How retirement impacts social support and wellbeing

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY SYDNEY

 

IMAGE: HIGH LEVELS OF SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS ARE LINKED WITH BETTER HEALTH AND WELLBEING. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE BY WOLFGANG ECKERT FROM PIXABAY

Australian couples moving into retirement tend to maintain their social networks, and many see an improvement in their mental health and wellbeing, new research shows.

High levels of social connectedness are linked with better health and wellbeing, so this is good news for those with strong social ties. However, for those with low levels of support it suggests that policies and programs to increase support in retirement could improve wellbeing.

The World Health Organisation says social isolation and loneliness have a serious impact on older people’s physical and mental health, quality of life and longevity, comparable to other well-established risk factors such as smoking, obesity and physical inactivity.

“For some people social support might decrease when they retire, as they lose work connections or move home, while for others retirement brings more opportunities to strengthen ties or make new friends,” says co-author UTS economist Dr Nathan Kettlewell. 

“We were interested to understand not only whether retirement brought changes to your own level of social support, mental health and wellbeing, but also whether your spouse’s retirement had an impact,” he says.

Using data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey from 2001-2018, the researchers looked at 1600 partnered individuals who transitioned to retirement.

“We measured social support using survey questions that asked people about whether they have someone they feel they can talk to, or confide in, how many friends or visitors they have, and whether they often feel lonely,” says co-author Dr Jack Lam from the University of Queensland.

“Understanding how retirement impacts social support and wellbeing is important not only for those on the cusp of retirement, but also for government, not-for-profit and community organisations providing mental health and social support services,” he says.

To better understand the cause and effect relationship between retirement and wellbeing, the researchers focused on those who retired because they became eligible for the age pension, rather than due to sickness or job loss.

The study found that most people maintained their pre-retirement level of social support after either they, or their partner, retired.

Women, and those with high social support, were more likely to see an improvement in mental wellbeing when they or their partner retired.

Both men and women saw an increase in ‘life satisfaction’ – a measure of how people evaluate their life as a whole rather than their current feelings – when they or their partner retired.

“Our research shows that while we don’t see significant changes to social connections, the shifts in mental health and wellbeing can be quite positive,” says Dr Kettlewell.

So, for an insight into what retirement might look like – take a look at your current social connections, and if needed, build your social networks for a happier, healthier future.

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The study: Retirement, social support and mental well being: a couple level analysis is published in the European Journal of Health Economics.

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JOURNAL

The European Journal of Health Economics

DOI

10.1007/s10198-021-01374-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Retirement, social support and mental well-being: a couple-level analysis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Sep-2021

COI STATEMENT

N/A

Study: are casinos making the right bet when it comes to slots?

UNLV researchers discover that a common strategy to increase play time on slot machines simply doesn’t add up

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS

With slot machines producing the bulk of profits in most of the world’s casinos, gaming managers make it their business to keep slot players happy.  So how do they prevent customers who are losing from walking away? 

A common strategy is to lower what’s called the “house edge,” which is the casino’s advantage when looking at the long-term difference between how much was wagered versus how much was paid out. The idea is that if you play a slot machine with a 5% house advantage, for example, you can expect to play for twice as long as a game with a 10% house advantage, right?

Not so, according to a new study from UNLV professors Anthony Lucas and A.K Singh, who found that even when the house advantage was more than doubled, no statistical difference in the number of spins was observed for the individual gambler. 

Using an approach that simulated 100 years of weekly play, the researchers analyzed the outcomes produced by reel slot machines with hidden yet different house edges, under identical wagering rules. The results showed a remarkably similar number of spins on the games, despite big differences in the house edge. Although it is the first study to use this specific approach, it is the seventh study in a series of studies by UNLV researchers confirming this general conclusion.
The bad news for casinos is that conventional thinking on how the house edge affects the slot player’s experience is likely costing them money. 

“If individual players don’t see results from their play that allow them to detect differences in the house edge,” said Lucas, “there is an opportunity for gaming operators to keep a greater portion of the wagers. Even subtle changes in the frequency of big jackpots can make important contributions to the overall slot revenue.” 

Changing Entrenched Casino Practices
So why are casinos leaving money on the table? Though the prospect of increasing casino revenue should spark interest from operators, game makers, regulators, and legislators alike, switching long-standing operating and marketing tactics is a hard sell in the casino business.

“Change is understandably difficult for all of us in this business when you’re up against decades of firmly entrenched explanations of how slot machines work,” said Lucas. “As a result, it’s going to take some time for any new thinking on the subject to gain traction.” 

Lucas says market forces will ultimately jumpstart the process. With the global proliferation of casinos and a new generation of games hitting the market, savvy gamblers are becoming more interested in the nuances of their gaming experience, looking for a better return on their bets. Though change doesn’t come easily, this trend may force some casino operators and game makers to revisit their understanding of how game mechanics affect the individual gambler’s experience.

###

Lucas and Singh’s article “The house edge and play time: Do industry heuristics fairly describe this relationship?” is published in the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal (2021).
 

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The house edge and play time: Do industry heuristics fairly describe this relationship?

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

1-Sep-2021

Vanderbilt astrophysicist leads international workshop to turn plans for a crewed lunar observatory into reality

Meeting Announcement

VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Karan Jani, research assistant professor of physics and astronomy, co-chaired the first international workshop focused on gravitational wave detection on the moon. The workshop builds on Jani’s recent studies that make the case for building a crewed, lunar-based observatory. 

“We are at the dawn of a new space age, with the moon at the center of our campaign for the next several years,” Jani said. “This workshop drew a broad consensus that fundamental physics and astronomy have immense potential on the moon.” 

The workshop convened more than 350 leading experts from the fields of GW science, planetary science and lunar exploration to discuss the geophysical properties of the moon and opportunities for this type of observation with key technologies that are already at an advanced stage of development. Participants were in agreement that lunar GW detection could become a realistic space science mission with international cooperation.  

Opportunities for breakthrough science exist through partnerships with other future detectors, like the joint European Space Agency and NASA space mission Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, and with proposed terrestrial GW detectors the Einstein Telescope and the Cosmic Explorer. Discussions highlighted the exciting possibility that a GW detector on the moon could provide a more complete understanding of where gravitational waves come from, and the orbit of the moon around Earth would significantly increase the ability to triangulate the position of those sources.  

“The lunar GW detectors can probe the most important questions about our universe, from the nature of dark energy to the birth of the first stars,” Jani said. “Many of the required technologies are already being developed by space agencies and major private companies. It’s only a matter of time before we have our graduate students taking shifts on the moon!”  

The workshop was well attended, reflecting worldwide interest in GW science and lunar exploration, said Jan Harms, professor at the Gran Sasso Science Institute. “We now need to work hard to seize the opportunities given to us to realize a first lunar GW detector. Turning our moon into a resonant antenna for messages from the universe would be a historical achievement.” 

And officials at high-level funding agencies were attentive, added Stavros Katsanevas, European Gravitational Observatory director, which is “a very good omen for the development of this emerging field. 

“We were all impressed by the quality of the presentations, key elements of which were the interdisciplinarity between GW science and geoscience, the complementarity of the proposed instrumentation guaranteeing the detailed understanding of lunar vibrations.”  

The workshop took place on Oct. 14 and 15 and was hosted by the European Gravitational Observatory near Pisa, Italy. Jani was joined by researchers from EGO and Gran Sasso Science Institute. The workshop was supported by the AHEAD 2020 project, funded from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement 871158. 

Urgent changes needed to global guidelines designed to stop surgical infection

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM

Wound infections are the most common problem after surgery, particularly in developing countries, but promised innovations to tackle the issue do not work and global guidance needs changing, a new study reveals.

Both World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UK’s National Institute of Health Research guidelines recommend that surgeons use alcoholic chlorhexidine skin preparation and triclosan coated sutures to prevent Surgical Site Infection (SSI).

However, the world’s largest wound infection trial could not demonstrate superiority of these interventions over lower cost alternatives.

Carried out in Benin, Ghana, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa, the FALCON trial was funded by the UK’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

Publishing their findings today in The Lancet, researchers participating in this study are calling for guidelines recommending these measures, either specifically to Low- and Middle-income Countries (LMIC) or at a general global level, to be revised.

Co-author Mr. Aneel Bhangu, from the University of Birmingham, commented: “Surgical site infection is the world’s most common postoperative complication - a major burden for both patients and health systems. We have delivered the biggest trial of its kind, where we could not demonstrate the superiority of these interventions over cheaper alternatives.

“Our findings are hugely important for a wide range of care providers in LMICs, as following existing WHO and NICE guidelines, which have significant cost implications for organisations which have limited resources.”

Patients who develop SSI experience pain, disability, poor healing with risk of wound breakdown, prolonged recovery times and psychological challenges.

Those patients in LMICs are disproportionately affected by higher rates of SSI compared to those in high-income countries - increasing the risk of catastrophic expenditure, impoverishment, and wider negative community impact.

The NIHR Global Research Health Unit on Global Surgery trial covered 5,788 patients from 54 hospitals in seven countries - a broad and representative range including adults and children undergoing contaminated/dirty surgery, emergency surgery and caesarian section.

Co-author Professor Adesoji Ademuyiwa, from the University of Lagos, commented: “The overall SSI rate was very high at 22% - a preventable complication that is causing unnecessary suffering and burden to patients and systems.

“It is clear that small randomised trials should now be avoided and should be replaced with larger trials that can provide more robust evidence on the incidence of SSI, ultimately leading to more effective measures to help tack this global healthcare challenge.”

For further information, interviews or to request an embargoed copy of the research paper please contact Tony Moran, International Communications Manager, University of Birmingham on +44 (0)782 783 2312 or t.moran@bham.ac.uk. Out-of-hours, please call +44 (0) 7789 921 165.

Notes for editors

• The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 6,500 international students from over 150 countries.
• ‘Reducing surgical site infections in low and middle income countries: a pragmatic, multicentre, stratified, randomised controlled trial (FALCON)’ - Adesoji O Ademuyiwa and Aneel Bhangu is published in The Lancet.
• Please feel free to include this post-embargo link in online articles: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01548-8/fulltext

The mission of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. We do this by:

• Funding high quality, timely research that benefits the NHS, public health and social care;
• Investing in world-class expertise, facilities and a skilled delivery workforce to translate discoveries into improved treatments and services;
• Partnering with patients, service users, carers and communities, improving the relevance, quality and impact of our research;
• Attracting, training and supporting the best researchers to tackle complex health and social care challenges;
• Collaborating with other public funders, charities and industry to help shape a cohesive and globally competitive research system;
• Funding applied global health research and training to meet the needs of the poorest people in low and middle income countries.

NIHR is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care. Its work in low and middle income countries is principally funded through UK Aid from the UK government.

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JOURNAL

The Lancet

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Reducing surgical site infections in low and middle income countries: a pragmatic, multicentre, stratified, randomised controlled trial (FALCON)

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2021

What big teeth you have: Tooth root surface area can determine primate size

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: THE SKULLS OF A GORILLA AND LEMUR WITH THE TEETH "DIGITALLY DISSECTED" IN ORDER TO STUDY THEIR TOOTH ROOT SURFACE AREAS. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: DEUTSCH AND HARTSTONE-ROSE.

An often overlooked feature could give scientists new insight into the lives of ancient primate species. Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed formulas that can calculate the body size of a primate based on the root size of its teeth. The formulas could allow researchers to make use of partial and incomplete fossils in order to learn how ancient primates – including human ancestors – interacted with their environment.

Ashley Deutsch, NC State graduate student and first author of a paper describing the research, wanted to know if it was possible to determine what a primate’s diet was without having the actual tooth crowns at hand – by looking instead at the roots.

What we commonly think of when we think of teeth isn’t the whole story – the part that does the chewing is merely the crown. The part that keeps the tooth anchored in the jaw is the root.

“The tooth root transmits the force of the jaws into the food,” says Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biological sciences at NC State and paper coauthor. “You can think of the root as the handle of a hammer – the handle size is related to the amount of force you can put into the hammer. So if a hammer has a small handle, it will have a small head to hammer small things. In the same way, a big tooth root can transmit more force to the tooth’s crown to crush more obdurate foods.”

Deutsch and the research team initially set out to determine whether tooth roots could indicate the shape of the tooth’s crown, thus telling them what particular primates preferred to eat. Using computer tomography, Deutsch analyzed and calculated the tooth root surface area – or area of contact where the root fits into the jaw – of 70 primates from 75 species, ranging in size from tiny mouse lemurs to great apes.

“It was a bit like trying to figure out if you have an axe or hammer based on the shape of the handle,” Deutsch says.

Ultimately, she found that the tooth roots only related to diet in a few lineages (for example, lemurs); however, she was able to determine how big the primates were across all lineages.

Deutsch developed a series of formulas based on the relationship between the tooth root surface of a molar or premolar – the teeth located between canines and molars – and primate body mass. The formulas can be used to estimate body mass of primates with more or less specificity, depending upon whether their class is known. The formulas can also explain up to 96% of variation in body mass within the examined primate sample.

But perhaps the most useful application of the equation will be with fossils that are currently of little use to anthropologists and paleontologists.

“As long as the fossil has a bit of root you can use the formulas even if the tooth crowns are missing,” Deutsch says. “Fossils are often maddeningly incomplete, but now those incomplete pieces can be useful, and they could answer questions about our own lineage, like how big our ancient ancestors were.”

Deutsch hopes to continue refining the existing equations and expand the work beyond primates to other mammals, including carnivores.

“Ashley has looked at something that is often preserved but also generally ignored by science and found it might hold answers to one of the most important ecological questions,” Hartstone-Rose says. “Just knowing how big an animal is tells you a lot about how it interacted with the environment. And that could give us a lot of insight into our own ancient history.”

The research appears as the cover article in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology and is supported by the National Science Foundation (grant IOS-15-57125). Former NC State postdoctoral fellow Edwin Dickinson, as well as NC State undergraduates Victoria Whichard and Giulia Lagomarsino, also contributed to the work.

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Primate Body Mass and Dietary Correlates of Tooth Root Surface Area”

DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24430

Authors: Ashley R. Deutsch, Edwin Dickinson, Victoria A. Whichard, Giulia R. Lagomarsino, Adam Hartstone-Rose, North Carolina State University; Jonathan M. G. Perry, Western Universty of Health Sciences, Oregon; Kornelius Kupczik, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
Published: October 26, 2021 in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology

Abstract:
Objectives: This study aims to examine primate postcanine tooth root surface area (TRSA) in the context of two ecological variables (diet and bite force). We also assess scaling relationships within distinct taxonomic groups and across the order as a whole.
Materials and Methods: Mandibular postcanine TRSA was measured using a three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) method for catarrhine (N = 27), platyrrhine (N = 21) and strepsirrhine (N = 24) taxa; this represents the first sample of strepsirrhines. Two different body size proxies were used: cranial geometric mean (GM) using nine linear measurements, and literature-derived body mass (BM).
Results: TRSA correlated strongly with body size, scaling with positive allometry or isometry across the order as a whole; however, scaling differed significantly between taxa for some teeth. Among Strepsirrhini, molar TRSA relative to GM differed significantly between folivores and pliant-object feeders. Additionally, P4 TRSA relative to BM differentiated folivores from both hard- and pliant-object feeders. Among Cercopithecoidea, P4 TRSA adjusted by GM differed between hard- and pliant-object feeders.
Discussion: Dietary signals in TRSA appear primarily driven by high frequency loading experienced by folivores. Stronger and more frequent dietary signals were observed within Strepsirrhini relative to Haplorhini. This may reflect the constraints of orthognathism within the latter, constraining the adaptability of their postcanine teeth. Finally, because of the strong correlation between TRSA and BM for each tooth locus (mean r2 = 0.82), TRSA can be used to predict BM in fossil primates using provided equations.

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DOI

10.1002/ajpa.24430 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Primate body mass and dietary correlates of tooth root surface area

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Oct-2021

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funders had no role in the design of the study; in the collection, analyses, or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript, or in the decision to publish the results.

New public health education programs to address workforce needs

Federal initiative awards $3 million to UMass Lowell

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELL

LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell has been awarded a $3 million cooperative agreement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology to develop new undergraduate and graduate programs in public health informatics and technology, to educate diverse students for vital jobs.

The grant, one of 10 awarded to minority-serving institutions and other institutions of higher education around the country, is part of the Public Health Informatics & Technology Workforce Development Program, a federal effort to address the gaps in public health capacity that hurt the U.S. response to COVID-19. The funding comes from the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion federal aid package designed to address the public health and economic impacts of the pandemic.

“Tremendous weaknesses in our public health data infrastructure were exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic,” said UMass Lowell Public Health Prof. Dan Berlowitz, chair of the department, who is leading the initiative at the university. “Information systems were not there, and data-handling expertise and management were not there for tracking positive tests, contacting people who had been exposed, identifying high-risk populations, and reporting illness and death. And even when they were there, everyone was doing it differently.”

The project will include several other UMass Lowell public health professors, faculty from the Solomont School of Nursing, the Department of Computer Science and the Manning School of Business, allowing the university to develop a new undergraduate public health pathway in health informatics and technology over the next year, as well as a new graduate program and graduate certificates for people already in the workforce.

As part of the federal effort, UMass Lowell will also aim to increase the number of people from underrepresented communities in the public health IT workforce and to educate all students in health equity. 

UMass Lowell is partnering with Middlesex and Northern Essex community colleges as it develops the new undergraduate major to make sure students who graduate from the two-year schools can transfer smoothly to UMass Lowell. All three schools are designated as “minority-serving institutions” by the U.S. Department of Education, Berlowitz said. 

UMass Lowell also will work with community partners throughout the Merrimack Valley to place students in internships and make sure the new programs meet local job needs.

“We could not have received this grant without our educational partners and our strong relationships with community partners,” Berlowitz said.

The new concentration for undergraduate public health majors will combine classes in computer science and public health, as well as business classes, according to UMass Lowell’s Amy Smalarz, assistant teaching professor and undergraduate program coordinator for public health.

“Teaching students how to build those databases, how to organize them and how to use them is a big piece,” she said.

The new graduate degree and certificates offered through UMass Lowell’s Division of Graduate, Online and Professional Studies will draw on courses for the existing master’s degree in health information management with a focus on health informatics.

The community and industry partners on the grant include the city of Lowell Health Department, the city of Lawrence Board of Health, the Greater Lowell Health Alliance, the Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, Lowell General Hospital, the Department of Veterans Affairs Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, the UMass Chan Medical School Division of Health Informatics and Implementation Science, LLX Solutions, and Academic Public Health Corp.

UMass Lowell is a national research university located on a high-energy campus in the heart of a global community. The university offers its students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs, vigorous hands-on learning and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu

Oral hookworm vaccine could save millions around the world

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

 

IMAGE: AN ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF HOOKWORMS INSIDE A HUMAN INTESTINE. view more 

CREDIT: THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND

There’s been a significant breakthrough in the development of a vaccine to prevent hookworm infection – a parasite which causes serious disease in tens of millions of people globally.

Trials of the vaccine candidate in mice, led by researchers at The University of Queensland, indicate that it is more than twice as effective than existing alternatives and marks a leap forward in the battle against the highly contagious parasite.

Professor Istvan Toth from UQ’s School of Chemistry and Molecular Biology said the ease with which the vaccine could be administered –  via tablet, liquid or powder – would be a gamechanger for developing countries.

“Our vaccine candidate can be orally self-administered, bypassing the need for trained medical staff, and means there’s no requirement for special storage, enabling it to reach large, isolated populations,” Professor Toth said.

“Vaccination can be carried out at a significantly reduced cost, which not only improves the health of those affected and at high risk, but also helps improve economic growth in disease-endemic areas.”

Hookworm currently infects around half a billion people globally and lives within the human intestine, using the host’s blood as its source of nourishment, digested through a special set of enzymes.

It’s often found in regions with poor water quality, sanitation, and hygiene – greatly impacting on the physical and cognitive development of children and increasing the risk of mortality and miscarriage.

UQ’s trials in mice showed significant improvements on an alternative vaccine candidate which only achieved a 30 to 50 per cent reduction in the number of worms.

“The UQ-developed vaccine resulted in an impressive 94 per cent worm reduction in mice,” Professor Toth said.

“So not only is our new vaccine candidate easier to deliver, it triggers a staggeringly good immune response.”

Co-author of the paper Dr Mariusz Skwarczynski said the research team targeted the hookworm’s digestion enzyme (APR 1).

“When the function of these enzymes is blocked, the parasite starves,” Dr Skwarczynski said.

“Our vaccine produces antibodies against the hookworm enzymes responsible for the digestion of blood – they simply stop being able to eat properly.”

The researchers plan to continue working on and refining the vaccine candidate in preclinical development settings, to ensure its safety and efficacy, before beginning human clinical trials.

“We’re very optimistic that, along with our colleagues, led by Professor Alex Loukas from James Cook University, we will be able to deliver a successful vaccine that stops this parasite in its tracks,” Dr Skwarczynski said.

The research has been published in Scopus (DOI: 10.3390/vaccines9091034).

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JOURNAL

Vaccines

DOI

10.3390/vaccines9091034 

ARTICLE TITLE

Oral peptide vaccine against hookworm infection: Correlation of antibody titers with protective efficacy

Psychologists create first-ever body-maps of hallucinations

Leicester psychologists have, for the first time, created body-maps of the sensations which arise during hallucinations in people experiencing psychosis.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

 

IMAGE: EXAMPLE OF PARTICIPANT ANNOTATIONS, USED TO CREATE NOVEL BUT SIMPLE MULTIMODAL UNUSUAL SENSORY EXPERIENCE (MUSE) BODY-MAPS. view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

Leicester psychologists have, for the first time, created body-maps of the sensations which arise during hallucinations in people experiencing psychosis.

The study, published in The Lancet’s EClinicalMedicine, provides the most extensive descriptive data to date on the feelings which arise during hallucinations and where individuals reported sensations in the body. University of Leicester researchers also studied the emotions reported during hallucinations, with confusion, fear and frustration being the most common.

Although there was great variation in the localisation of feelings across participants, for each individual feelings were recurrently concentrated in particular body areas. Areas of concentration often held repeated sources of feelings like pain, heat, or tension.

Dr Katie Melvin, of the Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour at the University of Leicester and corresponding author for the study, said:

“During a systematic review of existing research, we found indicators of the contributions that multiple senses, emotions and feelings may make to hallucinations.

“We designed a study and developed the novel but simple multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) map method to investigate these features further. MUSE maps involve documenting hallucinations in daily life and include body-mapping. The article shares new insights through body-maps and data on the immediate feeling of hallucinations.

“The range of feelings in the body and around the body (into peri-personal space) were particularly interesting. Participants often described that the method helped them share experiences that were difficult to put into words.

“The methods and outcomes of this study can contribute to advances on how we understand hallucinations and how we can support people who experience them. The next steps for this area of research will be further understanding the embodiment and feeling of hallucinations in different populations and developing interventions to support with this.”

Psychosis is a term which describes experiences where an individual may have difficulties in determining what is real and what is not real.

Research indicates psychosis is associated with experiencing trauma, adverse life events, and stress. People may be given a diagnosis such as schizophrenia. Experiences of perceiving or believing things which those around us do not can also occur in physical health conditions such as brain tumours or acute infections.

Psychosis can have serious adverse outcomes on individuals including distress, lack of sleep, social withdrawal, lack of motivation, difficulties in carrying out daily activities, experiences of discrimination and lost opportunities.

Participants in this study were asked by the research team to prospectively document the feeling and senses of hallucinations for one week prior to an interview.

Novel visual diary methods involving drawing, writing and body-mapping generated 42 MUSE maps, which set out the specific areas across the body – and beyond, in so-called peripersonal space – where participants experienced sensations during hallucinations.

The study found that hallucinations were characterised by numerous feelings arising at once, often including multisensory, emotional, and embodied features. Researchers suggest further uptake of visual, ecological and prospective methods may enhance understandings of lived experiences of hallucinations.

Leicester’s Department of Neuroscience, Psychology and Behaviour brings together expertise in the fields of Neuroscience, Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Ophthalmology. Researchers work in partnership with University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, and with Leicestershire Partnership Trust.

‘The feeling, embodiment and emotion of hallucinations in first episode psychosis: A prospective phenomenological visual-ecological study using novel multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) maps’ is available in EClinicalMedicine, published by The Lancet.

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JOURNAL

EClinicalMedicine

DOI

10.1016/j.eclinm.2021.101153 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The feeling, embodiment and emotion of hallucinations in first episode psychosis: A prospective phenomenological visual-ecological study using novel multimodal unusual sensory experience (MUSE) maps

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Oct-2021

COI STATEMENT

All the authors report no conflicts.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG

Teaching robots to think like us

Brain cells, electrical impulses steer robot though maze

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS

 

VIDEO: ROBOT EXPERIMENTS. A ROBOT WAS PLACED ON FIELDS WITH OBSTACLES AND WAS DIRECTED TOWARD THE GOAL. view more 

CREDIT: YUICHIRO YADA, SHUSAKU YASUDA, AND HIROKAZU TAKAHASHI

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 26, 2021 -- Can intelligence be taught to robots? Advances in physical reservoir computing, a technology that makes sense of brain signals, could contribute to creating artificial intelligence machines that think like us.

In Applied Physics Letters, from AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Tokyo outline how a robot could be taught to navigate through a maze by electrically stimulating a culture of brain nerve cells connected to the machine.

These nerve cells, or neurons, were grown from living cells and acted as the physical reservoir for the computer to construct coherent signals.

The signals are regarded as homeostatic signals, telling the robot the internal environment was being maintained within a certain range and acting as a baseline as it moved freely through the maze.

Whenever the robot veered in the wrong direction or faced the wrong way, the neurons in the cell culture were disturbed by an electric impulse. Throughout trials, the robot was continually fed the homeostatic signals interrupted by the disturbance signals until it had successfully solved the maze task.

These findings suggest goal-directed behavior can be generated without any additional learning by sending disturbance signals to an embodied system. The robot could not see the environment or obtain other sensory information, so it was entirely dependent on the electrical trial-and-error impulses.

"I, myself, was inspired by our experiments to hypothesize that intelligence in a living system emerges from a mechanism extracting a coherent output from a disorganized state, or a chaotic state," said co-author Hirokazu Takahashi, an associate professor of mechano-informatics.

Using this principle, the researchers show intelligent task-solving abilities can be produced using physical reservoir computers to extract chaotic neuronal signals and deliver homeostatic or disturbance signals. In doing so, the computer creates a reservoir that understands how to solve the task.

"A brain of [an] elementary school kid is unable to solve mathematical problems in a college admission exam, possibly because the dynamics of the brain or their 'physical reservoir computer' is not rich enough," said Takahashi. "Task-solving ability is determined by how rich a repertoire of spatiotemporal patterns the network can generate."

The team believes using physical reservoir computing in this context will contribute to a better understanding of the brain's mechanisms and may lead to the novel development of a neuromorphic computer.

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The article "Physical reservoir computing with FORCE learning in a living neuronal culture" is authored by Yuichiro Yada, Shusaku Yasuda, and Hirokazu Takahashi. The article will appear in Applied Physics Letters on Oct. 26, 2021. (DOI: 10.1063/5.0064771). After that date, it can be accessed at https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/5.0064771.

ABOUT THE JOURNAL

Applied Physics Letters features rapid reports on significant discoveries in applied physics. The journal covers new experimental and theoretical research on applications of physics phenomena related to all branches of science, engineering, and modern technology. See https://aip.scitation.org/journal/apl.

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JOURNAL

Applied Physics Letters

DOI

10.1063/5.0064771 

ARTICLE TITLE

Physical reservoir computing with FORCE learning in a living neuronal culture

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Oct-2021