Spatial asymmetries are an intriguing feature of directed attention. Recent observations indicate... more Spatial asymmetries are an intriguing feature of directed attention. Recent observations indicate an influence of temperament upon the direction of these asymmetries. It is unknown whether this influence generalises to visual orienting behaviour. The aim of the current study was therefore to explore the relationship between temperament and measures of spatial orienting as a function of target hemifield. An exogenous cueing task was administered to 92 healthy participants. Temperament was assessed using Carver and White's (1994) Behavioural Inhibition System and Behavioural Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales. Individuals with high sensitivity to punishment and low sensitivity to reward showed a leftward asymmetry of directed attention when there was no informative spatial cue provided. This asymmetry was not present when targets were preceded by spatial cues that were either valid or invalid. The findings support the notion that individual variations in temperament influence spatial asymmetries in visual orienting, but only when lateral targets are preceded by a non-directional (neutral) cue. The results are discussed in terms of hemispheric asymmetries and dopamine activity.
The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nation... more The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland, ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. The division of society, however, continues in its segregated education system. In Northern Ireland today, 93% of children attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school (Conflict Archive on the Internet). Despite widespread agreement on the need for change, and the transformation of other institutions in society such as the parliament, civil service and police, little progress has been made in reforming the education system since peace was established. Our project utilizes qualitative interviews with academics, educational policymakers, teachers, and students themselves. We also visited three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland and conducted a poll of secondary school teachers to examine the efforts to reform the education system since the peace agreement. We find there are two dominant, and mostly incompatible proposals on the table, integrated and shared education, as well as the less prominent proposal of an explicit curriculum to be used in all types of schools. Significant impediments remain to the success of all three, including the fact that the younger generation is not politically engaged, that Northern Ireland lacks an infrastructure for religious education outside of public education, and that the segregated system has led to increased differences in quality between Catholic and Protestant educations. I. INTRODUCTION With the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April of 1998, Northern Ireland entered a new period of peace after more than three decades
How the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors is a central question of cognitive... more How the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors is a central question of cognitive neuroscience. Diminished awareness of performance errors limits the extent to which humans engage in corrective behavior and has been linked to loss of insight in a number of psychiatric syndromes (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, drug addiction). These conditions share alterations in monoamine signaling that may influence the neural mechanisms underlying error processing, but our understanding of the neurochemical drivers of these processes is limited. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design of the influence of methylphenidate, atomoxetine, and citalopram on error awareness in 27 healthy participants. The error awareness task, a go/no-go response inhibition paradigm, was administered to assess the influence of monoaminergic agents on performance errors during fMRI data acquisition. A single dose of methylphenidate, but not atomoxetine or citalopram, significantly improved the ability of healthy volunteers to consciously detect performance errors. Furthermore, this behavioral effect was associated with a strengthening of activation differences in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and inferior parietal lobe during the methylphenidate condition for errors made with versus without awareness. Our results have implications for the understanding of the neurochemical underpinnings of performance monitoring and for the pharmacological treatment of a range of disparate clinical conditions that are marked by poor awareness of errors.
... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and... more ... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and other birds were clearly discernible in this very soft soil, but pellets did not penetrate it at all They hit the soil at an acute angie and bounced, leaving merely slight dents or depressions. ...
Pharmacological evidence suggests the importance of noradrenergic and other monoaminergic neurotr... more Pharmacological evidence suggests the importance of noradrenergic and other monoaminergic neurotransmitters in the aetiology and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Until recently, the genes of the noradrenergic pathway were not intensively investigated in ADHD compared to dopaminergic and serotonergic candidates. In this study, 91 SNP markers of 14 noradrenergic genes (an average density of one SNP per 4.5 kbp) were examined in ADHD samples from Ireland and Australia. Although suggestive evidence of association (nominal p≤0.05) with the genes SLC6A2, ADRA1A, ADRA1B and ADRA2B was observed, none remained significant after permutation adjustments. In contrast, haplotype analyses demonstrated a significant association between ADHD and a SLC6A2 haplotype comprising the markers rs36009, rs1800887, rs8049681, rs2242447 and rs9930182 (χ 2 09.39, p-corrected00.019, OR01.51). A rare ADRA1B haplotype made of six SNPs (rs2030373, rs6884105, rs756275, rs6892282, rs6888306 and rs13162302) was also associated (χ 2 07.79, p-corrected00.042 OR02.74) with the disorder. These findings provide evidence of a contribution of the noradrenaline system to the genetic aetiology of ADHD. The observed haplotype association signals may be driven by as yet unidentified functional risk variants in or around the associated regions. Functional genomic analysis is warranted to determine the biological mechanism of the observed association.
Response inhibition is a prototypical executive function of considerable clinical relevance to ps... more Response inhibition is a prototypical executive function of considerable clinical relevance to psychiatry. Nevertheless, our understanding of its pharmacological modulation remains incomplete. We used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design to examine the effect of an acute dose of methylphenidate (MPH) (30 mg), atomoxetine (ATM) (60 mg), citalopram (CIT) (30 mg), and placebo (PLAC) (dextrose) on the stop signal inhibition task in 24 healthy, right-handed men 18-35 years of age. Participants performed the task under each of the four drug conditions across four consecutive sessions. Methylphenidate led to a reduction in both response time variability and stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), indicating enhanced response inhibition compared with all other drug conditions. Crucially, the enhancement of response inhibition by MPH occurred without concomitant changes in overall response speed, arguing against a simple enhancement of processing speed. We found no significant differences between ATM and PLAC, CIT and PLAC, or ATM and CIT for either response time variability or SSRT. An acute dose of MPH but not ATM or CIT was able to improve SSRT and reduce response time variability in nonclinical participants. Improvements in response inhibition and response variability might underlie the reported clinical benefits of MPH in disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
e20056 Background: This study characterizes biomarker testing over time in Non-Small Cell Lung Ca... more e20056 Background: This study characterizes biomarker testing over time in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) patients treated within a clinical setting. There have been tremendous advances in treatments for NSCLC that target specific biomarkers such as epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR), anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), and the Programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathway. As we consider using oncology EMR records for future studies, it is critical to understand the extent to which biomarker testing is conducted in routine care, the extent to which testing has increased, and the types of patients for which it is done. Methods: This is a retrospective observational analysis derived from the COTA Oncology EHR database from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2017. The data sets generated for the study included all relevant, retrospective patient-level, de-identified data available for patients with lung cancer, including EGFR, ALK, and PD-L1 testing regardless of age, gender, and stage at diagnosis. We examined characteristics associated with each type of test received as well as by those who had received all 3 biomarker tests, 1-2 of the tests, or no biomarker testing. Analyses were conducted using SAS V. 9.1 and stratified by data source. Results: There were 1,891 patients in the COTA database. Among newly diagnosed NSCLC patients, EGFR testing has been consistently conducted in patients during the study period (76 – 86%), while ALK testing [44% in 2015Q1 to 74% in 2017Q4] and PD-L1 testing [12% in 2015Q1 to 77% in 2017Q4] have steadily increased each quarter. Overall, testing was more likely to be conducted in non-squamous cell lung cancer patients, Stage IV lung cancer, and those without a history of smoking. For EGFR, testing was more prevalent among women and young age groups ( < 64 years vs. 65 and older). Conclusions: Biomarker testing has rapidly increased for ALK and PD-L1, which correlates with the uptake of new targeted therapies. Further research could be conducted to understand clinical outcomes associated with this increase in testing as well as the impact on healthcare resource utilization.
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Aug 26, 2021
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid whose purported therapeutic benefits and... more Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid whose purported therapeutic benefits and impression of a high safety profile has promoted its increasing popularity. CBD's popularity is also increasing among children and adolescents who are being administered CBD, off label, for the treatment of numerous symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and depression. The relative recency of its use in the adolescent population has precluded investigation of its impact on the developing brain and the potential consequences that may present in adulthood. Therefore, there's an urgency to identify whether prolonged adolescent CBD exposure has substantive impacts on the developing brain that impact behavioral and cognitive processes in adulthood. Here, we tested the effect of twicedaily intraperitoneal administrations of CBD (20 mg/kg) in male and female C57BL/6J mice during the adolescent period of 25-45 days on weight gain, and assays for locomotor behavior, anxiety, and spatial memory. Prolonged adolescent CBD exposure had no detrimental effects on locomotor activity in the open field, anxiety behavior on the elevated plus maze, or spatial memory in the Barnes Maze compared to vehicletreated mice. Interestingly, CBD-treated mice had a faster rate of learning in the Barnes Maze. However, CBD-treated females had reduced weight gain during the exposure period. We conclude that prolonged adolescent CBD exposure in mice does not have substantive negative impacts on a range of behaviors in adulthood, may improve the rate of learning under certain conditions, and impacts weight gain in a sex-specific manner.
... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and... more ... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and other birds were clearly discernible in this very soft soil, but pellets did not penetrate it at all They hit the soil at an acute angie and bounced, leaving merely slight dents or depressions. ...
The Rapid Assessment is a component of the LANDFIRE project. Reference condition models for the R... more The Rapid Assessment is a component of the LANDFIRE project. Reference condition models for the Rapid Assessment were created through a series of expert workshops and a peer-review process in 2004 and 2005. For more information, please visit www.landfire.gov. Please direct questions to [email protected].
An idea or infectious disease can propagate through a network of individuals via personal contact... more An idea or infectious disease can propagate through a network of individuals via personal contact. We can set up mathematical models of propagation by specifying governing rules of how an idea or disease spreads. In this presentation we study governing rules of propagation and discuss their related algorithms
The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nation... more The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland, ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. The division of society, however, continues in its segregated education system. In Northern Ireland today, 93% of children attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school (Conflict Archive on the Internet). Despite widespread agreement on the need for change, and the transformation of other institutions in society such as the parliament, civil service and police, little progress has been made in reforming the education system since peace was established. Our project utilizes qualitative interviews with academics, educational policymakers, teachers, and students themselves. We also visited three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland and conducted a poll of secondary school teachers to examine the efforts to reform the education system since the peace agreement. We find th...
Spatial asymmetries are an intriguing feature of directed attention. Recent observations indicate... more Spatial asymmetries are an intriguing feature of directed attention. Recent observations indicate an influence of temperament upon the direction of these asymmetries. It is unknown whether this influence generalises to visual orienting behaviour. The aim of the current study was therefore to explore the relationship between temperament and measures of spatial orienting as a function of target hemifield. An exogenous cueing task was administered to 92 healthy participants. Temperament was assessed using Carver and White's (1994) Behavioural Inhibition System and Behavioural Activation System (BIS/BAS) scales. Individuals with high sensitivity to punishment and low sensitivity to reward showed a leftward asymmetry of directed attention when there was no informative spatial cue provided. This asymmetry was not present when targets were preceded by spatial cues that were either valid or invalid. The findings support the notion that individual variations in temperament influence spatial asymmetries in visual orienting, but only when lateral targets are preceded by a non-directional (neutral) cue. The results are discussed in terms of hemispheric asymmetries and dopamine activity.
The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nation... more The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland, ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. The division of society, however, continues in its segregated education system. In Northern Ireland today, 93% of children attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school (Conflict Archive on the Internet). Despite widespread agreement on the need for change, and the transformation of other institutions in society such as the parliament, civil service and police, little progress has been made in reforming the education system since peace was established. Our project utilizes qualitative interviews with academics, educational policymakers, teachers, and students themselves. We also visited three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland and conducted a poll of secondary school teachers to examine the efforts to reform the education system since the peace agreement. We find there are two dominant, and mostly incompatible proposals on the table, integrated and shared education, as well as the less prominent proposal of an explicit curriculum to be used in all types of schools. Significant impediments remain to the success of all three, including the fact that the younger generation is not politically engaged, that Northern Ireland lacks an infrastructure for religious education outside of public education, and that the segregated system has led to increased differences in quality between Catholic and Protestant educations. I. INTRODUCTION With the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in April of 1998, Northern Ireland entered a new period of peace after more than three decades
How the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors is a central question of cognitive... more How the brain monitors ongoing behavior for performance errors is a central question of cognitive neuroscience. Diminished awareness of performance errors limits the extent to which humans engage in corrective behavior and has been linked to loss of insight in a number of psychiatric syndromes (e.g., attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, drug addiction). These conditions share alterations in monoamine signaling that may influence the neural mechanisms underlying error processing, but our understanding of the neurochemical drivers of these processes is limited. We conducted a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over design of the influence of methylphenidate, atomoxetine, and citalopram on error awareness in 27 healthy participants. The error awareness task, a go/no-go response inhibition paradigm, was administered to assess the influence of monoaminergic agents on performance errors during fMRI data acquisition. A single dose of methylphenidate, but not atomoxetine or citalopram, significantly improved the ability of healthy volunteers to consciously detect performance errors. Furthermore, this behavioral effect was associated with a strengthening of activation differences in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and inferior parietal lobe during the methylphenidate condition for errors made with versus without awareness. Our results have implications for the understanding of the neurochemical underpinnings of performance monitoring and for the pharmacological treatment of a range of disparate clinical conditions that are marked by poor awareness of errors.
... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and... more ... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and other birds were clearly discernible in this very soft soil, but pellets did not penetrate it at all They hit the soil at an acute angie and bounced, leaving merely slight dents or depressions. ...
Pharmacological evidence suggests the importance of noradrenergic and other monoaminergic neurotr... more Pharmacological evidence suggests the importance of noradrenergic and other monoaminergic neurotransmitters in the aetiology and treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Until recently, the genes of the noradrenergic pathway were not intensively investigated in ADHD compared to dopaminergic and serotonergic candidates. In this study, 91 SNP markers of 14 noradrenergic genes (an average density of one SNP per 4.5 kbp) were examined in ADHD samples from Ireland and Australia. Although suggestive evidence of association (nominal p≤0.05) with the genes SLC6A2, ADRA1A, ADRA1B and ADRA2B was observed, none remained significant after permutation adjustments. In contrast, haplotype analyses demonstrated a significant association between ADHD and a SLC6A2 haplotype comprising the markers rs36009, rs1800887, rs8049681, rs2242447 and rs9930182 (χ 2 09.39, p-corrected00.019, OR01.51). A rare ADRA1B haplotype made of six SNPs (rs2030373, rs6884105, rs756275, rs6892282, rs6888306 and rs13162302) was also associated (χ 2 07.79, p-corrected00.042 OR02.74) with the disorder. These findings provide evidence of a contribution of the noradrenaline system to the genetic aetiology of ADHD. The observed haplotype association signals may be driven by as yet unidentified functional risk variants in or around the associated regions. Functional genomic analysis is warranted to determine the biological mechanism of the observed association.
Response inhibition is a prototypical executive function of considerable clinical relevance to ps... more Response inhibition is a prototypical executive function of considerable clinical relevance to psychiatry. Nevertheless, our understanding of its pharmacological modulation remains incomplete. We used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design to examine the effect of an acute dose of methylphenidate (MPH) (30 mg), atomoxetine (ATM) (60 mg), citalopram (CIT) (30 mg), and placebo (PLAC) (dextrose) on the stop signal inhibition task in 24 healthy, right-handed men 18-35 years of age. Participants performed the task under each of the four drug conditions across four consecutive sessions. Methylphenidate led to a reduction in both response time variability and stop-signal reaction time (SSRT), indicating enhanced response inhibition compared with all other drug conditions. Crucially, the enhancement of response inhibition by MPH occurred without concomitant changes in overall response speed, arguing against a simple enhancement of processing speed. We found no significant differences between ATM and PLAC, CIT and PLAC, or ATM and CIT for either response time variability or SSRT. An acute dose of MPH but not ATM or CIT was able to improve SSRT and reduce response time variability in nonclinical participants. Improvements in response inhibition and response variability might underlie the reported clinical benefits of MPH in disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
e20056 Background: This study characterizes biomarker testing over time in Non-Small Cell Lung Ca... more e20056 Background: This study characterizes biomarker testing over time in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) patients treated within a clinical setting. There have been tremendous advances in treatments for NSCLC that target specific biomarkers such as epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR), anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), and the Programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) pathway. As we consider using oncology EMR records for future studies, it is critical to understand the extent to which biomarker testing is conducted in routine care, the extent to which testing has increased, and the types of patients for which it is done. Methods: This is a retrospective observational analysis derived from the COTA Oncology EHR database from January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2017. The data sets generated for the study included all relevant, retrospective patient-level, de-identified data available for patients with lung cancer, including EGFR, ALK, and PD-L1 testing regardless of age, gender, and stage at diagnosis. We examined characteristics associated with each type of test received as well as by those who had received all 3 biomarker tests, 1-2 of the tests, or no biomarker testing. Analyses were conducted using SAS V. 9.1 and stratified by data source. Results: There were 1,891 patients in the COTA database. Among newly diagnosed NSCLC patients, EGFR testing has been consistently conducted in patients during the study period (76 – 86%), while ALK testing [44% in 2015Q1 to 74% in 2017Q4] and PD-L1 testing [12% in 2015Q1 to 77% in 2017Q4] have steadily increased each quarter. Overall, testing was more likely to be conducted in non-squamous cell lung cancer patients, Stage IV lung cancer, and those without a history of smoking. For EGFR, testing was more prevalent among women and young age groups ( < 64 years vs. 65 and older). Conclusions: Biomarker testing has rapidly increased for ALK and PD-L1, which correlates with the uptake of new targeted therapies. Further research could be conducted to understand clinical outcomes associated with this increase in testing as well as the impact on healthcare resource utilization.
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, Aug 26, 2021
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid whose purported therapeutic benefits and... more Cannabidiol (CBD) is a non-intoxicating phytocannabinoid whose purported therapeutic benefits and impression of a high safety profile has promoted its increasing popularity. CBD's popularity is also increasing among children and adolescents who are being administered CBD, off label, for the treatment of numerous symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and depression. The relative recency of its use in the adolescent population has precluded investigation of its impact on the developing brain and the potential consequences that may present in adulthood. Therefore, there's an urgency to identify whether prolonged adolescent CBD exposure has substantive impacts on the developing brain that impact behavioral and cognitive processes in adulthood. Here, we tested the effect of twicedaily intraperitoneal administrations of CBD (20 mg/kg) in male and female C57BL/6J mice during the adolescent period of 25-45 days on weight gain, and assays for locomotor behavior, anxiety, and spatial memory. Prolonged adolescent CBD exposure had no detrimental effects on locomotor activity in the open field, anxiety behavior on the elevated plus maze, or spatial memory in the Barnes Maze compared to vehicletreated mice. Interestingly, CBD-treated mice had a faster rate of learning in the Barnes Maze. However, CBD-treated females had reduced weight gain during the exposure period. We conclude that prolonged adolescent CBD exposure in mice does not have substantive negative impacts on a range of behaviors in adulthood, may improve the rate of learning under certain conditions, and impacts weight gain in a sex-specific manner.
... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and... more ... l{ange supervisor, Papago Indian Agency, Sells, Ariz. ... The tracks of small kingfishers and other birds were clearly discernible in this very soft soil, but pellets did not penetrate it at all They hit the soil at an acute angie and bounced, leaving merely slight dents or depressions. ...
The Rapid Assessment is a component of the LANDFIRE project. Reference condition models for the R... more The Rapid Assessment is a component of the LANDFIRE project. Reference condition models for the Rapid Assessment were created through a series of expert workshops and a peer-review process in 2004 and 2005. For more information, please visit www.landfire.gov. Please direct questions to [email protected].
An idea or infectious disease can propagate through a network of individuals via personal contact... more An idea or infectious disease can propagate through a network of individuals via personal contact. We can set up mathematical models of propagation by specifying governing rules of how an idea or disease spreads. In this presentation we study governing rules of propagation and discuss their related algorithms
The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nation... more The Troubles, a period of conflict between mostly Protestant Unionists and mostly Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland, ended in 1998 with the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement. The division of society, however, continues in its segregated education system. In Northern Ireland today, 93% of children attend either a Protestant or a Catholic school (Conflict Archive on the Internet). Despite widespread agreement on the need for change, and the transformation of other institutions in society such as the parliament, civil service and police, little progress has been made in reforming the education system since peace was established. Our project utilizes qualitative interviews with academics, educational policymakers, teachers, and students themselves. We also visited three different types of secondary schools in Northern Ireland and conducted a poll of secondary school teachers to examine the efforts to reform the education system since the peace agreement. We find th...
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