Legal Personhood for Animals: Has Science Made Its Case?

The use of Latin in identifying an organism's genus and species is likely familiar to scientists and zoological professionals, but a traditional legal doctrine, known as habeas corpus (meaning "you have the body") may not have obvious applicability to nonhumans in the animal kingdom. In recent years, animal rights organizations have utilized the habeas corpus doctrine as a basis to bring legal challenges on behalf of nonhuman animals to expand "legal personhood" to them. These lawsuits, which have focused on species such as nonhuman primates and elephants, seek to challenge the "confinement" of animals in zoological institutions and by private owners, much like a prisoner or other detainee.

Deep learning improves utility of tau PET in the study of Alzheimer's disease.

Introduction: Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging targeting neurofibrillary tau tangles is increasingly used in the study of Alzheimer's disease (AD), but its utility may be limited by conventional quantitative or qualitative evaluation techniques in earlier disease states. Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are effective in learning spatial patterns for image classification.

Methods: 18F-MK6240 (n = 320) and AV-1451 (n = 446) PET images were pooled from multiple studies.

In Vivo Amyloid, Neurodegeneration, and Verbal Learning in Late Middle-Aged Hispanics.

Background: The National Institute on Aging (NIA)/Alzheimer's Association (AA) 2018 framework conceptualizes Alzheimer's disease (AD) biologically. Evidence of brain amyloid by biomarkers defines AD pathologic change and the Alzheimer's continuum. The presence of tau or neurodegeneration in the absence of amyloid defines non-AD pathologic change.

Sex differences in in vivo tau neuropathology in a multiethnic sample of late middle-aged adults.

It is unclear whether women have higher brain tau pathology. The objective of this study was to examine whether women have higher tau burden than men, and whether tau differences are independent of amyloid β (Aβ) burden. We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of a multiethnic sample of 252 nondemented late middle-aged (mean age: 64.

Brain Amyloid Burden and Resting-State Functional Connectivity in Late Middle-Aged Hispanics.

Non-linear relations of brain amyloid beta (Aβ) with task- based functional connectivity (tbFC) measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have been reported in late middle age. Our objective was to examine the association between brain Aβ and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) in late middle-aged adults. Global brain Aβ burden was ascertained with F-Florbetaben Positron Emission Tomography (PET); rsFC was ascertained on 3T Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) among 333 late middle-aged Hispanics adults without dementia in four major brain functional connectivity networks: default mode network (DMN), fronto-parietal control network (FPC), salience network (SAL) and dorsal attention network (DAN).

Sex Differences in in vivo Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology in Late Middle-Aged Hispanics.

Background: Females may have a higher risk of dementia than males. It is not clear if sex differences in Alzheimer's disease (AD) neuropathology explain the higher risk of dementia in females. Sex differences in AD neuropathology might begin in middle age, decades before the sex differences in dementia are apparent.