Gamma Oscillations Index Sustained Attention in a Brief Vigilance Task

Sustained attention is an essential behavior in life, but often leads to performance decrements with time. Computational accounts of sustained attention suggest this is due to brief disruptions in goal-directed processing, or microlapses. Decreases in gamma spectral power are a potential candidate for indexing microlapses and discriminating between low and high performers in sustained attention tasks, while increases in beta, alpha, and theta power are expected to exhibit compensatory effort to offset fatigue. The current study tests these hypotheses in a 10-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Test, a context that eliminates confounds with measuring gamma frequencies. 34 participants ( Mage = 22.60; SDage = 4.08) volunteered in the study. Results suggested frontal gamma power declined with time-on-task, indicating reduction in central cognition. Beta power increased with time-on-task, suggesting compensatory effort; however, alpha and theta power did not increase. Additionally, gamma power discriminated between low and high performers, potentially suggesting motivational differences between the groups.

Electrophysiological Studies of Cognitive Reappraisal Success and Failure in aMCI

Background: Although successful reappraisal relies on cognitive resources, how cognitive impairment affects brain processes related to cognitive reappraisal is not yet clear. Methods: Forty-four amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) subjects and 72 healthy elderly controls (HECs) were divided into the MCI-Failure (n = 23), MCI-Success (n = 21), HEC-Failure (n = 26), and HEC-Success (n = 46) groups according to changes in self-reported affect using reappraisal. All participants viewed 30 negative and 30 neutral images preceded by straightforward descriptions of these images and 30 negative images preceded by more neutral descriptions. Results: Reappraisal failure was found to be more common in people with MCI. Reappraisal failure is associated with altered neurophysiological indices of negative-reappraisal stimuli processing that are reflected in smaller theta responsivity to negative-reappraisal stimuli between 350–550 ms. The MCI-Success group showed enhanced LPP for negative-reappraisal stimuli from 1200 to 3500 ms, reflecting compensatory effort to complete the reappraisal task, while subjects in other groups showed reduced LPP for negative-reappraisal stimuli from 550 to 1200 ms. Conclusions: These findings deepen our understanding of how cognitive decline impacts reappraisal and informs early diagnosis and interventions for MCI.

Semantic fluency including task switching predicts academic success in medical school

Objectives The future state treaty on the admission of students to German medical schools calls for a variety of selection criteria among which at least two are required to be independent of school leaving grades. Against this background, the present study investigated achievement motivation and executive functions as predictors of academic success in medical school. Material and methods Second year medical students were assessed for executive functioning by using the Tower of London Test (ToL), a German version of the Controlled Oral Word Association Test (COWAT), the Trail Making Test (TMT-A) and for motivation by using the Achievement Motivation Inventory (AMI). Academic success was evaluated twofold, i) whether the first state exam (M1) was passed at the earliest possible, after completion of the second year and ii) via the grades obtained. Results 81 out of 226 students enrolled participated in our study. Passing the M1 was best explained by semantic fluency including task switching. Moreover, academically successful students achieved significantly higher levels in the AMI-facets "compensatory effort" and "engagement". All students scored above average in the TMT-A and average in the ToL. Conclusion Alternating semantic fluency—requiring simultaneously inhibition, updating and task shifting—turned out highly predictive of academic success in medical school. Moreover, higher levels in "compensatory effort" and “engagement” suggested that both, increased energy expenditure as response to fear of failure and elevated readiness to exert effort also impacted positively on success.

Fra støttepædagog til ekspert med pædagogisk takt

ResuméKommunerne har siden 1980’erne etableret centrale korps af støttepædagoger. Daginstitutionerne kan søge om særlig støtte fra dette korps til pædagogiske praksis. Støttepædagogernes opgaver har ændret sig fra en kompenserende indsats til det enkelte barn til en indsats, hvor støttepædagogerne hovedsagelig skal yde støtte til pædagogernes udvikling af læringsmiljøet for alle børn i institutionen. Støttepædagogerne oplever det ofte som en følsom udfordring, når de må stille spørgsmål til fagfællers pædagogiske forståelser, antagelser og lokale praksis for at understøtte udvikling af denne. Denne udfordring kalder på en særlig form for støttepædagogisk praksis. Vi anvender begreberne interaktionel ekspertise (Collins & Evans, 2007) og pædagogisk takt (van Manen, 2015) til at forstå og karakterisere den ekspertise og faglighed, der er i spil og på spil, når der skal ydes støtte til udvikling af pædagogisk praksis i dagtilbud. Artiklen er udarbejdet på baggrund af aktionsforskning i forbindelse med et aktionslæringsforløb med støttepædagoger i en større dansk kommune. AbstractFrom assistant preschool teachers to expert with pedagogical tact Since the 1980s, many Danish municipalities have been establishing centralized units of assistant pre-school teachers who provide special assistance for the pedagogical practices of pre-school institutions. The tasks of these assistant pre-school teachers have changed over time: from an originally compensatory effort targeting individual children, to primarily assisting pre-school teachers and the development of the learning environment for all children. In the endeavor of assisting the development of these learning environments, it is often perceived as a sensitive issue, when assistant pre-school teachers question the pedagogical assumptions and local practices of their professional peers. This challenge calls for a special kind of pedagogical practice. In this article, we apply the concepts of interactional expertise (Collins & Evans, 2007) and pedagogical tact (van Manen, 2015) to characterize the expertise and professionalism that is at play and at stake, in the provision of assistance for the development of pedagogical practices in pre-schools institutions. The article has been developed based on action research in connection to an action learning course for assistant pre-schools teachers in a larger Danish municipality.

Compensatory Estrogen Signal Is Capable of DNA Repair in Antiestrogen-Responsive Cancer Cells via Activating Mutations

Cancer cells are embarrassed human cells exhibiting the remnants of same mechanisms for DNA stabilization like patients have in their healthy cells. Antiestrogens target the liganded activation of ERs, which is the principal means of genomic regulation in both patients and their tumors. The artificial blockade of liganded ER activation is an emergency situation promoting strong compensatory actions even in cancer cells. When tumor cells are capable of an appropriate upregulation of ER signaling resulting in DNA repair, a tumor response may be detected. In contrast, when ER signaling is completely inhibited, tumor cells show unrestrained proliferation, and tumor growth may be observed. The laboratory investigations of genomic mechanisms in antiestrogen-responsive and antiestrogen-unresponsive tumor cells have considerably enhanced our knowledge regarding the principal regulatory capacity of estrogen signaling. In antiestrogen-responsive tumor cells, a compensatory increased expression and liganded activation of estrogen receptors (ERs) result in an apoptotic death. Conversely, in antiestrogen resistant tumors exhibiting a complete blockade of liganded ER activation, a compensatory effort for unliganded ER activation is characteristic, conferred by the increased expression and activity of growth factor receptors. However, even extreme unliganded ER activation is incapable of DNA restoration when the liganded ER activation is completely blocked. Researchers mistakenly suspect even today that in tumors growing under antiestrogen treatment, the increased unliganded activation of estrogen receptor via activating mutations is an aggressive survival technique, whilst it is a compensatory effort against the blockade of liganded ER activation. The capacity of liganded ERs for genome modification in emergency states provides possibilities for estrogen/ER use in medical practice including cancer cure.

COVID-19: A Geriatric Emergency

The older Italian population is posing a challenge in the number of deaths for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). According to previous data from China, pre-existing health conditions dramatically increase the risk of dying from COVID-19. The presence of multiple diseases in older patients may be considered as a mark of frailty, which increases the person’s vulnerability to stress and impairs the multisystemic compensatory effort to restore homeostasis. The clinical complexity associated with the management of frailty may increase the risk of complications during infection as well as the lack of the early recognition of atypical symptoms. There is an urgent need to share expertise and clinical management skills with geriatricians as well as the need for early diagnosis to start treatment at the earliest convenience in the community, with the aim to avoid the collapse of intensive care units.

The Importance of technical analysis for improving performance in athletics in long distance running

It is well known that the level at which the performances in the sports competitions have come lately is also due to the improvement of the specific techniques by: studying the most intimate / hidden aspects of the running technique that provide insight into the level of influence of the muscle chains involved in each phase of the movement; knowledge of the biomechanical details that can improve the technique of the general run and the departures from the start. It is assumed that participation in high-performance competitions is possible by restructuring the training efforts during the annual training cycle, using increased proportionate efforts in the mixed and anaerobic area as well as the approach as a separate indicator of the compensatory effort, and in this restructuring an essential role could be played by the technical aspect of long runs. When we discuss the technique of athletics, we must consider two aspects which, depending on how well they are improved, influence the final result. This is the sample technique and the treadmill technique.

An Examination of Compensatory Effort in a Vigilance Task Using Transcranial Doppler Sonography

This study uses a novel neuroergonomic approach to determine whether blood flow to the frontal cortex is sensitive to task demands and indicative of compensatory effort regulation that may occur in response to the vigilance decrement. The present study used transcranial Doppler sonography (TCD) to examine the anterior cerebral artery (ACA) and its response to different demands of a vigilance task over time. Participants completed a vigilance task in a slow or fast event rate condition. The results demonstrated a vigilance decrement in both conditions and that workload was higher when the event rate was faster. However, blood flow velocity in the ACA did not change as a function of time, nor was it sensitive to the event rate manipulation. While previous research has shown that TCD is a useful neuroergonomic tool for vigilance monitoring, current results indicate that TCD monitoring of the ACA may not be worthwhile.

A Rested Development

The effects of task-induced cognitive fatigue on performance, strategy, and P300 event-related potentials (ERPs) were examined. Fatigue was induced by task load with participants completing either 700 mental rotation trials with (high fatigue) or without (low fatigue) a secondary task to increase fatigue. No differences were found between groups when examining mental rotation task decision accuracy or strategy; however, the number of trials in which the participant’s total trial time was greater than twice their average was influenced by experimental manipulations designed to increase task difficulty. These ‘minibreaks’, referred to as blocking, may have served to regulate effort expenditure in order to preserve task performance. P300 peak amplitude differed between groups, with high blocking participants showing a reduced amplitude and more dispersed P300 topology compared to low blockers. These results provide compelling evidence that performance outcome may not be affected by task demands if a compensatory effort strategy is utilized.