A review of visual sustained attention: neural mechanisms and computational models
Sustained attention is one of the basic abilities of humans to maintain concentration on relevant information while ignoring irrelevant information over extended periods. The purpose of the review is to provide insight into how to integrate neural mechanisms of sustained attention with computational models to facilitate research and application. Although many studies have assessed attention, the evaluation of humans’ sustained attention is not sufficiently comprehensive. Hence, this study provides a current review on both neural mechanisms and computational models of visual sustained attention. We first review models, measurements, and neural mechanisms of sustained attention and propose plausible neural pathways for visual sustained attention. Next, we analyze and compare the different computational models of sustained attention that the previous reviews have not systematically summarized. We then provide computational models for automatically detecting vigilance states and evaluation of sustained attention. Finally, we outline possible future trends in the research field of sustained attention.
Huang et al. (2023) A review of visual sustained attention: neural mechanisms and computational models. PeerJ 11:e15351 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15351
Comparing quantile regression spline analyses and supervised machine learning for environmental quality assessment at coastal marine aquaculture installations
Organic enrichment associated with marine finfish aquaculture is a local stressor of marine coastal ecosystems. To maintain ecosystem services, the implementation of biomonitoring programs focusing on benthic diversity is required. Traditionally, impact-indices are determined by extracting and identifying benthic macroinvertebrates from samples. However, this is a time-consuming and expensive method with low upscaling potential. A more rapid, inexpensive, and robust method to infer the environmental quality of marine environments is eDNA metabarcoding of bacterial communities. To infer the environmental quality of coastal habitats from metabarcoding data, two taxonomy-free approaches have been successfully applied for different geographical regions and monitoring goals, namely quantile regression splines (QRS) and supervised machine learning (SML). However, their comparative performance remains untested for monitoring the impact of organic enrichment introduced by aquaculture on marine coastal environments. We compared the performance of QRS and SML using bacterial metabarcoding data to infer the environmental quality of 230 aquaculture samples collected from seven farms in Norway and seven farms in Scotland along an organic enrichment gradient. As a measure of environmental quality, we used the Infaunal Quality Index (IQI) calculated from benthic macrofauna data (reference index). The QRS analysis plotted the abundance of amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) as a function to the IQI from which the ASVs with a defined abundance peak were assigned to eco-groups and a molecular IQI was subsequently calculated. In contrast, the SML approach built a random forest model to directly predict the macrofauna-based IQI. Our results show that both QRS and SML perform well in inferring the environmental quality with 89% and 90% accuracy, respectively. For both geographic regions, there was high correspondence between the reference IQI and both the inferred molecular IQIs (p < 0.001), with the SML model showing a higher coefficient of determination compared to QRS. Among the 20 most important ASVs identified by the SML approach, 15 were congruent with the good quality spline ASV indicators identified via QRS for both Norwegian and Scottish salmon farms. More research on the response of the ASVs to organic enrichment and the co-influence of other environmental parameters is necessary to eventually select the most powerful stressor-specific indicators. Even though both approaches are promising to infer environmental quality based on metabarcoding data, SML showed to be more powerful in handling the natural variability. For the improvement of the SML model, addition of new samples is still required, as background noise introduced by high spatio-temporal variability can be reduced. Overall, we recommend the development of a powerful SML approach that will be onwards applied for monitoring the impact of aquaculture on marine ecosystems based on eDNA metabarcoding data.
Leontidou et al. (2023) Comparing quantile regression spline analyses and supervised machine learning for environmental quality assessment at coastal marine aquaculture installations. PeerJ 11:e15425 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15425
Collateral damage: has the COVID-19 pandemic more strongly impacted medical research than other scientific areas?
The principle of resource allocation states that diversion of resources to attend a function may compromise others. The COVID-19 pandemic required a rapid response with a justifiable relocation of equipment, funds and human resources. Based on the ecological principle of allocation, we tested whether the relocation of resources to support COVID-19 research was more detrimental to medical research than to research in other scientific areas. We compared the yearly number of published articles from 2015 to 2021 using disease-related keywords and non-medical scientific keywords. Contrary to the expectation, we found an abrupt reduction in the publication rates in all research areas from 2019 to 2020 or 2021, compared to the pre-pandemic period (2015–2019). The allocation effect on medical research may be overshadowed by stronger effects of the pandemic, or it may become evident in the coming years. The drastic reduction in published papers could have negative consequences for scientific advancements, including understanding and curing diseases other than COVID-19 that strongly affect humanity.
Farji-Brener et al. (2023) Collateral damage: has the COVID-19 pandemic more strongly impacted medical research than other scientific areas?. PeerJ 11:e15436 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15436
Impact of selected risk factors on motor performance in the third month of life and motor development in the ninth month
Background Proper motor development can be influenced by a range of risk factors. The resulting motor performance can be assessed through quantitative and qualitative analysis of posture and movement patterns. Methods This study was designed as the cohort follow-up of the motor assessment and aimed to demonstrate, in a mathematical way, the impact of particular risk factors on elements of motor performance in the 3rd month and the final motor performance in the 9th month of life. Four hundred nineteen children were assessed (236 male and 183 female), including 129 born preterm. Each child aged 3 month underwent a physiotherapeutic assessment of the quantitative and qualitative development, in the prone and supine positions. The neurologist examined each child aged 9 month, referring to the Denver Development Screening Test II and assessing reflexes, muscle tone and symmetry. The following risk factors were analyzed after the neurological consultation: condition at birth (5th min Apgar score), week of gestation at birth, intraventricular hemorrhage, respiratory distress syndrome, and the incidence of intrauterine hypotrophy and hyperbilirubinemia determined based on medical records. Results A combination of several risk factors affected motor development stronger than any one of them solely, with Apgar score, hyperbilirubinemia, and intraventricular hemorrhage exhibiting the most significant impact. Conclusions Premature birth on its own did not cause a substantial delay in motor development. Nonetheless, its co-occurrence with other risk factors, namely intraventricular hemorrhage, respiratory distress syndrome, and hyperbilirubinemia, notably worsened motor development prognosis. Moreover, improper position of the vertebral column, scapulae, shoulders, and pelvis in the third month of life may predict disturbances in further motor development.
Gajewska et al. (2023) Impact of selected risk factors on motor performance in the third month of life and motor development in the ninth month. PeerJ 11:e15460 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15460
The link between lymphocyte subpopulations in peripheral blood and metabolic variables in patients with severe obesity
Background Obesity, a public health problem, is a state of metainflammation that influences the development of chronic degenerative diseases, particularly in patients with severe obesity. Objective The objective of this study was to evidence immunometabolic differences in patients with different degrees of obesity, including severe obesity, by determining correlations between lymphocyte subpopulations and metabolic, body composition, and clinical variables. Methods Peripheral blood immune cells (CD4+, CD8+ memory and effector T lymphocytes) were analyzed, and measures of body composition, blood pressure, and biochemical composition (glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), insulin, C-reactive protein (CRP), and the lipid profile) were carried out in patients with different degrees of obesity. Results The patients were classified according to total body fat (TBF) percentage as normal body fat, class 1 and 2 obesity, class 3 obesity, and class 4 obesity. The greater the TBF percentage, the more pronounced the differences in body composition (such as a decrease in the fat-free mass (FFM) that is defined as sarcopenic obesity) and the immunometabolic profile. There was an increase of CD3+ T lymphocytes (mainly CD4+, CD4+CD62-, and CD8+CD45RO+ T lymphocytes) and an increase in the TBF percentage (severity of obesity). Conclusions The correlations between lymphocyte subpopulations and metabolic, body composition, and clinical variables demonstrated the existence of a chronic, low-intensity inflammatory process in obesity. Therefore, measuring the immunometabolic profile by means of lymphocyte subpopulations in patients with severe obesity could be useful to determine the severity of the disease and the increased risk of presenting obesity-associated chronic degenerative diseases.
Rivera-Carranza et al. (2023) The link between lymphocyte subpopulations in peripheral blood and metabolic variables in patients with severe obesity. PeerJ 11:e15465 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15465
Findings of new phytoplankton species in the Barents Sea as a consequence of global climate changes
Over the past few decades, the Earth’s climate has been characterized by a stable increase in temperature, which in many regions leads to a change in the composition of flora and fauna. A striking manifestation of this process is the appearance in ecological communities of new, uncharacteristic for them, species of animals and plants. One of the most productive and at the same time the most vulnerable in this respect are the marine ecosystems of the Arctic. This article is devoted to the analysis of findings of vagrant phytoplankton species in the Barents Sea, a body of water experiencing especially rapid warming due to an increase in the volume and temperature of incoming Atlantic water. For the first time, fundamental questions are considered: how widely these species are distributed over the Barents Sea area, and in what seasons do they reach high levels of abundance. The material for the present work was planktonic collections made during expedition surveys of 2007–2019 in different seasons throughout the Barents Sea. The water samples were taken using a rosette Niskin bottle sampler. The plankton net with a 29 µm mesh size was applied for filtering. The obtained material was processed according to standard hydrobiological methods and followed by subsequent microscopy for taxonomic identification of organisms and cell counting. The results of our observations show that vagrant microplankton species do not create a stable population that persists throughout the annual development cycle. Their major presence is noted in the autumn-winter period, the smallest in the summer. The distribution of invaders is strictly tied to warm jets of currents, while the weakening of the inflow of Atlantic water masses deep into the Barents Sea from the west is a limiting factor for their penetration into its eastern part. The southwestern and western parts of the basin are characterized by the most significant number of floristic finds; from here, towards the north and east, their number decreases. It can be concluded that at present the proportion of vagrant species in the Barents Sea, both in species diversity and in the total biomass of the algocenosis, is insignificant. They do not change the structure of the community as a whole, and their presence does not have any negative impact on the ecosystem of the Barents Sea pelagic. However, at this stage of research, it is too early to predict the environmental consequences of the phenomenon under study. Given the growing number of recorded cases of finds of species uncharacteristic for the Arctic, there is a possibility that this process may disrupt the biological stability of the ecosystem and even lead to its destabilization.
Makarevich et al. (2023) Findings of new phytoplankton species in the Barents Sea as a consequence of global climate changes. PeerJ 11:e15472 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15472
Unveiling sex-based differences in developing propionic acid-induced features in mice as a rodent model of ASD
Background Males are more likely to develop autism as a neurodevelopmental disorder than females are, although the mechanisms underlying male vulnerability are not fully understood. Therefore, studying the role of autism etiologies considering sex differences in the propionic acid (PPA) rodent model of autism would build greater understanding of how females are protected from autism spectrum disorder, which may be used as a treatment strategy for males with autism. Objectives This study aimed to investigate the sex differences in oxidative stress, glutamate excitotoxicity, neuroinflammation, and gut microbiota impairment as etiological mechanisms for many neurological diseases, with specific reference to autism. Method Forty albino mice were divided into four groups of 10 animals each with two control and two treated groups of both sexes received only phosphate-buffered saline or a neurotoxic dose of PPA (250 mg/kg body weight) for 3 days, respectively. Biochemical markers of energy metabolism, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and excitotoxicity were measured in mouse brain homogenates, whereas the presence of pathogenic bacteria was assessed in mouse stool samples. Furthermore, the repetitive behavior, cognitive ability, and physical-neural coordination of the animals were examined. Results Collectively, selected variables related to oxidative stress, glutamate excitotoxicity, neuroinflammation, and gut bacteria were impaired concomitantly with altered behavior in PPA-induced rodent model, with males being more susceptible than females. Conclusion This study explains the role of sex in the higher vulnerability of males to develop autistic biochemical and behavioral features compared with females. Female sex hormones and the higher detoxification capacity and higher glycolytic flux in females serve as neuroprotective contributors in a rodent model of autism.
Kamalmaz et al. (2023) Unveiling sex-based differences in developing propionic acid-induced features in mice as a rodent model of ASD. PeerJ 11:e15488 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15488
Effects of sports intervention on aggression in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Objective To explore the impact of sports on aggression in children and adolescents and analyze whether different conditions in the intervention, such as type of sports, or intervention duration, have different influences on the effect of interventions. Method The study protocol was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022361024). We performed a systematic search of Pubmed, Web of Science, Cochrane library, Embase and Scopus databases from database inception to 12 October 2022 for all studies written in English. Studies were included if they met the following PICO criteria. All analyses were carried out using the Review Manager 5.3 Software. We summarized aggression, hostility and anger scores using SMDs. Summary estimates with 95% confidence intervals were pooled using DerSimonian-Laird random effects model or fixed effects model according to between-study heterogeneity. Results A total of 15 studies were deemed eligible for inclusion in this review. The overall mean effect size indicated that sport interventions was associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.37, 95% CI [−0.69 to −0.06], P = 0.020; I2 = 88%). Subgroup analyses showed that non-contact sports were associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.65, 95% CI [−1.17 to −0.13], P = 0.020; I2 = 92%) but high-contact sports were not (SMD = −0.15, 95% CI [−0.55 to 0.25], P = 0.470; I2 = 79%). In addition, when intervention duration <6 months, sport interventions was associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.99, 95% CI [−1.73 to −0.26], P = 0.008; I2 = 90%) and when intervention duration ≥ 6 months, sport interventions was not associated with lower aggression (SMD = −0.08, 95% CI [−0.44 to −0.28], P = 0.660; I2 = 87%). Conclusion This review confirmed that sports intervention can reduce the aggression of children and adolescents. We suggested that schools can organize young people to participate in low-level, non-contact sports to reduce the occurrence of bullying, violence and other aggression-related adverse events. Additional studies are needed to determine which other variables are associated with aggression in children and adolescents, in order to develop a more detailed and comprehensive intervention programme to reduce their aggression.
Yang et al. (2023) Effects of sports intervention on aggression in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis. PeerJ 11:e15504 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15504
The behavior of sympatric sea urchin species across an ecosystem state gradient
Background In temperate macroalgal forests, sea urchins are considered as a keystone species due to their grazing ability. Given their potential to shape benthic communities, we monitored the habitat use by three sympatric sea urchin species and compared their behaviors in a vegetated habitat (VH) and an adjacent isoyake habitat (IH). Methods We monitored the environmental conditions and sea urchin density along deep and shallow transects of the VH and IH for over a year. The benthic rugosity at both sites were also surveyed. A mark-recapture experiment was conducted on the two most abundant sea urchins, Diadema setosum and Heliocidaris crassispina, to elucidate sea urchin movement patterns and group dynamics. Results We found that exposure to waves was highest at the VH while the IH was sheltered. The deep IH experienced the least amount of light due to high turbidity. Water temperature patterns were similar across sites. The VH benthic topography was more rugose compared to the smoother and silt-covered IH substate. Peak macroalgal bloom occurred three months earlier in IH, but macroalgae persisted longer at the shallow VH. Among the sympatric sea urchins, H. crassispina was most abundant at the shallow VH and was observed in pits and crevices. The most abundant across IH and in the deep VH was D. setosum, preferring either crevices or free-living, depending on hydrodynamic conditions. The least abundant species was D. savignyi, and most often observed in crevices. Small and medium sea urchins were most often observed at the IH site, whereas larger sea urchins were more likely observed at the VH. The mark-recapture study showed that D. setosum was found to displace further at the IH, and H. crassispina was more sedentary. Additionally, D. setosum was always observed in groups, whereas H. crassispina was always solitary. Discussion The behaviors of sympatric urchins, Diadema savignyi, D. setosum and H. crassispina, differed in response to changes in the benthic environment and physical conditions. Sea urchin displacement increased when rugosity and wave action were low. Habitat preference shifted to crevices in seasons with high wave action. In general, the mark-recapture experiment showed that sea urchins displaced further at night.
Belleza et al. (2023) The behavior of sympatric sea urchin species across an ecosystem state gradient. PeerJ 11:e15511 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15511
Retrospective study of transcriptomic profiling identifies Thai triple-negative breast cancer patients who may benefit from immune checkpoint and PARP inhibitors
Background Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a rare and aggressive breast cancer subtype. Unlike the estrogen receptor-positive subtype, whose recurrence risk can be predicted by gene expression-based signature, TNBC is more heterogeneous, with diverse drug sensitivity levels to standard regimens. This study explored the benefit of gene expression-based profiling for classifying the molecular subtypes of Thai TNBC patients. Methods The nCounter-based Breast 360 gene expression was used to classify Thai TNBC retrospective cohort subgroups. Their expression profiles were then compared against the previously established TNBC classification system. The differential characteristics of the tumor microenvironment and DNA damage repair signatures across subgroups were also explored. Results Thai TNBC cohort could be classified into four main subgroups, corresponding to the LAR, BL-2, and M subtypes based on Lehmann’s TNBC classification. The PAM50 gene set classified most samples as basal-like subtypes except for Group 1. Group 1 exhibited similar enrichment of the metabolic and hormone response pathways to the LAR subtype. Group 2 shared pathway activation with the BL-2 subtype. Group 3 showed an increase in the EMT pathway, similar to the M subtype. Group 4 showed no correlation with Lehmann’s TNBC. The tumor microenvironment (TME) analysis showed high TME cell abundance with increased expression of immune blockade genes in Group 2. Group 4 exhibited low TME cell abundance and reduced immune blockade gene expressions. We also observed distinct signatures of the DNA double-strand break repair genes in Group 1. Conclusions Our study reported unique characteristics between the four TNBC subgroups and showed the potential use of immune checkpoint and PARP inhibitors in subsets of Thai TNBC patients. Our findings warrant further clinical investigation to validate TNBC’s sensitivity to these regimens.
Suntiparpluacha et al. (2023) Retrospective study of transcriptomic profiling identifies Thai triple-negative breast cancer patients who may benefit from immune checkpoint and PARP inhibitors. PeerJ 11:e15350 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.15350