Childhood Environmental Unpredictability and Experimentally Primed Uncertainty in Relation to Intuitive versus Deliberate Visual Search.

Visual search is an integral part of animal life. Two search strategies, intuitive vs. deliberate search, are adopted by almost all animals including humans to adapt to different extent of environmental uncertainty. In two eye-tracking experiments involving simple visual search (Study 1) and complex information search (Study 2), we used the evolutionary life history (LH) approach to investigate the interaction between childhood environmental unpredictability and primed concurrent uncertainty in enabling these two search strategies. The results indicate that when individuals with greater childhood unpredictability were exposed to uncertainty cues, they exhibited intuitive rather than deliberate visual search (i.e., fewer fixations, reduced dwell time, a larger saccade size, and fewer repetitive inspections relative to individuals with lower childhood unpredictability). We conclude that childhood environment is crucial in calibrating LH including visual and cognitive strategies to adaptively respond to current environmental conditions. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04667-1.

Swimming exercise is a promising early intervention for autism-like behavior in Shank3 deletion rats.

INTRODUCTION: SHANK3 is an important excitatory postsynaptic scaffold protein, and its mutations lead to genetic cause of neurodevelopmental diseases including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), Philan McDermid syndrome (PMS), and intellectual disability (ID). Early prevention and treatment are important for Shank3 gene mutation disease. Swimming has been proven to have a positive effect on neurodegenerative diseases. METHODS: Shank3 gene exon 11-21 knockout rats were intervened by a 40 min/day, 5 day/week for 8-week protocol. After the intervention, the rats were tested to behavioral measures such as learning and memory, and the volume and H-spectrum of the brain were measured using MRI; hippocampal dendritic spines were measured using Golgi staining and laser confocal. RESULTS: The results showed that Shank3-deficient rats had significant deficits in social memory, object recognition, and water maze learning decreased hippocampal volume and number of neurons, and lower levels of related scaffold proteins and receptor proteins were found in Shank3-deficient rats. CONCLUSION: It is suggested that early swimming exercise has a positive effect on Shank3 gene-deficient rats, which provides a new therapeutic strategy for the prevention and recovery of neurodevelopmental disorders.

[Investigation of chronic rhinosinusitis on junior middle school students in Zhengzhou area in 2009].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the incidence of chronic rhinosinusitis and its influence on life quality for junior middle school students in Zhengzhou Municipal. METHODS: Two thousand and twenty junior middle school students in Zhengzhou Municipal were randomly selected as the object of investigation by designed survey and visual analogue scale (VAS) questionnaire of chronic rhinosinusitis the sino-nasal outcome test-20 (SNOT-20) and nasal examination. Effect on the quality of life was investigated based on the degree of troubles caused by symptoms. RESULTS: The incidence of chronic rhinosinusitis in junior middle school students in Zhengzhou Municipal was 6.73% (136/2 020), in which, 22.79% (31/136) of these students' quality of life was affected (VAS>5). CONCLUSIONS: Chronic rhinosinusitis is common in junior middle school students, and the life quality is affected. So we should pay attention to this diseases and take the positive and effective intervention measures.