The occurrence of hiccoughs (hiccups) is very widespread and yet their neuronal origin and physiological significance are still unresolved. Several hypotheses have been proposed. Here we consider a phylogenetic perspective, starting from the concept that the ventilatory central pattern generator of lower vertebrates provides the base upon which central pattern generators of higher vertebrates develop. Hiccoughs are characterized by glottal closure during inspiration and by early development in relation to lung ventilation. They are inhibited when the concentration of inhaled CO2 (...) is increased and they can be abolished by the drug baclofen (an agonist of the GABAB receptor). These properties are shared by ventilatory motor patterns of lower vertebrates, leading to the hypothesis that hiccough is the expression of archaic motor patterns and particularly the motor pattern of gill ventilation in bimodal breathers such as most frogs. A circuit that can generate hiccoughs may persist in mammals because it has permitted the development of pattern generators for other useful functions of the pharynx and chest wall muscles, such as suckling or eupneic breathing. BioEssays 25:182–188, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Graphical AbstractCephalopods provide a unique model system to investigate how organismal novelties evolve. In article number 1900073, Elena A. Ritschard et al. discuss how co-evolutionary signatures among various genomic characters have contributed to cephalopod organismal novelties and can be used to dissect their functional organization. Cover illustration by Hannah Schmidbaur.

How genomic innovation translates into organismal organization remains largely unanswered. Possessing the largest invertebrate nervous system, in conjunction with many species‐specific organs, coleoid cephalopods (octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes) provide exciting model systems to investigate how organismal novelties evolve. However, dissecting these processes requires novel approaches that enable deeper interrogation of genome evolution. Here, the existence of specific sets of genomic co‐evolutionary signatures between expanded gene families, genome reorganization, and novel genes is posited. It is reasoned that their co‐evolution has contributed to (...) the complex organization of cephalopod nervous systems and the emergence of ecologically unique organs. In the course of reviewing this field, how the first cephalopod genomic studies have begun to shed light on the molecular underpinnings of morphological novelty is illustrated and their impact on directing future research is described. It is argued that the application and evolutionary profiling of evolutionary signatures from these studies will help identify and dissect the organismal principles of cephalopod innovations. By providing specific examples, the implications of this approach both within and beyond cephalopod biology are discussed. (shrink)

The additional data, perspectives, questions, and criticisms contributed by the commentaries strengthen our view that local cortical processors coordinate their activity with the context in which it occurs using contextual fields and synchronized population codes. We therefore predict that whereas the specialization of function has been the keynote of this century the coordination of function will be the keynote of the next.

This article examines the implicit promises of fairness in evidence based medicine , namely to avoid discrimination through objective processes, and to distribute effective treatments fairly. The relationship between EBM and vulnerable groups is examined. Several aspects of EBM are explored: the way evidence is created , and the way evidence is applied in clinical care and health policy. This analysis suggests that EBM turns our attention away from social and cultural factors that influence health and focuses on a narrow (...) biomedical and individualistic model of health. Those with the greatest burden of ill health are left disenfranchised, as there is little research that is relevant to them, there is poor access to treatments, and attention is diverted away from activities that might have a much greater impact on their health. (shrink)

The United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visitors (UKCC) document, Exercising Accountability, states that the role of patient's advocate is an essential aspect of good professional nursing practice (1). The author examines the case for and against the nurse being the best person to act as advocate, and critically evaluates the criteria of advocacy. The problematic moral issues arising are discussed, and a case made for negotiation between the members of the multidisciplinary team and the patient/client (or (...) a significant person to the patient) in order to promote the well-being of the patient and to minimise suffering. She concludes that the health care professional's (including the nurse's) role is to help people to assert control over the factors which affect their lives, that is empowerment, rather than advocacy. (shrink)

The acclaimed American sociologist and cultural philosopher Philip Rieff gained great academic prestige with his thesis on the emergence of 'Psychological Man' in western culture and with his classic book, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, published in 1959. In this work and the later The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) he not only offered a highly original interpretation of the work of Sigmund Freud, but critically evaluated the enormous influence of psychotherapeutic thinking on Western culture. However, Rieff's later work (...) on the theory of culture did not garner the same attention, and his most recent writings have received very little critical engagement. In Sociology and the Sacred, Antonius A.W. Zondervan sets out to remedy this neglect, arguing that Rieff's work is ripe for intellectual reconsideration. (shrink)

Schyns et al. make a strong case for context-dependent feature discovery. The features computed from specialized and diverse data-sets help to coordinate their activity by adapting so as to emphasize what is related across sets. Their perspective can be strengthened and extended by formal arguments for the contextual guidance of learning and processing and by neurobiological and psychological evidence of structures and processes that implement this guidance.

A simple model of an exciton-phonon system is studied in connection with quantum chaos.

How are we to understand Aristotle's famous doctrine of the mean? "If ten pounds are too much for a particular person to eat and two too little, it does not follow that the trainer will order six pounds"... In fact, the relation of morality to physical health is more intimate than mere analogy. Emotions involve a bodily process (cp On the Soul 403al6ff): for example, 'Anger is productive of heat' (On the Parts ofAnimals 650b35), while 'Fear is, indeed, a kind (...) of chill' (Rhetoric 1389b32). The hot temper of youth and the cool temper of old age, to take two extremes, are corollaries of physical extremes, of literal heat and cold respectively (Rhetoric 1389a2ff). In general, moral as well as bodily excellences are supervenient upon physical states; specific to moral excellence is what it supervenes upon, viz bodily pleasures and plains (Physics 246b3-247a20, an early passage not relevantly superseded). Health and virtue are both grounded upon the physiological condition of a psycho-physical entity... Yet it is hard to view the physiology of virtue as more than a general precondition. It more satisfactorily identifies natural virtue than virtue proper. The blood of young men is heated by nature (as though by wine), so that they are hot-tempered and hopeful; this makes them less timorous and more confident, and so more courageous, than the old (Rhetoric 1389al8ff). But the properly brave man is one 'who faces and who fears the right things and from the right motive, in the right way and at the right time' (11 5b1b7ff). (shrink)

Sober and Wilson demonstrate convincingly the fallacies of arguments for fundamental biological and psychological selfishness and establish the plausibility of both biological and psychological altruism. However, I suggest that they are more generous to proponents of fundamental selfishness than they need be and that morality is closer to our evolved and learned capacities than they suggest. I am less generous toward advocates of fundamental selfishness than are our altruistic authors.

There is a widespread belief, more often implied than explicitly asserted, that Hume considered all necessary propositions to be analytic.Of course Hume did not use the analytic-synthetic distinction explicitly. This only come to the forefront with Kant; and it is Kant who is probably the main source of the above-mentioned belief. Kant ascribed to Hume the view that mathematical propositions are, in his terminology, analytic. If this is correct, then since mathematics was for Hume the paradigm of a body of (...) necessary truths, it is plausible to infer that he considered necessary propositions to be one and all analytic. The absence in Hume's writings of the analytic-synthetic terminology is by no means decisive: though he did not have the terms he may well have possessed the concepts, as evidenced by his use of them. (shrink)