Brain Networks, Neurotransmitters and Psychedelics: Towards a Neurochemistry of Self-Awareness.

Purpose Of Review: Self-awareness can be defined as the capacity of becoming the object of one's own awareness and, increasingly, it has been the target of scientific inquiry. Self-awareness has important clinical implications, and a better understanding of the neurochemical basis of self-awareness may help clarifying causes and developing interventions for different psychopathological conditions. The current article explores the relationship between neurochemistry and self-awareness, with special attention to the effects of psychedelics.

Impact of the first year of COVID-19 vaccination strategy in Brazil: an ecological study.

Objectives: No consensus exists about the best COVID-19 vaccination strategy to be adopted by low-income and middle-income countries. Brazil adopted an age-based calendar strategy to reduce mortality and the burden on the healthcare system. This study evaluates the impact of the vaccination campaign in Brazil on the progression of the reported COVID-19 deaths.

Predicting novel mosquito-associated viruses from metatranscriptomic dark matter.

The exponential growth of metatranscriptomic studies dedicated to arboviral surveillance in mosquitoes has yielded an unprecedented volume of unclassified sequences referred to as the virome dark matter. Mosquito-associated viruses are classified based on their host range into Mosquito-specific viruses (MSV) or Arboviruses. While MSV replication is restricted to mosquito cells, Arboviruses infect both mosquito vectors and vertebrate hosts.

Finding the needle in a haystack: Evaluation of ecotoxicological effects along the continental shelf break during the Brazilian mysterious oil spill.

Oceanic oil spills present significant ecological risks that have the potential to contaminate extensive areas, including coastal regions. The occurrence of the 2019 oil spill event in Brazil resulted in over 3000 km of contaminated beaches and shorelines. While assessing the impact on benthic and beach ecosystems is relatively straightforward due to direct accessibility, evaluating the ecotoxicological effects of open ocean oil spills on the pelagic community is a complex task.

Online Cognitive Stimulation Therapy for Dementia in Brazil and India: Acceptability, Feasibility, and Lessons for Implementation.

Background: Cognitive stimulation therapy (CST) is an evidence-based, group psychosocial intervention for people with dementia, and it has a positive impact on cognition and quality of life. CST has been culturally adapted for use globally. It was developed as a face-to-face intervention but has recently been adapted for online delivery.

Are you you eat? Aspects of self-awareness in eating disorders.

Eating disorders (ED) are severe psychiatric disorders characterized by dysfunctional behaviors related to eating or weight control, with profound impacts on health, quality of life, and the financial burden of affected individuals and society at large. Given that these disorders involve disturbances in self-perception, it is crucial to comprehend the role of self-awareness in their prevalence and maintenance. This literature review presents different self-awareness processes, discussing their functioning across different levels of complexity.

Longitudinal neuropsychological performance of post-stroke adults with and without rehabilitation.

This study compared the neuropsychological performance of two post-stroke groups, one undergoing rehabilitation and the other not receiving any intervention, on the acute and chronic stroke phases, and explored sociodemographic and neurological variables associated with changes in performance over time. Sixty-three adults underwent neuropsychological assessment with the Cognitive Screening Instrument (TRIACOG) less than thirty days after having a stroke and were reassessed three to six months after stroke. Thirty-eight participants did not undertake rehabilitation and twenty-five did physiotherapy and/or speech therapy between the two time points.

Decolonising global health: why the new Pandemic Agreement should have included the principle of subsidiarity.

The negotiations for the WHO Pandemic Agreement have brought attention to issues of racism and colonialism in global health. Although the agreement aims to promote global solidarity, it fails to address these deeply embedded problems. This Viewpoint argues that not including the principle of subsidiarity into Article 4 of the agreement as a pragmatic strategy was a missed opportunity to decolonise global health governance and promote global solidarity.

The use of virtual reality as a perspective-taking manipulation to improve self-awareness in Alzheimer's disease.

Lack of awareness of symptoms or having a condition referred to as anosognosia is a common feature of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Previous literature on AD reported difficulties in evaluating self-abilities, often showing underestimation of limitations. There is increasing evidence that the perspective through which information is presented may moderate the performance appraisal and that anosognosia in AD might be a consequence of a deficit in assuming a third-person perspective.

Ecotoxicological assessments of atmospheric biomonitors exposed to urban pollution in a Brazilian metropolis.

Subcellular metal distribution assessments are the most adequate biomonitoring approach to evaluate metal toxicity, instead of total metal assessments This study aimed to assess subcellular metal distributions and associations to the main metal exposure biomarker, metallothionein (MT), in two bromeliad species (Tillandsia usneoides and Tillandsia stricta) exposed established in industrial, urban, and port areas in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, southeastern Brazil, through an active biomonitoring approach conducted one year. Metals and metalloids in three subcellular fractions (insoluble, thermolabile and thermostable) obtained from the MT purification process were determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Lower MT concentrations were observed both during the dry sampling periods, associated to the crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) and during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to reduced urban mobility, decreasing pollutant emissions.

Do non-linearity and non-Gaussianity truly matter in streamflow forecasting? A comparative study between PAR(p) and vine copula for Brazilian streamflow time series.

This study evaluates the joint impact of non-linearity and non-Gaussianity on predictive performance in 23 Brazilian monthly streamflow time series from 1931 to 2022. We consider point and interval forecasting, employing a PAR(p) model and comparing it with the periodic vine copula model. Results indicate that the Gaussian hypothesis assumed by PAR(p) is unsuitable; gamma and log-normal distributions prove more appropriate and crucial for constructing accurate confidence intervals.

Nonparametric estimation of measurement uncertainty arising from sampling.

Background: Increasingly, measurement uncertainty has been used by pure and applied analytical chemistry to ensure decision-making in commercial transactions and technical-scientific applications. Until recently, it was considered that measurement uncertainty boiled down to analytical uncertainty; however, over the last two decades, uncertainty arising from sampling has also been considered. However, the second version of the EURACHEM guide, published in 2019, assumes that the frequency distribution is approximately normal or can be normalized through logarithmic transformations, without treating data that deviate from the normality.

Repurposing non-pharmacological interventions for Alzheimer's disease through link prediction on biomedical literature.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) have great potential to improve cognitive function but limited investigation to discover NPI repurposing for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). This is the first study to develop an innovative framework to extract and represent NPI information from biomedical literature in a knowledge graph (KG), and train link prediction models to repurpose novel NPIs for AD prevention. We constructed a comprehensive KG, called ADInt, by extracting NPI information from biomedical literature.

Multisensor Magnetic Scanning Microscope for Remanent Magnetic Field Measurements.

Magnetic Scanning Microscopy (MSM) emerged with the aim of allowing the visualization of magnetic fields of a sample or material through scanning and proved particularly useful for geology, biomedicine, characterization of magnetic materials, and in the steel industry. In this regard, the reading system of an MSM was modified using a μ-metal magnetic shielding structure to analyze remanent fields. The MSM was adapted to perform readings using two different types of sensors.

Mesoporous Nitrogen-Doped Holey Reduced Graphene Oxide: Preparation, Purification, and Application for Metal-Free Electrochemical Sensing of Dopamine.

Holey graphenic nanomaterials with porosity within the basal plane attract significant interest. It is observed that the perforation of graphene can enhance the specific surface area of the nanosheet, ensuring effective wetting and penetration of electrolytes to the electrode surface, facilitating rapid charge transfer, and boosting the electrocatalytic efficacy of the transducers. This study reports the first example of nitrogen-doped holey reduced graphene oxide with a mesoporous morphology of the graphene basal plane (N-MHG).

Domain specificity of error monitoring: An ERP study in young and older adults.

Metacognition refers to the ability to monitor and control one's cognitive processes, which plays an important role in decision-making throughout the lifespan. It is still debated whether metacognitive abilities decline with age. Neuroimaging evidence suggests that metacognition is served by domain-specific mechanisms.

Threat directionality modulates defensive reactions in humans: cardiac and electrodermal responses.

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e.

Measures of Awareness in Alzheimer's Disease and Clinical Differences Between Groups with Preserved, Impaired, and Absent Awareness.

Background: Awareness is a heterogeneous construct that requires accurate assessment. There is no consensus on the best methodology for capturing the phenomenon, thus leading to inconsistent results in this area.

Objective: We aim to evaluate the reliability of clinicians' ratings and a discrepancy assessment method, examining groups of people with Alzheimer's disease (PwAD) according to their degree of awareness and demographic and clinical aspects.

Stress Load and Ascending Aortic Aneurysms: An Observational, Longitudinal, Single-Center Study Using Computational Fluid Dynamics.

Ascending aortic aneurysm (AAoA) is a silent disease with high mortality; however, the factors associated with a worse prognosis are not completely understood. The objective of this observational, longitudinal, single-center study was to identify the hemodynamic patterns and their influence on AAoA growth using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), focusing on the effects of geometrical variations on aortic hemodynamics. Personalized anatomic models were obtained from angiotomography scans of 30 patients in two different years (with intervals of one to three years between them), of which 16 (53%) showed aneurysm growth (defined as an increase in the ascending aorta volume by 5% or more).

Large nesting expression in deer mice remains stable under conditions of visual deprivation despite heightened limbic involvement: Perspectives on compulsive-like behavior.

Visual stimuli and limbic activation varyingly influence obsessive-compulsive symptom expression and so impact treatment outcomes. Some symptom phenotypes, for example, covert repugnant thoughts, are likely less sensitive to sensory stimuli compared to symptoms with an extrinsic focus, that is, symptoms related to contamination, safety, and "just-right-perceptions." Toward an improved understanding of the neurocognitive underpinnings of obsessive-compulsive psychobiology, work in naturalistic animal model systems is useful.

Correction: Diamond nanowires modified with poly[3-(pyrrolyl)carboxylic acid] for the immobilization of histidine-tagged peptides.

Correction for 'Diamond nanowires modified with poly[3-(pyrrolyl)carboxylic acid] for the immobilization of histidine-tagged peptides' by Palaniappan Subramanian , , 2014, , 4343-4349, https://doi.org/10.1039/C4AN00146J.

Factors influencing adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.

Various novel platform technologies have been used for the development of COVID-19 vaccines. In this nested cohort study among healthcare workers in Australia and Brazil who received three different COVID-19-specific vaccines, we (a) evaluated the incidence of adverse events following immunization (AEFI); (b) compared AEFI by vaccine type, dose and country; (c) identified factors influencing the incidence of AEFI; and (d) assessed the association between reactogenicity and vaccine anti-spike IgG antibody responses. Of 1302 participants who received homologous 2-dose regimens of ChAdOx1-S (Oxford-AstraZeneca), BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) or CoronaVac (Sinovac), 1219 (94%) completed vaccine reaction questionnaires.

Organic Synthesis and Current Understanding of the Mechanisms of CFTR Modulator Drugs Ivacaftor, Tezacaftor, and Elexacaftor.

The monogenic rare disease Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations in the gene encoding the CF transmembrane conductance (CFTR) protein, an anion channel expressed at the apical plasma membrane of epithelial cells. The discovery and subsequent development of CFTR modulators-small molecules acting on the basic molecular defect in CF-have revolutionized the standard of care for people with CF (PwCF), thus drastically improving their clinical features, prognosis, and quality of life. Currently, four of these drugs are approved for clinical use: potentiator ivacaftor (VX-770) alone or in combination with correctors lumacaftor, (VX-809), tezacaftor (VX-661), and elexacaftor (VX-445).