Knowledge Update

New York, Sep 9 (IANS) Neuroscientists have identified two brain regions that are involved in creating panoramic memories and help us to merge fleeting views of our surroundings into a seamless, 360-degree panorama.

As we look at a scene, visual information flows from our retinas into the brain, which has regions that are responsible for processing different elements of what we see, such as faces or objects. 

"Our understanding of our environment is largely shaped by our memory for what's currently out of sight," said lead author Caroline Robertson, post doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

The study found the hubs in the brain where your memories for the panoramic environment are integrated with your current field of view.

The researchers suspected that areas involved in processing scenes -- the occipital place area (OPA), the retrosplenial complex (RSC), and parahippocampal place area (PPA) -- might also be involved in generating panoramic memories of a place such as a street corner.

Brain scans conducted on study participants revealed that when participants saw two images that they knew were linked, the response patterns in the RSC and OPA regions were similar. 

However, this was not the case for image pairs that the participants had not seen as linked. 

This suggests that the RSC and OPA, but not the PPA, are involved in building panoramic memories of our surroundings, the researchers said.

"Our hypothesis was that as we begin to build memory of the environment around us, there would be certain regions of the brain where the representation of a single image would start to overlap with representations of other views from the same scene," Robertson added.

For the study, the team used immersive virtual reality headsets, which allowed them to show people many different panoramic scenes, the researchers showed participants images from 40 street corners in Boston's Beacon Hill neighbourhood.

The images were presented in two ways. Half the time, participants saw a 100-degree stretch of a 360-degree scene, but the other half of the time, they saw two noncontinuous stretches of a 360-degree scene.

After showing participants these panoramic environments, the researchers then showed them 40 pairs of images and asked if they came from the same street corner. 

Participants were much better able to determine if pairs came from the same corner if they had seen the two scenes linked in the 100-degree image than if they had seen them unlinked, said the paper appearing in the journal Current Biology. 

London, Sep 10 (IANS) Being bilingual can be beneficial as it enhances the ability to maintain attention and focus and also improve other cognitive abilities, a study has found.

While some evidence has suggested that bilinguals have developed enhanced inhibitory control abilities -- the ability to suppress or tune out stimuli that are irrelevant to the task at hand -- other evidence suggested that bilinguals possess enhanced attentional control abilities and are better able to concentrate on a specific stimulus.

"Our findings suggest that the way that data has been analysed might not have only led to the wrong conclusion that bilinguals have superior inhibition abilities, it might have also contributed to these replication failures," said Andrea Krott, researcher at the University of Birmingham in the study, published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 

The study recruited 99 participants to complete three well known psychological tests that measure inhibitory control ability -- the Simon task, the Spatial Stroop task and the Flanker task. 

Among them, 48 were highly proficient English-Chinese bilingual, who had learned English before the age of 10 and could switch between languages on a daily basis, and 51 were English monolingual speakers.

The important measure was the time it took participants to respond to the stimuli presented in the tests on a computer screen.

The novelty of the study was to examine slow response times separately from the more usual fast responses. This showed that the two participant groups were similarly good at inhibiting interfering stimulus features in the bulk of their responses. However, bilinguals did not have as many very slow responses as monolinguals.

These results suggest that bilingual speakers have better sustained attention than monolingual speakers, but not better inhibition abilities.

"Our research suggested that the lifetime task of switching between languages appears to enhance the ability to maintain attention," Krott added. 

New York, Sep 11 (IANS) Chronic sinusitis plays only a minor role in the development of head and neck cancer (HNC), reveals a recent research.

"Despite the fact that people with chronic sinusitis have an increased risk for certain subtypes of HNCs, the absolute risk of these cancers is low," said Daniel C. Beachler, Researcher at the National Cancer Institute, at Bethesda, in the US.

Acute sinusitis is a common inflammatory condition of the sinuses often caused by viral or bacterial infections. The condition is considered chronic when the episode persists longer than 12 weeks.

Chronic sinusitis may be involved in the cause of certain HNCs due to immunodeficiency or inflammation -- but not majorly, as recent research has found.

It was earlier associated with the risk of developing HNC, particularly nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC), human papillomavirus-related oropharyngeal cancer (HPV-OPC), and nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer (NCPSC).

The authors' findings, published by JAMA Otolaryngology, suggest that sinusitis-related inflammation or immunodeficiency plays a minor role in the development of these cancers.

For this study, the researchers used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database and included 483,546 Medicare beneficiaries from SEER areas, and 826,436 who developed cancer (including 21,716 with HNC). Most individuals were female (58 per cent) with an average age of 73.

Most of this increased risk was limited to within one year of the chronic sinusitis diagnosis, as associations were largely reduced by one year or more after chronic sinusitis. 

All the three HNC subtypes had cumulative incidence of less than 0.07 per cent eight years after chronic sinusitis diagnosis.

"The cumulative incidence of NPC, HPV-OPC, and NCPSC was less than 0.10 per cent after eight years of follow-up post a chronic sinusitis diagnosis," Beachler said.

​New York, Sep 11 (IANS) Disparities in experience and education among younger supervisors and older subordinates may influence a worker's commitment toward their organisations, finds an interesting study.

According to the study conducted by the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas in the US, older workers reporting to younger supervisors may negatively affect the leader's ability to foster attachment to the organisation among their subordinates.

"Status incongruence -- which occurs when a subordinate is older or has more education, work experience and organisational tenure than their supervisor -- negatively affected transformational leaders' ability to foster attachment to the organisation among their subordinates," said Orlando Richard, Associate Professor at the Naveen Jindal School of Management.

In the study published in the journal Personnel Psychology, the researchers found that status incongruence weakened the relationship between transformational leadership and affective commitment.

While transformational leadership inspires subordinates to work for the good of the organisation by motivating, affective commitment is an attachment that an employee would have toward an organisation.

"If employees feel that the wrong person is in charge, there could be negative consequences for the organisation down the road. It also affects the level of commitment you have to the organisation because you feel you are more qualified than they are," Richard added.

New York, Sep 11 (IANS) Entrepreneurs who resist pressure to follow a consensus are most likely to stay in the market, receive funding and ultimately go public, says a study.

According to the study, published in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly, entrepreneurs who follow the prevailing beliefs in a market are less viable, while non-consensus entrepreneurs prosper.

"Startups and investors face constant pressure to follow the consensus and that pressure is hard to overcome," said Elizabeth G. Pontikes, Associate Professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business in the US.

For the study, the researchers contained data from 4,566 organisations in 456 different market categories and assembled data on software organisations, their market categories, when they received venture capital funding and when they had an initial public offering. 

They also interviewed investors, board members and executives in the software industry about the decision-making process for entering a new market.

The study found that both firms and venture capitalists engaged in herding behaviour by entering markets that received venture capital funding.

"Those firms and venture capitalists following the consensus suffered in the long term. They put too much emphasis on the viability of a hot market and overlooked whether their product had a good fit for the market," Pontikes noted. 

"Entrepreneurs who entered 'untouchable' markets -- those tainted by bankruptcies -- applied more scrutiny to product-market fit and, in turn, fared better," Pontikes added.

The study has implications for entrepreneurs and investors across industries. Firms would do well to institute processes that force executives and decision makers to carefully examine whether their products are suited to compete in a market before entering.

​London, Sep 11 (IANS) Children are everyday consuming up to three times more sugar than what is good for them, a survey conducted by an Indian-origin researcher has revealed.

"The results of this survey are extremely worrying. At a time when one in three 10-year-old children are overweight or obese, and one in three five-year-olds has tooth decay, the health risks posed by failure to tackle sugar intake are serious," the Daily Mail quoted Neena Modi, Professor at the Imperial College London as saying.

The survey was carried out among 1,288 adults and 1,258 children who completed a three or four day food diary.

According to the study, children aged four to 10 drank 100 ml of sugary drinks per day on average and sugar still makes up 13 per cent of a child's daily calorie intake, more than twice the five per cent recommended limit.

Those aged 11 to 18 have a daily diet made up of 15 per cent sugar -- three times the recommended amount. Meanwhile, adults aged between 19 to 64 are also heavy consumers, with 12 per cent of their diets made up of sugar, the study revealed.

About one-fifth of five-year-olds and one-third of 11-year-olds are overweight or obese. Children aged four to 10 have diets in which 13 per cent of their daily calorie intake comes from saturated fat.

"This data provides compelling evidence that we all need to eat more fruit, vegetable, fibre and oily fish and cut back on sugar, salt and saturated fat to improve our health," Alison Tedstone, Chief Nutritionist at Public Health England. 

While it is encouraging that young children are having fewer sugary drinks, they still have far too much sugar in their diet overall, along with teenagers and adults, suggested the study.

An overweight or obese child is likely to be an overweight or obese adult, thus increasing their risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers.

​Beijing, Sep 9 (IANS) China's second space lab Tiangong-2 will be put into space between September 15 and 20, the office of China's manned space programme said on Friday.

The space lab was transferred with its carrier rocket to the launch pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre on Friday, Xinhua news agency said, quoting a statement from the office.

It took 90 minutes to complete the transfer from the assembling centre to the launch pad.

"The completion of the transfer signals that the space lab Tiangong-2 mission has entered its launching stage," it said.

Technicians completed testing on the assembling of the lab and the rocket after they had been separately delivered to the launch centre in July. The centre will continue testing the rocket and inject the required propellent before the launch.

Tiangong-2 -- which can enable two astronauts to live in space for 30 days, nearly double the national record for space stay -- is capable of receiving manned and cargo spaceships and will be used for testing systems and processes for mid-term space stays and refuelling.

It will also be involved in experiments on aerospace medicine, space sciences, on-orbit maintenance and space station technologies.

China's first space lab Tiangong-1, which was launched in September 2011, ended its data service earlier this year. It had docked with Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft and undertaken a series of experiments.

​New York, Sep 9 (IANS) The role of genes in congenital heart defects is more complex than previously thought with new research finding that the overall risk is determined by a combination of gene effects on both inside and outside of the heart itself.

Congenital heart defect (CHD) is a problem in the structure of the heart that is present at birth and are a leading cause of birth defect-related deaths. 

Normal heart formation depends on interactions of multiple types of cells that collaborate in precise times and places throughout development to build the heart's intricate structures. 

To figure out how these interactions can go awry, researchers at the University of California, at Irvine, in the US, studied atrial septal defects (ASDs, a common type of heart defect) in a mouse model.

They studied the developmental disorder Cornelia de Lange Syndrome (CdLS) -- a very rare genetic disorder present from birth, but not always diagnosed at birth. 

Most cases of Cornelia de Lange Syndrome are caused by mutations that inactivate a single copy of Nipbl -- a gene that directs the expression of many hundreds of other genes in tissues throughout the body. 

Just as people with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome have a high incidence of heart defects, 30 per cent of mice that harbour similar Nipbl mutations exhibit atrial septal defects, the researchers said.

Using genetically modified mouse models, they then selectively introduced or removed Nipbl mutations in different tissues during embryonic development. 

The findings showed that no Nipbl deficiency in any single tissue -- including the tissue that forms the heart itself -- could single-handedly account for the development of atrial septal defects. 

Rather, the development of heart defects was determined by interactions between heart-forming tissues and the rest of the body. 

In fact, Nipbl deficiency in some tissues even seemed to protect against the development of atrial septal defects, in certain situations, the researchers explained.

"The study results show that heart defects such as ASDs occur when the heart does not grow quickly enough to meet the demands of the developing body -- in other words, that heart size and body size must be coordinated for the heart to develop without defects," said Anne Calof, Professor at University of California, at Irvine. 

"This is the first genetic demonstration that major risk factors for heart defects are likely to lie outside of the heart itself," Calof added, in the paper published in the journal PLOS Biology.

New York, Sep 9 (IANS) Researchers have identified a set of 30 inherited recessive genes that play a role in intellectual disability, a neurodevelopmental disorder.

The new findings, published in the online journal Molecular Psychiatry, could be applied to DNA screenings in determining the possibility of a couple producing a child with intellectual disability.

"The implications are enormous," said principal investigator Saima Riazuddin, Professor at University of Maryland School of Medicine in the US. 

"The next phase of our study is to come up with therapeutic options and personalised protocols that could help patients improve their intellectual function," Riazuddin said.

Intellectual disability, or ID (previously known as mental retardation), becomes apparent in children before the age of 18 and affects, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as many as 213 million people around the world.

The disorder, which is measured by an intelligence quotient below 70, significantly limits an individual's intellectual ability and practical skills. 

The new study presents the outcomes of a five-year investigation that was conducted over three continents.

In order to identify potential genetic causes for intellectual disability, investigators assembled a test group of 121 families in rural Pakistan, in which there was a higher incidence of the disorder and consanguineous marriages (marriages between blood relations). 

More than 15,000 DNA samples were collected, which were analysed both in the Netherlands and at University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute of Genomic Sciences (IGS), using next-generation genetic sequencing.

From an initial pool of 2,000 possible genes, the study, categorised 30 novel candidate genes possessing a strong potential for causing ID -- and possibly other brain disorders as well. 

London, Sep 9 (IANS) Children with emotional parents are more likely to be successful, a study has found.

The research found that a caring and emotionally attentive environment is liable to be a long-term game-changer.

"The findings support developmental theories which propose that a high emotional quality in the mother-child interaction (attachment security) fosters the cognitive development of the child," said Schneider-Hassloff, researcher at University of Ulm, in Germany.

Looking at 27 children aged between four and six, the study examined the quality of the emotional bond to their parents and their cognitive control including resisting temptation, their ability to remember things and whether they are shy or withdrawn.

First, the researchers looked at the quality of the emotional bond -- referred to as emotional availability (EA) -- between mothers and children. 

Second, the children's executive functions were measured through a number of exercises.

Finally, the study measured the neural responses of children who were tasked to inhibit certain aspects of their behaviour. This was achieved through EEG (Electroencephalography) by measuring small variations in voltage in certain key parts of the brain.

Parents who encourage independence in their kids while remaining emotionally available, give their young ones a better chance at future success.

"This study investigated the association between emotional interaction quality and the electrophysiological correlates of executive functions in preschool children for the first time thereby shedding new light on the long-term importance of emotional nurturing," Hassloff added in the study, published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Even in hardship, parents can create an emotional space that will have long-lasting and powerful consequences for the child's future life-skills, the study suggested.