A phase-shifting anterior-posterior network organizes global phase relations

Prior research has identified a variety of task-dependent networks that form through inter-regional phase-locking of oscillatory activity as neural correlates of specific behaviors. Despite ample knowledge of task-specific functional networks, general rules governing global phase relations have not been investigated. In order to discover such general rules, we focused on phase modularity, measured as the degree to which global phase relations in EEG comprised distinct synchronized clusters interacting with one another at large phase lags. Synchronized clusters were detected with a standard community-detection algorithm, and the level of phase modularity was quantified by the index q. Our findings suggest that phase modularity is functionally consequential since (1) temporal distribution of q was invariant across a broad range of frequencies (3-50 Hz examined) and behavioral conditions (resting with the eyes closed or watching a silent nature video), and (2) neural interactions (measured as power correlations) in beta-to-gamma bands consistently increased in high-modularity states. Notably, we found that the mechanism controlling phase modularity is remarkably simple. A network comprising anterior-posterior long-distance connectivity coherently shifted phase relations from low-angles (|Δθ| < π/4) in low-modularity states (bottom 5% in q) to high-angles (|Δθ| > 3π/4) in high-modularity states (top 5% in q), accounting for fluctuations in phase modularity. This anterior-posterior network likely plays a fundamental functional role as it controls phase modularity across a broad range of frequencies and behavioral conditions. These results may motivate future investigations into the functional roles of phase modularity as well as the anterior-posterior network that controls it.

The Use of Vertical Yoked Prisms in College of Optometrists in Vision Development Members

Background: Vertical yoked prisms for treatment for binocular, accommodative, refractive, gait, posture, and behavioral conditions has been recommended by various authors. Few clinical trials have assessed the safety and efficacy of this practice. The purpose of this study is to estimate the frequency of vertical yoked prism use in vision therapy and spectacle prescriptions in a sample of College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) membership. Methods: Multiple invitations to participate in a prospective anonymous survey were sent to all COVD members by email in October 2019. Results: One hundred twenty-three COVD members participated. Eighty percent use vertical yoked prisms in vision therapy and 83% prescribe vertical yoked prisms in habitual spectacle prescriptions. Base down and base up across a range of powers are used about equally in therapy. Base down is prescribed more commonly for esophoria and myopia. Base up is prescribed more commonly for exophoria. Base down and base up are prescribed about equally for oculomotility, perceptual conditions, posture and behavioral conditions such as autism. Sixty three percent of respondents plan to wean patients off the prism prescriptions. Conclusions: Vertical yoked prisms are commonly used in vision therapy and prescribed in habitual spectacle prescriptions in this sample of COVD members. Given the high frequency reported, larger controlled studies on safety and efficacy are in order.

Improved Digital Therapy for Developmental Pediatrics using Domain-Specific Artificial Intelligence: Machine Learning Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Automated emotion classification could aid those who struggle to recognize emotion, including children with developmental behavioral conditions such as autism. However, most computer vision emotion recognition models are trained on adult affect and therefore underperform when used on child faces. OBJECTIVE We designed a strategy to gamify the collection and the labeling of child affect data in an effort to boost the performance of automatic child emotion detection to a level closer to what will be needed for digital healthcare approaches. METHODS We leveraged our prototype therapeutic smartphone game, GuessWhat, which was designed in large part for children with developmental and behavioral conditions, to gamify the secure collection of video data of children expressing a variety of emotions prompted by the game. Independently, we created a secure web interface to gamify the human labeling effort HollywoodSquares, tailored for use by any qualified labeler. We gathered and labeled 2,155 videos, 39,968 emotion frames, and 106,001 labels on all images. With this drastically expanded pediatric emotion centric database (>30x larger than existing public pediatric affect datasets), we trained a pediatric emotion classification convolutional neural network (CNN) classifier of happy, sad, surprised, fearful, angry, disgust, and neutral expressions in children. RESULTS The classifier achieved 66.9% balanced accuracy and 67.4% F1-score on the entirety of CAFE as well as 79.1% balanced accuracy and 78.0% F1-score on CAFE Subset A, a subset containing at least 60% human agreement on emotions labels. This performance is at least 10% higher than all previously published classifiers, the best of which reached 56.0% balanced accuracy even when combining “anger” and “disgust” into a single class. CONCLUSIONS This work validates that mobile games designed for pediatric therapies can generate high volumes of domain-relevant datasets to train state of the art classifiers to perform tasks highly relevant to precision health efforts.

Movement signaling in ventral pallidum and dopaminergic midbrain is gated by behavioral state in singing birds

Movement-related neuronal discharge in ventral tegmental area (VTA) and ventral pallidum (VP) is inconsistently observed across studies. One possibility is that some neurons are movement-related and others are not. Another possibility is that the precise behavioral conditions matter - that a single neuron can be movement related under certain behavioral states but not others. We recorded single VTA and VP neurons in birds transitioning between singing and non-singing states, while monitoring body movement with microdrive-mounted accelerometers. Many VP and VTA neurons exhibited body movement-locked activity exclusively when the bird was not singing. During singing, VP and VTA neurons could switch off their tuning to body movement and become instead precisely time-locked to specific song syllables. These changes in neuronal tuning occurred rapidly at state boundaries. Our findings show that movement-related activity in limbic circuits can be gated by behavioral context.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND BEHAVIORAL CONDITIONS THAT AFFECT MALARIA EVENTS IN PADANG CITY

Background: West Sumatra is a target area for malaria elimination in 2020; the Annual Parasite Incidence (API) in Padang City increased from 0.12 per 1000 inhabitants to 0.13 per 1000 inhabitants between 2015 and 2016. Purpose: This study aimed to analyze the effect of factors contributing to malaria events based on the environmental and behavioral conditions of people in Padang City. Method: This is a quantitative study using a case-control approach. The research was conducted in Padang from August 2017 until January 2018. The case-control study was conducted on a sample of 62 people, consisting of 31 cases and 31 controls. Cases were identified through random sampling and controls were selected by purposive sampling. Data collection was via observation and questionnaires and both univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted. Results: Descriptively, malaria patients were more likely to live in at-risk physical conditions at home (74.12%), had a history of visiting endemic areas (41.90%), did not use mosquito repellent equipment (58%), and had the habit of being outdoors at night (32.28%). Statistical tests showed the risk factors for the incidence of malaria were the physical condition of the house (OR = 3.43; 95% CI 1.20–9.20) and a history of visiting endemic areas (OR = 9; 95% CI 1.20–394). Conclusion: Environmental and behavioral factors affect the incidence of malaria. It is recommended that the Padang City Health Office provide counseling through health promotion officers about healthy homes and advise people not to go to endemic areas.

Prospects for achieving sustainable consumption: concepts and tools

The article examines definitions and concepts of sustainable consumption, bringing into light the socio-economic, regulatory and behavioral conditions for the formation of sustainable consumption as well as indicators that characterize the level of sustainable consumption in different countries. Special attention is paid to the problem of transition to responsible consumption in Russia.

What Makes Some Diseases More Typical than Others? A Survey on the Impact of Disease Characteristics and Professional Background on Disease Typicality

Health professionals tend to perceive some diseases as more typical than others. If disease typicalities have implications for health professionals or health policy makers’ handling of different diseases, then it is of great social, epistemic, and ethical interest. Accordingly, it is important to find out what makes health professionals rank diseases as more or less typical. This study investigates the impact of various factors on how typical various diseases are perceived to be by health professionals. In particular, we study the influence of broad disease categories, such as somatic versus psychological/behavioral conditions, and a wide range of more specific disease characteristics, as well as the health professional’s own background. We find that professional background strongly impacted disease typicality. All professionals (MD, RN, physiotherapists and psychologists) considered somatic conditions to be more typical than psychological/behavioral. As expected, psychologists also found psychological/behavioral conditions to be more typical than did other groups. Professions of respondents could be well predicted from their individual typicality judgments, with the exception of physiotherapists and nurses who had very similar judgment profiles. We also demonstrate how various disease characteristics impact typicality for the different professionals. Typicality showed moderate to strong positive correlations with condition severity and mortality, and only non-severe conditions were rated as atypical. Hence, studying how different disease characteristics and occupational background influences health professionals’ perception of disease typicality is the first and important step toward a more general study of how typicality influences disease handling.

WHISKiT Physics: A three-dimensional mechanical model of the rat vibrissal array

Rodents tactually explore the environment using ~62 whiskers (vibrissae), regularly arranged in arrays on both sides of the face. The rat vibrissal system is one of the most commonly used models to study how the brain encodes and processes somatosensory information. To date, however, researchers have been unable to quantify the mechanosensory input at the base of each whisker, because the field lacks accurate models of three-dimensional whisker dynamics. To close this gap, we developed WHISKiT Physics, a simulation framework that incorporates realistic morphology of the full rat whisker array to predict time-varying mechanical signals for all whiskers. The dynamics of single whiskers were optimized based on experimental data, and then validated against free tip oscillations and the dynamic response to collision. The model is then extrapolated to include all whiskers in the array, taking into account each whisker’s individual geometry. Simulations of first mode resonances across the array approximately match previous experimental results and fall well within the range expected from biological variability. Finally, we use WHISKiT Physics to simulate mechanical signals across the array during three distinct behavioral conditions: passive whisker stimulation, active whisking against two pegs, and active whisking in a natural environment. The results demonstrate that the simulation system can be used to predict input signals during a variety of behaviors, something that would be difficult or impossible in the biological animal. In all behavioral conditions, interactions between array morphology and individual whisker geometry shape the tactile input to the whisker system.