Impact of sex on clinical and laboratory parameters in patients with heart failure: insights from the Colombian Heart Failure Registry (RECOLFACA).

INTRODUCTION: Heart failure (HF) is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. This study aimed to assess the impact of sex on sociodemographic, clinical, and laboratory parameters in patients with HF who were included in the Colombian Heart Failure Registry (RECOLFACA). METHODS: This was a cross-sectional analytical research. All 2528 patients included in RECOLFACA were analysed. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare median values as well as first and third quartiles (Q1-Q3). The age-related trend of NT-proBNP levels for both men and women groups was statistically evaluated. RESULTS: The study included 2528 patients with HF (1072 women and 1456 men). The echocardiographic evidence showed that men presented reduced left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (79.63 vs. 69.75%, respectively; p < 0.001) more often than women, which had a significantly higher proportion of preserved LVEF (20.46 vs.11.24%, respectively; p < 0.001). Women displayed a higher value of systolic blood pressure (p < 0.001) and heart rate (p = 0.014) compared to men. Haemoglobin, creatinine, and sodium levels were significantly higher in men. Men had a considerably lower glomerular filtration rate value, with the median reaching a G3a value for chronic renal failure. According to age, the levels of NT-proBNP in each sex increased equivalently with age. CONCLUSION: Sex differences presented in this study are comparable to those discovered in other nations. However, certain variations show that these sex differences may differ by geographical area, which should encourage further investigations to describe them.

Eligibility of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors in heart failure with preserved ejection fraction: Insights from the Colombian heart failure registry (RECOLFACA).

Background: The value of Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT-2 inhibitor) therapy in individuals with heart failure with preserved EF (HFpEF) was unknown until the EMPEROR-Preserved trial. We aimed to assess the proportion of patients with HFpEF that are eligible for empagliflozin therapy within the Colombian Heart Failure Registry (RECOLFACA). Methods: RECOLFACA enrolled adult patients with a HF diagnosis during 2017-2019 from 60 medical centers in Colombia. Criteria of the EMPEROR-Preserved Trial were used to recruit participants. The main outcome was individual eligibility with N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) criteria, while the secondary outcome was eligibility without NT-proBNP data. Results: RECOLFACA had 799 patients with HFpEF (mean age70.7 ± 13.5; 50.7 % males). According to the major selection criteria of the EMPEROR Preserved Trial, 73.7 % patients would be eligible for empagliflozin therapy initiation when considering the NT-proBNP threshold. The NT-proBNP threshold represented the main determinant of ineligibility in patients with this biomarker measure (13.6 %; n = 16). In patients without NT-proBNP data, the main reasons for exclusion were the diagnosis of symptomatic hypotension or a systolic blood pressure below 100 mmHg (7.5 %), having an eGFR < 20 ml/min/1.73 m2 (4.3 %), and haemoglobin < 9 g/dl (3.1 %). Excluding NT-proBNP criteria increased empagliflozin eligibility to 80.6 %. Conclusion: Most patients with HFpEF from RECOLFACA are potential candidates for empagliflozin therapy initiation according to the EMPEROR-Preserved trial criteria. These findings favor the utilization of SGLT-2 inhibitor medications in daily medical practice, which may further decrease morbidity and mortality in HF patients, regardless of their EF classification.

Phonological neighbourhood effects in Italian speech production: Evidence from healthy and neurologically impaired populations.

In two speech production studies conducted in Italian, we investigated the impact of phonological neighbourhood properties such as the neighbourhood density and the mean frequency of the neighbours on speech processing. Two populations of healthy (Study 1) and neurologically impaired (Study 2) individuals were tested. We employed multi-regression methods to analyse naming latencies in Study 1 and accuracy rates in Study 2 while controlling for various psycholinguistic predictors. In Study 1, pictures with words from high-density neighbourhoods were named faster than those from low-density neighbourhoods. Additionally, words with high-frequency neighbours were named faster in Study 1 and yielded higher accuracy rates in Study 2. The results suggest facilitatory effects of both the phonological neighbourhood density and frequency neighbourhood variables. Furthermore, we observed interactions between these two phonological neighbourhood variables and name agreement and repetition. Specifically, the facilitation effect was more pronounced for pictures with lower name agreement and during the initial presentation of the pictures. These findings are discussed in the context of previous literature and within the framework of interactive models of speech production.

Does Foreign-Accented Speech Affect Credibility? Evidence from the Illusory-Truth Paradigm.

In a pioneering study, Lev-Ari and Keysar (2010) observed that unknown statements are judged less credible when uttered with foreign accent compared to native accent. This finding was interpreted in terms of processing fluency; when intelligibility is reduced, the credibility of the message decreases. Here, we use the illusory truth paradigm to explore how accent affects credibility. In a between-participant design, participants were exposed to unknown statements uttered by native-accented or foreign-accented speakers. After a distractor task, the same statements were presented with new statements, and participants assessed their truthfulness. Truthfulness ratings were higher for repeated statements than for new statements, replicating the illusory truth effect. Contrary to the processing fluency hypothesis, the effect was similar in both the foreign-accented and native-accented speech groups. A new group of participants rated the speakers' voices on various social traits. A negative bias against foreign speakers was observed. However, this negative-bias did not affect truth ratings.The impact of foreign-accented speech on message credibility is discussed in the context of two factors, processing fluency and out-group stereotype activation.

Linguistic identity as a modulator of gaze cueing of attention.

Eye-gaze stimuli can elicit orienting of attention in an observer, a phenomenon known as gaze cueing of attention. Here, we explored whether gaze cueing can be shaped by the linguistic identity of the cueing face. In two experiments, participants were first familiarized with different faces together with auditory sentences. Half of the sentences were associated with the native language of the participants (Italian) and the other half with an unknown language (Albanian and Basque, in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively). In a second phase, participants performed a gaze-cueing task. In a third recognition phase, the auditory sentences were presented again, and participants were required to decide which face uttered each sentence. Results indicated that participants were more likely to confuse faces from the same language category than from the other language category. Results of the gaze-cueing task revealed a greater gaze-cueing effect for faces associated with the native vs. unknown language. Critically, this difference emerged only in Experiment 1, which may reflect differences in social status between the two language groups. Our findings revealed the impact of language as a social cue on the gaze-cueing effect, suggesting that social attention is sensitive to the language of our interlocutors.

Verbal deception in picture naming.

Telling a lie requires several cognitive processes. We investigated three cognitive processes involved in verbal deception: the decision to deceive, the suppression of the true statement, and the construction of the false statement. In a standard picture-naming task, participants were instructed to commit true and false naming statements. Critically, participants could freely decide to name the picture (i.e., true naming events) or to commit a verbal deception and use a different name (i.e., false naming events). Different types of analysis were performed with the aim of exploring the influence of semantic, lexical, and phonological information of the target picture in the decision, suppression, and construction processes. The first type of analysis revealed that participants decided to lie more often when the target picture was less typical or less familiar. The second and third types of analysis focused on the false naming events. False naming latencies turned out to be faster when the name of the target picture was a highly frequent or an earlier-acquired name, suggesting an influence of lexical variables in the suppression of the true statement. The third analysis type explored the phonological relationship between the word that participants uttered in the false statements and the target picture name. No phonological influences emerged in this last analysis. These findings demonstrate that verbal deception is tied to semantic and lexical variables corresponding to true statements.

Language as a cue for social categorization in bilingual communities.

This registered report article investigates the role of language as a dimension of social categorization. Our critical aim was to investigate whether categorization based on language occurs even when the languages coexist within the same sociolinguistic context, as is the case in bilingual communities. Bilingual individuals of two bilingual communities, the Basque Country (Spain) and Veneto (Italy), were tested using the memory confusion paradigm in a 'Who said what?' task. In the encoding part of the task, participants were presented with different faces together with auditory sentences. Two different languages of the sentences were presented in each study, with half of the faces always associated with one language and the other half with the other language. Spanish and Basque languages were used in Study 1, and Italian and Venetian dialect in Study 2. In the test phase, the auditory sentences were presented again and participants were required to decide which face uttered each sentence. As expected, participants error rates were high. Critically, participants were more likely to confuse faces from the same language category than from the other (different) language category. The results indicate that bilinguals categorize individuals belonging to the same sociolinguistic community based on the language these individuals speak, suggesting that social categorization based on language is an automatic process.

Exploring the ventral white matter language network in bimodal and unimodal bilinguals.

We used diffusion magnetic resonance imaging tractography to investigate the effect of language modality on the anatomy of the ventral white matter language network by comparing unimodal (Italian/English) and bimodal bilinguals (Italian/Italian Sign Language). We extracted the diffusion tractography measures of the Inferior Longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), Uncinate fasciculus (UF) and Inferior Fronto-Occipital fasciculus (IFOF) and we correlated them with the degree of bilingualism and the individual performance in fluency tasks. For both groups of bilinguals, the microstructural properties of the right ILF were correlated with individual level of proficiency in L2, confirming the involvement of this tract in bilingualism. In addition, we found that the degree of left lateralization of the ILF predicted the performance in semantic fluency in L1. The microstructural properties of the right UF correlated with performance in phonological fluency in L1, only for bimodal bilinguals. Overall, the pattern shows both similarities and differences between the two groups of bilinguals.

Pragmatic and knowledge range lenience towards foreigners.

Foreign-accented speech categorizes the speaker as an outgroup individual with a lower linguistic competence and a different knowledge heritage from a native speaker. Here we explore whether the identification of an individual as a native or a foreign speaker has an impact on trivia statement judgments, regardless of her foreign-accented speech. Italian native participants first read a bio description of a native and of a foreign speaker and then rate to what degree a series of statements associated with each of the speakers makes sense (Studies 1 and 2) or are true (Study 3). Importantly, the fluency processing between native and foreign speakers was kept constant by using a written presentation of the materials. Under-informative statements such as 'Some frogs are amphibians' were tested in Study 1. The results of Study 1 show more acceptable judgments when the sentences were associated with the foreign speaker. Unknown facts about world knowledge such as 'Butterflies do not see gray' were tested in Studies 2 and 3. The results show more acceptable (Study 2) and more true (Study 3) judgments when the sentences were associated with the foreign speaker. In addition, in Study 3 the foreign speaker was considered more trustworthy than the native speaker in a rating test at the end of the main judgment-sentence task. Our findings show that linguistic identity per se has an impact on evaluation judgments, suggesting that message interpretation cannot be dissociated from who is communicating the message.

Development of a generic version of the multiple errands test for severe acquired brain injuries.

BACKGROUND: Impairment of executive functions is a frequent and disabling consequence of brain injury. In 1991, Shallice and Burgess elaborated the Multiple Errand Test (MET) to assess everyday troubles associated with this impairment. OBJECTIVE: Our first aim was to create a generic version of MET (MET-G) readily adaptable to different settings and for retesting. The second aim was to validate the revised version to detect executive impairment in individuals with severe ABI. METHODS: An inter-professional team of experts in neurorehabilitation created a revised version of MET. Twenty-one patients with sABI (severe Acquired Brain Injury) and a control group of 20 neurologically healthy subjects, took part in the testing of MET-G. RESULTS: MET-G clearly distinguished people with sABI from healthy controls based on Total error score, task completion, and rule breaking. The test showed good inter-rater reliability and internal consistency. CONCLUSIONS: The new, generic version of MET was able to differentiate adults with sABI from controls and proved to be a good tool for evaluating executive functions in these patients in daily-life contexts. Indications on how to adapt the test to different contexts and different scoring modalities are provided.

Dimensions of social categorization: Inside the role of language.

The present pre-registration aims to investigate the role of language as a dimension of social categorization. Our critical aim is to investigate whether language can be used as a dimension of social categorization even when the languages coexist within the same sociolinguistic group, as is the case in bilingual communities where two languages are used in daily social interactions. We will use the memory confusion paradigm (also known as the Who said what? task). In the first part of the task, i.e. encoding, participants will be presented with a face (i.e. speaker) and will listen to an auditory sentence. Two languages will be used, with half of the faces always associated with one language and the other half with the other language. In the second phase, i.e. recognition, all the faces will be presented on the screen and participants will decide which face uttered which sentence in the encoding phase. Based on previous literature, we expect that participants will be more likely to confuse faces from within the same language category than from the other language category. Participants will be bilingual individuals of two bilingual communities, the Basque Country (Spain) and Veneto (Italy). The two languages of these communities will be used, Spanish and Basque (Study 1), and Italian and Venetian dialect (Study 2). Furthermore, we will explore whether the amount of daily exposure to the two languages modulates the effect of language as a social categorization cue. This research will allow us to test whether bilingual people use language to categorize individuals belonging to the same sociolinguistic community based on the language these individuals are speaking. Our findings may have relevant political and social implications for linguistic policies in bilingual communities.

Cumulative semantic cost without successful naming.

Accessing semantic information has negative consequences for successive recovering attempts of similar information. For instance, in the course of picture-naming tasks, the time required to name an object is determined by the total number of items from the same category that have already been named; naming latencies increase proportionally to the total number of semantically related words named previously. This phenomenon is called cumulative semantic cost (or interference). Two picture-naming experiments with children (4-11 years old, 229 participants) investigate whether having successfully named the previous within-category items is a necessary condition for the cumulative semantic cost to appear. We anticipated that younger children would have a larger rate of nonresponses compared with older children, reflecting the fact that younger children have not yet consolidated many lexical representations. Our results confirmed this prediction. Critically, we also observed that cumulative semantic cost was independent of having successfully retrieved previous within-category lexical items. Furthermore, picture trials for which the previous within-category item elicited a nonresponse showed the same amount of cost as those picture trials for which the previous within-category item elicited a correct naming event. Our findings indicate that it is the attempt to retrieve a lexical unit, and not the successful retrieval of a specific lexical unit, that causes semantic cost in picture naming. This cost can be explained by a mechanism of weakening the semantic-to-lexical mappings of semantic coordinate words. The findings are also discussed in the context of retrieval-induced forgetting effects in memory recall research.

Commonalities in alpha and beta neural desynchronizations during prediction in language comprehension and production.

The present study investigates whether predictions during language comprehension are generated by engaging the language production system. Previous studies investigating either prediction or production highlighted M/EEG desynchronization (power decrease) in the alpha (8-10 Hz) and beta (13-30 Hz) frequency bands preceding the target. However, it is unclear whether this electrophysiological modulation underlies common mechanisms. We recorded EEG from participants performing both a comprehension and a production task in two separate blocks. Participants listened to high and low constraint incomplete sentences and were asked either to name a picture to complete them (production) or to simply listen to the final word (comprehension). We found that in a silent gap before the final stimulus, predictable stimuli elicited alpha and beta desynchronization in both tasks, signaling the pre-activation of linguistic information. Source estimation highlighted the involvement of left-lateralized language areas and temporo-parietal areas in the right hemisphere. Furthermore, correlations between the desynchronizations in comprehension and production showed spatiotemporal commonalities in language-relevant areas of the left hemisphere. As proposed by prediction-by-production models, our results suggest that comprehenders engage the production system while predicting upcoming words.

Language can shape the perception of oriented objects.

Seeing an object is a natural source for learning about the object's configuration. We show that language can also shape our knowledge about visual objects. We investigated sign language that enables deaf individuals to communicate through hand movements with as much expressive power as any other natural language. A few signs represent objects in a specific orientation. Sign-language users (signers) recognized visual objects faster when oriented as in the sign, and this match in orientation elicited specific brain responses in signers, as measured by event-related potentials (ERPs). Further analyses suggested that signers' responsiveness to object orientation derived from changes in the visual object representations induced by the signs. Our results also show that language facilitates discrimination between objects of the same kind (e.g., different cars), an effect never reported before with spoken languages. By focusing on sign language we could better characterize the impact of language (a uniquely human ability) on object visual processing.

Foreign language effect in decision-making: How foreign is it?

It has been shown that decisions and moral judgments differ when made using native languages compared to foreign languages. Cross-linguistic differences appeared in foreign languages that monolinguals typically acquired in school and used neither routinely nor extensively. We replicated these differences with two populations of proficient, native bilinguals (Italian-Venetian; Italian-Bergamasque). Venetian and Bergamasque are spoken in households and informal circles, unlike Italian, which is also used in more formal contexts. The findings reported in foreign languages for the Asian Disease Problem and the Footbridge Dilemma were reproduced in Venetian and Bergamasque. Our results show that language effects on decision-making and moral judgments are not restricted to foreign languages. The explanation proposed for foreign languages of cross-linguistic differences in emotion responses does not apply to our proficient, native bilinguals, who showed emotion responses of equal intensity in their languages. We propose that the contexts in which bilinguals use a language - either native, regional or foreign - could affect decisions.

Advances of native and non-native Antarctic species to in vitro conservation: improvement of disinfection protocols.

Plants that inhabit Antarctica have raised scientific interest due to their resilience to climate change, abiotic tolerance mechanisms and potential biological applications. In vitro propagation is useful for conservation, genetic material availability of these species and avoiding mass collection in their habitat. In vitro culture protocols for the native plants Colobanthus quitensis and Deschampsia antarctica and the non-native Juncus bufonius have been affected by endophytic microorganisms that proliferate when introduced to tissue cultures. This study evaluated the microbicidal and phytotoxic effect of calcium hypochlorite (Ca(ClO)2), silver nitrate (AgNO3) and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and their use at different concentrations for different time periods. The Ca(ClO)2 at 100 mg mL-1 showed the best microbial contamination control in D. antarctica (applied for 20 min) and for the three C. quitensis populations (applied for 15 min). In J. bufonius, AgNO3 at 10 mg mL-1 for 10 min reduced the microbial growth, but oxidative damage was generated. AgNPs did not prevent contamination or have adverse effects on tissues. Survival plantlets from each treatment, population or species were effectively introduced to the tissue culture and their propagation was successful. These results constitute a fundamental advance for the introduction, propagation and conservation of Antarctic species and their use in scientific research.

Outgroup faces hamper word recognition.

The present study explores socio-cultural priming in native-language processing. Caucasian Italian native speakers completed a written lexical decision task. Written stimuli were preceded by either a prime "white" face (ingroup condition) or a prime "black" face (outgroup condition). Face priming effects were observed in three experiments using different stimuli. Participants were slower in categorizing words, but not non-words, when preceded by an outgroup face than by an ingroup face. Several psycholinguistic variables were manipulated to localize the levels of processing that are affected by socio-cultural prime. The lack of effect with non-word items excludes the possibility that the face priming effect arises at perceptual or attentive levels of processing. In addition, we observed that while the face priming effect does not interact with lexical dimensions, it does interact with a semantic dimension such as imageability. The results indicate that social categories extracted from faces may modulate lexico-semantic processing. Interestingly, such a modulation would occur in the context of a quick and automatic process like visual word recognition in a person's native language.

Hands show where things are: The close similarity between sign and natural space.

Many of the signs produced across sign languages are iconic, in the sense that they resemble the concepts they represent. We examined whether location, one of basic sign parameters along with handshape and movement, is systematically used for purposes of iconicity. Our findings revealed a mapping of vertical sign space that is exploited in its entirety for encoding typical locations in natural space. In all of the twenty sign languages we analyzed, signs were more likely to have high locations with concepts typically occurring in high vs. low regions of natural space (e.g., cloud vs. root). Furthermore, the height of signs produced to identify a visual object varied depending on object position (e.g., it was higher for basketball in the basket than basketball on the floor). It thus appears that signing space is permeable to semantic and episodic features, and iconicity plays a crucial role in making signing space so adaptable.

Competencia para decidir y tipo de internamiento en conducta suicida. De la teoría a la práctica / Decision-making capacity and type of hospital admission in suicide behaviour. Theory and practice

Objetivos: En los últimos años en nuestro país ha aumentado la frecuencia de los ingresos hospitalarios relacionados con intentos de suicidio. El tratamiento involuntario de los trastornos mentales siempre ha sido controvertido y este aspecto puede ser particularmente sensible en casos de conducta suicida. El objetivo de esta investigación es analizar las variables que diferencian a individuos ingresados de manera voluntaria e involuntaria en caso de conducta suicida en la práctica real. Métodos: Fue administrada la escala Mac Arthur para valoración de la competencia de tratamiento (MacCAT-T) entre un grupo de pacientes (n = 73) con conducta suicida y diferentes tipos de ingreso (voluntario e involuntario). Se evaluó también la severidad de los síntomas depresivos, el nivel de ideación e intención suicida y el insight. Para conocer las diferencias se realizó un análisis discriminante. Resultados: Las variables que mejor discriminan son la puntuación en la escala MacCAT y el nivel de insight. A pesar de que la mayoría de los casos fueron adecuadamente clasificados con relación a la competencia que presentaban, nuestros resultados muestran discrepancias en la modalidad de ingreso. Conclusiones: A pesar de que esta situación puede deberse a errores en la interpretación de los criterios legales de internamiento involuntario o de la valoración de la competencia, es posible también que la complejidad de la conducta suicida haga necesario revisar los criterios clásicos de valoración de la capacidad con objeto de asegurar una base adecuada y de proponer instrumentos de valoración específicos para psiquiatras y médicos forenses

Objectives: The number of hospital admissions related to suicide attempts is increasing. Involuntary treatment of psychiatric disorders has always been controversial, and this issue can be particularly sensitive in case of suicide behaviour. The aim of this study was to analyse variables associated with involuntary and voluntary legal status on admission of suicidal ideation and suicide attempt in real practice. Method: The MacArthur Competency Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) was administered to a group of patients (n=73) with suicide behaviour and different types of psychiatric admissions (voluntary and involuntary). Severity of depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and intent, and insight level were also assessed. A discriminant analysis was used to determine the differences. Results: MacCAT total score and insight level were the best variables to discriminate both groups. Although the majority of admissions were adequately classified according to their decision-making capacity, our results show some discrepancies at hospital admission. Conclusions: Although this situation can be partly due to mistakes of interpretations of legal criteria for involuntary psychiatric admission or an inappropriate assessment of capacity to consent, due to the complexity of suicidal behaviour, a review of the classic criteria will also need to be considered, in order to ensure adequate support and to propose appropriate assessment tools for psychiatric and forensic practitioners