Search

Unlike children's early ability to navigate by continuous boundaries, their ability to extract geometric information from an array of objects emerges gradually over childhood. To investigate children's developing representation of object arrays for navigation and its relation to their mental representation of the global spatial layout, reorientation behavior was tested in 146 children (4-9 years, 78 male children and 68 female children, Italian) with rectangular arrays made up of 20 objects. Posttest questions on children's spatial language and their mental and pictorial representation of the environment were administered. Although children of all ages navigated by the geometry of continuous boundary-like arrays, they only succeeded with separated object arrays at around 7 years of age. This developmental change was predicted by children's individual ability to extract the abstract geometry of the spatial layout in a two-dimensional picture of the room.

Children's spatial mapping starts out particularly sensitive to 3D wall-like boundaries and develops over early childhood to flexibly include other boundary types. This study investigated whether spatial boundaries influence children's episodic memory, as in adults, and whether this effect is modulated by boundary type. Eighty-one Korean children (34 girls, 36-84 months old) re-enacted a sequence of three discrete hiding events within a space containing one of three boundaries: 3D wall, aligned objects, or 2D line. Children's memory of events occurring on one side of the boundary developed earlier than those that crossed the boundary. At first, this interaction only applied to the 3D wall and extended to other boundary types with age, suggesting that children's changing spatial representations influence their episodic memory development.

Although the hippocampus has been implicated in both the temporal organization of memories and association of scene elements, some theoretical accounts posit that the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory is largely atemporal. In this study, we set out to explore this discrepancy by identifying hippocampal activity patterns related to scene construction while participants performed a temporal order memory task. Participants in the fMRI scanner were shown a sequence of photographs, each consisting of a central object and a contextual background scene. On each retrieval trial, participants were shown a pair of the original photographs (FULL), objects from the scenes without the background (OBJ), or background contexts without the main foreground object (BACK). In the temporal order judgment (TOJ) task, participants judged the temporal order of the pair of scenes; in the Viewing trials, two identical scenes were shown without any task. First, we found that the anterior hippocampus—particularly the CA1 and subiculum—showed similar patterns of activation between the BACK and OBJ conditions, suggesting that scene construction occurred spontaneously during both TOJ and Viewing. Furthermore, neural markers of scene construction in the anterior hippocampus did not apply to incorrect trials, showing that successful temporal memory retrieval was functionally linked to scene construction. In the cortex, time‐processing areas, such as the supplementary motor area and the precuneus, and scene‐processing areas, such as the parahippocampal cortex, were activated and functionally connected with the hippocampus. Together, these results support the view that the hippocampus is concurrently involved in scene construction and temporal organization of memory and propose a model of hippocampal episodic memory that takes both processes into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hypertension is a significant chronic disease globally, and lifestyle modifications are crucial for the prevention of this disease. We conducted a longitudinal analysis of the associations between lifestyle factors and the incidence of hypertension, stratified by sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: We analyzed 113,022 adults (65,315 men), aged 20 years or older from the Korean National Health Insurance Service-National Sample Cohort 2.0 who participated in health screening between 2002 and 2003. Lifestyle factors (smoking, drinking, physical activity) were assessed at baseline using self reports, and incident hypertension was defined based on physician diagnoses. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to assess associations. Results: During an 11.6-year follow-up, 26,812 new cases of hypertension were identified. The risk of hypertension was high among men and women who smoked over 20 cigarettes daily (men: hazard ratio [HR]: 1.15; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.08–1.21; women: HR: 1.62; 95% CI 1.17–2.25) and those who drank over 1.5 bottles of alcohol daily (men, HR: 1.18; 95% CI, 1.12–1.24; women, HR: 1.23; 95% CI 1.02–1.47). These associations tended to be high in high-income men (HR: 1.09; 95% CI, 1.04–1.14), low-income women (HR: 1.19; 95% CI, 1.05–1.35) and non-obese women (HR: 1.13; 95% CI, 1.01–1.27) who currently smoked. Physical activity was inversely associated with incident hypertension in men (HR: 0.96; 95% CI, 0.93–0.99). Conclusions: Unhealthy lifestyle factors, such as heavy smoking and drinking, was associated with an increased risk of hypertension, with variations by income, BMI, and sex. These findings underscore the importance of tailored, population-specific prevention strategies to address hypertension disparities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large walls and other typical boundaries strongly influence neural activity related to navigation and the representations of spatial layouts. They are also major aids to reliable navigation behavior in young children and nonhuman animals. Is this because they are physical boundaries (barriers to movement), or because they present certain visual features, such as visually extended 3D surfaces? Here, these 2 factors were dissociated by using immersive virtual reality and real boundaries. Eighty adults recalled target locations in 1 of 4 environments: plywood, where a virtual wall coincided with a large piece of real plywood; pass through, where the virtual wall coincided with empty space and participants could pass through it; pass over, where the virtual wall was projected downward to be visible underneath a transparent floor; and cones, where the walls were replaced with traffic cones. One condition had features that were boundaries and looked like boundaries (plywood); 2 had features that were not boundaries but looked like boundaries (pass over/through); and 1 had features that were not boundaries and did not look like boundaries (cones). The precision and bias of responses changed only as a function of looking like a boundary. This suggests that variations in spatial coding are more closely linked to the visual properties of environmental layouts than to whether they contain physical boundaries (barriers to movement).

Background: Hand washing is an effective way to prevent transmission of infectious diseases. Education and promotional materials about hand washing may change individuals' awareness toward hand washing. Infectious disease outbreak may also affect individuals' awareness. Aims: Our study aimed to examine associations between hand-washing education and self-reported hand-washing behaviors among Korean adults during the year of the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak. Methods: Data from the 2015 Community Health Survey were used for this study. The total study population comprised 222,599 individuals who were older than 20 years of age. A multiple linear regression model was used to investigate associations between hand hygiene education and self-reported hand-washing behaviors. Subgroup analyses stratified by age, sex, income, and MERS outbreak regions were also performed. Results: Individuals who received hand-washing education or saw promotional materials related to hand washing had significantly higher scores for self-reported use of soap or sanitizer (ß = 0.177, P < 0.0001) and self-reported frequency of hand washing (ß = 0.481, P < 0.0001) than those who did not have such experiences. The effect of hand-washing education on self-reported behavior change was greater among older adults, women, and lower income earners. The effect of hand hygiene education on self-reported use of soap or sanitizer was similar regardless of whether the participants lived in MERS regions. Conclusion: Our findings emphasize the importance of education or promotions encouraging hand washing, especially for older adults, women, and lower income earners. In addition, MERS outbreak itself affected individuals' awareness of hand-washing behaviors. Well-organized campaigns that consider these factors are needed to prevent infectious diseases.

Background: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) is increasing. While calcium and sodium are known nutritional factors used for managing MetS, few studies have focused on food-based analyses. This cross-sectional study examined the distribution of calcium- and sodium-rich food intake among Koreans with MetS. Methods: This cross-sectional analysis evaluated 130,423 participants from the Health Examinees-Gem cohort study. Foods contributing up to 90% of the calcium and sodium intake were selected from the semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire, and consumption levels were calculated. MetS was defined as satisfying three or more criteria from the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III. The results are presented as odds ratios (OR) with an interquartile range (ORIQR) and 95% confidence interval. Results: Participants with MetS showed a low calcium intake (ORIQR = 0.95 and 0.92 for men and women, respectively), low consumption of dairy products (ORIQR = 0.92 and 0.89), beverages except for coffee or green tea (ORIQR = 0.97 and 0.96), and bread (ORIQR = 0.96 and 0.94). Men with MetS consumed high total sodium (ORIQR = 1.04), and large amounts of Kimchi (ORIQR = 1.03), fermented paste (ORIQR = 1.04), and noodles (ORIQR = 1.07). Women with MetS consumed more Kimchi than those without MetS (ORIQR = 1.04). The odds ratio for the low calcium and high sodium group compared to the high calcium and low sodium group was 1.26. Conclusion: The MetS group consumed less calcium-rich foods and more sodium-rich foods than those without MetS. Patients with MetS might benefit from precise recommendations of high calcium-rich and low sodium-rich foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]