Introducing and validating a single-item measure of identity leadership: The visual identity leadership scale (VILS).

In the present research, we introduce and validate a single-item measure of identity leadership-the visual identity leadership scale (VILS). The VILS uses Venn diagrams of sets of overlapping circles to denote different degrees of alignment between a leader's characteristics and behaviours and a group's values and goals. Key advantages of the VILS over other existing multi-item scales are that it provides a holistic assessment of identity leadership, is short, and can be adapted to address novel research questions that are impractical to address with existing scales (e.g. in diary studies, assessing multiple comparisons of many leaders or groups). Data from three studies (conducted in India, the United States and Germany) provide evidence of the VILS' construct reliability and validity. Results also showcase the instrument's capacity to be adapted to assess variations of identity leadership-for example, by assessing a leader's convergence with descriptive and ideal notions of collective self (i.e. with 'who we are' and 'who we want to be'). We discuss the value of including the VILS in the toolbox that researchers and practitioners can utilize to expand our understanding of identity processes in leadership and group behaviour.

Generation climate crisis, COVID-19, and Russia-Ukraine-War: global crises and mental health in adolescents.

Climate change, COVID-19, and the Russia-Ukraine War are some of the great challenges of our time. These global crises affect young people in a particularly vulnerable phase of their lives. The current study aimed to assess the impact of these crises on mental health (depression, anxiety, and health-related quality of life) in secondary school students in Germany. Furthermore, we assessed known predictors of mental health, such as socio-economic factors, individual life stressors, and resilience factors (self-efficacy, expressive flexibility) as covariates. In our sample of 3998 pupils, pandemic- and climate-related distress were linked to greater depression and anxiety and reduced health-related quality of life. War-related distress was associated with greater anxiety. Critically, these associations remained significant after controlling for all covariates, supporting the incremental predictive value of the crises measures. The study reveals a significant impact of the crises on the mental health of the current generation of adolescents. As such it suggests that mental health policies should include interventions that help youth to cope with the stress caused by the crises.

To sleep or not to sleep, that is the question: A systematic review and meta-analysis on the effect of post-trauma sleep on intrusive memories of analog trauma.

Distressing intrusive memories of a traumatic event are one of the hallmark symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. Thus, it is crucial to identify early interventions that prevent the occurrence of intrusive memories. Both, sleep and sleep deprivation have been discussed as such interventions, yet previous studies yielded contradicting effects. Our systematic review aims at evaluating existing evidence by means of traditional and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses to overcome power issues of sleep research. Until May 16th, 2022, six databases were searched for experimental analog studies examining the effect of post-trauma sleep versus wakefulness on intrusive memories. Nine studies were included in our traditional meta-analysis (8 in the IPD meta-analysis). Our analysis provided evidence for a small effect favoring sleep over wakefulness, log-ROM = 0.25, p < .001, suggesting that sleep is associated with a lower number of intrusions but unrelated to the occurrence of any versus no intrusions. We found no evidence for an effect of sleep on intrusion distress. Heterogeneity was low and certainty of evidence for our primary analysis was moderate. Our findings suggest that post-trauma sleep has the potential to be protective by reducing intrusion frequency. More research is needed to determine the impact following real-world trauma and the potential clinical significance.

Displacement experiments provide evidence for path integration in Drosophila.

Like many other animals, insects are capable of returning to previously visited locations using path integration, which is a memory of travelled direction and distance. Recent studies suggest that Drosophila can also use path integration to return to a food reward. However, the existing experimental evidence for path integration in Drosophila has a potential confound: pheromones deposited at the site of reward might enable flies to find previously rewarding locations even without memory. Here, we show that pheromones can indeed cause naïve flies to accumulate where previous flies had been rewarded in a navigation task. Therefore, we designed an experiment to determine if flies can use path integration memory despite potential pheromonal cues by displacing the flies shortly after an optogenetic reward. We found that rewarded flies returned to the location predicted by a memory-based model. Several analyses are consistent with path integration as the mechanism by which flies returned to the reward. We conclude that although pheromones are often important in fly navigation and must be carefully controlled for in future experiments, Drosophila may indeed be capable of performing path integration.

[Molecular therapies: present and future in neuromuscular diseases]. / Molekulare Therapien: Gegenwart und Zukunft bei neuromuskulären Erkrankungen.

BACKGROUND: The possibilities in the field of molecular therapies of neuromuscular diseases have rapidly developed in recent years. First compounds are already available in clinical practice and numerous other substances are in advanced phases of clinical trials. This article gives an exemplary overview of the current state of clinical research in molecular therapies of neuromuscular diseases. It also gives a view into the near future of the clinical application, including the challenges. DISCUSSION: Using Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and myotubular myopathy as examples, the principles of gene addition in monogenetic skeletal muscle diseases, which are already manifested in childhood are described. In addition to initial successes, the challenges and setbacks hindering the approval and regular clinical application of further compounds are demonstrated. Furthermore, the state of current clinical research in Becker-Kiener muscular dystrophy (BMD) and the numerous forms of limb-girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) are summarized. Numerous new therapeutic approaches and a corresponding outlook are also shown for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), Pompe disease, and myotonic dystrophy. CONCLUSION: Clinical research in the field of molecular therapy of neuromuscular diseases is one of the pacesetters of modern precision medicine; however, challenges need to be seen, jointly addressed and overcome in the future.

Leaving the door open: Trauma, updating, and the development of PTSD symptoms.

Humans try to make sense of the world using hypotheses that were formed by prior experiences. After trauma, these hypotheses can be exaggerated and resistant to change. This may result in difficulties to update expectations regarding the negative outcomes associated with traumatic stimuli. Critically, it has been proposed that such difficulties may drive the development of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, direct evidence on the associations between trauma and impaired expectation updating is still absent. Moreover, it remains unclear whether such an impairment is correlated with PTSD symptoms. To address these gaps, we compared the ability to update traumatic and neutral stimulus-outcome expectations in 81 active-duty firefighters. Participants completed a performance-based updating task and were assessed for PTSD symptoms. We predicted and found a selective impairment in updating trauma-related expectations. This impairment was evident for negative-to-positive but not for positive-to-negative updating. Moreover, impaired negative-to-positive updating was positively associated with PTSD symptoms. These findings support the predictive processing account of PTSD and suggest that strengthening updating processes could be an important goal for promoting resilience after trauma.

Sleep's impact on emotional recognition memory: A meta-analysis of whole-night, nap, and REM sleep effects.

Numerous studies have shown that post-learning sleep enhances visual episodic recognition memory. However, it remains unclear whether this consolidation benefit is moderated by the emotional valence of the learned material. To clarify whether sleep selectively enhances memory for emotional material, we conducted a meta-analysis including N = 1059 post-sleep/wake observations. Overall, our results do not support this hypothesis. When only studies with a sleep group/wake group comparison were included in the analysis (k = 22), the retention advantage for emotional (negative/positive) over neutral material was not significantly different between sleep and wake groups. When studies without wake groups were included in the analysis after statistical estimation of wake-group parameters, the retention advantage for emotional material was significantly larger in wake groups than in sleep groups (k = 34). Interestingly, however, an additional analysis of eight studies investigating the selective effects of rapid-eye-movement sleep and slow-wave sleep on post-interval emotional memory provided evidence for a selective enhancement of emotional over neutral memory performance after rapid-eye-movement sleep compared to slow-wave sleep. These findings suggest that sleep does not generally enhance visual recognition memory for emotional stimuli. However, the result pattern is consistent with the idea that specific sleep stages preferentially enhance consolidation of emotional and neutral material, respectively.

Real-world evidence research based on big data: Motivation-challenges-success factors.

BACKGROUND: In recent years there has been an increasing, partially also critical interest in understanding the potential benefits of generating real-world evidence (RWE) in medicine. OBJECTIVES: The benefits and limitations of RWE in the context of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are described along with a view on how they may complement each other as partners in the generation of evidence for clinical oncology. Moreover, challenges and success factors in building an effective RWE network of cooperating cancer centers are analyzed and discussed. MATERIAL AND METHODS: This article is based on a selective literature search (predominantly 2015-2017) combined with our practical experience to date in establishing European oncology RWE networks. RESULTS: RWE studies can be highly valuable and complementary to RCTs due to their high external validity. If cancer centers successfully address the various challenges in the establishment of an effective RWE study network and in the consequent execution of studies, they may efficiently generate high-quality research findings on treatment effectiveness and safety. Concerns pertaining to data privacy are of utmost importance and discussed accordingly. Securing data completeness, accuracy, and a common data structure on routinely collected disease and treatment-related data of patients with cancer is a challenging task that requires high engagement of all participants in the process. CONCLUSION: Based on the discussed prerequisites, the analysis of comprehensive and complex real-world data in the context of a RWE study network represents an important and promising complementary partner to RCTs. This enables research into the general quality of cancer care and can permit comparative effectiveness studies across partner centers. Moreover, it will provide insights into a broader optimization of cancer care, refined therapeutic strategies for patient subgroups as well as avenues for further research in oncology.

Chemical defense against predation in an insect egg.

The larva of the green lacewing (Ceraeochrysa cubana) (Neuroptera, Chrysopidae) is a natural predator of eggs of Utetheisa ornatrix (Lepidoptera, Arctiidae), a moth that sequesters pyrrolizidine alkaloids from its larval foodplant (Fabaceae, Crotalaria spp.). Utetheisa eggs are ordinarily endowed with the alkaloid. Alkaloid-free Utetheisa eggs, produced experimentally, are pierced by the larva with its sharp tubular jaws and sucked out. Alkaloid-laden eggs, in contrast, are rejected. When attacking an Utetheisa egg cluster (numbering on average 20 eggs), the larva subjects it to an inspection process. It prods and/or pierces a small number of eggs (on average two to three) and, if these contain alkaloid, it passes "negative judgement" on the remainder of the cluster and turns away. Such generalization on the part of the larva makes sense, because the eggs within clusters differ little in alkaloid content. There is, however, considerable between-cluster variation in egg alkaloid content, so clusters in nature can be expected to range widely in palatability. To check each cluster for acceptability must therefore be adaptive for the larva, just as it must be adaptive for Utetheisa to lay its eggs in large clusters and to apportion alkaloid evenly among eggs of a cluster.

Lung sonographic findings in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism.

PURPOSE: To assess the feasibility and diagnostic performance of lung transthoracic sonography in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism. METHOD: In a prospective clinical study we compared sonographic findings of the peripheral lung with various scintigraphic gradings and D-dimer plasma concentrations. One hundred and nineteen consecutive patients with clinical signs of pulmonary embolism were investigated within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. RESULTS: Seventy patients with suspected pulmonary embolism (59%) had sonographic lesions, which were echo poor, homogeneous and rounded or wedge-shaped with a hyperechoic reflexion in the centre. Of the patients with high-probability scintigraphic scans 86% had such sonographic lesions as had 79% with intermediate, 64% with low-probability and 33% with normal scintigraphic scans. Of the patients with positive sonographic findings and normal or low-probability scans only a minority (14%) had negative D-dimer tests. CONCLUSION: We found a high rate of specific sonographic lesions in patients with suspected pulmonary embolism when investigating the peripheral lung with ultrasound.

Biliverdin IX delta and neobiliverdin IX delta, isolated from the ovaries of the marine snail, Turbo cornutus.

The ovaries of the marine snail Turbo cornutus contain a number of pigments. So far, the presence of carotenoids and a chromoprotein with a bile pigment, called turboverdin (= 3(2)-hydroxy-mesobiliverdin IX alpha), as its prosthetic group are known. The present work describes the isolation and structure elucidation of two further bile pigments, biliverdin IX delta and neobiliverdin IX delta. This is the first report of naturally occurring bile pigments with IX delta structure.