Steroid hormones: risk and resilience in women's Alzheimer disease.

More women have Alzheimer disease (AD) than men, but the reasons for this phenomenon are still unknown. Including women in clinical research and studying their biology is key to understand not just their increased risk but also their resilience against the disease. In this sense, women are more affected by AD than men, but their reserve or resilience mechanisms might delay symptom onset. The aim of this review was to explore what is known about mechanisms underlying women's risk and resilience in AD and identify emerging themes in this area that merit further research. We conducted a review of studies analyzing molecular mechanisms that may induce neuroplasticity in women, as well as cognitive and brain reserve. We also analyzed how the loss of steroid hormones in aging may be linked to AD. We included empirical studies with human and animal models, literature reviews as well as meta-analyses. Our search identified the importance of 17-b-estradiol (E2) as a mechanism driving cognitive and brain reserve in women. More broadly, our analysis revealed the following emerging perspectives: (1) the importance of steroid hormones and their effects on both neurons and glia for the study of risk and resilience in AD, (2) E2's crucial role in women's brain reserve, (3) women's verbal memory advantage as a cognitive reserve factor, and (4) E2's potential role in linguistic experiences such as multilingualism and hearing loss. Future directions for research include analyzing the reserve mechanisms of steroid hormones on neuronal and glial plasticity, as well as identifying the links between steroid hormone loss in aging and risk for AD.

Safe and just Earth system boundaries.

The stability and resilience of the Earth system and human well-being are inseparably linked1-3, yet their interdependencies are generally under-recognized; consequently, they are often treated independently4,5. Here, we use modelling and literature assessment to quantify safe and just Earth system boundaries (ESBs) for climate, the biosphere, water and nutrient cycles, and aerosols at global and subglobal scales. We propose ESBs for maintaining the resilience and stability of the Earth system (safe ESBs) and minimizing exposure to significant harm to humans from Earth system change (a necessary but not sufficient condition for justice)4. The stricter of the safe or just boundaries sets the integrated safe and just ESB. Our findings show that justice considerations constrain the integrated ESBs more than safety considerations for climate and atmospheric aerosol loading. Seven of eight globally quantified safe and just ESBs and at least two regional safe and just ESBs in over half of global land area are already exceeded. We propose that our assessment provides a quantitative foundation for safeguarding the global commons for all people now and into the future.

Gray Matter Volume as Evidence for Cognitive Reserve in Bilinguals With Mild Cognitive Impairment.

BACKGROUND: Compared with monolinguals, bilinguals have a later onset of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease symptoms and greater neuropathology at similar cognitive and clinical levels. The present study follows a previous report showing the faster conversion from MCI to Alzheimer disease for bilingual patients than comparable monolinguals, as predicted by a cognitive reserve (CR). PURPOSE: Identify whether the increased CR found for bilinguals in the previous study was accompanied by greater gray matter (GM) atrophy than was present for the monolinguals. METHODS: A novel deep-learning technique based on convolutional neural networks was used to enhance clinical scans into 1 mm MPRAGEs and analyze the GM volume at the time of MCI diagnosis in the earlier study. PATIENTS: Twenty-four bilingual and 24 monolingual patients were diagnosed with MCI at a hospital memory clinic. RESULTS: Bilingual patients had more GM loss than monolingual patients in areas related to language processing, attention, decision-making, motor function, and episodic memory retrieval. Bilingualism and age were the strongest predictors of atrophy after other variables such as immigration and education were included in a multivariate model. DISCUSSION: CR from bilingualism is evident in the initial stages of neurodegeneration after MCI has been diagnosed.

Bilingualism modulates neural efficiency at rest through alpha reactivity.

The aim of the present study was to investigate how resting state EEG rhythms reflect attentional processes and bilingual experience. We compared alpha and beta rhythms for monolingual and bilingual young adults in eyes open and eyes closed conditions using EEG measures of frequency power, reactivity, and coherence. Power shows the amount of brain activity at a given frequency band; reactivity indexes the desynchronization of neuronal activity when individuals open their eyes at rest; and coherence indicates the brain regions that have correlated activity. The results showed that bilinguals had similar alpha power as monolinguals in both resting conditions but less alpha reactivity across the whole scalp. There was also more focused activation for bilinguals expressed as more coherence in posterior electrodes, particularly when eyes were opened to direct attention. For beta, there were no group differences in power or reactivity, but there was higher coherence for monolinguals than bilinguals, a pattern consistent with previous literature showing that beta frequency was related to language learning and native language proficiency. These results are in line with a neural efficiency theory and suggest that bilinguals have a more efficient brain for attentional mechanisms than monolinguals at rest.

Biocultural vulnerability exposes threats of culturally important species.

There are growing calls for conservation frameworks that, rather than breaking the relations between people and other parts of nature, capture place-based relationships that have supported social-ecological systems over the long term. Biocultural approaches propose actions based on biological conservation priorities and cultural values aligned with local priorities, but mechanisms that allow their global uptake are missing. We propose a framework to globally assess the biocultural status of specific components of nature that matter to people and apply it to culturally important species (CIS). Drawing on a literature review and a survey, we identified 385 wild species, mostly plants, which are culturally important. CIS predominate among Indigenous peoples (57%) and ethnic groups (21%). CIS have a larger proportion of Data-Deficient species (41%) than the full set of International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) species (12%), underscoring the disregard of cultural considerations in biological research. Combining information on CIS biological conservation status (IUCN threatened status) and cultural status (language vitality), we found that more CIS are culturally Vulnerable or Endangered than they are biologically and that there is a higher share of bioculturally Endangered or Vulnerable CIS than of either biologically or culturally Endangered CIS measured separately. Bioculturally Endangered or Vulnerable CIS are particularly predominant among Indigenous peoples, arguably because of the high levels of cultural loss among them. The deliberate connection between biological and cultural values, as developed in our "biocultural status" metric, provides an actionable way to guide decisions and operationalize global actions oriented to enhance place-based practices with demonstrated long-term sustainability.

The Multifaceted Nature of Bilingualism and Attention.

Attention has recently been proposed as the mechanism underlying the cognitive effects associated with bilingualism. However, similar to bilingualism, the term attention is complex, dynamic, and can vary from one activity to another. Throughout our daily lives, we use different types of attention that differ in complexity: sustained attention, selective attention, alternating attention, divided attention, and disengagement of attention. The present paper is a focused review summarizing the results from studies that explore the link between bilingualism and attention. For each level of attention, a brief overview of relevant theoretical models will be discussed along with a spotlight on paradigms and tasks used to measure these forms of attention. The findings illustrate that different types and levels of attention are modified by the variety of bilingual experiences. Future studies wishing to examine the effects of bilingualism on attention are encouraged to embrace the complexity and diversity of both constructs rather than making global claims about bilingualism and attention.

Electrophysiological signatures of attentional control in bilingual processing: Evidence from proactive interference.

Monolingual and bilingual participants performed a Proactive Interference task in verbal and nonverbal conditions while EEG was recorded. Behavioral results showed faster responses for bilinguals on interference trials in the nonverbal condition, and electrophysiological results indicated greater attentional control for bilinguals. ROI analyses showed this pattern for bilinguals mainly in the verbal condition, whereas whole brain analyses found this association in both conditions. Frequency power analysis found activity related to interference trials was associated with recruitment of different neural resources for verbal and nonverbal conditions. Nonverbal results indicated beta activity for interference trials in bilinguals and the verbal condition showed this pattern in theta and gamma frequency bands as well, revealing more extensive brain activation in the verbal domain for bilinguals. For monolinguals, frequency power in beta, gamma, and theta were related to facilitation trials. These results suggest different strategies for allocating attention by monolingual and bilingual young adults.

Poorer clinical outcomes for older adult monolinguals when matched to bilinguals on brain health.

Previous studies have reported bilingualism to be a proxy of cognitive reserve (CR) based on evidence that bilinguals express dementia symptoms ~ 4 years later than monolinguals yet present with greater neuropathology at time of diagnosis when clinical levels are similar. The current study provides new evidence supporting bilingualism's contribution to CR using a novel brain health matching paradigm. Forty cognitively normal bilinguals with diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images recruited from the community were matched with monolinguals drawn from a pool of 165 individuals in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. White matter integrity was determined for all participants using fractional anisotropy, axial diffusivity, and radial diffusivity scores. Propensity scores were obtained using white matter measures, sex, age, and education as predictive covariates, and then used in one-to-one matching between language groups, creating a matched sample of 32 participants per group. Matched monolinguals had poorer clinical diagnoses than that predicted by chance from a theoretical null distribution, and poorer cognitive performances than matched bilinguals as measured by scores on the MMSE. The findings provide support for the interpretation that bilingualism acts as a proxy of CR such that monolinguals have poorer clinical and cognitive outcomes than bilinguals for similar levels of white matter integrity even before clinical symptoms appear.

Diagnosis of Glioblastoma by Immuno-Positron Emission Tomography.

Neuroimaging has transformed neuro-oncology and the way that glioblastoma is diagnosed and treated. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is the most widely used non-invasive technique in the primary diagnosis of glioblastoma. Although MRI provides very powerful anatomical information, it has proven to be of limited value for diagnosing glioblastomas in some situations. The final diagnosis requires a brain biopsy that may not depict the high intratumoral heterogeneity present in this tumor type. The revolution in "cancer-omics" is transforming the molecular classification of gliomas. However, many of the clinically relevant alterations revealed by these studies have not yet been integrated into the clinical management of patients, in part due to the lack of non-invasive biomarker-based imaging tools. An innovative option for biomarker identification in vivo is termed "immunotargeted imaging". By merging the high target specificity of antibodies with the high spatial resolution, sensitivity, and quantitative capabilities of positron emission tomography (PET), "Immuno-PET" allows us to conduct the non-invasive diagnosis and monitoring of patients over time using antibody-based probes as an in vivo, integrated, quantifiable, 3D, full-body "immunohistochemistry" in patients. This review provides the state of the art of immuno-PET applications and future perspectives on this imaging approach for glioblastoma.

Ecografía pulmonar, medida de seguridad en la radiofrecuencia térmica de los nervios esplácnicos / Application of lung ultrasound for a safer technique of splanchnic nerve radiofrequency thermal ablation

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Rethinking the Neural Basis of Prosody and Non-literal Language: Spared Pragmatics and Cognitive Compensation in a Bilingual With Extensive Right-Hemisphere Damage.

Above and beyond the critical contributions of left perisylvian regions to language, the neural networks supporting pragmatic aspects of verbal communication in native and non-native languages (L1s and L2, respectively) have often been ascribed to the right hemisphere (RH). However, several reports have shown that left-hemisphere activity associated with pragmatic domains (e.g., prosody, indirect speech, figurative language) is comparable to or even greater than that observed in the RH, challenging the proposed putative role of the latter for relevant domains. Against this background, we report on an adult bilingual patient showing preservation of pragmatic verbal skills in both languages (L1: Spanish, L2: English) despite bilateral damage mainly focused on the RH. After two strokes, the patient sustained lesions in several regions previously implicated in pragmatic functions (vast portions of the right fronto-insulo-temporal cortices, the bilateral amygdalae and insular cortices, and the left putamen). Yet, comparison of linguistic and pragmatic skills with matched controls revealed spared performance on multiple relevant tasks in both her L1 and L2. Despite mild difficulties in some aspects of L2 prosody, she showed no deficits in comprehending metaphors and idioms, or understanding indirect speech acts in either language. Basic verbal skills were also preserved in both languages, including verbal auditory discrimination, repetition of words and pseudo-words, cognate processing, grammaticality judgments, equivalent recognition, and word and sentence translation. Taken together, the evidence shows that multiple functions of verbal communication can be widely spared despite extensive damage to the RH, and that claims for a putative relation between pragmatics and the RH may have been overemphasized in the monolingual and bilingual literature. We further discuss the case in light of previous reports of pragmatic and linguistic deficits following brain lesions and address its relation to cognitive compensation in bilingual patients.

Progress toward Equitably Managed Protected Areas in Aichi Target 11: A Global Survey.

The Convention on Biological Diversity Aichi Target 11 requires its 193 signatory parties to incorporate social equity into protected area (PA) management by 2020. However, there is limited evidence of progress toward this commitment. We surveyed PA managers, staff, and community representatives involved in the management of 225 PAs worldwide to gather information against 10 equity criteria, including the distribution of benefits and burdens, recognition of rights, diversity of cultural and knowledge systems, and processes of participation in decision-making. Our results show that more than half of the respondents indicated that there are still significant challenges to be addressed in achieving equitably managed PAs, particularly in ensuring effective participation in decision-making, transparent procedures, access to justice in conflicting situations, and the recognition of the rights and diversity of local people. Our findings are a first and fundamental contribution toward a global assessment of equitable management in PAs to report on Aichi Target 11 in 2020 and help define the next set of PA targets from 2020-2030.

A core avenue for transcultural research on dementia: on the cross-linguistic generalization of language-related effects in Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

OBJECTIVE: Language is a key source of cross-cultural variability, which may have both subtle and major effects on neurocognition. However, this issue has been largely overlooked in two flourishing lines of research assessing the relationship between language-related neural systems and dementia. This paper assesses the limitations of the evidence on (i) the neuroprotective effects of bilingualism in Alzheimer's disease and (ii) specific language deficits as markers of Parkinson's disease. DESIGN: First, we outline the rationale behind each line of research. Second, we review available evidence and discuss the potential impact of cross-linguistic factors. Third, we outline ideas to foster progress in both fields and, with it, in cross-cultural neuroscience at large. RESULTS: On the one hand, studies on bilingualism suggest that sustained use of more than one language may protect against Alzheimer's disease symptoms. On the other hand, insights from the embodied cognition framework point to syntactic and action-verb deficits as early (and even preclinical) markers of Parkinson's disease. However, both fields share a key limitation that lies at the heart of cultural neuroscience: the issue of cross-linguistic generalizability. CONCLUSION: Relevant evidence for both research trends comes from only a handful of (mostly Indo-European) languages, which are far from capturing the full scope of structural and typological diversity of the linguistic landscape worldwide. This raises questions on the external validity of reported findings. Greater collaboration between linguistic typology and cognitive neuroscience seems crucial as a first step to assess the impact of transcultural differences on language-related effects across neurodegenerative diseases. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Exploring local people's views on the livelihood impacts of privately versus community managed conservation strategies in the Ruvuma landscape of North Mozambique-South Tanzania.

It is broadly acknowledged that natural resources conservation strategies affect the livelihoods of local communities. Moreover, evidence suggests that these livelihood impacts, in turn, can influence conservation achievements. Yet, what constitutes a conservation strategy that communities perceive as acceptable and thus they would be willing to commit to over time remains poorly understood. This study explores the perceptions of communities regarding the effects of two different conservation strategies in the Ruvuma landscape: governmental land concessions and licenses to private tourist operators in North Mozambique, versus community-managed protected areas supported by NGOs in South Tanzania. The study engages communities in a series of semi-structured discussions about natural resource use, impact of the conservation strategies on their livelihoods, pressures on natural resources, and ways to address such pressures and reach an acceptable conservation strategy, from a community perspective. Our findings suggest that communities perceive as non-affordable current opportunity and damage costs in subsistence agriculture. A strategy integrating improved agricultural production, common use of the forest managed by communities, and joint ventures between communities and private companies for getting more benefits from trophy hunting are identified as acceptable.

Bilingualism and Cognitive Reserve: A Critical Overview and a Plea for Methodological Innovations.

The decline of cognitive skills throughout healthy or pathological aging can be slowed down by experiences which foster cognitive reserve (CR). Recently, some studies on Alzheimer's disease have suggested that CR may be enhanced by life-long bilingualism. However, the evidence is inconsistent and largely based on retrospective approaches featuring several methodological weaknesses. Some studies demonstrated at least 4 years of delay in dementia symptoms, while others did not find such an effect. Moreover, various methodological aspects vary from study to study. The present paper addresses contradictory findings, identifies possible lurking variables, and outlines methodological alternatives thereof. First, we characterize possible confounding factors that may have influenced extant results. Our focus is on the criteria to establish bilingualism, differences in sample design, the instruments used to examine cognitive skills, and the role of variables known to modulate life-long cognition. Second, we propose that these limitations could be largely circumvented through experimental approaches. Proficiency in the non-native language can be successfully assessed by combining subjective and objective measures; confounding variables which have been distinctively associated with certain bilingual groups (e.g., alcoholism, sleep disorders) can be targeted through relevant instruments; and cognitive status might be better tapped via robust cognitive screenings and executive batteries. Moreover, future research should incorporate tasks yielding predictable patterns of contrastive performance between bilinguals and monolinguals. Crucially, these include instruments which reveal bilingual disadvantages in vocabulary, null effects in working memory, and advantages in inhibitory control and other executive functions. Finally, paradigms tapping proactive interference (which assess the disruptive effect of long-term memory on newly learned information) could also offer useful data, since this phenomenon seems to be better managed by bilinguals and it becomes conspicuous in early stages of dementia. Such considerations may shed light not just on the relationship between bilingualism and CR, but also on more general mechanisms of cognitive compensation.