β-glucan-induced innate immune memory distinctively affects macrophage activation in response to differential environmental cues

Advances in the field of immunological memory demonstrate that innate immune cells can recall a previous encounter – the innate immune memory. In vitro, exposure of human primary monocytes to the fungal ²-glucan enhances their pro-inflammatory responsiveness towards several pathogens. During infection, circulating monocytes infiltrate tissues where, following conditioning by local environment, they differentiate and polarise into different types of macrophages. Hence in vivo interaction of β-glucan with innate cells would occur in a complex environment. Understanding the potential of β-glucan to induce innate immune memory in complex physiological environments is crucial for future translational research.Recapitulating different physiological conditions in vitro we found that β-glucan imprinting does not always enhance responsiveness and function of macrophages but can also reduce it. In this study, we show that upon both GM-CSF- and M-CSF-mediated polarisation, imprinting by β-glucan leads to less differentiated macrophages with a convergent functional phenotype. Altogether, these observations provide insightful and crucial knowledge that will help apprehending the in vivo high potential of β-glucan-induced innate memory in different pathological contexts.

Boosting Familiarity-Based Memory Decisions in Alzheimer’s Disease: The Importance of Metacognition

Objective: Recent studies in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have suggested that AD patients are not always able to rely on their feeling of familiarity to improve their memory decisions to the same extent as healthy participants. This underuse of familiarity in AD could result from a learned reinterpretation of fluency as a poor cue for memory that would prevent them to attribute a feeling of fluency to a previous encounter. The primary goal of this study was to determine whether AD patients could relearn the association between processing fluency and past exposure after being repeatedly exposed to situations where using this association improves the accuracy of their memory decisions. Method: Thirty-nine patients with probable AD were recruited and asked to complete several recognition tests. During these tests, participants were put either in a condition where the positive contingency between fluent processing and previous encounters with an item was systematically confirmed (intervention condition) or in a condition where there was no correlation between fluency and prior exposure (control condition). The efficacy of the intervention was evaluated at three time points (baseline, posttest, and 3-month follow-up). Results: Our results indicated that all AD patients do not benefit to the same extent from the training. Two variables appeared to influence the likelihood that participants increase and maintain their reliance on the fluency cues after the intervention: the ability to detect the fluency manipulation and the preservation of implicit metacognitive skills. Conclusion: These findings indicate the importance of metacognition for inferential attribution processes in memory.

Child helplines: exploring determinants and boundary conditions of volunteer encounter satisfaction

Purpose Volunteers at child helplines play an important role in providing support for children, so keeping them satisfied during encounters is crucial to continue helping children. The purpose of this study is to understand how children’s perceptions of instrumental and emotional support (partner effects) influence volunteer encounter satisfaction, and whether this effect is moderated by a volunteer’s previous encounter experience and levels of interpersonal and service-offering adaptiveness. Design/methodology/approach The sample consisted of 377 dyads of 116 volunteers and 377 children from online service encounters at a child helpline. Questionnaires were used to measure satisfaction, support and volunteer adaptiveness. A multilevel model was estimated to test the hypothesized moderation effects. Findings This study revealed that the instrumental support partner effect positively influenced volunteer encounter satisfaction. This relationship was stronger when the previous encounter was less satisfying or for volunteers with higher interpersonal, but not higher service-offering, adaptiveness. Negative effects on the relationship between the emotional support partner effect and volunteer encounter satisfaction were found after a less satisfying previous encounter or for volunteers with higher interpersonal adaptiveness. Originality/value This study contributes to the services and volunteerism literature by providing a unique perspective on the interpersonal influence between volunteers and children during service encounters. In the context of child helplines, this paper illustrates how volunteer encounter satisfaction is a function of the intricate interplay between children’s perceptions of the service encounter and volunteers’ perceptions of previous experiences and their adaptiveness.

Illusions

In this chapter, Münsterberg describes a number of cases and experiments that illustrate the vagaries and unreliability of human perception and memory, producing what he refers to as “illusions.” This chapter focuses on the illusions of unconscious transference, change blindness, and the confidence–accuracy relationship. Unconscious transference occurs when an eyewitness identifies an innocent bystander as a culprit because of a previous encounter with the bystander in another context. Change blindness is the inability to notice a change in a visual stimulus. The confidence–accuracy relationship has been one of the most controversial and complex aspects of eyewitness memory, as the strength of the relationship varies depending on a number of individual and situational characteristics, as well as methodological and analytic choices.

Treating pediatric conjunctivitis without an exam: An evaluation of outcomes and antibiotic usage

Objective The objective of this research paper is to compare antibiotic treatment, follow-up rates, and types of follow-up encounters among eVisits, phone calls, and in-person encounters for pediatric conjunctivitis. Study design A retrospective chart review of pediatric patients evaluated for conjunctivitis between May 1, 2016 and May 1, 2017, was performed. A total of 101 eVisits, 202 in-person retail clinic visits, and 202 nurse phone calls for conjunctivitis were manually reviewed for outcomes. Exclusion criteria included previous encounter for conjunctivitis in the past 14 days, treatment with an oral antibiotic at the initial encounter, or patient outside Minnesota at the time of encounter. Comparison among the three encounter types with regard to follow-up rates, follow-up encounter type within 14 days of initial evaluation, and prescribing rates was performed. Results Patients completing non-face-to-face encounters were significantly more likely to have follow-up care (34.6% and 45.5%) than those who had a face-to-face visit at the retail clinic (7.4%), p ≤ 0.0001. Patients initially evaluated by eVisit were more likely to have follow-up at the retail clinic while patients initially evaluated by phone call were more likely to have follow-up in their primary care office. Treatment rates with antibiotics were significantly higher in phone call encounters (41.6%) than in eVisits (25.7%) or face-to-face encounters (19.8%), p < 0.0001. Conclusions Non-face-to-face visits have significantly higher rates of follow-up when compared to face-to-face encounters. Antibiotic prescribing is greater with phone call triage encounters; however, there was no significant difference in antibiotic prescribing rates between eVisits and face-to-face visits. Follow-up type varied according to site of initial encounter.

Letter to Paul Federn

In this letter to Paul Federn, Winnicott asks for a copy of Federn’s lectures on psychosis and describes a previous encounter with Federn concerning an article on play that Winnicott had been trying to write.

Increased processing speed in young adult bilinguals: evidence from source memory judgments

Although many studies have investigated the consequences of bilingualism on cognitive control, few have examined the impact of bilingualism on other cognitive domains, such as memory. Of these studies, most have focused on item memory and none have examined the role of bilingualism in source memory (i.e., the memory for contextual details from a previous encounter with a stimulus). In our study, young adult bilinguals and monolinguals completed a source memory test, whose different conditions were designed to stress working memory and inhibitory control. Bilinguals performed significantly faster than monolinguals across all conditions without compromising accuracy, and also showed an overall speed advantage on the Flanker task. We interpret these processing speed advantages within the context of current models of bilingual production.

¿Equilibrio de Poderes entre el Intérprete y el Profesional Sanitario?: Análisis de la Situación y Propuesta de Formación

Resumen: La llegada masiva de extranjeros en las últimas décadas ha dado lugar a un nuevo colectivo que acude a los centros sanitarios. El objetivo del presente trabajo es confirmar la hipótesis de que una fase de contacto previa o encuentro extra rutinario entre el intérprete y el profesional sanitario contribuye a una mejora de los resultados en la interpretación en consulta y un aumento en la calidad. Para ello, se estudian factores clave: la comunicación, los roles, el código deontológico, la legislación, la entrevista clínica y la visibilidad. Se ha realizado un estudio observacional, descriptivo con seguimiento y un estudio de caso para conocer las opiniones de los intérpretes profesionales y los profesionales sanitarios. Los resultados confirman la necesidad de un encuentro previo. En este sentido, afirmamos que la interpretación médica es un sector en crecimiento y dada la escasez de estudios sobre estos factores, es aquí donde se engloba el presente estudio. Abstract: The massive arrival of foreign people in the last decades has originated a new group of people with new healthcare needs. The aim of this paper is to ensure the hypothesis that a previous interpreter-doctor contact or an out of the routine encounter contributes to improve the interpreting services during the consultation and it enhances better quality. To that end, some key factors such as communication, roles, code of ethics, law, clinical interview stages and visibility are studied in this research work. We have carried out an observational, descriptive and follow-up study and a case study to discover the opinions of professional interpreters and healthcare professionals. Finally, the previous encounter assumption is confirmed based on the findings of the study. In this sense, medical interpreting constitutes an interesting growing field. This research focuses on the mentioned field due to the lack of studies.

Physician Communication with Children and Parents

The way physicians communicate with patients has been shown to affect physiologic measurements, adherence to therapeutic regimens, and satisfaction with medical care. The purpose of this study was to document the content of medical interviews in routine pediatric visits and to identify demographic and situational characteristics that influenced the extent of communication between doctor and child. One hundred fifteen office visits to 49 physicians were videotaped and analyzed. Children studied were 4 to 14 years old with a mean age of 8.5 years. Verbal transactions were coded according to direction of communication, transaction type, and content category. Coder reliability for this system was 0.84. A considerable amount of the total communication, 45.5%, was between doctor and child. Doctors interacted differently with parents and children. More information about the current problem was obtained from children; physicians provided feedback primarily to parents. Parents received 4.4 times as much information as children about the nature and prognosis of a condition. The extent to which doctors talked to children in "substantive" areas was primarily associated with a child's age (r = .52, P &lt; .001) but was partly influenced by family size (r = .20, P &lt; .05) and family utilization (r = .22, P &lt; .02). Race, socioeconomic status, type of problem, and previous encounter with the examining physician did not alter communication patterns. Boys were given more information than girls (6.5% vs 4.0%, P &lt; .01). We suggest a theoretical framework for future investigation and teaching that identifies the child as an active participant in the medical process.