Implementation of a UK supermarket intervention to increase purchasing of fresh fruit and vegetables: process evaluation of the WRAPPED natural experiment.

Background: Placement interventions, characterised by greater availability and more prominent positioning of healthy food products in supermarkets and other food stores, are associated with healthier patterns of purchasing and diet. The WRAPPED intervention study is a natural experiment that aims to evaluate a supermarket placement intervention to improve fruit and vegetable sales, household purchasing and the dietary quality of women and their children. Process evaluation, alongside the evaluation of outcomes, is essential to understand how interventions are implemented, under what circumstances they are effective, and their mechanisms of impact.

Interactions between circuit architecture and plasticity in a closed-loop cerebellar system.

Determining the sites and directions of plasticity underlying changes in neural activity and behavior is critical for understanding mechanisms of learning. Identifying such plasticity from neural recording data can be challenging due to feedback pathways that impede reasoning about cause and effect. We studied interactions between feedback, neural activity, and plasticity in the context of a closed-loop motor learning task for which there is disagreement about the loci and directions of plasticity: vestibulo-ocular reflex learning.

Cerebellar Purkinje cells control eye movements with a rapid rate code that is invariant to spike irregularity.

The rate and temporal pattern of neural spiking each have the potential to influence computation. In the cerebellum, it has been hypothesized that the irregularity of interspike intervals in Purkinje cells affects their ability to transmit information to downstream neurons. Accordingly, during oculomotor behavior in mice and rhesus monkeys, mean irregularity of Purkinje cell spiking varied with mean eye velocity.

Magnetic eye tracking in mice.

Eye movements provide insights about a wide range of brain functions, from sensorimotor integration to cognition; hence, the measurement of eye movements is an important tool in neuroscience research. We describe a method, based on magnetic sensing, for measuring eye movements in head-fixed and freely moving mice. A small magnet was surgically implanted on the eye, and changes in the magnet angle as the eye rotated were detected by a magnetic field sensor.

The Public Health Innovation Model: Merging Private Sector Processes with Public Health Strengths.

Public health enjoyed a number of successes over the twentieth century. However, public health agencies have arguably been ill equipped to sustain these successes and address the complex threats we face today, including morbidity and mortality associated with persistent chronic diseases and emerging infectious diseases, in the context of flat funding and new and changing health care legislation. Transformational leaders, who are not afraid of taking risks to develop innovative approaches to combat present-day threats, are needed within public health agencies.

A content analysis of precede-proceed constructs in stress management mobile apps.

Background: The emergence of Apple's iPhone provides a platform for freelance developers to design third party apps, which greatly expands the functionality and utility of mobile devices for stress management. This study provides a basic overview of the stress management apps under the health and fitness category of the Apple App store and appraises each app's potential for influencing behavior change.

Methods: Data for this study came from a content analysis of health and fitness app descriptions available in the App Store on iTunes.

Identifying and Reducing Disparities in Mental Health Outcomes Among American Indians and Alaskan Natives Using Public Health, Mental Healthcare and Legal Perspectives.

The purpose of this paper was to investigate disparities in mental healthcare delivery in American Indian/Alaska Native populations from three perspectives: public health, legal policy and mental healthcare and provide evidence-based recommendations toward reducing those disparities. Data on mental health funding to tribes were obtained from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. As a result of analysis of these data, vital statistics and current literature, we propose three recommendations to reduce mental health disparities.

Evaluation of Diet-Related Infographics on Pinterest for Use of Behavior Change Theories: A Content Analysis.

Background: There is increasing interest in Pinterest as a method of disseminating health information. However, it is unclear whether the health information promoted on Pinterest is evidence-based or incorporates behavior change theory.

Objectives: The objective of the study was to determine the presence of health behavior theory (HBT) constructs in pins found on Pinterest and assess the relationship between various pin characteristics and the likelihood of inclusion of HBT.

Timing Rules for Synaptic Plasticity Matched to Behavioral Function.

It is widely assumed that the complexity of neural circuits enables them to implement diverse learning tasks using just a few generic forms of synaptic plasticity. In contrast, we report that synaptic plasticity can itself be precisely tuned to the requirements of a learning task. We found that the rules for induction of long-term and single-trial plasticity at parallel fiber-to-Purkinje cell synapses vary across cerebellar regions.

Health Behavior Theory in Popular Calorie Counting Apps: A Content Analysis.

Background: Although the Health & Fitness category of the Apple App Store features hundreds of calorie counting apps, the extent to which popular calorie counting apps include health behavior theory is unknown.

Objective: This study evaluates the presence of health behavior theory in calorie counting apps.

Methods: Data for this study came from an extensive content analysis of the 10 most popular calorie counting apps in the Health & Fitness category of the Apple App Store.

Growth and splitting of neural sequences in songbird vocal development.

Neural sequences are a fundamental feature of brain dynamics underlying diverse behaviours, but the mechanisms by which they develop during learning remain unknown. Songbirds learn vocalizations composed of syllables; in adult birds, each syllable is produced by a different sequence of action potential bursts in the premotor cortical area HVC. Here we carried out recordings of large populations of HVC neurons in singing juvenile birds throughout learning to examine the emergence of neural sequences.

The Laugh Model: Reframing and Rebranding Public Health Through Social Media.

Objectives: We examined the use of low-cost social media platforms in communicating public health messages and outline the laugh model, a framework through which public health organizations can reach and engage communities.

Methods: In August 2014, we developed an online campaign (Web site and social media) to help promote healthy family meals in Utah in conjunction with the state and local health departments.

Results: By the end of September 2014, a total of 3641 individuals had visited the Utahfamilymeals.

Health Behavior Theory in Physical Activity Game Apps: A Content Analysis.

Background: Physical activity games developed for a mobile phone platform are becoming increasingly popular, yet little is known about their content or inclusion of health behavior theory (HBT).

Objective: The objective of our study was to quantify elements of HBT in physical activity games developed for mobile phones and to assess the relationship between theoretical constructs and various app features.

Methods: We conducted an analysis of exercise and physical activity game apps in the Apple App Store in the fall of 2014.

Behavioral functionality of mobile apps in health interventions: a systematic review of the literature.

Background: Several thousand mobile phone apps are available to download to mobile phones for health and fitness. Mobile phones may provide a unique means of administering health interventions to populations.

Objective: The purpose of this systematic review was to systematically search and describe the literature on mobile apps used in health behavior interventions, describe the behavioral features and focus of health apps, and to evaluate the potential of apps to disseminate health behavior interventions.

Body checking as a behavioral link: a preliminary study assessing inhibition and its association to idiosyncratic body checking in anorexia nervosa.

Body checking (BC) is a behavioral feature of anorexia nervosa (AN), which is also present in obsessive-compulsive (OC) disorders. This study assessed whether increased body checking in AN patients correlated with deficits in cognitive inhibition. A battery of neuropsychological tests (the Ravello Profile), OC disorder measures, and the Body Checking Questionnaire (BCQ) were administered to nine adolescent females being treated for AN at an in-patient hospital in Scotland, UK.

Gating of neural error signals during motor learning.

Cerebellar climbing fiber activity encodes performance errors during many motor learning tasks, but the role of these error signals in learning has been controversial. We compared two motor learning paradigms that elicited equally robust putative error signals in the same climbing fibers: learned increases and decreases in the gain of the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). During VOR-increase training, climbing fiber activity on one trial predicted changes in cerebellar output on the next trial, and optogenetic activation of climbing fibers to mimic their encoding of performance errors was sufficient to implant a motor memory.

Vision drives correlated activity without patterned spontaneous activity in developing Xenopus retina.

Developing amphibians need vision to avoid predators and locate food before visual system circuits fully mature. Xenopus tadpoles can respond to visual stimuli as soon as retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) innervate the brain, however, in mammals, chicks and turtles, RGCs reach their central targets many days, or even weeks, before their retinas are capable of vision. In the absence of vision, activity-dependent refinement in these amniote species is mediated by waves of spontaneous activity that periodically spread across the retina, correlating the firing of action potentials in neighboring RGCs.

MRI-coupled fluorescence tomography quantifies EGFR activity in brain tumors.

Rationale And Objectives: This report demonstrates the diagnostic potential of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-coupled fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT) to determine epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) status in brain cancer.

Materials And Methods: Two orthotopic glioma xenograft models were used in this study: one represented high EGFR expression and the other low expression. Nude mice were inoculated with cells from either one of the tumor lines or were used in a sham surgery control group.