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OBJECTIVE: International guidelines recommend early screening for identification of patients who are at risk of long-term cognitive impairments after cardiac arrest. However, information about predictors is not provided. A systematic review of the literature was performed to identify early predictors of long-term cognitive outcome after cardiac arrest. METHODS: Scopus and PubMed were systematically searched to identify studies on early predictors of long-term cognitive outcome in patients after cardiac arrest. The population included adult cardiac arrest survivors and potential early predictors were demographics, early cognitive screening scores, imaging measures, electroencephalographic measures, and levels of blood biomarkers. Two investigators reviewed studies for relevance, extracted data and assessed risk of bias. RESULTS: Five articles were included. Risk of bias was assessed as low or moderate. Most detected longterm cognitive impairments were in the domain of memory. Coma duration (2 studies), early cognitive impairments by the self-developed clinical Bedside Neuropsychological Test Battery (BNTB) screener (2 studies), and high S-100B levels on day 3 (2 studies) were the most prominent identified determinants of cognitive impairment on the group level. On the individual patient level, a score on the BNTB of ≤ 94.5 predicted cognitive impairments at 6 months after cardiac arrest (1 study without external validation). Studies on brain imaging and electroencephalography are lacking. CONCLUSION: Early bedside cognitive screening can contribute to prediction of long-term cognitive impairment after cardiac arrest. Evidence is scarce for S-100B levels and coma duration and absent for measures derived from brain imaging and electroencephalography.

BACKGROUND: Current first-line treatment for social anxiety disorder (SAD), one of the most prevalent anxiety disorders, is limited in its efficacy. Hence, novel treatment approaches are urgently needed. The current review suggests a combination of meditation-based interventions and the administration of a psychedelic as a future alternative treatment approach. While both separate treatments show promise in the treatment of (other) clinical conditions, their combination has not yet been investigated in the treatment of psychopathologies. AIM: With a systematic literature review, we aim to identify the potential mechanisms by which combined psilocybin and mindfulness treatment could adjust anomalous neural activity underlying SAD and exert therapeutic effects. RESULTS: Thirty experimental studies investigating the neural effects of meditation or psilocybin treatment in healthy and patient samples were included. Findings suggest that psilocybin-assisted meditation interventions might change cognitive processes like biased attention to threat linked to SAD by modulating connectivity of the salience network, balancing the activity and connectivity of cortical-midline structures, and increasing frontoparietal control over amygdala reactivity. CONCLUSIONS: Future studies should investigate whether psilocybin-assisted mindfulness-based intervention can provide therapeutic benefits to SAD patients who are do not remit following conventional therapy.

The bioavailability of methylmercury (MeHg) in the brains of orange spotted groupers, captured from four creeks of Mahshahr embayment was measured. Then the effects of this pollutant on the regulation of gene expression, acetylcholinesterase transcript levels was chosen in order to monitor the amounts of methylmercury concentrations in the creeks, and the fluctuations of mRNA expressions in the brain and their effect on fish health. Fishes were collected from Zangi, Ghanam, Marymous and Petrochemical Creeks, and their brains were removed by dissection. In parallel with these experiments some fishes were exposed to methylmerucry chloride in the Fisheries center and the amount of their gene expression was assessed via Real-Time PCR method. The lethal concentration of methylmerucry causing the mortality of half of the fish population after 96 hr (LC50-96) was assessed and gene expression of sub-lethal concentration (more and less than 10% of LC50-96) were analyzed. Gene expression studies revealed that the most polluted creek was the Petrochemical Creek, and the least polluted one was Marymous Creek. This regulation was assessed by the effect of MeHg on the gene expression, meaning the more gene expression, the less polluted and vice versa. From this study we concluded that acetylcholinesterase gene expression can serve as a biomarker of the effect of methylmercury, which can provide a good estimation of the amount of methylmercuric availability in the brain of Epinephelus coioides and its effect on the brain neurotransmission pathway. Published

The data collection consists of behavioural measures of performance in laboratory studies in which adults learn to read in novel languages printed in artificial scripts. These studies vary the nature of instruction and the nature of the artificial writing systems. The behavioural measures include learning performance throughout a multiday training period on a variety of training tasks, performance at the end of training on a variety of test tasks, and baseline measures of language and literacy ability. Performance is expressed in both accuracy and reaction time. Text files include full documentation of the archive and methodology. Reading is one of the most remarkable of our cognitive abilities. In a short space of time, most children go from painstakingly sounding out the individual symbols that make up words, to the rapid and seemingly automatic access to meaning from these symbols that skilled readers experience. Literacy has a profound impact on individuals, society, and the economy: amongst other things, it decreases dependency on state benefits and improves participation in the democratic process. Yet, unlike many other of our fundamental capacities (e.g. walking, talking), explicit instruction and practice are necessary in learning to read. To comprehend text, young children learning alphabetic languages start by translating printed words into their spoken forms, and then they use their knowledge of spoken language to recover meaning. This print-to-sound-to-meaning mapping is often referred to as a sub-word process because words are broken down into letters that systematically correspond to sounds before meaning is accessed. Recent advances in the teaching of reading have shown that phonics instruction helps children to develop these sub-word reading skills. Most children then progress to using a more efficient whole-word process whereby meaning is accessed directly from print. However, we know that around 20% of 15-year-old children in the European Union fail to make this transition, and thus find it difficult to use reading to learn. To date it has proven difficult to investigate which factors influence the development of sub-word (print-to-sound-to-meaning) and whole-word (print-to-meaning) reading strategies. This is partly because it is often difficult to diagnose which strategies people are using when they read, and partly because it is very challenging experimentally to vary aspects of a child's learning environment without introducing scientific confounds or ethical issues. To overcome these challenges we have developed a laboratory model of reading acquisition in which we study the processes by which adults learn to read new words written in unfamiliar symbols (i.e. an artificial orthography). This method enables us to manipulate exactly what is learned and how it is learned with perfect experimental control, and to observe changes in performance at regular time points using techniques at the leading edge of cognitive neuroscience. For these reasons, we believe that this new approach can contribute to our understanding of the factors that contribute to reading acquisition. We will conduct three experiments in which adults learn to read artificial orthographies intensely over a period of two weeks. In Experiment 1, we will compare learning to read words written in an alphabetic script in which there is a systematic relationship between individual symbols and sounds with learning to read words written in a logographic script in which there is no systematic relationship between individual symbols and sounds. In Experiment 2, adults will learn to read words written in alphabetic scripts, but for one set of words they will concentrate on learning to read them aloud, whereas for another set of words they will concentrate on learning their meanings. In Experiment 3, we will examine the effect of spelling-to-sound irregularity on these learning processes. Before, early, and at the end of training, we will use behavioural and brain imaging techniques to diagnose the extent to which learners engage sub-word versus whole-word processes to accomplish the reading tasks. Our results will provide vital knowledge about how a person's language skills, the writing system they are learning, and the way they are taught affect the development of sub-word and whole-word reading pathways. Thus, we anticipate that our findings will be of benefit in the middle to longer term in helping researchers to design evidence-based reading interventions and in informing literacy education and policy more generally. The data in this collection consist of laboratory studies investigating adults' performance in learning to read novel vocabularies printed in artificial scripts. Participants were monolingual adults between the ages of 18 and 40 who were native English speakers. They were sampled from the student and staff community at Royal Holloway University of London, and had no known language or reading disorders. The sample was further characterised by a series of language and literacy measures. These included standard measures of reading, spelling, vocabulary, morpheme sensitivity, and phonological processing. Novel vocabularies printed in artificial scripts were created. Participants learned to read these scripts through a series of tightly controlled training tasks, presented every day for a period of between two and three weeks. The nature of the training method was varied across experiments, as was the nature of the writing system being learned. Learning rates were monitored, and participants engaged in a series of behavioural and associated MRI tests at the end of training.

Funder: Dr Luo was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2019YFA0709502), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 81873909), the Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology (20ZR1404900), the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (grant 2018SHZDZX01 and grant 2021SHZDZX0103). Funder: Professor Sahakian’s research is conducted within the NIHR MedTech and In vitro diagnostic Co-operative (MIC) and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Mental Health and Neurodegeneration Themes.

Cerebellar hemorrhage (CBH) represents the most commonly acquired lesion of the posterior fossa in the neonatal period. We aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies exploring the perinatal risk factors and neurological outcome of CBH in preterm infants. A comprehensive literature search was conducted using PubMed/MEDLINE and EMBASE. Studies were included if they examined preterm infants and reported primary data on maternal, obstetric, or perinatal characteristics, and/or outcomes of infants with and without CBH. A random-effects model was used to calculate mean differences (MD), odds ratios (OR), and 95% confidence intervals (CI). We found 231 potentially relevant studies, of which 15 met the inclusion criteria (4,236 infants, 347 CBH cases). Meta-analysis could not demonstrate a significant association between CBH and multiple gestation, chorioamnionitis, pre-eclampsia, placental abruption, use of antenatal corticosteroids, mode of delivery, or infant sex. Infants with CBH had a significantly lower gestational age (6 studies, MD -1.55 weeks, 95% CI -1.93 to -1.16) and birth weight (6 studies, MD -173g, 95% CI -225 to -120), and significantly higher rates of intubation at birth, hypotension, patent ductus arteriosus, intraventricular hemorrhage, sepsis, necrotizing enterocolitis, and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. CBH was significantly associated with delayed mental (6 studies, OR 2.95, 95% CI 1.21 to 7.20) and psychomotor (6 studies, OR 3.62, 95% CI 1.34 to 9.76) development, and higher rates of cerebral palsy (4 studies, OR 3.09, 95% CI 1.55 to 6.19). In conclusion, the present meta-analysis shows that the youngest and sickest preterm infants are at higher risk of developing CBH. Our results highlight the multifactorial nature of CBH and reinforce the idea that cerebellar injury in very preterm newborns has important neurodevelopmental consequences among survivors.

Despite many difficulties, the field of cardiac diffusion imaging is slowly but steadily making progress. In recent years it was demonstrated that reproducible measurement of diffusion parameters and fiber architecture in healthy and diseased hearts is possible. In this review we will discuss the basics of diffusion imaging as well as various reconstruction and analysis models. Furthermore, we cover the main challenges and proposed solutions that come with in vivo cardiac diffusion imaging. In vivo and ex vivo diffusion imaging of the heart has shown that the technique has great potential to better understand cardiac function, characterize cardiac pathology, and understand myofiber remodeling in response to injury or disease.

Schizophrenia is widely regarded to be a neurocognitive disorder, i.e. a dysfunction of the neural and cognitive systems subserving thinking and reasoning, memory, language, attention and perception. However, although cognitive dysfunction is certainly a cardinal feature of schizophrenia, we argue that dysfunction of emotional brain systems may be even more important in understanding the disorder. Indeed. in recent years research on the emotional aspects of schizophrenia is accumulating at a high rate. Here, we review the available evidence regarding behavioral and neural manifestations of abnormal emotional systems in schizophrenia. This evidence comes from patient studies using tasks of emotion recognition, emotional expression and emotional experience. Furthermore, studies of schizophrenia patients using structural MRI have demonstrated volume reductions of the amygdala, a key structure of the emotional brain. Finally, functional fMRI studies have revealed an attenuated response of the amygdala to emotional stimuli as compared to neutral stimuli. Beyond demonstrating that dysfunction of the emotional brain is a hallmark of schizophrenia, we propose a model that integrates previous neural accounts of emotional abnormalities in schizophrenia, and specifies a neural basis for differential emotional correlates of positive and negative symptoms. Specifically, a lesion to the amygdala in combination with reduced interconnectivity with the prefrontal cortex is hypothesized to give rise to reduced emotional expression (affective flattening) and emotion recognition deficits. In contrast, an imbalance in dopamine systems may underlie increased anxiety and autonomic arousal, and the assignment of emotional salience to insignificant stimuli, associated with psychosis. We also hypothesize that the central and basolateral nuclei of the amygdala may contribute differentially to these abnormalities. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.