Exploring the Influence of Fetal Sex on Heart Rate Dynamics Using Fetal Magnetocardiographic Recordings
In: Reproductive sciences: RS : the official journal of the Society for Reproductive Investigation, Band 31, Heft 3, S. 823-831
ISSN: 1933-7205
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In: Reproductive sciences: RS : the official journal of the Society for Reproductive Investigation, Band 31, Heft 3, S. 823-831
ISSN: 1933-7205
In: Developmental science, Band 16, Heft 2, S. 287-295
ISSN: 1467-7687
AbstractHabituation – the most basic form of learning – is used to evaluate central nervous system (CNS) maturation and to detect abnormalities in fetal brain development. In the current study, habituation, stimulus specificity and dishabituation of auditory evoked responses were measured in fetuses and newborns using fetal magnetoencephalography (fMEG). An auditory habituation paradigm consisting of 100 trains of five 500 Hz tones, one 750 Hz tone (dishabituator) and two more 500 Hz tones, respectively, were presented to 41 fetuses (gestational age 30–39 weeks) and 22 newborns or babies (age 6–89 days). A response decrement between the first and fifth tones (habituation), an increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) and an increment between the fifth (last tone before the dishabituator) and seventh tones (first tone after the dishabituator) (dishabituation) were expected. Fetuses showed weak responses to the first tone. However, a significant response decrement between the second and fifth tones (habituation) and a significant increment between the fifth tone and the dishabituator (stimulus specificity) were found. No significant difference was found for dishabituation nor was a developmental trend found at the group level. From the neonatal data, significant values for stimulus specificity were found. Sensory fatigue or adaptation was ruled out as a reason for the response decrement due to the strong reactions to the dishabituator. Taken together, the current study used fMEG to directly show fetal habituation and provides evidence of fetal learning in the last trimester of pregnancy.
In: Leng , G , Adan , R , Belot , M , Brunstrom , J , de Graaf , K , Dickson , S , Hare , T , Maier , S , Menzies , J , Preissl , H , Reisch , L , Rogers , P & Smeets , P 2017 , ' The determinants of food choice ' , Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , vol. 76 , no. 3 , pp. 316-327 . https://doi.org/10.1017/S002966511600286X
Health nudge interventions to steer people into healthier lifestyles are increasingly applied by governments worldwide, and it is natural to look to such approaches to improve health by altering what people choose to eat. However, to produce policy recommendations that are likely to be effective, we need to be able to make valid predictions about the consequences of proposed interventions, and for this, we need a better understanding of the determinants of food choice. These determinants include dietary components (e.g. highly palatable foods and alcohol), but also diverse cultural and social pressures, cognitive-affective factors (perceived stress, health attitude, anxiety and depression), and familial, genetic and epigenetic influences on personality characteristics. In addition, our choices are influenced by an array of physiological mechanisms, including signals to the brain from the gastrointestinal tract and adipose tissue, which affect not only our hunger and satiety but also our motivation to eat particular nutrients, and the reward we experience from eating. Thus, to develop the evidence base necessary for effective policies, we need to build bridges across different levels of knowledge and understanding. This requires experimental models that can fill in the gaps in our understanding that are needed to inform policy, translational models that connect mechanistic understanding from laboratory studies to the real life human condition, and formal models that encapsulate scientific knowledge from diverse disciplines, and which embed understanding in a way that enables policy-relevant predictions to be made. Here we review recent developments in these areas.
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