Publications by authors named "RA Nash"

Article Synopsis
  • - A study compared the outcomes of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) using unmodified peripheral blood stem cells (PBSC) with maintenance therapy (mycophenolate mofetil) versus a previously studied method that involved CD34+ selected PBSC in patients with diffuse systemic sclerosis (SSc).
  • - In this trial involving 20 high-risk SSc patients, the 5-year overall survival (OS) was estimated at 85%, and event-free survival (EFS) was 75%, indicating promising results with this new approach.
  • - The research highlighted a potential risk factor for poor outcomes in patients undergoing AHSCT: having a low estimated glomerular filtration rate (
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We investigated the neural signatures of expert decision-making in the context of police training in a virtual reality-based shoot/don't shoot scenario. Police officers can use stopping force against a perpetrator, which may require using a firearm and each decision made by an officer to discharge their firearm or not has substantial implications. Therefore, it is important to understand the cognitive and underlying neurophysiological processes that lead to such a decision.

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The current study examined how people's metamemory judgments of recollection and belief-in-occurrence change over time. Furthermore, we examined to what extent these judgments are affected by memory distrust - the subjective appraisal of one's memory functioning - as measured by the Memory Distrust Scale (MDS) and the Squire Subjective Memory Scale (SSMQ). Participants (= 234) studied pictorial stimuli and were tested on some of these stimuli later in the same session, but were tested on other stimuli 1, 2, 4, 8, and 17 days later.

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Objective: In the randomized Scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide or Transplantation (SCOT) trial, myeloablation, followed by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), led to the normalization of systemic sclerosis (SSc) peripheral blood cell (PBC) gene expression signature at the 26-month visit. Herein, we examined long-term molecular changes ensuing 54 months after randomization for individuals receiving an HSCT or 12 months of intravenous cyclophosphamide (CYC).

Methods: Global PBC transcript studies were performed in study participants at pretreatment baseline and at 38 months and 54 months after randomization, as well as in healthy controls using Illumina HT-12 arrays.

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Past research shows that recalling a single positive health-related experience, such as exercising, can encourage people's subsequent healthy behaviours. In contrast, we reasoned that attempting to recall healthy experiences might elicit a metacognitive experience of difficulty that would lead people to perceive themselves as less healthy, and perhaps to make other health-related judgments based on this perception. In two pre-registered experiments (combined = 729), participants recalled either "few" or "many" instances of eating either healthily or unhealthily, before rating the healthiness of their diets and completing measures of their eating preferences and choices.

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Article Synopsis
  • Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a disease where the body's immune system mistakenly attacks the nerves, making it hard for muscles to work properly, and researchers tested a high-dose chemotherapy treatment on a patient with severe MG who didn’t get better with other treatments.
  • The patient received chemotherapy and a procedure to help her immune system recover, and after this treatment, she started feeling better really quickly and stayed symptom-free for a long time.
  • The study suggests that this new treatment may help some people with severe MG, and there's interest in doing more research to see if it works for others with the same problem.
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When choosing strategies for verifying one's memory, people are more influenced by the perceived cost of using a strategy than by its likelihood of yielding reliable information (i.e., ).

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Objectives: Results from the SCOT (Scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide Or Transplantation) clinical trial demonstrated significant benefits of haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) versus cyclophosphamide (CTX) in patients with systemic sclerosis. The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that transplantation stabilises the autoantibody repertoire in patients with favourable clinical outcomes.

Methods: We used a bead-based array containing 221 protein antigens to profile serum IgG autoantibodies in participants of the SCOT trial.

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Objectives: Myeloablative autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) was recently demonstrated to provide significant benefit over cyclophosphamide (CYC) in the treatment of diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis (dcSSc) in the Scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide or Transplantation (SCOT) trial. As dysregulation of the B cell compartment has previously been described in dcSSc, we sought to gain insight into the effects of myeloablative autologous HSCT as compared with CYC.

Methods: We sequenced the peripheral blood immunoglobulin heavy chain (IGH) repertoires in patients with dcSSc enrolled in the SCOT trial.

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This special issue honours James Ost's (1973-2019) contributions to our understanding of false and distorted remembering. In our editorial, we introduce some of James' distinctive research themes including the experiences of people who retract "recovered" memories, social (e.g.

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People can come to "remember" experiences they never had, and these false memories-much like memories for real experiences-can serve a variety of helpful and harmful functions. Sometimes, though, people realize one of their memories is false, and retract their belief in it. These "retracted memories" continue to have many of the same phenomenological characteristics as their believed memories.

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Front-of-pack health imagery can shape people's inferences about food products' health benefits, even leading people to falsely remember reading health claims they never saw. However, research has typically examined these effects in situations where participants have little contextual information to guide their inferences about a product. The present research aimed to replicate the finding that front-of-pack health imagery leads participants to falsely remember reading health claims.

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Article Synopsis
  • Brain volume loss (BVL) is prevalent after high-dose immunosuppression treatment in multiple sclerosis patients, particularly affecting whole-brain, grey matter, and white matter volumes.
  • A study involving 24 relapsing-remitting MS patients measured brain volume changes over five years, revealing accelerated short-term BVL immediately after treatment, with varying rates of loss in different brain tissue types.
  • Key findings indicated that patients with gadolinium-enhancing lesions at baseline experienced significantly greater short-term BVL, while long-term rates stabilized and were similar among those who maintained event-free survival.
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Exposure to fake news stories can result in false memories for the events portrayed, and this effect can be enhanced if the stories conform to the reader's ideological position. We exposed 1299 UK residents to fabricated news stories about Brexit. 44% of participants reported a false memory for at least one fabricated story, with a higher rate of false memories for stories that reflected poorly on the opposing side.

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Objective: The Scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide or Transplantation (SCOT) trial demonstrated clinical benefit of haematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) compared with cyclophosphamide (CYC). We mapped PBC (peripheral blood cell) samples from the SCOT clinical trial to scleroderma intrinsic subsets and tested the hypothesis that they predict long-term response to HSCT.

Methods: We analysed gene expression from PBCs of SCOT participants to identify differential treatment response.

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Images on dietary supplement packaging can help identify the products' supposed function. However, research shows that these images can also lead people to infer additional health benefits of consuming the products. The present research investigated the extent to which front-of-pack imagery affects people's perceptions of the health risks and benefits of fictional products.

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Recent research showed that people recall past-oriented, evaluative feedback more fully and accurately than future-oriented, directive feedback. Here we investigated whether these memory biases arise from preferential attention toward evaluative feedback during encoding. We also attempted to counter the biases via manipulations intended to focus participants on improvement.

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A recent study of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) for active relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) showed efficacy in preventing disease worsening. However, the immunologic basis for efficacy remains poorly defined. Multiple sclerosis pathology is known to be driven by inflammatory T cells that infiltrate the CNS.

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Objective: In the randomised scleroderma: Cyclophosphamide Or Transplantation (SCOT trial) (NCT00114530), myeloablation, followed by haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), led to improved clinical outcomes compared with monthly cyclophosphamide (CYC) treatment in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Herein, the study aimed to determine global molecular changes at the whole blood transcript and serum protein levels ensuing from HSCT in comparison to intravenous monthly CYC in 62 participants enrolled in the SCOT study.

Methods: Global transcript studies were performed at pretreatment baseline, 8 months and 26 months postrandomisation using Illumina HT-12 arrays.

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Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, disabling, immune-mediated, demyelinating and degenerative disease of the central nervous system. Approved disease-modifying therapies may be incompletely effective in some patients with highly active relapsing disease and high risk of disability. The use of immunoablative or myeloablative therapy followed by autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) has been investigated in retrospective studies, clinical trials, and meta-analyses/systematic reviews as an approach to address this unmet clinical need.

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Systemic sclerosis is a progressive inflammatory disease that is frequently fatal and has limited treatment options. High-dose chemotherapy with autologous hematopoietic cell transplantation (AHCT) has been evaluated as treatment for this disease in observational studies, multicenter randomized controlled clinical trials, and meta-analyses. On behalf of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (ASBMT), a panel of experts in transplantation and rheumatology was convened to review available evidence and make a recommendation on AHCT as an indication for systemic sclerosis.

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Wixted, Mickes, and Fisher (this issue) take issue with the common trope that eyewitness memory is inherently unreliable. They draw on a large body of mock-crime research and a small number of field studies, which indicate that high-confidence eyewitness reports are usually accurate, at least when memory is uncontaminated and suitable interviewing procedures are used. We agree with the thrust of Wixted et al.

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People frequently receive performance feedback that describes how well they achieved in the past, and how they could improve in future. In educational contexts, future-oriented (directive) feedback is often argued to be more valuable to learners than past-oriented (evaluative) feedback; critically, prior research led us to predict that it should also be better remembered. We tested this prediction in six experiments.

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Mahr & Csibra (M&C) make a compelling case for a communicative function of episodic remembering, but a less compelling case that this is its primary function. Questions arise on whether confirming their predictions would support their account sufficiently, on the communicative function of preserving rich, nonbelieved memories, and on the epistemic benefits of developing false memories via the acceptance of misinformation.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study was conducted to compare two treatments for patients with severe scleroderma, a serious skin disease. One treatment was a special type of stem cell transplant and the other was monthly infusions of a medicine called cyclophosphamide.
  • The results showed that patients who received the stem cell transplant had better outcomes after 54 months, with higher rates of survival and less disease progression compared to those who got cyclophosphamide.
  • However, some risks were associated with the stem cell transplant, including a small chance of treatment-related death, while there were no deaths linked to cyclophosphamide.
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