Posts tagged with "EurekAlert"

Above, a person's favorite film genre reveals a lot about how their brain works. (Photo source: Daily Mail)

Study shows what your favorite film genres reveal about your brain

August 28, 2024

Crime films, action films, comedies, or documentaries? A person’s favorite film genre reveals a lot about how their brain works. This is the finding of a new study led by the Martin Luther Universität Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in Germany that compared data on film preferences with recordings of the brain activity of around 260 people reports EurekAlert.

Fans of action films and comedies reacted very strongly to negative emotional stimuli, while participants who favored documentaries or crime films and thrillers had a significantly weaker reaction. The results were published in the journal. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Films are an interesting phenomenon for psychologists. “Films are so fascinating because they not only depict every human emotion, but they also evoke them. Negative emotions, such as anger or fear, play a central role in many films,” says Esther Zwiky, a psychologist at MLU. Up until recently, relatively little was known about the connection between film preferences and the processing of negative emotions in the brain.

The researchers investigated this interplay in detail by analyzing data from 257 people. As part of a larger study, the respondents also provided information about their film preferences.

In addition, the participants’ brain activity was analyzed using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Subjects were shown fearful or angry faces and geometric shapes while lying in an MRI machine. “With this established test, we can measure how the brain processes emotional stimuli,” explains Zwiky.

The researchers focused on two areas of the brain. First, the amygdala, which is responsible for processing vital emotions. “The amygdala can trigger a fight-or-flight reaction in response to threats,” says Zwiky. The team also investigated the neuronal activity of the nucleus accumbens, known as the reward center in the brain.

The results were surprising: “We found that fans of action films showed the strongest reactions in both areas. We hadn’t expected this, as action films typically provide many stimuli. Thus, it would have made more sense if action fans had been less easy to stimulate,” Zwiky continues.

However, the results suggest that action film aficionados are particularly susceptible to emotional stimuli and find this stimulation appealing. The team found similar brain activity in the brains of people who preferred comedies.

A different picture emerged, however, for fans of crime films or thrillers and documentaries. Here, both areas of the brain reacted significantly less to the emotional stimuli than in the other groups of participants. “It appears that people choose the film genres that most optimally stimulate their brains,” concludes Zwiky.

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, researchers used a panel of feline taste-testers to identify favored flavor compounds in a series of chicken-liver-based sprays. (Photo source: Dr. Liz Bales)

Improving cat food flavors with the help of feline taste-testers

August 2, 2024

Cats are notoriously picky eaters. But what if we could design their foods around flavors that they’re scientifically proven to enjoy? Researchers who published their findings in the American Chemical Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry used a panel of feline taste-testers to identify favored flavor compounds in a series of chicken-liver-based sprays, reports EurekaAlert.

The cats particularly enjoyed the sprays that contained more free amino acids, which gave their kibble more savory and fatty flavors.

Cats have a more acute sense of smell than humans, and the aroma of their food plays a big role in whether they’ll eat or snub what their owner serves for dinner. Feline palates are also more sensitive to umami (savory) flavors than humans, and they can’t taste sweetness. While meat-flavored food attractant sprays can help improve the scent and tastiness of dry kibble, the exact correlation between volatile flavor compounds and palatability is not well understood.

Additionally, previous studies in this area lack input from a very important focus group: actual cats! So, Shiqing Song and colleagues relied on the expertise of a panel of ten hungry adult cats to evaluate a series of food sprays containing different volatile flavor compounds.

To prepare their fragrant sprays, the researchers homogenized and heat-treated chicken livers. Then, they broke down proteins in the liver paste to various degrees using enzymes to produce four different food attractants.

Song’s team identified over 50 different flavor compounds across the sprays, ranging from tropical and floral to sweaty and rubbery. For the taste test, the researchers coated commercially available cat food with chicken fat and then sprayed it with one of the four chicken liver attractants. The samples were presented to the cats alongside a control food treated with a different, commercially available attractant. The team observed which bowl the cats chose first and how much food they ate throughout the day.

The researchers found that most cats preferred and ate more of the foods sprayed with their attractants—particularly the sprays with proteins that were further broken-down by the enzymes and contained more free amino acids.

The favored foods contained more mushroom and fatty flavors as well; while the less-enjoyed foods featured acidic- and sweet-tasting compounds, possibly because fewer Maillard reactions occurred. This work could help inform future cat food formulations and increase your chances of choosing a kibble that your finicky feline actually might enjoy.

Research contact: @EurekaAlert

Above, a cat with the robot arm in the Cat Royale installation . (Photo source: Blast Theory/Stephen Daly)

Cats ‘purrfectly’ demonstrate what it takes to trust robots

May 14, 2024

Would you trust a robot to look after your cat? New research suggests that it takes more than a carefully designed piece of machinery to care for your cat; the environment in which they operate is also vital, as well as human interaction, reports EurekAlert.

Cat Royale is a unique collaboration between computer scientists from the University of Nottingham and artists at Blast Theory, who worked together to create a multispecies world centered around a bespoke enclosure in which three cats and a robot arm coexist for six hours a day during a twelve-day installation as part of an artist-led project.

The installation was launched in 2023 at the World Science Festival in Brisbane, Australia, and has been touring since. It has just won a Webby award for its creative experience.

The research paper—“Designing Multispecies Worlds for Robots, Cats, and Humans”—has just been presented at the annual Computer-Human Conference (CHI’24) in Honolulu where it won best paper. It outlines how designing the technology and its interactions is not sufficient, but that it is equally important to consider the design of the “world” in which the technology operates. The research also highlights the necessity of human involvement in areas such as breakdown recovery, animal welfare, and their role as audience.

Cat Royale centered around a robot arm offering activities to make the cats happier, these included dragging a ‘mouse’ toy along the floor, raising a feather ‘bird’ into the air, and even offering them treats to eat. The team then trained an AI to learn what games the cats liked best so that it could personalize their experiences.

“At first glance, the project is about designing a robot to enrich the lives of a family of cats by playing with them. “ commented Professor Steve Benford from the University of Nottingham who led the research, “Under the surface, however, it explores the question of what it takes to trust a robot to look after our loved ones and potentially ourselves.”

Working with Blast Theory to develop and then study Cat Royale, the research team gained important insights into the design of robots and their interactions with the cats. They had to design the robot to pick up toys and deploy them in ways that excited the cats, while it learned, which games each cat liked. They also designed the entire world in which the cats and the robot lived—providing safe spaces for the cats to observe the robot and from which to sneak up on it, and decorating it so that the robot had the best chance of spotting the approaching cats.

The implication is that designing robots involves interior design as well as engineering anCd AI. If you want to introduce robots into your home to look after your loved ones, then you will likely need to redesign your home.

Research workshops for Cat Royale were held at the Univeraity of Nottingham’s unique Cobotmaker Space, where stakeholders were bought together to think about the design of the robot /welfare of cats.

Eike Schneiders, transitional assistant professor in the Mixed Reality Lab at the University of Nottingham worked on the desig. He said, “As we learned through Cat Royale, creating a multispecies system—where cats, robots, and humans are all accounted for—takes more than just designing the robot.

We had to ensure animal wellbeing at all times, while simultaneously ensuring that the interactive installation engaged the (human) audiences around the world. This involved consideration of many elements, including the design of the enclosure, the robot, and its underlying systems; the various roles of the humans-in-the-loop; and, of course, the selection of the cats.”

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, pancreatic cancer. (Photo source: Pancreatic Cancer Action Network)

A new type of biopsy shows promise for early detection of pancreatic cancer

April 9, 2024

Until recently, tissue biopsy has been the most common method of cancer diagnosis. However, the possibility of metastasis that comes with this invasive process has led to the adoption of a new strategy for cancer diagnosis and prognosis prediction, according to findings of research conducted by a team at Jiangsu University in China and published in the journal, Molecular Cancer, in 2022.

Now, that same study suggests, liquid biopsy—characterized by minimally invasive detection through biofluids such as blood, saliva, and urine—has emerged as a revolutionary strategy for cancer diagnosis and prognosis prediction. Exosomes are a subset of extracellular vesicles (EVs) that shuttle molecular cargoes from donor cells to recipient cells and play a crucial role in mediating intercellular communication. Exosomes are thought to hold great promise to serve as novel biomarkers in liquid biopsy.

Indeed, an investigational exosome-based liquid biopsy accurately detected 97% of stage 1-2 pancreatic cancers when combined with the biomarker CA 19-9, according to research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 , held April 5-10, reports EurekAlert.

“Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal malignancies, in large part because the majority of patients are diagnosed only after the cancer has already metastasized,” says Ajay Goel, PhD, senior author of the study and the chair of the Department of Molecular Diagnostics and Experimental Therapeutics at City of Hope.

While the five-year relative survival rate for patients diagnosed at the earliest stages—before the cancer has spread from the pancreas—is 44.3%; it is only 3.2% for those diagnosed with metastatic disease.

“It is of utmost importance to diagnose patients as early as possible so they have the opportunity to receive potentially curative surgery and treatment,” Goel says.

Caiming Xu, MD, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Goel’s research group, added that early detection of pancreatic cancer remains challenging due to the nonspecific symptoms of the disease and because the pancreas is located deep within the abdomen, where it cannot be easily palpated during physical examination.

Furthermore, existing biomarkers, such as CA19-9, are not reliable on their own to detect early-stage pancreatic cancer.

“Exosomes retain the cytoplasmic content of the cell from which they were shed—essentially replicating the biology of their tissue of origin,” Xu explained.

The researchers identified eight microRNAs (small noncoding RNA molecules) that were uniquely found in exosomes shed from pancreatic cancers. They combined these with five cell-free DNA markers found in the blood of patients with pancreatic cancer to develop a signature associated with this disease.

The researchers previously tested the performance of their exosome-based liquid biopsy signature in a cohort of 95 individuals from either the United States or Japan—reporting a 98% pancreatic cancer detection rate. The latest study sought to evaluate the liquid biopsy in large, prospective cohorts from multiple institutions and countries.

The study enrolled individuals from:

Japan (150 with pancreatic cancer; 102 healthy donors);
USA (139 with pancreatic cancer; 193 healthy donors);
South Korea (184 with pancreatic cancer; 86 healthy donors); and
China (50 with pancreatic cancer; 80 healthy donors).

The liquid biopsy signature was trained on information from the Japanese cohort and validated in the cohorts from the United States, South Korea, and China.

Goel, Xu, and colleagues reported that their liquid biopsy approach detected:

Further, when they combined their signature with the pancreatic cancer marker CA19-9, the liquid biopsy test accurately detected 97% of stage 1-2 pancreatic cancers in the USA cohort. Stage 1 pancreatic cancers are confined to the pancreas; some stage 2 cancers have spread to nearby lymph nodes but have not spread to distant sites.

“We have established an exosome-based signature that combines exosomal microRNAs and cell-free DNA to robustly identify patients with early-stage pancreatic cancer,” said Xu.

“Our approach offers a liquid biopsy test superior to CA19-9 measurement alone for early-stage disease,” Goel added. “Moreover, we evaluated the effectiveness of our assay in several different populations, including populations of different ethnic and geographical backgrounds.”

While additional research is needed before this test can be deployed to the general population, the researchers noted that it might benefit certain groups with a high risk for pancreatic cancer; such as those with chronic pancreatitis, new-onset diabetes, or a family history of pancreatic cancer.

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, Jonathan King, assistant professor, Political Science, at WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. (Photo source:WVU photo by Jennifer Shephard)

WVU political scientist, students to look ‘behind the curtain’ at Supreme Court justices’ relationships

April 2, 2024

A West Virginia University researcher is studying newly released records of private communications among U.S. Supreme Court justices to learn how they interact and relate behind the scenes, reports EurekAlert.

Justice John Paul Stevens donated records, writings, opinion drafts and memos between himself and other justices to the Library of Congress upon his death. To compile and analyze these documents—from Stevens’ 1975-2004 tenure on the Supreme Court—Jonathan King, assistant professor of Political Science in the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, will be traveling with graduate students to Washington, D.C.

“It’s a treasure trove of things like conversations, opinions, and general musings,” King says of the files. “What happens in the Supreme Court is often behind the scenes. These give us access into how justices interact with each other and how they’re thinking about cases. Most justices don’t release this kind of data. It goes against court decorum, especially when the other justices are still on the bench.”

This summer, King will bring graduate students to the Library of Congress for eight weeks. They’ll collect data contained in roughly 70,000 documents and use a high-resolution camera to photograph and digitize the information, which can be converted to a machine-readable format.

“We want to train graduate students on data collection, as well as the research process,” he said.

The data will then be available to other researchers, journalists, academic,s and the general public, especially those who lack the ability to travel to the Library of Congress. King plans to create a website dashboard where people can search individual cases and interactions between justices. When it comes to that data, he’s most interested in precedent-altering cases along the lines of the recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

“We want to look into several major cases where the Court said, ‘Past decisions were wrong,’” he says. “These changes in the law can lead to controversy across the justices. We want to see how the justices interact with each other after those decisions. They have to work with each other. We want to know if and how this collegiality changes.”

Data from Stevens’ tenure may reveal some inner workings of the current Supreme Court bench, too. “Some of the things that we’ve seen since the Court decision which overturned Roe v. Wade really seem like attacks between justices—something that’s out of the norm. But maybe that’s happened before and it’s just something we’re seeing much more publicly now.”

While these types of communication records are readily available from the executive and legislative branches, King said the Supreme Court is the more secretive branch of government, and data has historically been scarce. He’s particularly interested in the interactions between 1994 and 2005. This was the longest “natural court,” during which there were no personnel changes on the bench.

Stevens’ records indicate that, in addition to work-focused discourse, the judges conversed about everyday topics like lunch plans. Likewise, Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsberg were known to be close friends who vacationed together, despite their opposing political stances and numerous dissenting majority opinions.

“We’re able to show these justices are normal people,” King says. “Sometimes, justices sitting on the bench during oral arguments would have baseball scores passed to them. These are the fun things that people can see, the actual personality behind the justices.”

The documents may also reveal collegiality between justices could deteriorate after a significant case when the outcome is not in a particular judge’s favor. King would like to know if that effect is a lasting one and if it’s related to the magnitude of a case. He cites the example of Bush v. Gore, which determined the outcome of the disputed 2000 presidential election.

Since that decision, Americans have started to pay more attention to the Supreme Court, King says.

His study also will shed light on day-to-day processes and how they have changed over time. This includes how digital behavior and digital decision making takes place in the 21st century.

King said he hopes to have the repository digitized and machine readable by early 2025.

“Not many academics have gotten a look at this,” he said. “It illuminates a lot of these processes that we don’t know much about, so we’re excited to see what some of those data are.”

The project is funded by the National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research and the Law and Science Program.

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, the researchers compare cancer cells to the engine of a racing car: If you crank up the RPM and then turn off the cooling, it's bound to crash. (Visual source: Netherlands Cancer Institute)

Beating by overheating: A new strategy to combat cancer

March 29, 2024

Many new drugs inhibit the processes that cancer cells need to divide rapidly, so as to inhibit the cancer as a whole. But cancer cells have all sorts of workarounds to get around that effect. As a result, the tumor becomes unresponsive to treatment.

That’s why researcher Matheus dos Santos Dias is taking a completely different approach, reports EurekAlert.

“We’re going against the prevailing view that you can only fight cancer cells by inhibiting them,” he says. “But we had strong evidence that it also works if you overstimulate and exhaust them.”

Dias works at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in the research group of Rene Bernards—who is an investigator at Oncode Institute; and also a director of Lixte Biotechnology, producer of the PP2A inhibitor used in this study. Both researchers are shareholders of Lixte.

This research was financially supported by the KWF Dutch Cancer Society and Oncode Institute.

Everyone makes inhibitors

And so, Dias set out to find a drug that stimulates cancer cells, as well as a perfectly suited partner drug that can then finish the job. By doing so, he wants to upset the balance in cancer cells to the point where they can no longer save themselves.

“Compare it to the engine of a racing car: If you crank uWEE1 inhibitor

p the RPM and then turn off the cooling, it’s bound to crash. This is exactly what we are trying to do with the drugs.”

It’s tricky, though: “Activating drugs are not that common; almost everyone makes inhibitors. But we did find one we could work with,” he says. That drug acts on the protein PP2A. In a large-scale experiment with all kinds of drug combinations, he and his colleagues then found a WEE1 inhibitor to be the best partner in crime. That inhibitor targets overactive, stressed cells and keeps them from functioning properly.

Higher gear

Cancer cells and mice with patient tumors respond well to the drug combo. And, not insignificantly, the side effects seem manageable.

According to Dias, “This obviously does not mean it will not have side effects in humans. But we suspect that normal cells can defend themselves against this activation much better than cancer cells, which … are already in a higher gear.”

Resistant and less malignant

Dias says, “Resistance is a huge problem with existing treatments: Cells no longer respond and usually become even more aggressive than they already were. So we also looked at what happens when cells stop responding to our treatment. Surprisingly, resistant cells actually seemed less malignant: They grew less quickly, or not at all.”

“This research makes you think about cancer very differently,” says internist-oncologist Neeltje Steeghs. She heads the Clinical Research Unit at the Netherlands Cancer Institute, where the very first patients receive new treatments within clinical studies.

Paradoxical approach

“I don’t know whether this new combination will work in patients. The reality is that many of these kinds of early studies are not successful. But the current treatments doctors have access to did start there, as well. And when you’ve done all you can in the lab, the only step you can and must take is: testing in patients.”

The researchers hope to have started the first study in patients by the end of this year.

“In the beginning, doctors and researchers still had questions about this concept, but now the support is incredible,” says Dias. “Scientifically, the concept is hard to refute. I hope that other labs will now also start testing this paradoxical approach, including other drugs as well.”

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, a minimally-invasive treatment using MRI and transurethral ultrasound ihs been found to be effective in treating prostate cancer. (Photo source: Medical Xpress)

New treatment option for prostate cancer shows successful outcomes

March 21, 2024

A minimally invasive treatment using MRI and transurethral ultrasound instead of surgery or radiation is effective in treating prostate cancer, according to new research to be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology Annual Scientific Meeting in Salt Lake City, reports EurekAlert.

The traditional treatment options of radiation or surgery often come with a risk of side effects, including urinary incontinence and erectile dysfunction that cause significant morbidity and adverse lifestyle effects.

Researchers said that some patients now have a durable alternative for whole-gland treatment with MRI-guided transurethral ultrasound ablation (TULSA), which does not preclude future treatment with surgery or radiation.

“The success of TULSA represents a revolution in whole-gland treatment for prostate cancer,” said lead author Steven S. Raman, M.D., FASR, FSIR, professor of radiology, urology, and surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in men, affecting one in eight men in their lifetimes. We have more research to do, but if validated, TULSA has the potential to change the standard of care for thousands of men.”

In the TULSA procedure, a small catheter-like device is inserted through the urethra into the prostate. Once there, MRI is used to guide precise positioning of ten therapeutic ultrasound elements into the prostate. MR thermometry is used to monitor the tissue while heating to more than 55 degrees within the prostate and limiting heat to the sensitive nerves surrounding the prostate as the device rotates around the entire gland. The procedure can be performed in an outpatient or in-patient facility under general or spinal anesthesia in two to three hours.Ultr

According to Dr. Raman, “This image-guided therapy maximizes our ability to kill cancer cells while minimizing collateral damage to the prostate to achieve the ultimate trifecta in prostate cancer treatment: full local cancer control while maintaining urinary continence and potency. The latter are the complications of most prostate cancer therapies that patients hate and often result from a lack of precision in treatment monitoring.”

In the prospective observational study, participants showed improvement in the reduction of the presence of cancer, prostate size, and prostate-specific antigen levels (PSA), which are markers for cancer.

Cancer was undetectable on follow up biopsy by 76% at one year after TULSA with a decrease in median prostate volume by 92% within one year and a decrease in PSA from 6.3 ng/ml to 0.63 ng/ml at five years.

TULSA had a very favorable side-effect profile compared to alternative surgical, radiation and thermal therapy, showing that by five years, 92% of patients recovered continence and 87% preserved erectile function.

During the study, 115 men were enrolled across 13 sites in five countries. Of those treated, 25 men received follow up conventional treatment with surgery or radiation because of residual or new tumors. Through this process, researchers learned the early predictors of TULSA failure related to calcifications between the urethra and target PCa and better monitoring of prostate swelling, targeting, and misalignment—leading to improved detection and management of these preventable errors during the procedure.

Dr. Raman noted that the study affirms that interventional radiologists (IRs) now have a meaningful role in detection and management of prostate cancer care; as they already had in other types of cancer, such as lung, kidney, and liver cancers. He said IRs’ expertise in imaging and image-guided procedures and experience with ablation make them a critical part of the prostate cancer care team.

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, a remarkable resemblance. (Photo source: @netflixnmovies/Instagram)

Research shows AI dog personality algorithm could match you with new ‘best friend’

February 8, 2024

A multi-disciplinary research team specializing in canine behavior and artificial intelligence has developed an AI algorithm that automates the high-stakes process of evaluating potential working dogs’ personalities. They hope to help dog training agencies more quickly and accurately assess which animals are likely to succeed long-term in careers, such as aiding law enforcement and assisting persons with disabilities.

The personality test could also be used for dog-human matchmaking—helping shelters with proper placement and, thus, reducing the number of animals returned for not being a good fit with their adoptive families, reports EurekAlert.

The scientists, from the University of East London and University of Pennsylvania, conducted the research on behalf of their sponsor, Dogvatar, a Miami, Fla.-based canine technology startup. They announced the dog personality testing algorithm results in their paper, “An Artificial Intelligence Approach To Predicting Personality Types In Dogs,” published January 29 in Scientific Reports.

The AI algorithm draws on data from nearly 8,000 responses to the widely used Canine Behavioral Assessment & Research Questionnaire (C-BARQ) to train itself. For over 20 years, the 100-question C-BARQ survey has been the gold standard for evaluating potential working dogs.

“C-BARQ is highly effective, but many of its questions are also subjective,” said co-Principal Investigator Dogvatar CEO ‘Alpha Pack Leader’ Piya Pettigrew

“By clustering data from thousands of surveys, we can adjust for outlying responses inherent to subjective survey questions in categories such as dog rivalry and stranger-directed fear.”

The research team’s experimental AI algorithm works in part by clustering the responses to C-BARQ questions into five main categories that ultimately shape the digital personality thumbprint a given dog receives. These personality types have been identified and described based on analysis of the most influential attributes in each one of the five categories and they include: “excitable/attached,” “anxious/fearful,” “aloof/predatory,” “reactive/assertive,” and “calm/agreeable.”

The data points that feed into those ultimate clusters include behavioral attributes such as “excitable when the doorbell rings,” “aggression toward unfamiliar dogs visiting your home,” and “chases or would chase birds given the opportunity.”

Each attribute is given a “feature importance” value, which is essentially how much weight the attribute receives as the AI algorithm calculates a dog’s personality score. “It’s rather remarkable; these clusters are very meaningful, very coherent,” Serpell said.

Dogvatar and its collaborating researchers intend to conduct further research into potential applications for their dog personality testing algorithm.

“This has been a really exciting breakthrough for us,” said Dogvatar CEO “Alpha Pack Leader” Piya Pettigrew. “This algorithm could greatly improve efficiency in the working dog training and placement process, and could help reduce the number of companion dogs brought back to shelters for not being compatible. It’s a win for both dogs and the people they serve.”

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, according to the CDC, nearly two-thirds of people over the age of 65 have some level of gum disease. (Photo source: Northside Dental)

Oral health influences subjective psychological well-being in older adults

January 31, 2024

In the elderly, oral health influences general health and well-being in many ways. Other than reducing the need for oral rehabilitation later in life, maintaining good oral health reduces the risk of several systemic diseases. However, whether the health benefits of improved oral health extend to the mindset of seniors has been unclear until very recently, reports EurekAlert.

An overall feeling of psychological well-being is known to positively affect the survival rates of both healthy and unhealthy populations. Thus, to increase life expectancy, it is important to identify the factors associated with subjective well-being. This involves the evaluation of quality of life—which includes life satisfaction, interests, and happiness.

Now, a team of researchers led by Senior Assistant Professor Noriko Takeuchi from the Department of Preventive Dentistry, Okayama University Hospital in Japan, has found that oral health influences subjective well-being in older adults through its effects on nutritional status and the individual’s environment.

Additionally, Dr. Daisuke Ekuni from Department of Preventive Dentistry, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, Dr. Nanami Sawada from Department of Preventive Dentistry, Okayama University Hospital, and Dr. Manabu Morita from Department of Oral Health, Takarazuka University of Medical and Health Care were involved in the research and served as co-authors in this study, published in PLOS ONE on November 28 of last year.

To arrive at their findings, the team examined oral conditions such as bacterial load in the tongue coating, chewing ability, swallowing ability, and more, among older adults visiting a dental clinic in Okayama University Hospital, and examined how these measurements are related to participants’ self-reported psychological well-being. They also measured participants’ nutritional status and environmental characteristics including social connections, habits, and medical history.

“The scientific evidence for the relationship between oral health and psychological well-being is limited. To overcome the limitations of the previous studies and as a step toward health promotion, we evaluated the association between individual and environmental characteristics, oral condition, and nutritional status in relation to subjective well-being among older adults,” explains Dr. Takeuchi while describing the motivation of this study.

The findings of the study revealed that oral condition is related to nutritional status, which in turn, is related to subjective well-being among older adults. Oral condition plays a significant role in determining the types of food that a person can consume. Therefore, an individual’s oral condition may influence nutritional intake, thus influencing their health status.

“Maintaining good oral health can help improve nutritional status, which in turn, can improve subjective psychological well-being, says Dr. Takeuchi.

In addition, this study provides evidence for a bidirectional connection between oral health and a person’s individual and social environment. This connection can be explained by the fact that poor social relations are associated with psychological stress leading to habits such as smoking and sweet consumption—thereby increasing the risk of cavities, gum disease, and tooth loss. Moreover, it reports a connection between a person’s environmental characteristics and nutritional status.

Overall, the findings suggest that oral health may not directly influence the subjective well-being—but indirectly, through nutritional status or environmental characteristics.

During a time when Japan’s population is aging rapidly, geriatric care is getting increased focus from healthcare providers in the country. The study provides crucial insights into how oral health exerts extended effects on mental health and suggests that healthcare investment in oral health can have increasing health benefits, especially in old age; “Our cross-sectional study has some limitations; however, the results highlight that a good oral health may improve the subjective psychological well-being in the long run,” concludes Dr. Takeuchi.

Research contact: @EurekAlert

Above, selfies are not limited to humans. (Photo source: Palm Press)

Study of 1,000 selfies helps explain how we use them to communicate

November 3, 2023

“Although the term ‘selfies’ is now celebrating its 21st birthday—and although selfies are known in art history for nearly 200 years in photography and more than 500 years in paintings—we still lack a clear classification of the different types of selfies,” according to Tobias Schneider, lead author of a recent selfie study and PhD student at the Bamberg Graduate School of Affective and Cognitive Sciences in Germany.

Previous studies have established that people taking a selfie have three main aims: self-expression, documentation, and performance, reports EurekAlert.

However, in the latest study—just published in Frontiers in Communication—the Bamberg researchers sought to understand what kinds of meaning people ascribe to different selfies. The researchers asked people to describe their first impressions of a sample of selfies. These associations could then be compiled to work out how different types of selfie are understood by viewers.

“Most research addresses direct visual factors—neglecting associative factors that viewers have in mind when browsing through our selfie-oriented world,” said Professor Claus-Christian Carbon, senior author. “Here we used personal reports and associations to describe and categorize selfies in a systematic way.”

The scientists created their test dataset from a database of selfies called Selfiecity, which investigate the style of selfies in five cities worldwide, including Bangkok, Berlin, Moscow, New York, and Sao Paulo.

They used only self-portraits without any text, taken by a mobile camera, using an individual’s own hands or a selfie stick. The 1,001 selfies remaining were presented at a standard size, on a plain grey background.

The scientists recruited 132 participants online. To avoid tiring participants, they used an algorithm to select 15 random selfies for each participant to review—ensuring that every selfie was evaluated by roughly the same number of people and that each person saw a variety of selfies. The scientists provided five text boxes per selfie for participants to write down their spontaneous reactions.

Schneider and Carbon processed this data to collapse the respondents’ first impressions into 26 categories: for example, ‘mood’ covered comments the respondents made about the selfie-taker’s mood. The scientists then analyzed how frequently these categories appeared in responses, and if they appeared together.

Cluster analysis identified five different clusters of categories, which the authors called ‘semantic profiles’:

The largest was named ‘aesthetics,’ pictures that showed off style or aesthetic experience;
This was very closely followed by ‘imagination,’ pictures that led the respondents to imagine where the selfie-taker was or what they were doing;
Next were ‘trait’ images, which elicited personality-related terms;
Less popular, but still substantial, were the clusters ‘state,’ pictures that looked at mood or atmosphere;
And finally came ‘theory of mind’, images, which caused the respondents to make assumptions about a selfie-taker’s motives or identity.

Each cluster showed a close association of different categories from respondents’ first impressions—suggesting the respondents were picking up on visual language that we use to communicate different aspects of ourselves, whether that’s our terrible mood or our great outfit.

“We were quite impressed how often the category ‘theory of mind’ was expressed, because this is a very sophisticated way of communicating inner feelings and thoughts,” said Schneider. “It shows how effective selfies can be in terms of communication.”

The scientists pointed out that these semantic profiles may not be expressed or understood in the same way worldwide, so more research is needed.

“Research never ends,” said Schneider. “We need more free reports on selfies, more descriptions of how people feel about the depicted persons and scenes, in order to better understand how selfies are used as a compact way of communicating to others.”

“We definitely need larger, more diverse, and cross-cultural samples in the future to understand how different groups and cultures use selfies to express themselves,” added Carbon.

Research contact: @EurekAlert