Inferring when to move.

Most of our movement consists of sequences of discrete actions at regular intervals-including speech, walking, playing music, or even chewing. Despite this, few models of the motor system address how the brain determines the interval at which to trigger actions. This paper offers a theoretical analysis of the problem of timing movements.

Nutrient-dense foods and diverse diets are important for ensuring adequate nutrition across the life course.

The world faces a global challenge of how to meet the nutritional needs of a diverse global population through diets. This paper defines the relative nutritional needs across each stage of the life cycle to support human health and identifies who is nutritionally vulnerable. Findings in this paper suggest that there are biological nutritional vulnerabilities stemming from high micronutrient needs per calorie in certain phases of the life cycle, particularly for infants and young children, women of reproductive age, pregnant and lactating women, and older adults, particularly older women.

Museum-Based Education in Health Professions Learning: A 5-Year Retrospective.

A growing evidence base suggests that the integration of museum-based activities into health professions education can contribute to learner resilience and wellbeing, promote capacity for patient-centered care, and encourage equity in learning environments. However, the styles and methods for implementing museum-based programs vary widely across different institutions. This retrospective leverages the lessons learned from 5 years of experience implementing museum-based programs at one large academic institution to examine the various operational and logistical considerations in implementing a museum-based program for health professions learners.

Muscarinic receptors mediate motivation via preparatory neural activity in humans.

Motivation depends on dopamine, but might be modulated by acetylcholine which influences dopamine release in the striatum, and amplifies motivation in animal studies. A corresponding effect in humans would be important clinically, since anticholinergic drugs are frequently used in Parkinson's disease, a condition that can also disrupt motivation. Reward and dopamine make us more ready to respond, as indexed by reaction times (RT), and move faster, sometimes termed vigour.

Working memory as a representational template for reinforcement learning.

Working memory (WM) and reinforcement learning (RL) both influence decision-making, but how they interact to affect behaviour remains unclear. We assessed whether RL is influenced by the format of visual stimuli held in WM, either feature-based or unified, object-based representations. In a pre-registered paradigm, participants learned stimulus-action combinations that provided reward through 80% probabilistic feedback.

Dissecting genomic regions and underlying candidate genes in groundnut MAGIC population for drought tolerance.

Background: Groundnut is mainly grown in the semi-arid tropic (SAT) regions worldwide, where abiotic stress like drought is persistent. However, a major research gap exists regarding exploring the genetic and genomic underpinnings of tolerance to drought. In this study, a multi-parent advanced generation inter-cross (MAGIC) population was developed and evaluated for five seasons at two locations for three consecutive years (2018-19, 2019-20 and 2020-21) under drought stress and normal environments.

Revitalizing Bites - Formulation of Low-budget Nutri Crackle Rusk for Empowering Pediatric Oncology Warriors.

Background: Nutri Crackle rusk, developed using an innovative pigmented variety of black rice flour, possesses a rich nutritional profile with essential amino acids, dietary fibers, and antioxidants, offering unique health benefits beyond traditional rice varieties. Establishing healthy eating habits during childhood cancer treatment is crucial for long-term well-being. Mindful consumption, incorporating Nutri Crackle rusk instead of empty-calorie snacks, can significantly improve the quality of life of childhood cancer survivors during their survivorship period.

3D ultrasound guidance for radiofrequency ablation in an anthropomorphic thyroid nodule phantom.

Background: The use of two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound for guiding radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of benign thyroid nodules presents limitations, including the inability to monitor the entire treatment volume and operator dependency in electrode positioning. We compared three-dimensional (3D)-guided RFA using a matrix ultrasound transducer with conventional 2D-ultrasound guidance in an anthropomorphic thyroid nodule phantom incorporated additionally with temperature-sensitive albumin.

Methods: Twenty-four phantoms with 48 nodules were constructed and ablated by an experienced radiologist using either 2D- or 3D-ultrasound guidance.

Safety, tolerability, and efficacy outcomes of the Investigation of Levetiracetam in Alzheimer's disease (ILiAD) study: a pilot, double-blind placebo-controlled crossover trial.

Objective: To assess whether the antiseizure medication levetiracetam may improve cognition in individuals with Alzheimer's disease who have not previously experienced a seizure.

Methods: We performed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover pilot study in individuals with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. Electroencephalography was performed at baseline and those with active epileptiform discharges were excluded.

Older adults are relatively more susceptible to impulsive social influence than young adults.

People differ in their levels of impulsivity and patience, and these preferences are heavily influenced by others. Previous research suggests that susceptibility to social influence may vary with age, but the mechanisms and whether people are more influenced by patience or impulsivity remain unknown. Here, using a delegated inter-temporal choice task and Bayesian computational models, we tested susceptibility to social influence in young (aged 18-36, N = 76) and older (aged 60-80, N = 78) adults.

Increased Sensitivity to Effort and Perception of Effort in People with Schizophrenia.

Objective: Motivational deficits in schizophrenia are proposed to be attributable in part to abnormal effort-cost computations, calculations weighing the costs vs. the benefits of actions. Several reports have shown that people with schizophrenia display a reduced willingness to exert effort for monetary rewards when compared to controls.

Human-Sized Organ Machine Perfusion: A Systematic Review on the Added Value of Medical Imaging for Organ Condition Assessment.

Machine perfused organs offer an excellent experimental platform, e.g., for studying organ physiology and for conducting pre-clinical trials for drug delivery.

Bruck syndrome in pregnancy.

Bruck syndrome is a rare, autosomal-recessive condition associated with features of both arthrogryposis and osteogenesis imperfecta. It is characterised by congenital large joint contractures with pterygia and bone fragility, leading to fractures and deformities, along with a short stature caused by progressive skeletal deformities. There are fewer than 50 described cases of Bruck syndrome in the literature, with no reported cases in pregnancy.

Tutorial on phantoms for photoacoustic imaging applications.

Significance: Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is an emerging technology that holds high promise in a wide range of clinical applications, but standardized methods for system testing are lacking, impeding objective device performance evaluation, calibration, and inter-device comparisons. To address this shortfall, this tutorial offers readers structured guidance in developing tissue-mimicking phantoms for photoacoustic applications with potential extensions to certain acoustic and optical imaging applications.

Aim: The tutorial review aims to summarize recommendations on phantom development for PAI applications to harmonize efforts in standardization and system calibration in the field.

Dobutamine in the Management of Advanced Heart Failure.

: The potential harm and clinical benefits of inotropic therapy in patients with decompensated heart failure with reduced ejection fraction or advanced heart failure were debated for three decades. Nonetheless, confronted with a dismal quality of life in the last months to years of life, continuous home inotropic therapy has recently gained traction for palliative therapy in patients who are not candidates for left ventricular mechanical circulatory support or heart transplantation. : As continuous inotropic therapy is only considered for patients who experience symptomatic relief and display objective evidence of improvement, clinical equipoise is no longer present, and randomized controlled trials are hard to conduct.

Multifunctional redox modulator prevents blast-induced loss of cochlear and vestibular hair cells and auditory spiral ganglion neurons.

Blast wave exposure, a leading cause of hearing loss and balance dysfunction among military personnel, arises primarily from direct mechanical damage to the mechanosensory hair cells and supporting structures or indirectly through excessive oxidative stress. We previously reported that HK-2, an orally active, multifunctional redox modulator (MFRM), was highly effective in reducing both hearing loss and hair cells loss in rats exposed to a moderate intensity workday noise that likely damages the cochlea primarily from oxidative stress versus direct mechanical trauma. To determine if HK-2 could also protect cochlear and vestibular cells from damage caused primarily from direct blast-induced mechanical trauma versus oxidative stress, we exposed rats to six blasts of 186 dB peak SPL.

Localized K63 ubiquitin signaling is regulated by VCP/p97 during oxidative stress.

Under stress conditions, cells reprogram their molecular machineries to mitigate damage and promote survival. Ubiquitin signaling is globally increased during oxidative stress, controlling protein fate and supporting stress defenses at several subcellular compartments. However, the rules driving subcellular ubiquitin localization to promote these concerted response mechanisms remain understudied.

Measuring Community Urbanicity and Its Influence on Household Food Security Across Nepal's Agroecological Zones.

Background: Urbanization influences food systems and food security, but research on these associations in low- and middle-income countries remain limited, partly because of the binary and unstandardized "urban compared with rural" classifications.

Objectives: To develop a community urbanicity scale, to assess its associations with household food security, and to explore whether agricultural occupation modifies this relationship across the 3 agroecological zones (mountain, hill, ) of Nepal.

Methods: Data came from a nationally and agroecologically representative, multistaged 2013 agri-food system survey of 4285 households with children <5 y in 63 communities (wards) in Nepal.

Shedding Light on Intracellular Proteins using Flow Cytometry.

Intracellular protein abundance is routinely measured in mammalian cells using population-based techniques such as western blotting which fail to capture single cell protein levels or using fluorescence microscopy which is although suitable for single cell protein detection but not for rapid analysis of large no. of cells. Flow cytometry offers rapid, high-throughput, multiparameter-based analysis of intracellular protein expression in statistically significant no.

-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor-Antibody Encephalitis Impairs Maintenance of Attention to Items in Working Memory.

NMDA receptors (NMDARs) may be crucial to working memory (WM). Computational models predict that they sustain neural firing and produce associative memory, which may underpin maintaining and binding information, respectively. We test this in patients with antibodies to NMDAR ( = 10, female) and compare them with healthy control participants ( = 55, 20 male, 35 female).