Retrieval Goal Modulates Memory for Context

fMRI was employed to assess whether the contents of recollection vary according to retrieval goal. At study, visually presented words were superimposed on urban or rural scenes or a gray background. The word–background pairs were presented in one of three spatial locations. During a scanned test phase, studied and unstudied words were presented. Two different source memory tasks were randomly interleaved. In the “background” task, the requirement was to judge whether the word had been presented against one of the two classes of scene, as opposed to the alternate class or the gray background. In the “location” task, discrimination was between words presented in one of the two lateral locations and words presented in either of the alternate locations. In both tasks, unstudied words required a separate response. In the background task, words studied against scenes elicited greater activity in parahippocampal and retrosplenial cortex than did words studied against the gray background, consistent with prior reports of scene reinstatement effects. Reinstatement effects were also evident in the location task. Relative to the background task, however, the effects were attenuated in parahippocampal cortex. In other regions, including medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, activity elicited in the location task by items associated with scenes was lower than that elicited by items presented on the gray background. The findings are interpreted as evidence that contextual retrieval is partially modulated by retrieval goal

Variational solution of congruent transformed Hamiltonian for many-electron systems using full configuration interaction calculation

The congruent transformation of the electronic Hamiltonian is developed to address the electron correlation problem in many-electron systems. The central strategy presented in this method is to perform transformation on the electronic Hamiltonian for approximate removal of the Coulomb singularity. The principle difference between the present method and the transcorrelated method of Handy and Boys is that the congruent transformation preserves the Hermitian property of the Hamiltonian. The congruent transformation is carried out using explicitly correlated functions and the optimum correlated transform Hamiltonian is obtained by performing a search over a set of transformation functions. The ansatz of the transformation functions are selected to facilitate analytical evaluation of all the resulting integrals. The ground state energy is obtained variationally by performing a full configuration interaction (FCI) calculation on the congruent transformed Hamiltonian. Computed results on well-studied benchmark systems show that for the identical basis functions, the energy from the congruent transformed Hamiltonian is significantly lower than the conventional FCI calculations. Since the number of configuration state functions in the FCI calculation increases rapidly with the size of the 1-particle basis set, the results indicate that the congruent transformed Hamiltonian provides a viable alternative to obtain FCI quality energy using a smaller underlying 1-particle basis set.Comment: This article has been submitted to PRA. After it is published, it will be found at this url http://pra.aps.org

Cross-modal face identity aftereffects and their relation to priming

We tested the magnitude of the face identity aftereffect following adaptation to different modes of adaptors in four experiments. The perceptual midpoint between two morphed famous faces was measured pre- and post-adaptation. Significant aftereffects were observed for visual (faces) and non-visual adaptors (voices and names) but not non-specific semantic information (e.g., occupations). Aftereffects were also observed following imagination and adaptation to an associated person. The strongest aftereffects were found adapting to facial caricatures. These results are discussed in terms of cross-modal adaptation occurring at various loci within the face-recognition system analogous to priming

Bacterial infections in neonates following mupirocin-based MRSA decolonization: A multicenter cohort study

OBJECTIVETo characterize the risk of infection after MRSA decolonization with intranasal mupirocin.DESIGNMulticenter, retrospective cohort study.SETTINGTertiary care neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) from 3 urban hospitals in the United States ranging in size from 45 to 100 beds.METHODSMRSA-colonized neonates were identified from NICU admissions occurring from January 2007 to December 2014, during which a targeted decolonization strategy was used for MRSA control. In 2 time-to-event analyses, MRSA-colonized neonates were observed from the date of the first MRSA-positive surveillance screen until (1) the first occurrence of novel gram-positive cocci in sterile culture or discharge or (2) the first occurrence of novel gram-negative bacilli in sterile culture or discharge. Mupirocin exposure was treated as time varying.RESULTSA total of 522 MRSA-colonized neonates were identified from 16,144 neonates admitted to site NICUs. Of the MRSA-colonized neonates, 384 (74%) received mupirocin. Average time from positive culture to mupirocin treatment was 3.5 days (standard deviation, 7.2 days). The adjusted hazard of gram-positive cocci infection was 64% lower among mupirocin-exposed versus mupirocin-unexposed neonates (hazard ratio, 0.36; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.17–0.76), whereas the adjusted hazard ratio of gram-negative bacilli infection comparing mupirocin-exposed and -unexposed neonates was 1.05 (95% CI, 0.42–2.62).CONCLUSIONSIn this multicentered cohort of MRSA-colonized neonates, mupirocin-based decolonization treatment appeared to decrease the risk of infection with select gram-positive organisms as intended, and the treatment was not significantly associated with risk of subsequent infections with organisms not covered by mupirocin’s spectrum of activity.Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol2017;38:930–936</jats:sec

Semantic Memory in Developmental Amnesia

Patients with developmental amnesia resulting from bilateral hippocampal atrophy associated with neonatal hypoxia-ischaemia typically show relatively preserved semantic memory and factual knowledge about the natural world despite severe impairments in episodic memory. Understanding the neural and mnemonic processes that enable this context-free semantic knowledge to be acquired throughout development without the support of the contextualised episodic memory system is a serious challenge. This review describes the clinical presentation of patients with developmental amnesia, contrasts its features with those reported for adult-onset hippocampal amnesia, and analyses the effects of variables that influence the learning of new semantic information