Non‐coding centromeres, which dictate kinetochore formation for proper chromosome segregation, are extremely divergent in DNA sequences across species but are under active transcription carried out by RNA polymerase (RNAP) II. The RNAP II‐mediated centromeric transcription has been shown to facilitate the deposition of the centromere protein A (CENP‐A) to centromeres, establishing a conserved and critical role of centromeric transcription in centromere maintenance. Our recent work revealed another role of centromeric transcription in chromosome segregation: maintaining centromeric cohesion during mitosis. Interestingly, this (...) role appears to be fulfilled through ongoing centromeric transcription rather than centromeric transcripts. In addition, we found that centromeric transcription may not require some of the traditional transcription initiation factors, suggestive of “uniqueness” in its regulation. In this review, we discuss the novel role and regulation of centromeric transcription as well as the potential underlying mechanisms. (shrink)

The human spindle and kinetochore associated complex is required for proper mitotic progression. Extensive studies have demonstrated its important functions in both stable kinetochore-microtubule interactions and spindle checkpoint silencing. We suggest a model to explain how various Ska functions might be fulfilled by distinct pools of Ska at kinetochores. The Ndc80-loop pool of Ska is recruited by the Ndc80 loop, or together with some of its flanking sequences, and the recruitment is also dependent on Cdk1-mediated Ska3 phosphorylation. This pool seems (...) to play a more important role in silencing the spindle checkpoint than stabilizing kinetochore-microtubule interactions. In contrast, the Ndc80-N-terminus pool of Ska is recruited by the N-terminal domains of Ndc80 and appears to be more important for stabilizing kinetochore-microtubule interactions. Here, we review and discuss the evidence that supports this model and suggest further experiments to test the functioning mechanisms of the Ska complex. The human spindle and kinetochore associated complex plays essential functions in proper mitotic progression by promoting stable kinetochore-microtubule interactions and spindle checkpoint silencing. We propose that “distinct pools” of Ska—the Ndc80-loop and Ndc80-N-terminus pools—might fulfill these various functions. (shrink)

In his Knowledge and Belief (1962), Hintikka establishes his system of epistemic logic with the KK (Knowing that One Knows, in symbols, Kp→KKp) principle (KK for short). However, his system of epistemic logic and the KK principle are grounded upon his strong notion of knowledge, which requires that knowledge is infallible, that is, it makes further inquiry pointless, and becomes ‘discussion-stopper’; knowledge implies truth, to wit, cognitive agents will not be mistaken in their knowledge; cognitive agents will be ‘perfect logicians’, (...) i.e. they have infinitive capability of logical inference. Hintikka calls the argument for KK from the strong notion of knowledge as the ‘transcendental argument’ for KK. Obviously, the strong notion of knowledge is far away from our ordinary conception of knowledge; based on such a strong sense of knowledge, epistemic logic has met the problem of logical omnipotence, and is difficult to apply in our ordinary cognitive practice. Moreover, there is no close connection of the KK principle with internalism or externalism. (shrink)

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses’ perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment and thus lead to higher organizational citizenship behaviors. This study uses hierarchical regression to understand which types of ethical climate, facets of job satisfaction, and the three components of organizational commitment influence different dimensions of organizational citizenship behaviors. Questionnaires were distributed to 450 nurses, and 352 usable questionnaires (...) were returned. The findings of the article suggest that hospitals can increase organizational citizenship behaviors by influencing an organization’s ethical climate, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations, the climate types of caring, law and code and rules climate, satisfaction with coworkers, and affective commitment and normative commitment that increase organizational citizenship behavior, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate and continuance commitment that decreases it. (shrink)

This paper divides the sophisms and paradoxes put forth by Chinese thinkers of the pre-Qin period of China into six groups: paradoxes of motion and infinity, paradoxes of class membership, semantic paradoxes, epistemic paradoxes, paradoxes of relativization, other logical contradictions. It focuses on the comparison between the Chinese items and the counterparts of ancient Greek and even of contemporary Western philosophy, and concludes that there turn out to be many similar elements of philosophy and logic at the beginnings of Chinese (...) and Greek civilizations. (shrink)

To systematically answer two questions “how does language work?” and “where does linguistic meaning come from?” this paper argues for SocialConstructivism of Language and Meaning which consists of six theses: the primary function of language is communication rather than representation, so language is essentially a social phenomenon. Linguistic meaning originates in the causal interaction of humans with the world, and in the social interaction of people with people. Linguistic meaning consists in the correlation of language to the world established by (...) collective intentions of a language community. Linguistic meaning is based on the conventions produced by a language community in their long process of communication. Semantic knowledge is empirical and encyclopedic knowledge distilled and condensed, and the uses of language accepted by a linguistic community. Language and meaning change rapidly or slowly as the communicative practice of a linguistic community does. The crucial point of SCLM is to focus on the triadic relation among language, humans and the world, rather than the dyadic relation between language and the world. (shrink)

There are two problematic assumptions in Kripke’s semantic argument against descriptivism. Assumption 1 is that the referential relation of a name to an object is only an objective or metaphysical relation between language and the world; it has nothing to do with the understanding of the name by our linguistic community. Assumption 2 is that descriptivism has to hold that, if name a has its meaning and the meaning is given by one description or a cluster of descriptions, the description (...) should supply a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for determining what a designates; and that it is possible for us to find out such a setof conditions. Emphasizing the sociality, intentionality, conventionality and historicity of language and meaning, this paper rejects Assumption 1, and argues that Assumption 2 is an unfair interpretation of descriptivism, and it is not necessary for descriptivists to hold Assumption 2. This paper finally concludes that Kripke’s semantic argument against descriptivism fails. (shrink)

We examine the influence of inferring interlocutors' referential intentions from their body movements at the early stage of lexical acquisition. By testing human participants and comparing their performances in different learning conditions, we find that those embodied intentions facilitate both word discovery and word‐meaning association. In light of empirical findings, the main part of this article presents a computational model that can identify the sound patterns of individual words from continuous speech, using nonlinguistic contextual information, and employ body movements as (...) deictic references to discover word‐meaning associations. To our knowledge, this work is the first model of word learning that not only learns lexical items from raw multisensory signals to closely resemble infant language development from natural environments, but also explores the computational role of social cognitive skills in lexical acquisition. (shrink)

Previous research shows that people can use the co-occurrence of words and objects in ambiguous situations (i.e., containing multiple words and objects) to learn word meanings during a brief passive training period (Yu & Smith, 2007). However, learners in the world are not completely passive but can affect how their environment is structured by moving their heads, eyes, and even objects. These actions can indicate attention to a language teacher, who may then be more likely to name the attended objects. (...) Using a novel active learning paradigm in which learners choose which four objects they would like to see named on each successive trial, this study asks whether active learning is superior to passive learning in a cross-situational word learning context. Finding that learners perform better in active learning, we investigate the strategies and discover that most learners use immediate repetition to disambiguate pairings. Unexpectedly, we find that learners who repeat only one pair per trial—an easy way to infer this pair—perform worse than those who repeat multiple pairs per trial. Using a working memory extension to an associative model of word learning with uncertainty and familiarity biases, we investigate individual differences that correlate with these assorted strategies. (shrink)

Joint attention has been extensively studied in the developmental literature because of overwhelming evidence that the ability to socially coordinate visual attention to an object is essential to healthy developmental outcomes, including language learning. The goal of this study was to understand the complex system of sensory-motor behaviors that may underlie the establishment of joint attention between parents and toddlers. In an experimental task, parents and toddlers played together with multiple toys. We objectively measured joint attention—and the sensory-motor behaviors that (...) underlie it—using a dual head-mounted eye-tracking system and frame-by-frame coding of manual actions. By tracking the momentary visual fixations and hand actions of each participant, we precisely determined just how often they fixated on the same object at the same time, the visual behaviors that preceded joint attention and manual behaviors that preceded and co-occurred with joint attention. We found that multiple sequential sensory-motor patterns lead to joint attention. In addition, there are developmental changes in this multi-pathway system evidenced as variations in strength among multiple routes. We propose that coordinated visual attention between parents and toddlers is primarily a sensory-motor behavior. Skill in achieving coordinated visual attention in social settings—like skills in other sensory-motor domains—emerges from multiple pathways to the same functional end. (shrink)

Background: Chinese Taoist cognitive therapy (CTCT), a culture-oriented psychological therapy for Chinese mental well-being, has been proposed for decades. However, the evidence for its effects is unclear. This study aimed to systematically assess the effect of this therapy on symptoms of depression and anxiety in Chinese adults. Methods: Relevant studies were searched from major electronic databases through November 2018 without language limits. Several search terms used include “anxiety” OR “depression” AND “Taoism” OR “Daoism” OR “Chinese Taoist Cognitive Therapy”. A total (...) of 11 clinical trials focusing on CTCT were included in this meta-analysis. Random-effects meta-analytical models were conducted. Heterogeneity and publication bias were also explored. Results: Eight clinical trials for 580 subjects were included. The majority of these studies explored samples with depressive symptoms. Overall, CTCT significantly reduced depressive symptoms with a small positive effect (SMD = 0.16, 95% CI: -0.36-0.68). Medium-to-large effect sizes were observed across individuals with clinical or nonclinical depression and chronic physical diseases (SMD = 0.70, 95%CI: 0.27-1.13 and SMD = 0.72, 95%CI: 0.09-1.35, respectively). However, the effectiveness for anxiety symptoms remains debatable. Conclusions: Our findings hold promise that CTCT can help reduce depressive symptoms in Chinese adults, including patients with chronic physical diseases and clinical or nonclinical depression. Our findings may be generalized to Chinese communities in other countries. (shrink)

Five experiments investigated how people use categories to make inductions about objects whose categorisation is uncertain. Normatively, they should consider all the categories the object might be in and use a weighted combination of information from all the categories: bet-hedging. The experiments presented people with simple, artificial categories and asked them to make an induction about a new object that was most likely in one category but possibly in another. The results showed that the majority of people focused on the (...) most likely category in making inductions, although there was a group of consistently normative responders who used information from both categories (about 25% of our college population). Across experiments the overall pattern of results suggests that performance in the task is improved not by understanding the underlying principles of bet-hedging but by increasing the likelihood that multiple categories are in working memory at the time of the induction. We discuss implications for improving everyday inductions. (shrink)

This study attempts to investigate the relationships among the ethical beliefs of Chinese consumers and orientations based on attitudinal attributes: materialism and moral philosophies (idealism and relativism). In addition, this study examines Chinese consumers' ethical beliefs in relation to five selected demographic characteristics (gender, age, religion, family income and education). Based on this exploratory study of 284 Chinese consumers, the following statistically significant findings were discovered. First, Chinese consumers regard that a passively benefiting activity is more ethical, but actively benefiting (...) from an illegal or a questionable activity is unacceptable. Second, the two dimensions of passively benefiting and no harm/no foul can be used to distinguish the consumers who endorse higher levels of idealism or relativism. Third, Chinese consumers with a high level of materialism are more likely to actively benefit from illegal and questionable activities, and the passively benefiting actions. Finally, the more ethical Chinese consumers seem to be younger, be religious, and have a lower family income. (shrink)

In many jurisdictions, legal frameworks afford patients the opportunity to make prospective medical decisions or to create directives that contain a special provision forfeiting their own ability to object to those decisions at a future time point, should they lose decision‐making capacity. These agreements have been described with widely varying nomenclatures, including Ulysses Contracts, Odysseus Transfers, Psychiatric Advance Directives with Ulysses Clauses, and Powers of Attorney with Special Provisions. As a consequence of this terminological heterogeneity, it is challenging for healthcare (...) providers to understand the terms and uses of these agreements and for ethicists to engage with the nuances of clinical decision‐making with such unique provisions surrounding patient autonomy. In theory, prospective self‐binding agreements may safeguard patient's “authentic” wishes from future “inauthentic” changes of mind. In practice, it is unclear what may be comprised within these agreements or how—and to what effect—they are used. The primary focus of this integrative review is to curate the existing literature describing Ulysses Contracts (and analogous decisions) used in the clinical arena, in order to empirically synthesize their shared essence and provide insights into the traditional components of these agreements when used in practice, the requirements of their consent processes, and the outcomes of their utilization. (shrink)

We prove that for a finitely generated infinite nilpotent group $G$ with structure $(G,\cdot,\dots)$, the connected component ${G^*}^0$ of a sufficiently saturated extension $G^*$ of $G$ exists and equals $$\bigcap_{n\in\N} \{g^n\colon g\in G^*\}.$$ We construct an expansion of ${\mathbb Z}$ by a predicate $({\mathbb Z},+,P)$ such that the type-connected component ${{\mathbb Z}^*}^{00}_{\emptyset}$ is strictly smaller than ${{\mathbb Z}^*}^0$. We generalize this to finitely generated virtually solvable groups. As a corollary of our construction we obtain an optimality result for (...) the van der Waerden theorem for finite partitions of groups. (shrink)

The purposes of research were to describe the neonatal clinicians' personal views and attitudes on neonatal ethical decision-making, to identify factors that might affect these attitudes and to compare the attitudes between neonatal physicians and neonatal nurses in Taiwan. Research was a cross-sectional design and a questionnaire was used to reach different research purposes. A convenient sample was used to recruit 24 physicians and 80 neonatal nurses from four neonatal intensive care units in Taiwan. Most participants agreed with suggesting a (...) do not resuscitate (DNR) order to parents for dying neonates (86.5%). However, the majority agreed with talking to patients about DNR orders is difficult (76.9%). Most participants agree that review by the clinical ethics committee is needed before the recommendation of ‘DNR’ to parents (94.23%) and nurses were significantly more likely than physicians to agree to this (p=0.043). During the end-of-life care, most clinicians accepted to continue current treatment without adding others (70%) and withholding of emergency treatments (75%); however, active euthanasia, the administration of drug to end-of-life, was not considered acceptable by both physicians and nurses in this research (96%). Based on our research results, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage for neonatal clinicians are needed. In Taiwan, neonatal physicians and nurses hold similar values and attitudes towards end-of-life decisions for neonates. In order to improve the clinicians' communication skills with parents about DNR options and to change clinicians' attitudes for providing enough pain-relief medicine to dying neonates, providing continuing educational training and a formal consulting service in moral courage are needed. (shrink)

Abstract Chinese culture has remained steady, stretching through time as long and unbroken as the Great Wall. In thousands of years, Chinese culture has exhibited a remarkable ability to assimilate foreign intrusions. Even though several times throughout Chinese history minority nationalities have been in military and political control of China, they were gradually assimilated by Chinese culture. Christianity has spent more than a thousand years attempting to convert the Chinese with only negligible success. However, why was Marxism able to become (...) the dominant ideology in only 30 years? This article discusses the critical cultural roots of the different destinies of Marxism and Christianity within the Great Wall. (shrink)

Perceptual tasks such as object matching, mammogram interpretation, mental rotation, and satellite imagery change detection often require the assignment of correspondences to fuse information across views. We apply techniques developed for machine translation to the gaze data recorded from a complex perceptual matching task modeled after fingerprint examinations. The gaze data provide temporal sequences that the machine translation algorithm uses to estimate the subjects' assumptions of corresponding regions. Our results show that experts and novices have similar surface behavior, such as (...) the number of fixations made or the duration of fixations. However, the approach applied to data from experts is able to identify more corresponding areas between two prints. The fixations that are associated with clusters that map with high probability to corresponding locations on the other print are likely to have greater utility in a visual matching task. These techniques address a fundamental problem in eye tracking research with perceptual matching tasks: Given that the eyes always point somewhere, which fixations are the most informative and therefore are likely to be relevant for the comparison task? (shrink)

Histone post-translational modifications play important roles in transcriptional regulation. It is known that multiple histone modifications can act in a combinatorial manner. In this study, we investigated the effects of multiple histone modifications on expression levels of five gene categories in coding regions. The combinatorial patterns of modifications for the five gene categories were also studied in the regions. Our results indicated that the differences in the expression levels between any two gene categories were significant. There were some corresponding differences (...) in multiple histone modification levels among the five gene categories. Multiple histone modifications jointly impacted expression levels of every gene category. Four mutual combinations of histone modifications were found and analyzed. (shrink)

Educators themselves and their knowledge are the most significant elements in learners’ success and achievement; however, there is little information about the specialized knowledge held by educators. Recently, conceptualizing educator knowledge has become a complicated issue that involves that the comprehension of important basic phenomena, such as the procedure of educating and learning, the notion of knowledge, and the way educators’ knowledge, has become practical within the class. Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge was presented as a theoretical structure for the knowledge (...) base because educators have to efficiently instruct with technology and it is regarded as a valuable framework for explaining and understanding technology integration into various academic environments, such as English as a Foreign Language class. This paper is intended to review the related literature on the role of an English teacher using the TPACK framework for teaching English and their role in students’ achievement. Based on the related literature, there is a significant and direct association between EFL teachers’ TPACK and EFL students’ achievement. Succinctly, some recommendations have been proposed for educational stakeholders. (shrink)

Fezf1 and Fezf2 are highly conserved transcription factors that were first identified by their specific expression in the anterior neuroepithelium of Xenopus and zebrafish embryos. These proteins share an N‐terminal domain with homology to the canonical engrailed repressor motif and a C‐terminal DNA binding domain containing six C2H2 zinc‐finger repeats. Over a decade of study indicates that the Fez proteins play critical roles during nervous system development in species as diverse as fruit flies and mice. Herein we discuss recent progress (...) in understanding the functions of Fezf1 and Fezf2 in neurogenesis and cell fate specification during mammalian nervous system development. Going forward we believe that efforts should focus on understanding how expression of these factors is precisely regulated, and on identifying target DNA sequences and interacting partners. Such knowledge may reveal the mechanisms by which Fezf1 and Fezf2 accomplish both independent and redundant functions across diverse tissue and cell types. (shrink)

Ethiopian Jewish immigrants in Israel are one of the most ancient communities in the world, one that has been detached from the known Jewish world for about 2,500 years. Throughout this very long period of isolation, the Ethiopian Jewish community maintained Jewish tradition and dreamed over the centuries to unite with the rest of the Jewish world and immigrate to the Jewish state—Israel. But this transition occurred within a short time from an agrarian society in Ethiopia (traditional culture) with an (...) oral culture to a knowledge society in Israel (modern culture) with a written culture. Most studies that examine cultural transition focus on anthropological, sociological, and cultural aspects; but there are nearly no studies that examine the technological knowledge of non-literate populations. The purpose of this study is to examine and characterize technological knowledge among this population—the case of Ethiopian non-literate immigrants in Israel. The study involved in-depth interviews to examine technological knowledge through using technological appliances in their everyday life, assembly of two simple technological systems, and a home technology profile compared to the general population in Israel. Participants included 50 non-literate Ethiopian immigrants between the ages of 40–60. The results of our study are surprising in that we have shown that non-literate immigrants adapt to a technology-rich environment at an average degree with respect to the general population in Israel. Also, comparing technological knowledge between traditional and modern cultures shows participants’ wide range of knowledge without ability to read and write. Illiteracy does not preclude the development of knowledge in general, technological knowledge particularly, and does not prevent non-literate populations from acquiring knowledge in a new environment. (shrink)

This book is an abridged version of Feng Qi’s two major works on the history of philosophy, The Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy and The Revolutionary Course of Modern Chinese Philosophy. It is a comprehensive history of Chinese philosophy taking the reader from ancient times to the year 1949. It illuminates the characteristics of traditional Chinese philosophy from the broader vantage point of epistemology. The book revolves around important debates including those on “Heaven and humankind” (tian ren天人), “names and (...) actualities” (mingshi名實), “principle and vital force” (liqi理氣), “the Way and visible things” (daoqi道器), “mind and matter/things” (xinwu心物), and “knowledge and action” (zhixing知行). Through discussion of these debates, the course of Chinese philosophy unfolds. Modern Chinese philosophy has made landmark achievements in the development of historical and epistemological theory, namely the “dynamic and revolutionary theory of reflection”. However, modern Chinese philosophy is yet to construct a systematic overview of logic and methodology, as well as questions of human freedom and ideals. Amid this discussion, the question of how contemporary China is to “take the baton” from the thinkers of the modern philosophical revolution is addressed. (shrink)

Background: Greater vulnerability to negative emotions appears associated with the development and maintenance of eating disorders. A systematic review of psychophysiological studies using emotion-eliciting film clips reveals that there are no studies examining the effect of standardized validated film clips on psychophysiological response across a range of EDs.Methods: Using standardized validated film clips without ED-specific content, the present study examined self-reported emotions and psychophysiological responses of women with Binge-Eating Disorder, Anorexia Nervosa, Bulimia Nervosa, and Healthy Controls at Baseline, during Neutral, (...) Sad, Happy, and Fear-inducing film clips, and at Recovery.Results: Throughout the protocol, the ED groups reported significantly greater sadness and anxiety than HCs. Additionally, the AN group reported more fear, the BED group more frustration, and the BED and BN groups more tension than HCs. Compared to HCs, the BED group reported stronger urges to binge throughout the protocol, whereas BN group reported stronger urges to binge relative to the HC group only at Baseline and Recovery. The BN and BED groups experienced decreased urges to binge during all film clips compared to Baseline. Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia levels were significantly lower in the BED group compared to HCs and the BN group throughout the protocol.Discussion: Standardized validated film clips can be used to elicit expected self-reported emotion and skin conductance responses in ED groups, although individuals with EDs compared HCs report greater negative emotions. Interestingly, film clips appeared to reduce urges to binge in binge-eating groups. (shrink)

There are three main problems in track fastener defect detection based on image: The number of abnormal fastener pictures is scarce, and supervised learning detection model is difficult to establish. The potential data features obtained by different feature extraction methods are different. Some methods focus on edge features, and some methods focus on texture features. Different features have different detection capabilities, and these features are not effectively fused and utilized. The detection of the track fastener clip will be interfered by (...) the track fastener bolt subimage. Aiming at the above three problems, a method for track fastener defects detection based on Local Deep Feature Fusion Network is proposed. Firstly, the track fastener image segmentation method is used to obtain the track fastener clip subimage, which can effectively reduce the interference of bolt subimage features on the track fastener clip detection. Secondly, the edge features and texture features of track fastener clip subimages are extracted by Autoencoder and Restricted Boltzmann Machine, and the features are fused. Finally, the similarity measurement method Mahalanobis Distance is used to detect defects in track fasteners. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by real Pandrol track fastener images. (shrink)

Drug abuse has been and continues to be, a common social issue worldwide, yet the efficiency of widely adopted sweeping speech for anti-drug campaigns has proven inefficient. To provide students with a safe and efficient learning situation related to drug refusal skills, we used a novel approach rooted in a serious learning game and concept map during a brief extracurricular period to help students understand drugs and their negative effects. The proposed game-based situational learning system allowed all students to participate (...) simultaneously and individually in multiple scenarios of drug temptation posed by peers and classmates to practice responding and refusing drugs in school and community settings. Moreover, to explore whether different personality traits result in different anti-drug responses, we used a serious game to conduct an anti-drug experiment on 53 junior middle school students aged 13–15. Each participant’s decision-making process was recorded in the serious game as behavioral patterns for lag sequential analysis. The outcomes revealed seven behavioral patterns including differentiation, acceptance, effective and ineffective responses, effective and ineffective solution-seeking, and failure to refuse. The GSEQ which is a computer program for analyzing sequential observational data was used. The results indicated the following: Neuroticism was performed at a relatively low level under the guidance of a concept map. “Neuroticism” was associated with the lowest risk of accepting drugs. Students with “openness to experiences” were at high risk of accepting drugs. Almost all personality behavioral transition diagrams showed that failure to refuse drugs was followed by inefficient seeking of help and inefficient refusal. These findings provide reference points for designing adaptive anti-drug education programs. (shrink)

To explore whether the generation of new protein folds could be linked to metallic cofactor recruitment, we identified the oldest examples of folds for manganese, iron, zinc, and copper proteins by analyzing their fold‐domain mapping patterns. We discovered that the generation of these folds was tightly coupled to corresponding metals. We found that the emerging order for these folds, i.e., manganese and iron protein folds appeared earlier than zinc and copper counterparts, coincides with the putative bioavailability of the corresponding metals (...) in the ancient anoxic ocean. Therefore, we conclude that metallic cofactors, like organic cofactors, play an evolutionary role in the formation of new protein folds. This link could be explained by the emergence of protein structures with novel folds that could fulfill the new protein functions introduced by the metallic cofactors. These findings not only have important implications for understanding the evolutionary mechanisms of protein architectures, but also provide a further interpretation for the evolutionary story of superoxide dismutases. (shrink)

Impairment of spatial memory, including an inability to recall previous locations and navigate the world, is often one of the first signs of functional disability on the road to cognitive impairment. While there are many screening and diagnostic tools which attempt to measure spatial memory ability, they are often not representative of real-life situations and can therefore lack applicability. One potential solution to this problem involves the use of virtual reality, which immerses individuals in a virtually-simulated environment, allowing for scenarios (...) more representative of real-life without any of the associated risks. Here, we review the evidence surrounding the use of VR for the screening and diagnosis of spatial memory impairments, including potential limitations and how it compares to standard neuropsychological tests. We will also discuss the evidence regarding the potential use of VR in the rehabilitation of spatial memory deficits, which has not been well studied, but which could be game-changing if proven successful. (shrink)