Culture

A new Tel Aviv University study examined the brain's reactions in conditions of uncertainty and stressful conflict in an environment of risks and opportunities. The researchers identified the areas of the brain responsible for the delicate balance between desiring gain and avoiding loss along the way.

The study was led by TAU researchers Prof. Talma Hendler, Prof. Itzhak Fried, Dr. Tomer Gazit, and Dr. Tal Gonen from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, the School of Psychological Sciences, and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, along with researchers from the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov) and the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine. The study was published on June 24, 2020, in the journal Nature Communications.

Prof. Hendler explains that in order to detect reactions in the depths of the brain, the study was performed among a unique population of epilepsy patients who had electrodes inserted into their brains for testing prior to surgery to remove the area of the brain causing epileptic seizures. Patients were asked to play a computer game that included risks and opportunities, and the electrodes allowed the researchers to record, with a high level of accuracy, neural activity in different areas of the brain associated with decision-making, emotion, and memory.

Throughout the game, the researchers recorded the electrical activity in the subjects' nerve cells immediately after they won or lost money. The subjects were asked to try to collect coins while taking the risk of losing money from their pool. It was found that the neurons in the area of the inner prefrontal cortex responded much more to loss (punishment) than to the gaining (reward) of coins.

Moreover, the researchers found that the avoidance of risk-taking in the players' next move was affected mainly by post-loss activity in the area of the hippocampus, which is associated with learning and memory, but also with anxiety. This finding demonstrates the close relationship between memory processes and decision-making when risk is present (stressful situations). That is, the loss is encoded in the hippocampus (the region of the brain associated with memory), and the participant operating in a high-risk stressful situation preferred to be cautious and avoid winning the coins (forfeiting the gain).

The experience of winning, however, was not encoded in the memory in a way that influenced the choice of future behavior in conditions of uncertainty. An interesting point is that this phenomenon was found only when the subject was influencing the result of the game, and only in the presence of a high risk in the next move, which indicates a possible connection to anxiety.

"Throughout life, we learn to balance the fear of risking loss with the pursuit of profit, and we learn what is a reasonable risk to take in relation to the gain based on previous experiences," Prof. Hendler says. "The balance between these two tendencies is a personality trait but is also affected by stress, like the current pandemic. A disorder in this trait increases sensitivity to stress and can cause non-adaptive behavior such as a high propensity for risk-taking or excessive avoidance.

"Our research shows for the first time how the human brain is affected by the experience of failure or loss when it is our responsibility, and how this inclination produces avoidance behavior under particularly stressful uncertainty," Prof. Hendler concludes. "An understanding of the neural mechanism involved may guide future neuropsychiatric therapies for disorders featuring excessive avoidance, such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, or disorders associated with excessive risk-taking, such as addiction and mania."

Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.

Fecal aerosol from pluming system may be to blame for COVID-19 spread in China high-rise

The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in fecal material has raised the possibility of viral transmission via a fecal-oral route. Researchers from the University of Hong Kong investigated whether SARS-CoV-2 transmission via fecal aerosols in the drainage pipe system may have been the cause of COVID-19 infection in a cluster of three families living in a high-rise apartment building in Guangzhou, China. The team studied throat swabs from infected patients, other building residents, and building staff; 237 surface and air samples from 11 of the 83 flats in the building, public areas, and building drainage systems; and tracer gas released into bathrooms as a surrogate for virus-laden aerosols in the drainage system. Based this circumstantial evidence, the researchers concluded that the outbreak within the block may have been caused by fecal aerosol transmission that occurred after toilet flushing by infected patients. The researchers suggest ways to prevent such transmission, such as adequate hygiene in sanitary drainage, and bathroom ventilation and hygiene. Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-0928.

The author of an accompanying editorial from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, discusses the researchers' findings and why wastewater systems, particularly those in high-rise buildings, deserve closer investigation as a reservoir for harmful pathogens. Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6134.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead authors can each be reached directly: Yuguo Li, PhD (liyg@hku.hk); Jianfeng He, BSc (hjf@vip.sina.com); Nanshan Zhong, PhD (nanshan@vip.163.com). The editorialist, Michael Gormley, PhD, CEng, can be reached at m.gormley@hw.ac.uk.

An empirical study published in the Journal of Political Economy finds that VAT cuts are less likely to be passed on to consumer prices than VAT hikes. Following a temporary VAT cut, prices can even be higher than on onset.

A number of countries are adopting temporary reductions to VAT rates as a means to support businesses hit by the corona lockdown. The expectation is that businesses will pass the reductions on to consumer prices and thereby boost consumer spending. However, according to the study, most businesses use VAT cuts to improve their finances instead of cutting prices.

A part of the study is formed by the analysis of VAT changes within the hairdressing industry in Finland. In 2007, the VAT rate for hairdressing services was reduced by 14 percentage points. After five years, in 2012, the standard rate was reintroduced increasing the VAT on hairdressing services by the same 14 percentage points.

According to the study, 60 % of prices did not respond to the VAT cut. However, they did respond to the reinstatement of the standard VAT rate: Almost all companies increased their prices by 80 to 120 % of the VAT rate increase.

- The VAT cut did slightly reduce prices, but returning to the standard rate increased prices by twice as much. Indeed, when the VAT reduction ended, the prices for hairdressing services were higher than they had been before the VAT cut, says research director Tuomas Kosonen from the Labour Institute of Economic Research.

The increase in the firms profits and markups following the VAT cut was twice as large as the reduction in profits and markups after the VAT hike.

- In particular, firms with low markups tend to respond asymmetrically to changes in VAT rates. They do not reduce their prices in response to VAT cuts, but they increase their prices considerably if the VAT rate is raised, states research professor Jarkko Harju from the VATT Institute for Economic Research.

EU-wide study: Prices react asymmetrically to VAT changes

The results do not only apply to hairdressing services in Finland. Harju and Kosonen teamed up with Youssef Benzarti (University of California Santa Barbara and NBER) and Dorian Carloni (Congressional Budget Office) to expand their research to encompass all VAT changes that took place in EU countries between 1996 and 2015.

They study VAT rate changes for over 2800 different commodities and find that prices tend to rise 3 to 4 times more after a VAT hike and they are reduced following VAT cut.

- Typically assessments of the the demand-side effects of VAT changes assume that the price effects of VAT cuts and hikes are symmetrical and that the tax changes are fully passed on to consumer prices. However, our empirical study clearly shows that such assessments overestimate the impact of VAT cuts on consumer spending, says Jarkko Harju.

- In Finland and other Nordic countries, good quality data from tax officials enables the precise study of the behavioural impacts of taxation. This study is in line with our other studies, which also find that the impact of consumption taxes on the consumption of goods and services is in effect rather modest, Tuomas Kosonen concludes.

World maritime trade grows each year, aided by canal waterways that connect oceans and reduce shipping time, energy consumption and carbon emissions. Following recent expansions of the Panama and Suez canals, non-native fish species are invading new habitats according to a new report in Nature Ecology and Evolution by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and the Leibnitz Center for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) in Germany.

"We're seeing a shift from predominantly freshwater fishes to marine fishes in the Panama Canal (Lake Gatun) in a short period of time," said Mark Torchin, STRI marine ecologist. "The concern is that if fish invasions continue there is a good chance of some of those fishes moving into the other ocean, with unknown environmental consequences."

Larger locks to allow transit of NeoPanamax vessels (NeoPanamax refers to ships too big to pass through the original 1914 locks) through the Panama Canal were finished in 2016. Expansion of the Suez Canal to include a new, 35-kilometer channel concluded in 2015.

"During the planning phases of both projects, researchers warned about the risks of expanding these two canals," said Gustavo Castellanos-Galindo, postdoctoral fellow at STRI and guest scientist at ZMT. "This report documents those changes in real time."

Only four years after the Panama Canal expansion, long-term monitoring recorded the presence of 11 new marine fish species in Lake Gatun, which has served as a freshwater barrier to movement of marine fauna between Pacific and Atlantic Oceans since the canal opened in 1914. This takes the total number of marine fish species known from in the lake from 18 to 29. Marine fishes such as jacks, snooks, mojarras and ladyfish have entirely replaced freshwater fishes in some parts of the lake.

Salinity in the lake increased, although the cause has not yet been determined. Possibilities include increased ship traffic and lock usage and the new locks' design, which incorporates recirculation of some lockage water.

"These marine fish invasions are an early warning sign of what could happen if no corrective measures are taken," Castellanos-Galindo said. "Along both coasts of Panama there are hundreds of fish species that could tolerate the conditions of an even slightly brackish canal. We don't know what the ecological and socioeconomic consequences of these fishes crossing the canal to either the Pacific or the Atlantic would be."

"We can document the Panama Canal invasions because we have good, standardized and quantitative pre-expansion data," said D. Ross Robertson, STRI ichthyologist. "We need to get back out there to collect more data to find out exactly what is going on and to provide the science that will help policy makers mitigate the potential impact. This is a really good example of how the pandemic has interrupted field work with important implications for environmental decision making."

Whereas the barrier to fish crossing from ocean to ocean in Panama is a freshwater lake, in the Suez waterway, the Bitter Lakes were originally saltier than the Mediterranean and Red Sea, which also limited species movement. Nonetheless, throughout the history of the Suez Canal, more than 400 non-native animal species, including more than 100 species of marine fishes from the Red Sea, have entered the Mediterranean. With canal expansion, increased water flow diluted the lakes and eight new fish species entered the Mediterranean during the past five years.

Because fees for shipping through the canals account for roughly 10% of the gross domestic product in Panama and in Egypt, there is an economic incentive to continue to increase shipping traffic through the canals. The authors suggest creative, science-based solutions to limit environmental and socioeconomic damage. They propose that the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) may provide the ideal opportunity for ensuring that the canals are included in international maritime policy to limit the environmental and economic impacts of invasive species. In addition, because policy changes can take a long time to implement, they also suggest that the shipping industry could proactively address this issue.

The UN agency responsible for sustainable shipping, the International Maritime Organization, has implemented guidelines and obligations to reduce the spread of non-native species through ballast water--but they do not apply specifically to the canals.

In the case of the Suez Canal, it may be possible to use the hypersaline effluent from desalinization plants to make the Bitter Lakes saltier again, with the caveat that this alternative should be studied carefully before implementing. In both cases, sophisticated monitoring tools--using DNA in water samples to generate lists of the species detected and using sound to detect invaders, may help to catch invaders early before they establish large populations. Technology may also be put to work to directly address invasion by means of acoustic and/or electric barriers to deter invaders.

The authors hope that all of the stakeholders will recognize the importance of having the best scientific data in hand as they design new policy and mitigation measures.

Genetic analysis of sequences from more than 27,000 individuals infected with the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 reveals that the virus has mutated minimally since December 2019, suggesting one vaccine would be sufficient to combat global infections.

The study was conducted by a team of scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research led by Morgane Rolland, chief of viral genetics and systems serology for the WRAIR Military HIV Research Program and Dr. Kayvon Modjarrad, director of the institute's Emerging Infectious Diseases Program. A manuscript detailing the findings was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To characterize SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus diversification since the beginning of the pandemic they aligned 18,514 independent virus genome sequences sampled from individuals in 84 countries and scanned them for variations. Analyses reveal low estimates of genetic differentiation following the initial outbreak, and indicate that, so far, the SARS-CoV-2 genome has evolved through a mostly random process rather than through adaptation to the human hosts it encounters.

"Like other reports, we noticed that the D614G mutation in the Spike has rapidly increased in frequency since the beginning of the epidemic, but we could not link this mutation to specific adaptive forces," said Rolland. "When viruses replicate and spread in the population, we expect to see some mutations and some can become fixed very rapidly in an epidemic just by random chance." Rolland noted that linking genotypes to phenotypes is complicated and more research is needed to fully understand the functional consequences of the D614G mutation in SARS-CoV-2.

Given the low level of genetic variation, a promising vaccine candidate would likely be equally efficacious against all currently circulating strains of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

"Viral diversity has challenged vaccine development efforts for other viruses such as HIV, influenza and dengue, but global samples show SARS-CoV-2 to be less diverse than these viruses," said Rolland. "We can therefore be cautiously optimistic that viral diversity should not be an obstacle for the development of a broadly protective vaccine against COVID-19 infection."

Modjarrad co-leads the institute's COVID-19 response efforts, including the development of a vaccine against COVID-19. WRAIR's leading vaccine candidate is built on a Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle platform and is expected to enter human testing before 2021. The vaccine is paired with a proprietary adjuvant that was also developed at WRAIR, the Army Liposome Formulation, to further boost the immune response.

"Scientists are working hard to accelerate the development of a COVID-19 vaccine that is safe and effective for the entire world, now and in the years to come. These data are critical to informing the field's collective efforts in getting a vaccine that is rapidly scalable and universally applicable to all populations," said Modjarrad.

He added, "Based upon WRAIR's long experience developing vaccines for other viruses and recent work on coronaviruses, we have been able to move quickly to accelerate research efforts to combat this pandemic that has threatened global health and military readiness." WRAIR was established 127 years ago to combat these types of health threats and has played a role in the development of nearly half of the vaccines in public use today.

Rolland, whose research usually focuses on HIV viral genetics, has shifted her attention to COVID-19 during the current global health emergency. "It's critical that people in various fields come together as we focus on learning everything we can about this virus," she said. "Teamwork will be vitally important to stem the tide of this pandemic." Rolland is employed by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., and has conducted research at WRAIR since 2010.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- You might think the buffest frogs would be high jumpers, but if you want shredded pecs, you should train like a burrowing frog. Though famously round, these diggers are the unsung bodybuilders of the frog world. We bring you tips from frog expert Rachel Keeffe, a doctoral student at the University of Florida, and physical therapist Penny Goldberg to help you get the burrowing body of your dreams.

But first, a caveat: According to Keeffe, no workout regimen can help you train your way into a highly specialized frog physique honed by 200 million years of evolution. To better understand burrowing frog anatomy, Keeffe and her adviser David Blackburn, Florida Museum of Natural History curator of herpetology, analyzed CT scans from all 54 frog families to show these frogs boast a robust and quirky skeleton that is more variable than previously thought.

"People think about frogs as being clean and smooth and slimy, or the classic 'green frog on a lily pad,' but a lot of them are dirty - they like to scoot around and be in the dirt," Keeffe said. "Burrowing frogs are really diverse and can do a lot of cool things. And when you look at the skeletons of known burrowers, they're very different from what you would call a 'normal frog.'"

Burrowing frogs are found all over the world from deserts to swamps, but their underground lifestyle makes them difficult to study, Keeffe said. Most tunnel hind end-first with their back legs. But a few species are forward burrowers, using pointed snouts and powerful forelimbs bolstered by strong pectoral muscles to scrabble into the earth.

Keeffe's sample of 89 frog species revealed radical differences in burrowing bone structure, from clavicles the size of eyelashes to other bones that are unusually thick.

"They're so diverse that it's challenging to think about even comparing them. It's almost a black hole of work that we can do with forward burrowers because we tend to focus on the legs," she said.

Some burrow to seek refuge, whether from arid temperatures or predators, and underground habitats can be hunting grounds or secluded hiding places. Other burrowing frogs can spend months at a time as deep as 3 feet belowground, surviving on a high-protein diet of termites and ants. The takeaway: If you want to compete for resources with the pros, don't be afraid to put in the work.

Get the burly burrowing body

To train like a burrowing frog, Goldberg, assistant director of ReQuest Physical Therapy in Gainesville, recommended dedicating time to strengthening your upper back.

"In humans, the most important muscle group to focus on if you were to train like one of these frogs would be the scapular stabilizers," she said. "These include 17 muscles, such as the lats and rotator cuff, with attachments all the way down to the pelvis that allow the upper back to generate power. To burrow like a forward burrower, you need to strengthen this entire region."

One strengthening move Goldberg recommended is the "Prone W." Lie facedown with elbows bent and palms on the floor. Squeeze your shoulder blades down and toward your spine as you lift your arms to the ceiling for a couple seconds at a time.

Like any elite athlete, burrowing frogs also maintain an optimal form. They're often orb-shaped to improve their ability to hold water.

"Personally, if I were a sphere, I think it would be hard for me to dig, but it doesn't seem to affect these frogs at all," Keeffe said. "However, frogs with stumpy legs are definitely worse at jumping, and they tend to stagger when they walk."

For these frogs, time away from the tunnels might be spent swimming instead, Keeffe said. To compete here, Goldberg recommends the breaststroke, adding that her top training tips for getting the upper back and pecs of a forward burrower would include pullups and pushups to develop the shoulder blade area.

"In my world, we would use resistance bands and pushing or pulling motions to train this area," Goldberg said. "Anything focusing predominantly on building strength in the upper back region."

If resistance bands are part of your workout routine, try grasping one with both hands and extending your arms while keeping your elbows straight. For best results, Goldberg recommended starting with three sets of 10.

Burrowing frogs might also hold key answers to gaps in scientists' understanding of amphibian evolution at large. Keeffe's analysis also found that forward-burrowing behavior evolved independently at least eight times in about one-fifth of frog families, and the trait's persistence in the frog family tree suggests it's a beneficial adaptation. Keeffe also found that forward burrowers tended to have a highly contoured humerus, the bone that connects the shoulder to the elbow in humans.

Understanding how bone shape relates to musculature can help scientists identify which frogs, both modern and extinct, are forward burrowers, a helpful tool given their covert behavior.

"Even though it can be frustrating, I like them because they're secretive," Keeffe said. "But the whole thing underlying this study is that frogs can do a lot of cool things - they don't just jump and they're not just green."

CT scans were generated from the National Science Foundation-funded oVert project.

Studies show that athletes and musicians achieve peak performance not only by constant practice but also by setting specific goals, engaging with strong mentors and cultivating the attributes of perseverance, stoicism and grit. Could incorporating these principles into the training of surgeons improve their residency experience and make them better doctors?

Philip Louie, MD, who recently completed a spine surgery fellowship at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS), has given the subject a lot of thought. "Peak performance is the ability to achieve optimal outcomes or performance of a given task in a consistent manner. Although commonly studied in athletes and musicians and promoted in other careers as well, peak performance is rarely considered for those undergoing the rigors of surgical training," he said.

A classically trained musician and former varsity athlete himself, Dr. Louie thought about how he could apply his preparation in these areas to surgical residency training and help others achieve peak performance. Long interested in the kind of growth mindset that drives long-term success, he majored in business before attending medical school to gain new insights and learn to "think outside the box," he said.

Dr. Louie and colleagues at HSS set out to review the current literature on residency training and to discuss the value of assessment tools and critical performance measures. In an article published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the HSS physicians offer practical advice for both educators and trainees on reaching peak performance.

"Residency is a crucial period of training where foundations for future success are established by habit and daily practice," said Michael McCarthy, MD, a former spine surgery fellow at HSS and co-author. Dr. McCarthy, a former college football player and history major, cited the intensity of Division I athletics and the diversity of thought and opinion in his studies as the foundation and impetus to explore achieving peak performance in training. "We believe the same tools that enable those in other fields to be at their best could equip surgical trainees with the tools necessary to achieve peak performance. It's crucial for physicians seeking to perform at the top of their game and will ultimately benefit patients."

The HSS physicians say peak performance is essential in an evolving health care landscape that demands optimal clinical outcomes and value-based medicine. The COVID-19 pandemic is also placing unprecedented demands on physicians. Coronavirus cases surged while Drs. Louie and McCarthy were in the middle of their spine surgery fellowship. The attributes they discussed in their article of perseverance, grit and stoicism were essential when, almost overnight, HSS went from an orthopedic specialty hospital to a "surge" center treating coronavirus patients to take the load off overwhelmed neighboring hospitals.

"During that stressful time, when New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic and we cared for COVID patients in the ICU, the important thing was to take a step back and remember why we decided to enter medicine," Dr. Louie notes. "We had been given the gift of opportunity, and it was our duty to persevere and make the most of it and play our role in guiding our communities through the crisis. What we gained from collaborating with other healthcare professionals and caring for patients in their time of greatest need will last far beyond the pandemic."

When the crisis was under control in New York City, HSS transitioned back to a dedicated musculoskeletal center, resuming elective surgeries in the beginning of June.

In their article, Drs. Louie and McCarthy outline several key areas and recommendations to achieve peak performance, including growing self-awareness through mindful activities. "We realize that some of these concepts are off the beaten path for orthopedic trainees, but they're important nevertheless," said Dr. McCarthy. "When you're used to focusing on evidence-based medicine, these can seem like nebulous concepts, a skill set difficult to grasp for detailed-oriented surgeons."

They break down their recommendations on reaching peak performance into five key areas that encompass both physical and mental skills:

1 - Translating Practices from Peak Performers in Other Fields

Refine physical skills through improving mental engagement during a task. Practice focusing solely on the task at hand.

Develop a program for deliberate practice in which you can undergo critical assessments to allow for graduated improvement.

Grow self-awareness through mindfulness activities to promote "flow" states. The term "flow" is best described as a state of full engagement, control, concentration and action awareness occurring during an activity perceived as highly rewarding and characterized by clear goals.

Create and consistently review step-by-step notes on specific techniques to develop proficiency that can be translated directly to intraoperative opportunities.

2 - Goal Setting and Accountability

Align goals with values, create a plan and visualize the goals.

Identify an accountability partner or system.

Anticipate obstacles and possible solutions.

Ensure work-life balance.

Reward goal accomplishment.

3 - Developing Technical Skills

Seek opportunities outside the OR for skill acquisition. Evaluate how other departments in the hospital may be training their residents.

Encourage the program director to consider new technologies, such as bioskills simulations and virtual reality training.

Upon seeking feedback on surgical techniques and proficiency, identify activities that can improve areas requiring additional practice.

4 - Perseverance and Grit

Believe in constant change and grow.

Understand that frustrations are part of the process.

Focus on productivity.

Look for ways to make work more meaningful.

Practice deliberately.

Consider the principles based on Stoicism during long periods of difficulty or moments of crisis.

5 - Mentorship

Monitor, track and measure the results of the mentorship relationship.

Define the strategic purpose of the mentorship.

Identify a strong match based on the skills of the mentor and the needs of the mentee.

Both Drs. Louie and McCarthy underscore the importance of mentorship and say they appreciate the "amazing" mentors they had at HSS: spine surgeons Todd Albert, MD, and Han Jo Kim, MD. But many residents and fellows at other hospitals are not as fortunate, Dr. Louie notes. "A lot of mentors don't put time into the relationship. They only meet with the trainee twice a year," he says. "I think mentorship needs to be much more formalized. You need to ensure a good match and set formal strategic goals on both sides of the mentorship. There needs to be accountability and checkpoints over time as to how the relationship is going and what can be done to improve it."

Drs. Louie and McCarthy recently completed their fellowship training, but they plan to continue to collaborate with doctors at HSS to establish an initial curriculum based on the principles and strategies they outline in their paper. They believe educators should aim to equip surgical residents with the tools necessary to achieve peak performance during training, so they can apply what they learn throughout their careers.

How do people coordinate their actions with the sounds they hear? This basic ability, which allows people to cross the street safely while hearing oncoming traffic, dance to new music or perform team events such as rowing, has puzzled cognitive neuroscientists for years. A new study led by researchers at McGill University is shining a light on how auditory perception and motor processes work together.

Keeping the beat - it takes more than just moving or listening well

In a recent paper in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, the researchers, led by Caroline Palmer, a professor in McGill's Department of Psychology, were able to identify neural markers of musicians' beat perceptions. Surprisingly, these markers did not correspond to the musician's ability to either hear or produce a beat - only to their ability to synchronize with it.

"The authors, as performing musicians, are familiar with musical situations in which one performer is not correctly aligned in time with fellow performers - so we were interested in exploring how musician's brains respond to rhythms. It could be that some people are better musicians because they listen differently or it could be that they move their bodies differently," explains Palmer, the Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience of Performance, and the senior author on the paper.

"We found that the answer was a match between the pulsing or oscillations in the brain rhythms and the pulsing of the musical rhythm - it's not just listening or movement. It's a linking of the brain rhythm to the auditory rhythm."

Super-synchronizers - an exception or a learnable skill?

The researchers used electroencephalography (EEGs involve placing electrodes on the scalp to detect electrical activity in the brain) to measure brain activity as participants in the experiment, all of them experienced musicians, synchronized their tapping with a range of musical rhythms they were hearing. By doing so they were able to identify neural markers of musicians' beat perceptions that corresponded to their ability to synchronize well.

"We were surprised that even highly trained musicians sometimes showed reduced ability to synchronize with complex rhythms, and that this was reflected in their EEGs," said co-first authors Brian Mathias and Anna Zamm, both PhD students in the Palmer lab. "Most musicians are good synchronizers; nonetheless, this signal was sensitive enough to distinguish the "good" from the "better" or "super-synchronizers", as we sometimes call them."

It's not clear whether anyone can become a super-synchronizer, but according to Palmer, the lead researcher, it may be possible to improve ones ability to synchronize.

"The range of musicians we sampled suggests that the answer would be yes. And the fact that only 2-3 % of the population are 'beat deaf' is also encouraging. Practice definitely improves your ability and improves the alignment of the brain rhythms with the musical rhythms. But whether everyone is going to be as good as a drummer is not clear."

Researchers have developed electronic artificial skin that reacts to pain just like real skin, opening the way to better prosthetics, smarter robotics and non-invasive alternatives to skin grafts.

The prototype device developed by a team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, can electronically replicate the way human skin senses pain.

The device mimics the body's near-instant feedback response and can react to painful sensations with the same lighting speed that nerve signals travel to the brain.

Lead researcher Professor Madhu Bhaskaran said the pain-sensing prototype was a significant advance towards next-generation biomedical technologies and intelligent robotics.

"Skin is our body's largest sensory organ, with complex features designed to send rapid-fire warning signals when anything hurts," Bhaskaran said.

"We're sensing things all the time through the skin but our pain response only kicks in at a certain point, like when we touch something too hot or too sharp.

"No electronic technologies have been able to realistically mimic that very human feeling of pain - until now.

"Our artificial skin reacts instantly when pressure, heat or cold reach a painful threshold.

"It's a critical step forward in the future development of the sophisticated feedback systems that we need to deliver truly smart prosthetics and intelligent robotics."

Functional sensing prototypes

As well as the pain-sensing prototype, the research team has also developed devices using stretchable electronics that can sense and respond to changes in temperature and pressure.

Bhaskaran, co-leader of the Functional Materials and Microsystems group at RMIT, said the three functional prototypes were designed to deliver key features of the skin's sensing capability in electronic form.

With further development, the stretchable artificial skin could also be a future option for non-invasive skin grafts, where the traditional approach is not viable or not working.

"We need further development to integrate this technology into biomedical applications but the fundamentals - biocompatibility, skin-like stretchability - are already there," Bhaskaran said.

How to make electronic skin

The new research, published in Advanced Intelligent Systems and filed as a provisional patent, combines three technologies previously pioneered and patented by the team:

Stretchable electronics: combining oxide materials with biocompatible silicone to deliver transparent, unbreakable and wearable electronics as thin as a sticker.

Temperature-reactive coatings: self-modifying coatings 1,000 times thinner than a human hair based on a material that transforms in response to heat.

Brain-mimicking memory: electronic memory cells that imitate the way the brain uses long-term memory to recall and retain previous information.

The pressure sensor prototype combines stretchable electronics and long-term memory cells, the heat sensor brings together temperature-reactive coatings and memory, while the pain sensor integrates all three technologies.

PhD researcher Md Ataur Rahman said the memory cells in each prototype were responsible for triggering a response when the pressure, heat or pain reached a set threshold.

"We've essentially created the first electronic somatosensors - replicating the key features of the body's complex system of neurons, neural pathways and receptors that drive our perception of sensory stimuli," he said.

"While some existing technologies have used electrical signals to mimic different levels of pain, these new devices can react to real mechanical pressure, temperature and pain, and deliver the right electronic response.

"It means our artificial skin knows the difference between gently touching a pin with your finger or accidentally stabbing yourself with it - a critical distinction that has never been achieved before electronically."

The research was supported by the Australian Research Council and undertaken at RMIT's state-of-the-art Micro Nano Research Facility for micro/nano-fabrication and device prototyping.

Sophia Antipolis, France - 1 Sept 2020: Fainting affects one in two people during their lifetime. Those with recurrent episodes are often afraid to socialise or go to work. Today researchers report the first effective therapy. The late breaking research is presented at ESC Congress 2020.1

Fainting is caused by a fall in blood pressure and/or number of heart beats. In some patients, a trigger is identified - for example emotional stress, standing in a hot, crowded space or sitting up too quickly - and they have warning signs such as weakness, nausea, and dizziness. But in many others, especially older adults, no trigger is found and there are no warning signs.

"This unpredictability raises the risk of falls and even serious trauma and people end up in the emergency room," said principal investigator Professor Michele Brignole of the Faint and Fall Programme, Istituto Auxologico, Milan, Italy. "If it happens repeatedly, it has a major impact on quality of life - at the same magnitude as a chronic disease."

Currently there is no specific therapy and patients usually receive only generic advice on prevention, such as keeping hydrated, avoiding hot crowded environments, tensing the muscles, and lying down. But prevention is particularly difficult if there are no warning signs.

The BIOSync CLS study examined whether a pacemaker could prevent unpredictable fainting caused by missed heart beats. Patients with this particular cause of fainting were identified using tilt testing. This involves lying on a table that is slowly tilted upward to simulate standing up. Blood pressure and heart rate are monitored during the examination.

The study included 128 patients aged 40 and above who had fainted at least twice in the previous year with no warning signs. A tilt test showed that fainting was caused by missed heart beats.

All study participants received a pacemaker - but they were randomly allocated to having the pacemaker switched on (pacing group) or switched off (control group). They were then followed-up for fainting episodes.

During a median follow-up of 11.2 months, more than half of patients (53%) in the control group fainted compared to just 16% in the pacing group. This translated into a 77% lower risk of fainting in the pacing group.

The researchers estimated that at two years, two-thirds (68%) of the control group would have a fainting episode compared to one-fifth (22%) of the pacing group. A pacemaker would provide a 77% relative risk reduction of fainting over two years and a 46% absolute risk reduction.

Just over two patients (2.2) would need to receive a pacemaker to prevent fainting. Put another way, if 11 patients received a pacemaker, fainting could be avoided in five patients.

Implanting the pacemaker caused minor adverse events in five patients (4%) such as lead-related complications.

Professor Brignole said: "Our study shows that pacing can be an effective treatment for selected people with unpredictable fainting episodes. Tilt testing is a simple and non-invasive way to identify people who could benefit. We hope this new treatment option will enable these patients to resume a normal life without fear of blackouts."

SAN DIEGO AND WASHINGTON, DC -- As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to put lives and livelihoods at risk, 1 in 2 Americans say they fear a major health event could lead them to file for bankruptcy, marking a 5% increase since 2019. The new research comes from the West Health-Gallup U.S. Healthcare Study, an ongoing series of surveys on the impact of high healthcare costs on American lives.

The survey found the fear of bankruptcy runs even higher for members of minority groups and younger people. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of people of color report being extremely concerned or concerned about bankruptcy, a 12% increase over last year. Fifty-five percent of adults 18 to 29-years-old share these concerns, up from 33% in 2019.

"Rising healthcare costs continue to pose a significant threat to millions of Americans and the pandemic has only made the situation worse," said Tim Lash, chief strategy officer of West Health. "With so many Americans fearing they are but one health event away from bankruptcy, it's more urgent than ever for policy makers to finally address the healthcare cost crisis before it gets even more out of control."

Amid rising concerns about health-related bankruptcy, 15% of adults report that at least one person in their household currently has medical debt that will not be repaid - either in full or in part - within the next 12 months. This includes 12% of White adults and 20% of non-White adults. This kind of medical debt is highest among those in households with annual incomes less than $40,000 (28%).

Another 26% of Americans report that they would need to borrow money to pay a $500 medical bill - a number that grows to 43% among people of color and 46% among those living in households with annual incomes less than $40,000 per year.

Drug Pricing Continues to be Top Issue for 35% of Voters

The high cost of healthcare is likely to continue to play a big role in this year's election. The share of Americans citing lower prescription drug costs as the single most important issue or among the most important issues influencing their vote in 2020 has increased by 5 percentage points, to 35%, from February. The issue remains particularly important among non-White adults (48% vs. 29% for White adults), as well as among households with less than $40,000 in annual income (52%).

"These latest findings illustrate the widespread extent of concern about how catastrophic health events can create financial ruin and the disproportionate impact felt by non-White Americans," said Dan Witters, Gallup senior researcher. "As election season intensifies, the lived experiences and priority that Americans place on healthcare cost issues will be very hard for candidates and leaders to ignore."

The new results are based on interviews with 1,007 U.S. adults conducted between July 1 and July 24, 2020. Read the full findings, including a methodology statement, here.

Immune cells called 'natural killer' (NK) cells could be a powerful weapon for fighting lung cancer, according to Australian researchers.

Studying preclinical and patient samples of small cell lung cancer (SCLC), the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute team revealed that NK cells - but not T cells - are essential for slowing the aggressive spread of the cancer. 'Supercharging' the NK cells further boosted their cancer-fighting abilities.

The discovery offers hope for better treatments for people with SCLC, many of whom only survive a few months after their diagnosis because of the cancer's aggressive spread.

The research was published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology by a team led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers Dr Sarah Best, Mr Jonas Hess and Dr Kate Sutherland in collaboration with Associate Professor Melissa Davis and Professor Nick Huntington (now at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute) and Dr Daniel Steinfort, a respiratory physician at The Royal Melbourne Hospital.

At a glance

- NK and T cells are immune cells that can fight cancer, and were shown by our researchers to infiltrate the tumours of some patients with SCLC, an aggressive form of lung cancer.

- Using preclinical models, the team showed that NK cells - but not T cells - were critical for limiting SCLC spread, and 'supercharging' the NK cells enhanced their effectiveness.

- The findings suggest that immunotherapies that harness NK cells might be effective treatments for SCLC.

Harnessing the immune system

SCLC is the most aggressive type of lung cancer, and is often detected after the disease has begun to spread, or metastasise. While people with SCLC will initially benefit from chemotherapy, these cancers rapidly develop resistance and the average patient survival is only a matter of months, Dr Best said.

"New treatments are urgently needed for SCLC," she said. "There had been interest in harnessing the immune system to fight lung cancer - a line of treatment called immunotherapy. To date, T cell immunotherapies have been most investigated but unfortunately these do not seem to help in SCLC.

"T cells are not the only cancer-fighting immune cell - NK cells can also attack tumour cells. Therefore we decided to investigate which forms of immunotherapy might hold most promise for people with SCLC."

The team started by looking at markers of anti-cancer immunity in patient SCLC samples.

"We looked at tumours to understand which immune cells were present," Dr Best said.

"These analyses revealed that there is a wide variability between patients in the relative amounts of NK and T cells within tumours. The presence of these cells in tumours suggests there is an anti-cancer response underway."

The importance of NK cells

To understand whether NK or T cells could slow the spread of SCLC, the team looked at laboratory models of the disease that lacked either NK or T cells, said Mr Hess, who is a PhD student.

"We discovered that the loss of NK cells made SCLC tumours spread more, while the loss of T cells did not impact disease spread," he said. "This suggested that NK cells, but not T cells, are important for limiting metastasis of SCLC. Indeed, if we activated - or 'supercharged' - NK cells by adding the cytokine IL-15, they were even better at limiting SCLC spread.

"Activating T cells as well as NK cells further reduced SCLC spread, suggesting these two cell types can work together," Mr Hess said.

Dr Sutherland said the research provided a clear rationale for pursuing NK cell-based immunotherapies as a potential treatment for SCLC. "To date, T cell-based immunotherapies have been advanced more for other cancers, but not for SCLC," she said.

"Our study suggests that immunotherapies that harness NK cell's tumour-fighting capabilities might be more effective for SCLC. We think NK cell-based immunotherapies could be an effective supplement to chemotherapy, slowing disease spread and extending the survival of SCLC patients."

Some patients may benefit more from NK cell-based immunotherapies than others, Dr Sutherland said.

"Bioinformatic analyses revealed a lot of variability in the amount of immune cells infiltrating patient SCLC tumours. We think this could mean that some SCLCs - those with more immune cell infiltration - could be particularly sensitive to NK cell-based immunotherapies," she said.

Using the venom from 312 honeybees and bumblebees in Perth Western Australia, Ireland and England, Dr Ciara Duffy from the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and The University of Western Australia, tested the effect of the venom on the clinical subtypes of breast cancer, including triple-negative breast cancer, which has limited treatment options.

Results published in the prestigious international journal npj Precision Oncology revealed that honeybee venom rapidly destroyed triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells.

Dr Duffy said the aim of the research was to investigate the anti-cancer properties of honeybee venom, and a component compound, melittin, on different types of breast cancer cells.

"No-one had previously compared the effects of honeybee venom or melittin across all of the different subtypes of breast cancer and normal cells.

"We tested honeybee venom on normal breast cells, and cells from the clinical subtypes of breast cancer: hormone receptor positive, HER2-enriched, and triple-negative breast cancer.

"We tested a very small, positively charged peptide in honeybee venom called melittin, which we could reproduce synthetically, and found that the synthetic product mirrored the majority of the anti-cancer effects of honeybee venom," Dr Duffy said.

"We found both honeybee venom and melittin significantly, selectively and rapidly reduced the viability of triple-negative breast cancer and HER2-enriched breast cancer cells.

"The venom was extremely potent," Dr Duffy said.

A specific concentration of honeybee venom can induce 100% cancer cell death, while having minimal effects on normal cells.

"We found that melittin can completely destroy cancer cell membranes within 60 minutes."

Melittin in honeybee venom also had another remarkable effect; within 20 minutes, melittin was able to substantially reduce the chemical messages of cancer cells that are essential to cancer cell growth and cell division.

"We looked at how honeybee venom and melittin affect the cancer signalling pathways, the chemical messages that are fundamental for cancer cell growth and reproduction, and we found that very quickly these signalling pathways were shut down.

"Melittin modulated the signalling in breast cancer cells by suppressing the activation of the receptor that is commonly overexpressed in triple-negative breast cancer, the epidermal growth factor receptor, and it suppressed the activation of HER2 which is over-expressed in HER2-enriched breast cancer," she said.

Western Australia's Chief Scientist Professor Peter Klinken said "This is an incredibly exciting observation that melittin, a major component of honeybee venom, can suppress the growth of deadly breast cancer cells, particularly triple-negative breast cancer.

"Significantly, this study demonstrates how melittin interferes with signalling pathways within breast cancer cells to reduce cell replication. It provides another wonderful example of where compounds in nature can be used to treat human diseases", he said.

Dr Duffy also tested to see if melittin could be used with existing chemotherapy drugs as it forms pores, or holes, in breast cancer cell membranes, potentially enabling the entry of other treatments into the cancer cell to enhance cell death.

"We found that melittin can be used with small molecules or chemotherapies, such as docetaxel, to treat highly-aggressive types of breast cancer. The combination of melittin and docetaxel was extremely efficient in reducing tumour growth in mice."

Dr Duffy's research was conducted as part of her PhD undertaken at Perth's Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research at the Cancer Epigenetics laboratory overseen by A/Prof. Pilar Blancafort.
"I began with collecting Perth honeybee venom. Perth bees are some of the healthiest in the world.

"The bees were put to sleep with carbon dioxide and kept on ice before the venom barb was pulled out from the abdomen of the bee and the venom extracted by careful dissection," she said.

While there are 20,000 species of bees, Dr Duffy wanted to compare the effects of Perth honeybee venom to other honeybee populations in Ireland and England, as well as to the venom of bumblebees.

"I found that the European honeybee in Australia, Ireland and England produced almost identical effects in breast cancer compared to normal cells. However, bumblebee venom was unable to induce cell death even at very high concentrations.

One of the first reports of the effects of bee venom was published in Nature in 1950, where the venom reduced the growth of tumours in plants. However, Dr Duffy said it was only in the past two decades that interest grew substantially into the effects of honeybee venom on different cancers.

In the future, studies will be required to formally assess the optimum method of delivery of melittin, as well as toxicities and maximum tolerated doses.

SMU Office of Research and Tech Transfer - In response to the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic, the Psychological Science Accelerator (PSA) issued a call on March 13th for rapid and impactful proposals to understand the psychological and behavioural aspects of the pandemic. Singapore Management University (SMU) Assistant Professor of Psychology (Education) Andree Hartanto was invited to participate in the project.

"My contribution was to comment on the research proposal before the study began, do pilot testing on the study with researchers from other labs, and run the actual study in Singapore," Professor Hartanto told the Office of Research and Tech Transfer.

The PSA is a globally distributed network of over 500 psychological science laboratories, representing over 70 countries on all six continents, that coordinates data collection for democratically selected studies. Its mission is to accelerate the accumulation of reliable and generalisable evidence in psychological science, reducing the gap between truth about human behaviour and mental processes and our current understanding.

Accepted for publication

The research project broadly aims to provide suggestions on how to best ensure compliance with health-promoting behaviours and manage negative feelings associated with the pandemic, as the mitigation of a pandemic depends on how the population, as a whole, engage in behaviours that limit the spread of the virus.

While the study is due to be completed later this year, it has already been accepted for publication in principle by Nature Human Behaviour, an online-only monthly journal dedicated to the best research into human behaviour from across the social and natural sciences.

"The remarkable part about this project is that the proposal was accepted as a registered report at Nature Human Behaviour, meaning that regardless of whether the results are positive or negative, it will still be published there," Professor Hartanto enthuses.

Professor Hartanto appointed Nadyanna Majeed, a fourth-year SMU undergraduate in Psychology and his former independent study student, as the lead investigator for the project at SMU. "I believe it will provide a unique and important learning opportunity for Nadya as an undergraduate, and as she fast tracks to graduate school in August this year."

As the lead investigator, Nadya tells the Office of Research & Tech Transfer that she is responsible for all aspects of the study in Singapore, where SMU is the only participating institution. "It includes roles such as recruiting participants, running the actual study, and also administrative tasks such as making sure the participants receive their remuneration."

The study

Apart from the research team at SMU, there are over 100 other labs from various countries collaborating on data collection for this project. The project is made up of three sub-studies, each focusing on a different aspect.

The first sub-study draws on insights from behavioural science and public health, and seeks to understand if message framing in terms of gains (e.g. protecting others) versus losses (e.g. endangering others) can improve policy support, information seeking, and intentions to engage in preventative behaviour related to COVID-19.

The second sub-study is related to coping with negative emotions, as negative emotions triggered by the COVID-19 outbreak can have detrimental effects on people's health and well-being. One way in which people cope with negative emotions is by employing emotion-regulation strategies that alter the strength of their emotional responses. This sub-study compares the effectiveness of various coping strategies related to distressing information about the pandemic, such as photographs of sick people in the news.

The last sub-study aims to test the effectiveness of different types of messages encouraging social distancing. Nadya explains: "Specifically, we compare the effectiveness of an autonomy-supportive message, which strives to take the person's perspective and provide rationale and structure for the desired behaviour, versus a controlling message, which uses more pressuring, prescriptive language, versus no specific message where the objective or factual information is presented in a neutral tone, without any extra affirmation."

Methodology

Research studies in SMU are normally conducted in the psychology lab, but due to COVID-19, the team is unable to carry out their study in person. Instead, the study is conducted online. Participants are recruited through SMU's subject pool system and are assigned to a bundle of sub-studies randomly and within each sub-study, they are also randomly assigned to a condition as the study uses a within-subjects design.

"Participants are assigned to one of two bundles: the message-framing bundle which comprises two sub-studies, or the emotion-regulation bundle," Nadya clarifies. "To complete all three sub-studies would not be feasible as it would take up too much time for each participant."

In the first sub-study in the message-framing bundle, participants are randomly assigned to either a gain condition where behaviours are framed as protecting others, or a loss condition where the behaviours are framed as endangering others. Participants are shown messages that are framed accordingly. Then, they are asked about their attitudes and opinions about relevant health policies and their desire to seek more information related to the pandemic, and their intentions to engage in preventative behaviours against COVID-19.

In the second sub-study, participants are randomly assigned to read either a supportive message, a controlling message, or a neutral message. The supportive message stresses the rationale behind and structure of the desired behaviour of social distancing, and takes on a more understanding and sympathetic tone, whereas with the controlling message, pressurising language is used to coerce people into complying. After viewing their assigned message, participants report whether they would or would not comply with the social distancing measures.

In the emotion-regulation bundle, participants are randomly assigned to and taught a coping strategy, which they will then use throughout the experiment. They are shown a series of distressing photographs of COVID-19 taken from news agencies around the world, and are asked to use their assigned coping strategy to regulate their emotions.

Benefits of the study

Nadya believes that the way a message is framed and how we choose to cope in a crisis is important because it can have impacts on how relevant organisations may choose to enact their policies. Governments or health authorities can use the knowledge from the study to better address their citizens or patients by creating effective messages in their press releases, infographics, and information on their websites, so as to increase compliance with important behaviours such as social distancing and wearing masks. Ultimately, these measures are important in helping to slow the spread of the virus.

"Virus transmission cannot be addressed alone. We've seen during this pandemic that the whole population must work together to reduce the spread. Ensuring that messages are effective is important in preventing even more people from getting sick and losing their lives, as even one individual choosing not to cooperate can endanger their whole community," Nadya argues.

She adds: "The results from the emotion-regulation study can be used by mental health professionals such as counselors, psychologists, and social workers to help individuals cope with distressing events. Not just with regard to this pandemic, but also in general. From this study, we can see which strategies are more effective than others. It's important that we find effective coping strategies so that people can find the best ways to cope."

In 19th-century Sweden, workers' wages rose faster than in other European countries. By 1900, they were among the highest in Europe, and the steepest rise of all had been for those who earned least. This is shown by new research at Uppsala University: a study published in he Journal of Economic History.

"Historians often describe Sweden in the late 19th century as a poor country. Our results show the need for a more nuanced view. Although poverty did exist, of course, great changes were under way, and unskilled labourers seem to have been among those who benefited most from the upward trend."

The speaker, Johan Ericsson, is a researcher at the Department of History, Uppsala University. He and his colleagues have surveyed Swedish pay trends in the building and construction industry in the period 1831-1900. By using such sources as wage statistics from the Board of Public Buildings (the precursor to the National Property Board Sweden) and published research on the subject, they were able to compile figures on wages for four categories of construction workers: handymen, carpenters, bricklayers and the draught-horse drivers who transported the materials.

The results show that wage rates were increasing throughout Sweden, and pay differentials among occupational categories were shrinking. During the period, unskilled handymen's real wages rose most rapidly: by 176 per cent.

For corresponding workers in cities like Amsterdam, Antwerp, Paris and London, wages increased by between 40 and 90 per cent in the same period. This meant that the Swedish handymen's wages at the century's end were some 30 per cent higher than those of their counterparts in Paris, Amsterdam and Antwerp. Wages in London, which were the highest in Europe, were some 12 per cent higher than those of average labourers in Sweden.

This international comparison was feasible once the researchers had recalculated wages in terms of welfare ratios. In brief, this meant working out the quantity of certain products that an individual wage could purchase.

The researchers' conclusions are that a labour market with high mobility, combined with mass emigration to America that reduced the supply of unskilled labour, can explain why Swedish pay rates rose so rapidly.

"One intriguing observation is that workers' wages increased faster than average incomes in society. These days, there's a lot of talk about how globalisation and technological development are making the workers' situation relatively worse. However, our findings show that this is no natural law. On the contrary, it seems that Swedish workers in this period were favoured by trends like that," says Jakob Molinder of the Department of Economic History at Uppsala University.