The effect of spatial distance on numerical distance processing.

The close relationship between numerical and spatial representation has been widely studied. However, little is known regarding the influence of spatial distance on the processing of numerical distance. The purpose of this study was to examine this relationship by employing a modified numerical Stroop task, in which the spatial distance was either congruent or incongruent with the numerical distance.

Evaluating appropriateness of 18F-fluciclovine PET/CT relative to standard of care imaging guidelines and the impact of ADT on positivity: a prospective study in 62 Veterans Administration patients at a single institution.

Background: According to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines, 18F-fluciclovine PET/CT is considered appropriate after negative standard of care (SOC) imaging.

Objective: To prospectively compare 18F-fluciclovine to SOC imaging, investigate whether it should be done when SOC imaging is (+), and evaluate its detection rate in patients receiving androgen deprivation therapy.

Methods: We recruited 57 prostate cancer patients with biochemical recurrence with 18F-fluciclovine PET/CT and SOC imaging within 30 days.

Relevance of F-DOPA visual and semi-quantitative PET metrics for the diagnostic of Parkinson disease in clinical practice: a machine learning-based inference study.

Purpose: To decipher the relevance of visual and semi-quantitative 6-fluoro-(18F)-L-DOPA (F-DOPA) interpretation methods for the diagnostic of idiopathic Parkinson disease (IPD) in hybrid positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging.

Material And Methods: A total of 110 consecutive patients (48 IPD and 62 controls) with 11 months of median clinical follow-up (reference standard) were included. A composite visual assessment from five independent nuclear imaging readers, together with striatal standard uptake value (SUV) to occipital SUV ratio, striatal gradients and putamen asymmetry-based semi-quantitative PET metrics automatically extracted used to train machine learning models to classify IPD versus controls.

Head-to-Head Comparison Between Rabbit Sign and EANM/SNMMI Criteria for the 18F-DOPA Visual Assessment of Parkinsonian Syndromes in PET/MRI: A Multiple Expert-Based and Blinded Controlled Study.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to compare the diagnostic performance of the rabbit visual pattern versus the one endorsed by the EANM/SNMMI for the diagnosis of parkinsonian syndromes in PET/MRI.

Patients And Methods: The 18F-DOPA PET images of 129 consecutive patients (65 Park+ and 64 controls) with 1 year of clinical follow-up were reviewed independently by 5 experienced readers on the same imaging workstation, blinded to the final clinical diagnosis. Two visual methods were assessed independently, with several days to months of interval: the criteria endorsed by EANM/SNMMI and the "rabbit" shape of the striate assessed on 3D MIP images.

The effect of background sounds on mind wandering.

Mind wandering (MW) reflects a situation in which the cognitive system is detached from the main task and involved with inner thoughts. It has been well document that music and other background sounds can have positive effects on number of cognitive functioning. In addition, other body of literature suggests that background sounds might have specifically positive effect on individuals with more attention deficiencies.

Intra-Subject Variability in Mathematical Learning Difficulties.

Objective: Mathematical learning difficulties (MLD) are characterized by difficulties in the understanding and processing of numbers and quantities. While MLD is related mainly to numerical deficits, studies show that this population has several other cognitive difficulties. The current study examined whether the cognitive deficits consisting of cognitive instability in the form of intra-subject variability (ISV) will also characterize the performance of individuals with MLD.

The Location of Disease-Causing DES Variants Determines the Severity of Phenotype and the Morphology of Sarcoplasmic Aggregates.

Desmin (DES) is the main intermediate muscle filament that connects myofibrils individually and with the nucleus, sarcolemma, and organelles. Pathogenic variants of DES cause desminopathy, a disorder affecting the heart and skeletal muscles. We aimed to analyze the clinical features, morphology, and distribution of desmin aggregates in skeletal muscle biopsies of patients with desminopathy and to correlate these findings with the type and location of disease-causing DES variants.

The relationship between sustained attention and automatic versus procedural arithmetic: The case of populations with typical development and subgroups of developmental dyscalculia.

Objective: The differentiation between automatic and procedural processing in arithmetic can be crucial when examining the links between arithmetic and sustained attention, as the latter is suggested to be particularly important in more automatic and monotonous situations. The present study examined the interrelations between sustained attention and arithmetic performance while differentiating, for the first time, between automatic and procedural arithmetic problem solving, and between various groups diagnosed with difficulties in the numerical domain.

Method: The data of 506 students from the national diagnostic system for learning disabilities were used in order to examine this relationship in typically developed population and different groups with developmental dyscalculia (DD): pure DD and DD with attention deficiency.

The effect of proportion manipulation on the size-congruency and distance effects in the numerical Stroop task.

In the numerical Stroop task, participants are presented with two digits that differ in their numerical and physical size and are requested to respond to which digit is numerically larger. Commonly, slower responses are observed when the numerical distance between the digits is small (the distance effect) and when the numerical and physical size are incongruent (the size-congruency effect). The current study will use proportion manipulation, which consists of two experimental lists with high versus low frequency of trials belonging to different conditions, as a tool to reduce these effects.

The perception of subset quantity and items in an environment with distractors in a population with mathematical learning difficulties.

Objective: People often perceive a quantity of specific objects that appear as part of an overall group of items (a subset). This study investigates this type of perception among a population with mathematical leaning difficulties (MLD).

Method: Sixty-two participants (mean age: 26.

Sexual Violence in Sport: Expanding Awareness and Knowledge for Sports Medicine Providers.

Athletes are vulnerable to sexual violence. Perpetrators of sexual violence may be a trusted coach, a member of the health care team, or a peer. The consequences of sexual violence are wide ranging, resulting in immediate and long-term physical and mental health outcomes that require recognition and comprehensive, multidisciplinary care.

ADHD and Interfering Thoughts in High and Low Conflict Conditions.

Background: Individuals with an ADHD diagnosis have increased levels of interfering thoughts, especially in the form of mind wandering. This was mostly investigated in sustained attention tasks; hence it is unclear whether the findings are only due to their difficulties in those types of tasks. Moreover, it is unclear how the amount of control invested in the task will affect those differences between control and ADHD groups.

PET Molecular Imaging: A Holistic Review of Current Practice and Emerging Perspectives for Diagnosis, Therapeutic Evaluation and Prognosis in Clinical Oncology.

PET/CT molecular imaging has been imposed in clinical oncological practice over the past 20 years, driven by its two well-grounded foundations: quantification and radiolabeled molecular probe vectorization. From basic visual interpretation to more sophisticated full kinetic modeling, PET technology provides a unique opportunity to characterize various biological processes with different levels of analysis. In clinical practice, many efforts have been made during the last two decades to standardize image analyses at the international level, but advanced metrics are still under use in practice.

Examining the effect of perceived performance-contingent gains, losses and errors on arithmetic.

Gains and losses have previously been found to differentially modulate Executive Functions and cognitive performance depending on performance contingency. Following recent findings suggesting that random gains and losses modulate arithmetic performance, the current study aimed to investigate the effect of perceived performance-contingent gains and losses on arithmetic performance. In the current study, an arithmetic equation judgment task was administered, with perceived performance-contingent gain, loss, and error feedback presented upon each trial.

FDG-PET biomarkers associated with long-term benefit from first-line immunotherapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Objective: To determine FDG-PET biomarkers associated with long-term benefit (LTB) and survival in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving first-line immunotherapy.

Methods: In this multicenter study, we retrospectively analyzed advanced NSCLC patients with a PD-L1 tumor proportion score (TPS) ≥ 50%, who underwent FDG-PET/CT before first-line pembrolizumab, received from August 2017 to September 2019. Parameters extracted were SUVmax, SUVmean, TMTV (total metabolic tumor volume) and TLG (total lesion glycolysis).

Association of the Metabolic Score Using Baseline FDG-PET/CT and dNLR with Immunotherapy Outcomes in Advanced NSCLC Patients Treated with First-Line Pembrolizumab.

: We aimed to assess the clinical utility of a previously published score combining the total metabolic tumor volume (TMTV) on baseline FDG-PET/CT and pretreatment derived from the neutrophils to lymphocytes ratio (dNLR) for prognostication in NSCLC patients undergoing first-line immunotherapy (IT). : In this multicenter retrospective study, 63 advanced NSCLC patients with a PD-L1 tumor proportion score (TPS) ≥50%, who underwent FDG-PET/CT before first-line IT, treated from January 2017 to September 2019, were enrolled. Associations between this score and the progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), disease control rate (DCR), and overall response rate (ORR) were evaluated.

The relationship between the height dimension and numerical processing.

It is well documented that the ability to perceive numbers depends on perception of size. However, size consists of two different dimensions: height and width. In previous size-congruency experiments, the changes in the size dimension were confounded by changes in both the height and width dimensions.

The Connection Between Mind Wandering, ADHD, and Level of Performance on an Attention Task.

ADHD is related to increased mind wandering (MW). However, it is not clear whether this is restricted by the methods used to measure MW in those studies. Moreover, it is not certain whether MW is an independent characteristic of people with ADHD or only due to their poor performance level in the primary task (the task from which attention wanders).

Mexican Hat Modulation of Visual Acuity Following an Exogenous Cue.

Classical models of exogenous attention suggest that attentional enhancement at the focus of attention degrades gradually with distance from the attended location. On the other hand, the Attentional Attraction Field (AAF) model (Baruch and Yeshurun, 2014) suggests that the shift of receptive fields toward the attended location, reported by several physiological studies, leads to a decreased density of RFs at the attentional surrounds and hence the model predicts that the modulation of performance by spatial attention may have the shape of a Mexican Hat. Motivated by these theories, this study presents behavioral evidence in support of a Mexican Hat shaped modulation in exogenous spatial tasks that appears only at short latencies.

Global and Local Visual Processing in Rate/Accuracy Subtypes of Dyslexia.

Words are processed in both a global and local manner. Studies on global versus local processing styles in individuals with and without dyslexia are inconclusive. In the present study, we investigated whether distinct patterns of global/local visual processing were associated with more precisely defined dyslexia profiles.

Accelerating reading via local priming.

Visual nonlinguistic local and global priming can change one's state of mind and influence other upcoming tasks. Reading involves both detailed and higher-level global processing. Little is known about the effects of visual non-linguistic priming on lower level processing of words, as well as about the potentially higher-level processing of written information.

Late onset of nivolumab-induced severe gastroduodenitis and cholangitis in a patient with stage IV melanoma.

Antiprogramed cell death-1 protein agents represent a therapeutic approach based on stimulating the host's immune response through blockade of immune checkpoints, inhibitory pathways that dampen the physiological peripheral T-cell immune response and are essential for maintaining self-tolerance. We describe the late onset of severe gastroduodenitis and cholangitis in a nivolumab-treated, metastatic melanoma patient in complete remission. Positron-emission tomography with computed tomography scans showed diffuse fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake in the stomach preceding upper digestive tract symptoms.

Sub-cutaneous Fat Mass measured on multislice computed tomography of pretreatment PET/CT is a prognostic factor of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer treated by nivolumab.

: Our aim was to explore the prognostic value of anthropometric parameters in patients treated with nivolumab for stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). : We retrospectively included 55 patients with NSCLC treated by nivolumab with a pretreatment FDG positron emission tomography coupled with computed tomography (PET/CT). Anthropometric parameters were measured on the CT of PET/CT by in-house software (Anthropometer3D) allowing an automatic multi-slice measurement of Lean Body Mass (LBM), Fat Body Mass (FBM), Muscle Body Mass (MBM), Visceral Fat Mass (VFM) and Sub-cutaneous Fat Mass (SCFM).

Monitoring anti-PD-1-based immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer with FDG PET: introduction of iPERCIST.

Background: Immunotherapy represents a new therapeutic approach in non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) with the potential for prolonged benefits. Because of the systemic nature and heterogeneity of tumoral diseases, as well as the immune restoration process induced by immunotherapy, the assessment of therapeutic efficacy is challenging, and the role of FDG PET is not well established. We evaluated the potential of FDG PET to monitor NSCLC patients treated with a checkpoint inhibitor.