Social Sense-Making and Explanatory Models for Voice-Hearing Within Hearing Voices Network Groups.

The causal explanations voice-hearers have for their voice-hearing experiences may influence affective outcome and clinical decision making. Voice-hearers endorse a range of explanatory models, which do not consistently align with explanatory models held by healthcare professionals. Research has established that explanatory models for voice-hearing are dynamic rather than fixed, and are influenced by internal beliefs and motivations, culture, and contact with significant others.

Regional response to light illuminance across the human hypothalamus.

Light exerts multiple non-image-forming biological effects on physiology including the stimulation of alertness and cognition. However, the subcortical circuitry underlying the stimulating impact of light is not established in humans. We used 7 Tesla functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess the impact of variations in light illuminance on the regional activity of the hypothalamus while healthy young adults (N=26; 16 women; 24.

Development of Palpable Purpura in a Patient With Infective Endocarditis: A Case Report.

Infective endocarditis (IE) can present with a variety of signs and symptoms, including skin lesions. The few papers describing a relationship between IE and vasculitis are split between IE being able to mimic vasculitis and between IE indeed being associated with a vasculitis involving the skin, kidney, gastrointestinal tract, or peripheral nerves. It is important for clinicians to distinguish between an isolated vasculitis, infective endocarditis, and IE-associated vasculitis because the treatments and outcomes are different.

Ambient heat exposure patterns and emergency department visits and hospitalizations among medicare beneficiaries 2008-2019.

Objective: To assess the association between ambient heat and all-cause and cause-specific emergency department (ED) visits and acute hospitalizations among Medicare beneficiaries in the conterminous United States.

Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Setting: Conterminous US from 2008 and 2019.

Ambient Heat and Risk of Serious Hypoglycemia in Older Adults With Diabetes Using Insulin in the U.S. and Taiwan: A Cross-National Case-Crossover Study.

Objective: To measure the association between ambient heat and hypoglycemia-related emergency department visit or hospitalization in insulin users.

Research Design And Methods: We identified cases of serious hypoglycemia among adults using insulin aged ≥65 in the U.S.

Computational models can distinguish the contribution from different mechanisms to familiarity recognition.

Familiarity is the strange feeling of knowing that something has already been seen in our past. Over the past decades, several attempts have been made to model familiarity using artificial neural networks. Recently, two learning algorithms successfully reproduced the functioning of the perirhinal cortex, a key structure involved during familiarity: Hebbian and anti-Hebbian learning.

Influence of interactive effects on long-term population trajectories in multispecies reintroductions.

Reintroduced populations are typically considered to progress through establishment, growth, and regulatory phases. However, most reintroduction programs do not monitor intensively enough to test this conceptual model. We studied population indices derived from track activity of 4 threatened species (greater bilby [Macrotis lagotis], burrowing bettong [Bettongia lesueur], greater stick-nest rat [Leporillus conditor], and Shark Bay bandicoot [Perameles bougainville]) over 23 years after multiple reintroductions of each species in arid Australia.

An independent audit of electroconvulsive therapy patient information leaflets in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of patient information leaflets about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) used in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and their compliance with the principle of informed consent.

Design And Methods: To replicate an audit in England, Freedom of Information Act requests were sent to the 26 providers of ECT for their ECT patient information leaflet. These were scored, by two independent raters, on the same 40-item accuracy measure used in the England audit.

The need for antidepressant withdrawal support services: Recommendations from 708 patients.

Approximately half of the tens of millions of people currently taking antidepressants will experience withdrawal symptoms when they try to reduce or come off them. Nearly half of these describe their symptoms as severe in surveys. Many prescribing doctors seem ill-informed and unprepared to provide effective discontinuation advice and support, often misdiagnosing withdrawal as a relapse of depression or anxiety.

Tuning Amorphous Selenium Composition with Tellurium to Improve Quantum Efficiency at Long Wavelengths and High Applied Fields.

Amorphous selenium (a-Se) is a large-area compatible photoconductor that has received significant attention toward the development of UV and X-ray detectors for a wide range of applications in medical imaging, life science, high-energy physics, and nuclear radiation detection. A subset of applications require detection of photons with spectral coverage from UV to infrared wavelengths. In this work, we present a systematic study utilizing density functional theory simulations and experimental studies to investigate optical and electrical properties of a-Se alloyed with tellurium (Te).

Designing withdrawal support services for antidepressant users: Patients' views on existing services and what they really need.

Background: Public Health England has recommended that services be put in place to support people who choose to withdraw from antidepressants because of a current gap. This study aims to explore the views of members of online withdrawal peer-support groups about existing healthcare and what additional support is needed.

Methods: The administrators of 15 online support groups for people stopping antidepressants were asked to advertise an online survey to their members.

pH-Responsive Polymer Implants for the Protection of Native Mammals: Assessment of Material Properties and Poison Incorporation on Performance.

Efforts to mitigate the effects of feral cats through the management of remnant or reintroduced populations of threatened species, are often unsuccessful due to predation by control-averse feral cats, or 'problem individuals'. In order to target these animals, we have developed the Population Protecting Implant (PPI). PPIs are designed to be implanted subcutaneously in a native animal.

How important are informed consent, informed choice, and patient-doctor relationships, when prescribing antipsychotic medication?

Background: Antipsychotic medications (APs) are used for people with psychosis diagnoses and, increasingly for other problems and groups.

Aims: This study examines how APs are prescribed, from the perspective of recipients.

Methods: 757 people, from 30 countries, responded to questions about their experiences with APs, in an online survey.

The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs.

Introduction: Many recipients of antipsychotic drugs try to stop taking them, primarily because of distressing adverse effects. Little research has been undertaken into the withdrawal symptoms that ensue.

Methods: In an online survey 585 antipsychotic users, from 29 countries, who had tried to stop taking the drugs, were asked specific questions about the process and the open question: 'What were the effects of withdrawing from the medication?' 44% had a diagnosis in the 'schizophrenia' spectrum.

Observation of solid-state bidirectional thermal conductivity switching in antiferroelectric lead zirconate (PbZrO).

Materials with tunable thermal properties enable on-demand control of temperature and heat flow, which is an integral component in the development of solid-state refrigeration, energy scavenging, and thermal circuits. Although gap-based and liquid-based thermal switches that work on the basis of mechanical movements have been an effective approach to control the flow of heat in the devices, their complex mechanisms impose considerable costs in latency, expense, and power consumption. As a consequence, materials that have multiple solid-state phases with distinct thermal properties are appealing for thermal management due to their simplicity, fast switching, and compactness.

Imaging Insights Into Abdominal Wall Function.

Purpose: The successful repair of any complex ventral hernia requires a thorough understanding of the underlying anatomical defect and its functional context. We describe an improved "functional" approach to CT imaging of the abdominal wall that can facilitate this understanding and assist surgical planning.

Methods: This invited article reports the observational experience gained from the functional abdominal wall CT examinations of 88 patients who underwent complex ventral hernia repair using pre-operative Botulinum toxin A (BTA) infiltration of the lateral oblique abdominal muscles as well as a further eight patients with diastasis rectus abdominis who were examined to exclude ventral hernia.