Galaninergic and hypercapnia-activated neuronal projections to the ventral respiratory column.

In mammals, the ventral respiratory column (VRC) plays a pivotal role in integrating neurochemically diverse inputs from brainstem and forebrain regions to generate respiratory motor patterns. VRC microinjection of the neuropeptide galanin has been reported to dampen carbon dioxide (CO2)-mediated chemoreflex responses. Additionally, we previously demonstrated that galaninergic neurons in the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN) are implicated in the adaptive response to hypercapnic stimuli, suggesting a link between RTN neuroplasticity and increased neuronal drive to the VRC. VRC neurons express galanin receptor 1, suggesting potential regulatory action by galanin, however, the precise galaninergic chemoreceptor-VRC circuitry remains to be determined. This study aimed to identify sources of galaninergic input to the VRC that contribute to central respiratory chemoreception. We employed a combination of retrograde neuronal tracing, in situ hybridisation and immunohistochemistry to investigate VRC-projecting neurons that synthesise galanin mRNA. In an additional series of experiments, we used acute hypercapnia exposure (10% CO2, 1 h) and c-Fos immunohistochemistry to ascertain which galaninergic nuclei projecting to the VRC are activated. Our findings reveal that a total of 30 brain nuclei and 51 subnuclei project to the VRC, with 12 of these containing galaninergic neurons, including the RTN. Among these galaninergic populations, only a subset of the RTN neurons (approximately 55%) exhibited activation in response to acute hypercapnia. Our findings highlight that the RTN is the likely source of galaninergic transmission to the VRC in response to hypercapnic stimuli.

Psychiatric emergencies among urban youth during COVID-19: Volume and acuity in a multi-channel program for the publicly insured.

This study sought to characterize changes in the utilization of psychiatric emergency services among children and adolescents during distinct phases of 2020, as compared with prior years. We conducted a retrospective review of electronic health records from January 2018 through December 2020 that included all encounters made by patients under age 21. We then analyzed data for the 15,045 youth psychiatric encounters during the study period. Encounter volume in 2020 was significantly lower than prior years in March through May (IRR, 0.44; 95% CI, 0.40-0.49), May through July (IRR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.56-0.71), and October through December (IRR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.70-0.83). Encounters for youth with primary psychotic disorders remained at typical levels throughout 2020. Among older adolescents and youth with anxiety disorders, pervasive developmental disorders, and substance use disorders, encounter volume was significantly lower than prior years only during the initial lockdown period. There were significantly more encounters than normal conducted by mobile crisis units, including via telehealth, in July through October (IRR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.06-1.62) and October through December (IRR, 1.28; 95% CI, 1.05-1.55) of 2020. Differences in patterns of encounter volume based on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics highlight subgroups of youth who may have been particularly vulnerable to acute mental health problems during periods of social distancing and isolation. Proactive efforts to engage vulnerable youth in outpatient treatment during periods of increased infectivity may help prevent increasing symptoms from reaching the point of crisis.

Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Token Economy Practices in K-5 Educational Settings, 2000 to 2019.

Token economy systems have been widely used as an evidence-based classroom management strategy to reinforce and improve prosocial responses. While token economies have been widely applied to educational settings, there have been mixed results regarding the effectiveness depending on the classroom type. To better understand the components contributing to the effectiveness, the researchers analyzed 24 token economy studies conducted in general and special education classrooms from kindergarten to fifth grade between 2000 and 2019. Eight token economy components and effect sizes were identified for each study and compared across different classroom types. The results showed that the token economy intervention yielded large effect sizes for both general and special education classroom types. There were differences in the usage of token components including backup reinforcer types, token production rate, and exchange production rate based on classroom types. Implications for future research and practice for educators and clinicians are discussed.

Prospective F-18 FDOPA PET Imaging Study in Human PD.

Purpose: We present the findings of our final prospective study submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for New Drug Application (NDA) approval for the use of 3,4-dihydroxy-6-[18F]fluoro-l-phenylalanine (F-18 FDOPA) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging for Parkinson's disease (PD). The primary aim was to determine the sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of F-18 FDOPA PET in parkinsonian patients with respect to clinical standard-of-truth (SOT). Secondary outcomes included the inter-rater reliability, and correlation of quantitative measures for PET with dopaminergic status. Methods: In 68 parkinsonian subjects, F-18 FDOPA PET scan from 80 to 100 min was acquired following a CT scan. Scan images were presented to one expert in F-18 FDOPA image interpretation and two physicians with prior experience in I-123 FPCIT single-photon emission computed tomography image interpretation. Fifty-six subjects completed the study with a follow-up for SOT determination. Image readers were blind to the clinical/quantitative data; SOT clinician was blind to the image data. Results: For 47 of the 56 patients, SOT was in agreement with the PET scan results. For nine patients, SOT suggested dopaminergic deficit, whereas the imaging showed normal uptake. The specificity and positive predictive values are 91% and 92%, respectively, suggesting high probability that those who test positive by the PET scan truly have dopaminergic degeneration. The sensitivity was 73%. Inter-rater agreement was 0.6-0.8 between the different readers. Conclusion: Our prospective study demonstrates high specificity and moderate sensitivity of F-18 FDOPA PET for PD. We received NDA approval in October 2019. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13139-022-00748-4.

K-EmoCon, a multimodal sensor dataset for continuous emotion recognition in naturalistic conversations.

Recognizing emotions during social interactions has many potential applications with the popularization of low-cost mobile sensors, but a challenge remains with the lack of naturalistic affective interaction data. Most existing emotion datasets do not support studying idiosyncratic emotions arising in the wild as they were collected in constrained environments. Therefore, studying emotions in the context of social interactions requires a novel dataset, and K-EmoCon is such a multimodal dataset with comprehensive annotations of continuous emotions during naturalistic conversations. The dataset contains multimodal measurements, including audiovisual recordings, EEG, and peripheral physiological signals, acquired with off-the-shelf devices from 16 sessions of approximately 10-minute long paired debates on a social issue. Distinct from previous datasets, it includes emotion annotations from all three available perspectives: self, debate partner, and external observers. Raters annotated emotional displays at intervals of every 5 seconds while viewing the debate footage, in terms of arousal-valence and 18 additional categorical emotions. The resulting K-EmoCon is the first publicly available emotion dataset accommodating the multiperspective assessment of emotions during social interactions.

Hemispheric Network Expression in Parkinson's Disease: Relationship to Dopaminergic Asymmetries.

BACKGROUND: Parkinson's disease (PD) is characterized by brain metabolic networks, specifically associated with motor and cognitive manifestations. Few studies have investigated network changes in cerebral hemispheres ipsilateral and contralateral to the clinically more affected body side. OBJECTIVE: We examined hemispheric network abnormalities and their relationship to striatal dopaminergic deficits in PD patients at different stages. METHODS: 45 PD patients underwent dual-tracer positron emission tomography (PET) with 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) and 18F-fluorodopa (FDOPA) in a high-resolution PET scanner. In all patients, we computed expression levels for the PD-related motor/cognition metabolic patterns (PDRP/PDCP) as well as putamen/caudate FDOPA uptake values in both hemispheres. Resulting hemispheric measures in the PD group were compared with corresponding healthy control values and assessed across disease stages. RESULTS: Hemispheric PDRP and PDCP expression was significantly elevated contralateral and ipsilateral to the more affected body side in patients with unilateral symptoms (H&Y 1: p < 0.01) and in patients with bilateral limb involvement (H&Y 2-3: p < 0.001; H&Y 4: p < 0.003). Elevations in pattern expression were symmetrical at all disease stages. By contrast, FDOPA uptake in the caudate and putamen was reduced bilaterally (p < 0.002), with lower values on both sides at more advanced disease stages. Hemispheric uptake was asymmetrical in both striatal regions, with lower contralateral values at all disease stages. The magnitude of hemispheric uptake asymmetry was smaller with more advanced disease, reflecting greater change ipsilaterally. CONCLUSION: Symmetrical network expression in PD represents bilateral functional effects unrelated to nigrostriatal dopaminergic asymmetries.

Understanding Editing Behaviors in Multilingual Wikipedia.

Multilingualism is common offline, but we have a more limited understanding of the ways multilingualism is displayed online and the roles that multilinguals play in the spread of content between speakers of different languages. We take a computational approach to studying multilingualism using one of the largest user-generated content platforms, Wikipedia. We study multilingualism by collecting and analyzing a large dataset of the content written by multilingual editors of the English, German, and Spanish editions of Wikipedia. This dataset contains over two million paragraphs edited by over 15,000 multilingual users from July 8 to August 9, 2013. We analyze these multilingual editors in terms of their engagement, interests, and language proficiency in their primary and non-primary (secondary) languages and find that the English edition of Wikipedia displays different dynamics from the Spanish and German editions. Users primarily editing the Spanish and German editions make more complex edits than users who edit these editions as a second language. In contrast, users editing the English edition as a second language make edits that are just as complex as the edits by users who primarily edit the English edition. In this way, English serves a special role bringing together content written by multilinguals from many language editions. Nonetheless, language remains a formidable hurdle to the spread of content: we find evidence for a complexity barrier whereby editors are less likely to edit complex content in a second language. In addition, we find that multilinguals are less engaged and show lower levels of language proficiency in their second languages. We also examine the topical interests of multilingual editors and find that there is no significant difference between primary and non-primary editors in each language.