against cancer therapy-induced apoptosis. These findingsappear of clinical relevance since preferential nuclear localization of survivin turned out to bea favorable prognostic factor in cancer patients. Besides emphasizing the functionalsignificance of the Crm1/survivin interface, we suggest to exploit the pharmacogenetic15 interference with survivin’s export as a novel strategy to antagonize survivin’s activity.     

It doesn’t always pay to be fit: success landscapes

Journal of Biological Physics - Landscapes play an important role in many areas of biology, in which biological lives are deeply entangled. Here we discuss a form of landscape in evolutionary...