Parallel hippocampal-parietal circuits for self- and goal-oriented processing.

The hippocampus is critically important for a diverse range of cognitive processes, such as episodic memory, prospective memory, affective processing, and spatial navigation. Using individual-specific precision functional mapping of resting-state functional MRI data, we found the anterior hippocampus (head and body) to be preferentially functionally connected to the default mode network (DMN), as expected. The hippocampal tail, however, was strongly preferentially functionally connected to the parietal memory network (PMN), which supports goal-oriented cognition and stimulus recognition. This anterior-posterior dichotomy of resting-state functional connectivity was well-matched by differences in task deactivations and anatomical segmentations of the hippocampus. Task deactivations were localized to the hippocampal head and body (DMN), relatively sparing the tail (PMN). The functional dichotomization of the hippocampus into anterior DMN-connected and posterior PMN-connected parcels suggests parallel but distinct circuits between the hippocampus and medial parietal cortex for self- versus goal-oriented processing.

Individual-specific functional connectivity of the amygdala: A substrate for precision psychiatry.

The amygdala is central to the pathophysiology of many psychiatric illnesses. An imprecise understanding of how the amygdala fits into the larger network organization of the human brain, however, limits our ability to create models of dysfunction in individual patients to guide personalized treatment. Therefore, we investigated the position of the amygdala and its functional subdivisions within the network organization of the brain in 10 highly sampled individuals (5 h of fMRI data per person). We characterized three functional subdivisions within the amygdala of each individual. We discovered that one subdivision is preferentially correlated with the default mode network; a second is preferentially correlated with the dorsal attention and fronto-parietal networks; and third subdivision does not have any networks to which it is preferentially correlated relative to the other two subdivisions. All three subdivisions are positively correlated with ventral attention and somatomotor networks and negatively correlated with salience and cingulo-opercular networks. These observations were replicated in an independent group dataset of 120 individuals. We also found substantial across-subject variation in the distribution and magnitude of amygdala functional connectivity with the cerebral cortex that related to individual differences in the stereotactic locations both of amygdala subdivisions and of cortical functional brain networks. Finally, using lag analyses, we found consistent temporal ordering of fMRI signals in the cortex relative to amygdala subdivisions. Altogether, this work provides a detailed framework of amygdala-cortical interactions that can be used as a foundation for models relating aberrations in amygdala connectivity to psychiatric symptoms in individual patients.

Genomic Evidence of In-Flight SARS-CoV-2 Transmission, India to Australia, April 2021.

Epidemiologic and genomic investigation of SARS-CoV-2 infections associated with 2 repatriation flights from India to Australia in April 2021 indicated that 4 passengers transmitted SARS-CoV-2 to >11 other passengers. Results suggest transmission despite mandatory mask use and predeparture testing. For subsequent flights, predeparture quarantine and expanded predeparture testing were implemented.

Practicing Retrieval Facilitates Learning.

How do we go about learning new information? This article reviews the importance of practicing retrieval of newly experienced information if one wants to be able to retrieve it again in the future. Specifically, practicing retrieval shortly after learning can slow the forgetting process. This benefit can be seen across various material types, and it seems prevalent in all ages and learner abilities and on all types of test. It can also be used to enhance student learning in a classroom setting. I review theoretical understanding of this phenomenon (sometimes referred to as the testing effect or as retrieval-based learning) and consider directions for future research.

The dual-process perspective and the benefits of retrieval practice in younger and older adults.

The testing effect is often considered a recollection-related phenomenon. However, recent work has observed a benefit of testing to both recollection and familiarity on immediate and delayed final tests. Further, although aging populations show marked declines in recollection, older and younger adults often benefit similarly from testing. This finding suggests that the testing effect in older adults may function via relatively preserved familiarity and lends further support to the hypothesis that the testing effect does not function solely via recollection-related processes. The current study builds on this work to better understand the mechanisms from the dual-process perspective that underlie the testing effect in both younger and older adults. To this end, younger (18-22 year old) and older (65-82 year old) adults studied words, took cued-recall tests on half of the words, and took a final Remember-Know recognition test on all words immediately or after a 1-day delay. At both delays, older and younger adults exhibited a testing effect in both recollection and familiarity, although the magnitude of the testing effect in recollection was reduced for older relative to younger adults. Implications for theories of the testing effect and its application in older adult populations are explored.

Trait-like variants in human functional brain networks.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided converging descriptions of group-level functional brain organization. Recent work has revealed that functional networks identified in individuals contain local features that differ from the group-level description. We define these features as network variants. Building on these studies, we ask whether distributions of network variants reflect stable, trait-like differences in brain organization. Across several datasets of highly-sampled individuals we show that 1) variants are highly stable within individuals, 2) variants are found in characteristic locations and associate with characteristic functional networks across large groups, 3) task-evoked signals in variants demonstrate a link to functional variation, and 4) individuals cluster into subgroups on the basis of variant characteristics that are related to differences in behavior. These results suggest that distributions of network variants may reflect stable, trait-like, functionally relevant individual differences in functional brain organization.

The stability of visual perspective and vividness during mental time travel.

When remembering or imagining, people can experience an event from their own eyes, or as an outside observer, with differing levels of vividness. The perspective from, and vividness with, which a person remembers or imagines has been related to numerous individual difference characteristics. These findings require that phenomenology during mental time travel be trait-like-that people consistently experience similar perspectives and levels of vividness. This assumption remains untested. Across two studies (combined N = 295), we examined the stability of visual perspective and vividness across multiple trials and timepoints. Perspective and vividness showed weak within-session stability when reported across just a few trials but showed strong within-session stability when sufficient trials were collected. Importantly, both visual perspective and vividness demonstrated good-to-excellent across-session stability across different delay intervals (two days to six weeks). Overall, our results suggest that people dependably experience similar visual phenomenology across occurrences of mental time travel.

Are efficient learners of verbal stimuli also efficient and precise learners of visuospatial stimuli?

People differ in how quickly they learn information and how long they remember it, and these two variables are correlated such that people who learn more quickly tend to retain more of the newly learned information. Zerr and colleagues [2018. Learning efficiency: Identifying individual differences in learning rate and retention in healthy adults. Psychological Science, 29(9), 1436-1450] termed the relation between learning rate and retention as learning efficiency, with more efficient learners having both a faster acquisition rate and better memory performance after a delay. Zerr et al. also demonstrated in separate experiments that how efficiently someone learns is stable across a range of days and years with the same kind of stimuli. The current experiments (combined N = 231) replicate the finding that quicker learning coincides with better retention and demonstrate that the correlation extends to multiple types of materials. We also address the generalisability of learning efficiency: A person's efficiency with learning Lithuanian-English (verbal-verbal) pairs predicts their efficiency with Chinese-English (visuospatial-verbal) and (to a lesser extent) object-location (visuospatial-visuospatial) paired associates. Finally, we examine whether quicker learners also remember material more precisely by using a continuous measure of recall accuracy with object-location pairs.

Interpersonal violence and violent re-injury in the Northern Territory.

OBJECTIVES: To analyse incidence of prior emergency department presentations for interpersonal violence and demographics for a series of hospital admissions for interpersonal violence injuries. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of trauma registry. SETTING: A tertiary hospital and primary referral centre for trauma in the Top End of the Northern Territory. PARTICIPANTS: Patients hospitalised from 2010 to 2015 for injuries due to interpersonal violence with an injury severity score > 9. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Patient demographics, injury location, assault mechanism, alleged perpetrator, time/day of event, alcohol involvement, clinical outcome and prior emergency department presentations for interpersonal violence. RESULTS: A total of 248 admissions for patients with Injury Severity Score > 9 due to interpersonal violence were identified. Indigenous females over-represented non-Indigenous females (35.4% vs 5.0%, P < .001). The majority of victims had evidence of alcohol intake at presentation. Victims of single-punch head injuries were mostly male and non-Indigenous, whilst Indigenous persons experienced significantly more blunt and penetrating weapon injuries (66.7% and 68.1%). Forty-three per cent of patients had a preceding emergency department presentation for interpersonal violence; female gender, Indigenous ethnicity, evidence of alcohol intake, and urban location of injury were independent risk factors for prior interpersonal violence presentation. CONCLUSIONS: Interpersonal violence is a recurring disease for a just under half of those presenting to a Top End hospital with moderate to severe injuries. Indigenous ethnicity, female gender and evidence of alcohol intake are predictive of prior interpersonal violence presentations. Patient under-reporting and incomplete data may underestimate the true prevalence of interpersonal violence presentations in rural and remote locales.

High-fidelity mapping of repetition-related changes in the parietal memory network.

fMRI studies of human memory have identified a "parietal memory network" (PMN) that displays distinct responses to novel and familiar stimuli, typically deactivating during initial encoding but robustly activating during retrieval. The small size of PMN regions, combined with their proximity to the neighboring default mode network, makes a targeted assessment of their responses in highly sampled subjects important for understanding information processing within the network. Here, we describe an experiment in which participants made semantic decisions about repeatedly-presented stimuli, assessing PMN BOLD responses as items transitioned from experimentally novel to repeated. Data are from the highly-sampled subjects in the Midnight Scan Club dataset, enabling a characterization of BOLD responses at both the group and single-subject level. Across all analyses, PMN regions deactivated in response to novel stimuli and displayed changes in BOLD activity across presentations, but did not significantly activate to repeated items. Results support only a portion of initially hypothesized effects, in particular suggesting that novelty-related deactivations may be less susceptible to attentional/task manipulations than are repetition-related activations within the network. This in turn suggests that novelty and familiarity may be processed as separable entities within the PMN.

BOLD Activity During Correct-Answer Feedback in Cued Recall Predicts Subsequent Retrieval Performance: An fMRI Investigation Using a Partial Trial Design.

Receiving correct answer feedback following a retrieval attempt has proven to be a highly effective means of learning new information, yet the mechanisms behind its efficacy remain poorly understood. Here, fMRI was used to examine how BOLD activity measured during a period of feedback could predict subsequent memory (SM) performance on a final test. Twenty-five human subjects studied pairs of associated words, and were then asked to covertly recall target words in response to provided cues. Correct answer feedback was provided immediately after covert retrieval attempts. A partial trial design enabled separate modeling of activity related to retrieval and to feedback processing. During initial study, typical SM effects were observed across the whole brain. During feedback following a failed recall attempt, activity in only a subset of these regions predicted final test performance. These regions fell within the default mode network (DMN) and demonstrated negative SM effects, such that greater deactivation was associated with successful recall. No "task-positive" regions demonstrated SM effects in this contrast. The obtained results are consistent with a growing literature that associates DMN deactivation with successful learning in multiple task contexts, likely reflecting differences in the allocation of attentional resources during encoding.

Are There Multiple Kinds of Episodic Memory? An fMRI Investigation Comparing Autobiographical and Recognition Memory Tasks.

What brain regions underlie retrieval from episodic memory? The bulk of research addressing this question with fMRI has relied upon recognition memory for materials encoded within the laboratory. Another, less dominant tradition has used autobiographical methods, whereby people recall events from their lifetime, often after being cued with words or pictures. The current study addresses how the neural substrates of successful memory retrieval differed as a function of the targeted memory when the experimental parameters were held constant in the two conditions (except for instructions). Human participants studied a set of scenes and then took two types of memory test while undergoing fMRI scanning. In one condition (the picture memory test), participants reported for each scene (32 studied, 64 nonstudied) whether it was recollected from the prior study episode. In a second condition (the life memory test), participants reported for each scene (32 studied, 64 nonstudied) whether it reminded them of a specific event from their preexperimental lifetime. An examination of successful retrieval (yes responses) for recently studied scenes for the two test types revealed pronounced differences; that is, autobiographical retrieval instantiated with the life memory test preferentially activated the default mode network, whereas hits in the picture memory test preferentially engaged the parietal memory network as well as portions of the frontoparietal control network. When experimental cueing parameters are held constant, the neural underpinnings of successful memory retrieval differ when remembering life events and recently learned events.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Episodic memory is often discussed as a solitary construct. However, experimental traditions examining episodic memory use very different approaches, and these are rarely compared to one another. When the neural correlates associated with each approach have been directly contrasted, results have varied considerably and at times contradicted each other. The present experiment was designed to match the two primary approaches to studying episodic memory in an unparalleled manner. Results suggest a clear separation of systems supporting memory as it is typically tested in the laboratory and memory as assessed under autobiographical retrieval conditions. These data provide neurobiological evidence that episodic memory is not a single construct, challenging the degree to which different experimental traditions are studying the same construct.

Learning Efficiency: Identifying Individual Differences in Learning Rate and Retention in Healthy Adults.

People differ in how quickly they learn information and how long they remember it, yet individual differences in learning abilities within healthy adults have been relatively neglected. In two studies, we examined the relation between learning rate and subsequent retention using a new foreign-language paired-associates task (the learning-efficiency task), which was designed to eliminate ceiling effects that often accompany standardized tests of learning and memory in healthy adults. A key finding was that quicker learners were also more durable learners (i.e., exhibited better retention across a delay), despite studying the material for less time. Additionally, measures of learning and memory from this task were reliable in Study 1 ( N = 281) across 30 hr and Study 2 ( N = 92; follow-up n = 46) across 3 years. We conclude that people vary in how efficiently they learn, and we describe a reliable and valid method for assessing learning efficiency within healthy adults.

The Contextual Association Network Activates More for Remembered than for Imagined Events.

The human capacities to remember events from the past and imagine events in the future rely on highly overlapping neural substrates. Neuroimaging studies have revealed brain regions that are more active for imagined events than remembered events, but the reverse pattern has not been shown consistently. Given that remembered events tend to be associated with more contextual information ( Johnson et al. 1988), one might expect a set of regions to demonstrate greater activity for remembered events. Specifically, regions sensitive to the strength of contextual associations might be hypothesized to show greater activity for remembered events. The present experiment tests this hypothesis. fMRI was used to identify brain regions within the contextual association network ( Bar and Aminoff 2003); regions within this network were then examined to see whether they showed differential activity during remembering and imagining. Bilateral regions within the parahippocampal cortex and retrosplenial complex responded more strongly to remembered past events, supporting work that suggests these events have more contextual information associated with them. Follow-up voxel-wise analysis demonstrated the specificity of these results, as did re-analysis of previous experimental datasets. These results suggest that a key differentiating feature of remembering and imagining is the strength of contextual associations.

Default Mode Network Activity Predicts Early Memory Decline in Healthy Young Adults Aged 18-31.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research conducted in healthy young adults is typically done with the assumption that this sample is largely homogeneous. However, studies from cognitive psychology suggest that long-term memory and attentional control begin to diminish in the third decade of life. Here, 100 participants between the ages of 18 and 31 learned Lithuanian translations of English words in an individual differences study using fMRI. Long-term memory ability was operationalized for each participant by deriving a memory score from 3 convergent measures. Age of participant predicted memory score in this cohort. In addition, degree of deactivation during initial encoding in a set of regions occurring largely in the default mode network (DMN) predicted both age and memory score. The current study demonstrates that early memory decline may partially be accounted for by failure to modulate activity in the DMN.

Neural signatures of test-potentiated learning in parietal cortex.

Testing, or retrieval practice, is beneficial for long-term memory both directly, by enhancing performance on tested information, and indirectly, by facilitating learning from subsequent encounters with the information. Although a wealth of behavioral research has examined the "testing effect," neuroimaging has provided little insight regarding the potential mechanisms that underlie the benefits of retrieval practice. Here, fMRI was used to examine the effects of retrieval practice on later study trials. Human subjects studied pairs of associated words, which were then tested, restudied, or neither tested nor restudied. All pairs were then studied once more in expectation of a final test. We asked how this Final Study episode was affected by prior history (whether the pair had been previously tested, restudied, or neither). The data revealed striking similarities between responses in lateral parietal cortex in the present study and those in a host of studies explicitly tapping recognition memory processes. Moreover, activity in lateral parietal cortex during Final Study was correlated with a behavioral index of test-potentiated learning. We conclude that retrieval practice may enhance learning by promoting the recruitment of retrieval mechanisms during subsequent study opportunities.

Between-list lag effects in recall depend on retention interval.

Although the benefits of spaced retrieval for long-term retention are well established, the majority of this work has involved spacing over relatively short intervals (on the order of seconds or minutes). In the present experiments, we evaluated the effectiveness of spaced retrieval across relatively short intervals (within a single session), as compared to longer intervals (between sessions spaced a day apart), for long-term retention (i.e., one day or one week). Across a series of seven experiments, participants (N = 536) learned paired associates to a criterion of 70 % accuracy and then received one test-feedback trial for each item. The test-feedback trial occurred within 10 min of reaching criterion (short lag) or one day later (long lag). Then, a final test occurred one day (Exps. 1-3) or one week (Exps. 4 and 5) after the test-feedback trial. Across the different materials and methods in Experiments 1-3, we found little benefit for the long-lag relative to the short-lag schedule in final recall performance-that is, no lag effect-but large effects on the retention of information from the test-feedback to the final test phase. The results from the experiments with the one-week retention interval (Exps. 4 and 5) indicated a benefit of the long-lag schedule on final recall performance (a lag effect), as well as on retention. This research shows that even when the benefits of lag are eliminated at a (relatively long) one-day retention interval, the lag effect reemerges after a one-week retention interval. The results are interpreted within an extension of the bifurcation model to the spacing effect.

Central lines, aseptic batching services, and infection rates: A pharmacy-led initiative of intravenous tube priming within a NICU.

DISCLAIMER: In an effort to expedite the publication of articles, AJHP is posting manuscripts online as soon as possible after acceptance. Accepted manuscripts have been peer-reviewed and copyedited, but are posted online before technical formatting and author proofing. These manuscripts are not the final version of record and will be replaced with the final article (formatted per AJHP style and proofed by the authors) at a later time. PURPOSE: Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSIs) are hospital-acquired, serious complications that greatly affect many vulnerable neonates throughout their hospital stay. This article describes the implementation of a unique practice in which pharmacy primes continuous infusions through medication tubing for neonatal central lines in a cleanroom at Children's Hospital Colorado - Colorado Springs (CHCO-CSH). SUMMARY: This institution is a freestanding children's hospital with a level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) that opened in April 2019. Since then, the pharmacy department has been priming central line tubing for continuous infusions for all patients in the NICU. Neonates are at increased risk for developing CLABSIs due to their immature immune systems and frequent need for central line placement. With that in mind, the pharmacy department decided to focus efforts on this population. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians received training on how to properly prime tubing, document when a patient received a new central line, document if a central line was removed, and record when new tubing was due based on a department policy. CONCLUSION: This novel, pharmacy-led priming procedure resulted in a low CLABSI incidence, offering a promising strategy to reduce CLABSIs in a NICU.

Building a safety culture for infection prevention and control adherence at Howard Springs: A workplace survey.

BACKGROUND: Building a safety culture is essential to facilitate infection prevention and control (IPC) adherence in workplaces. We aimed to explore perceptions, barriers and facilitators to IPC procedures by the Australian Medical Assistance Team (AUSMAT) at Howard Springs International Quarantine Facility (HSIQF). METHODS: We performed a descriptive analysis of a cross-sectional survey administered to the AUSMAT employed at HSQIF from October 2020 to April 2021. We described motivation, training and compliance to IPC adherence and Likert scales described the level of agreement to the success of IPC procedures across the domains of communication, risk, trust, safety and environment, from the individual, team and organisational perspective. RESULTS: There were 101 participants (response rate 59%, 101/170) and 70% (71/101) were clinical. There was strong agreement to the success of IPC procedures, with a median 4 (agree) or 5 (strongly agree) across each domain and perspective of the 67 Likert items. Clinical staff reported slightly higher agreement than non-clinical staff across Likert items. To improve IPC compliance, most reported that daily training should be provided (77/97, 79%) and daily training was very or extremely effective (91/97, 93%). Participants were motivated by protecting self, friends, family and the community rather than workplace pressures. Barriers to IPC compliance were the ambient environment and fatigue. CONCLUSIONS: A safety culture was successfully built at HSQIF to optimise IPC adherence whilst managing multiple hazards including prevention of COVID-19 transmission. Strategies implemented by AUSMAT at the quarantine facility may inform the development of safety culture in other settings.

Massive hepatic trematodosis in 5 juvenile bald eagles.

Hepatic trematodosis by opisthorchiid flukes has been reported sporadically in North American fish-eating raptors. Bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) infected by these flukes often have various degrees of granulomatous cholangitis, pericholangitis, necrosis of adjacent hepatocytes, and subsequent hepatic fibrosis. Species identification has been complicated by the inability to dissect intact specimens from liver tissue. Between 2007 and 2018, 5 juvenile bald eagles with massive hepatic trematodosis were identified at autopsy. Histologically, flukes were non-spinous. Parasitologic identification revealed ventral suckers (80-93 µm diameter), and uteri containing golden, operculated eggs (~25.0 × 12.0 µm). An unfixed frozen liver sample of one eagle was analyzed by PCR and DNA sequencing targeting the large subunit rRNA, ITS region, and cox1 genes of the parasite. The fluke DNA sequences shared 99.6%, 98.4%, and 87.0% similarity, respectively, with Erschoviorchis anuiensis, a newly described opisthorchiid species infecting the liver and pancreas of fish-eating birds in Europe and Asia. Infection by E. anuiensis is highly pathogenic in several piscivorous bird species. The clinical significance of trematodosis in our 5 cases is uncertain because all birds had comorbidities.