Explaining Continuance Intention of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption among the Rural Elderly: An Application of the Expectancy Confirmation Model.

Background and Aim: Healthy aging is the permanent right of all people. Thus, the purpose of this work was to investigate the expectation confirmation model constructs on intention of continuing to consume fruit and vegetables among the rural elderly. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 332 elderly. The expectation confirmation model served as a theoretical framework. A random sampling was recruited. Data were collected through face-to-face visit in the second 6 months of 2016. The data were then analyzed using LISREL 8.5 and SPSS 16 software. Results: This model could explain 79% of intention to continue fruit and vegetable consumption. The usefulness and satisfaction had the most effect on the intention to continue the consumption of fruit and vegetables. Conclusion: Expectation confirmation model depicted a proper application in explaining the intention to continue the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the elderly. Since perceived benefits were the most important factor in determining the intention to continue F&V consumption in this study, it is required that policymakers utilize suitable efficient strategies to promote the perception of benefits of F&V consumption in the elderly by means of campaigns in the society, organizations, and families.

Multiparametric changes in the receptive field of cortical auditory neurons induced by thalamic activation in the mouse.

The functional organization of the sensory cortex is constructed to process sensory information based on experience and learning. Importantly, it is plastic so that it can quickly adapt to environmental changes. Because the thalamus gates all ascending information, it is critical to understand how the thalamocortical system contributes to the plasticity of the sensory cortex. We show here that the neuronal receptive field (RF) in the auditory cortex faithfully tends toward the RF of the electrically stimulated auditory thalamic neurons. We characterized the RF of auditory neurons by measuring the best frequency, minimum threshold, bandwidth, RF area, and averaged response magnitude. All these parameters of the cortical RF showed robust changes toward the values of the parameters of the stimulated thalamic neuron following focal thalamic stimulation. Our data suggest that the thalamocortical system possesses intrinsic mechanisms that underlie the input specificity of learning-induced or experience-dependent cortical plasticity.