"But not the music": psychopathic traits and difficulties recognising and resonating with the emotion in music.

Recognising and responding appropriately to emotions is critical to adaptive psychological functioning. Psychopathic traits (e.g. callous, manipulative, impulsive, antisocial) are related to differences in recognition and response when emotion is conveyed through facial expressions and language. Use of emotional music stimuli represents a promising approach to improve our understanding of the specific emotion processing difficulties underlying psychopathic traits because it decouples recognition of emotion from cues directly conveyed by other people (e.g. facial signals). In Experiment 1, participants listened to clips of emotional music and identified the emotional content (Sample 1, N = 196) or reported on their feelings elicited by the music (Sample 2, N = 197). Participants accurately recognised (t(195) = 32.78, p < .001, d = 4.69) and reported feelings consistent with (t(196) = 7.84, p < .001, d = 1.12) the emotion conveyed in the music. However, psychopathic traits were associated with reduced emotion recognition accuracy (F(1, 191) = 19.39, p < .001) and reduced likelihood of feeling the emotion (F(1, 193) = 35.45, p < .001), particularly for fearful music. In Experiment 2, we replicated findings for broad difficulties with emotion recognition (Sample 3, N = 179) and emotional resonance (Sample 4, N = 199) associated with psychopathic traits. Results offer new insight into emotion recognition and response difficulties that are associated with psychopathic traits.

Association of common single-nucleotide polymorphisms in innate immune genes with differences in TLR-induced cytokine production in neonates.

Significant variability in cytokine and chemokine expression after Toll-like receptor (TLR) stimulation has been observed between individuals. In this study, we determined the immunophenotypic variation in a cohort of 152 neonates associated with specific single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We identified 23 SNPs in 12 genes of the innate immune system to be significantly associated with differential cytokine and chemokine production. SNPs in three gene families, namely STAT, IRF and SYK, accounted for most associations. These gene families are important signaling components of the innate anti-viral response. A potentially damaging non-synonymous SNP in the TLR3 gene (rs3775291) associated with significant differences in expression of interferon-γ after stimulation with the synthetic TLR3 ligand, poly (I:C). Additionally, a general increase in cytokine production was observed in subjects of Asian descent. This observation could be associated with differences in SNP genotype distribution between racial groups in our cohort. Taken together, our data suggest that particular aspects of the newborn innate response to TLR stimulation are closely associated with genetic variation. These findings provide the basis for detailed molecular dissection of cause-effect relationships between genotype and immune responses, and may account for inter-individual differences in response to vaccination and risk for infection and autoimmune disease.

Homecare, technology, and the management of respiratory disease.

Taking care of ventilator-dependent patients in the home is demanding and complex. The difficulties that families face can be reduced by provision of homecare services that are the result of the collaborative work of a variety of health care disciplines. These difficulties cannot be eliminated, however. Sensitive care requires that the nursing case manager be aware of signs that indicate the costs are exceeding the families' ability and plan to meet their needs and the needs of the patients.

Review of the initiation of anticoagulant therapy.

The objective was to retrospectively study the initiation of anticoagulant therapy in inpatients of the two major teaching hospitals in Tasmania, Australia. The medical records of a random sample of patients with an admission diagnosis of deep venous thrombosis (DVT) or pulmonary embolism (PE) during the period February 1992 to June 1994 were studied, to examine therapeutic issues including (i) the time taken after commencing heparin to achieve a therapeutic activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), (ii) when warfarin was commenced, (iii) the time taken after commencing warfarin to achieve a therapeutic International Normalized Ratio (INR), and (iv) the degree of anticoagulant control at the time of discharge from hospital. The medical records of 99 patients (median age: 65 years and range: 16-93 years; 52 females) were studied. Heparin was generally commenced within 4 h of admission to hospital. The median duration of heparin therapy was 5 days (range: 2-26 days). The median number of APTTs performed per patient was 6 (range: 1-24), with most results (60%) being below the optimum range. Warfarin was commenced from day 1 of hospitalization in only 34% of patients. The INR was within the therapeutic range in only 29% of cases when heparin was ceased. The median time taken to achieve a therapeutic INR after starting warfarin was 3 days (range: 1-15 days).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)