Normative Models Research Articles

Adjustment of Regional Cortical Thickness Measures for Global Cortical Thickness Obscures Deficits Across the Schizophrenia Spectrum: A Cautionary Note About Normative Modeling of Brain Imaging Data

Recent neuroimaging studies and publicly disseminated analytic tools suggest that regional morphometric analyses covary for global thickness. We empirically demonstrated that this statistical approach severely underestimates regional thickness dysmorphology in psychiatric disorders. Study 1 included 90 healthy control participants, 51 participants at clinical high risk for psychosis, and 78 participants with early-illness schizophrenia. Study 2 included 56 healthy control participants, 83 participants with nonaffective psychosis, and 30 participants with affective psychosis. We examined global and regional thickness correlations, global thickness group differences, and regional thickness group differences with and without global thickness covariation. Global and regional thickness were strongly correlated across groups. Global thickness was lower in the schizophrenia spectrum groups than the other groups. Regional thickness deficits in schizophrenia spectrum groups were attenuated or eliminated with global thickness covariation. Eliminating the variation that regional thickness shares with global thickness eliminated disease-related effects. This statistical approach results in erroneous conclusions that regional thickness is normal in disorders like schizophrenia or clinical high risk syndrome.

Transgenerational effects of the maternal gestational environment on the post-natal performance of beef cattle: A reaction norm approach.

In tropical beef cattle production systems, animals are commonly raised on pastures, exposing them to potential stressors. The end of gestation typically overlaps with a dry period characterized by limited food availability. Late gestation is pivotal for fetal development, making it an ideal scenario for inter- and transgenerational effects of the maternal gestational environment. Intergenerational effects occur due to exposure during gestation, impacting the development of the embryo and its future germline. Transgenerational effects, however, extend beyond direct exposure to the subsequent generations. The objective of the present study was to verify these effects on the post-natal performance of zebu beef cattle. We extended the use of a reaction norm model to identify genetic variation in the animals' responses to transgenerational effects. The inter- and transgenerational effects were predominantly positive (-0.09% to 19.74%) for growth and reproductive traits, indicating improved animal performance on the phenotypic scale in more favourable maternal gestational environments. Additionally, these effects were more pronounced in the reproductive performance of females. On average, the ratio of direct additive genetic variances of the slope and intercept of the reaction norm ranged from 1.23% to 3.60% for direct and from 10.17% to 11.42% for maternal effects. Despite its relatively modest magnitude, this variation proved sufficient to prompt modifications in parameter estimates. The average percentage variation of direct heritability estimates ranged from 19.3% for scrotal circumference to 33.2% for yearling weight across the environmental descriptors evaluated. Genetic correlations between distant environments for the studied traits were generally high for direct effects and far from unity for maternal effects. Changes in EBV rankings of sires across different gestational environments were also observed. Due to the multifaceted nature of inter- and transgenerational effects of the maternal gestational environment on various traits of beef cattle raised under tropical pasture conditions, they should not be overlooked by producers and breeders. There were differences in the specific response of beef cattle to variations in the quality of the maternal gestational environment, which can be partially explained by transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. Adopting a reaction norm model to capture a portion of the additive variance induced by inter- or transgenerational effects could be an alternative for future research and animal genetic evaluations.

Characterizing the distinct imaging phenotypes, clinical behavior, and genetic vulnerability of brain maturational subtypes in mood disorders.

Mood disorders are characterized by great heterogeneity in clinical manifestation. Uncovering such heterogeneity using neuroimaging-based individual biomarkers, clinical behaviors, and genetic risks, might contribute to elucidating the etiology of these diseases and support precision medicine. We recruited 174 drug-naïve and drug-free patients with major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder, as well as 404 healthy controls. T1 MRI imaging data, clinical symptoms, and neurocognitive assessments, and genetics were obtained and analyzed. We applied regional gray matter volumes (GMV) and quantile normative modeling to create maturation curves, and then calculated individual deviations to identify subtypes within the patients using hierarchical clustering. We compared the between-subtype differences in GMV deviations, clinical behaviors, cell-specific transcriptomic associations, and polygenic risk scores. We also validated the GMV deviations based subtyping analysis in a replication cohort. Two subtypes emerged: subtype 1, characterized by increased GMV deviations in the frontal cortex, cognitive impairment, a higher genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease, and transcriptionally associated with Alzheimer's disease pathways, oligodendrocytes, and endothelial cells; and subtype 2, displaying globally decreased GMV deviations, more severe depressive symptoms, increased genetic vulnerability to major depressive disorder and transcriptionally related to microglia and inhibitory neurons. The distinct patterns of GMV deviations in the frontal, cingulate, and primary motor cortices between subtypes were shown to be replicable. Our current results provide vital links between MRI-derived phenotypes, spatial transcriptome, genetic vulnerability, and clinical manifestation, and uncover the heterogeneity of mood disorders in biological and behavioral terms.

A Viral Pedagogy: Undoing Things with Long COVID’s Autoimmunities

This article focuses on the scientific and political transformations that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to engender through its impact on the epistemological and ontological foundations of autoimmunity. By discussing an online seminar taught during the COVID pandemic winter of 2020–21, the article considers how the viral autoimmunities involved in severe and long-haul COVID pathogenic mechanisms have fostered transformative pedagogical and therapeutic experiences, spaces, and events. As a highly contagious viral disease, COVID highlights disparities in access to healthcare, whereby certain (racialized, disabled, ageing) bodies are unequally burdened with the labor of staying alive. Predicated on a foundational separation between inside and outside, or between the internal, vulnerable, visceral space of the individual(ized) “human” body and an external(ized), hazardous, contaminated, foreign environment, COVID measures for avoiding viral exposure became paramount, reciting a genealogy of distancing, protection, containment, and isolation. By examining how concepts and practices of autoimmunity animate cutting-edge biomedical research, this article asks, How does autoimmunity undo normative models of health predicated on a militarized model of immunity? How might the viral shift our understanding of autoimmunity and what might autoimmune conditions teach us about virality? In short, what can autoimmunity and the viral show us about uncertainty, care, and transformation in therapeutic and pedagogical contexts?

Newsvendor Competition with Endogenous Biases

Extensive studies have revealed that newsvendor decisions by human decision-makers are often biased by cognitive limitations, and, therefore, fail to achieve optimal profits prescribed by normative models. These biases are typically considered as liabilities in individual inventory decision-making, and much research has focused on developing methods to debias the decision-maker—for example, by providing decision support tools. However, in competitive settings biases can provide a competitive advantage, such that a biased newsvendor may earn a higher profit than an unbiased one. This raises the question of whether and when firms should debias their decision-makers. In this paper, we analyze decision biases that are endogenous rather than exogenous in competing newsvendor games. Specifically, we develop a two-stage game-theoretic model in which competing firms first select their decision-makers typefied by their bias levels, and then engage in a classic inventory competition game. Our analysis confirms the positive effect of the decision-maker’s bias on a firm’s economic outcome. However, this effect only appears in competitions in which decision biases are exogenously given. When biases are endogenously selected, firms are always (weakly) worse off than if they all had rational decision-makers. Our results suggest that debiasing at the industry level (e.g., adopting advanced inventory planning software) could benefit all players; however, individual firms do not have the incentive to do so in the absence of coordination mechanisms.

Sustainability concerns on pro-sustainable travel behavior: combining the United Nations SDGs, norm activation model and value theory

PurposeThis study examines the effect of sustainable development goal (SDG) concerns regarding the sustainability issues raised in the United Nations SDG agenda on pro-sustainable travel behavior (PSTB) by building on the norm activation model as well as value theory (altruism), with the latter assumed to moderate the effect of SDG concerns on PSTB.Design/methodology/approachThe model was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) based on data from 200 USA respondents who have traveled internationally in the past 12 months.FindingsThe results confirmed the effect of SDG concerns on positively influencing PSTB both directly and indirectly (through the NAM variables of “responsibility” and “obligation”). Additionally, results revealed that altruism positively moderates the effect of SDG concerns on PSTB.Practical implicationsResults provide tourism businesses and destinations with a better understanding of which aspects of the 17 issues identified in the UN SDG agenda are more likely to influence travelers’ future PSTB and whether such behavioral changes additionally depend on people’s individual altruism levels.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies focusing mainly on environmental concerns and tourists’ pro-environmental behavior, this study offers a more comprehensive understanding of PSTB in light of today’s UN SDGs.

Normscan: open-source Python software to create average models from CT scans.

Age-matched average 3D models facilitate both surgical planning and intraoperative guidance of cranial birth defects such as craniosynostosis. We aimed to develop an algorithm that accepts any number of CT scans as input and generates highly accurate, average models with minimal user input that are ready for 3D printing and clinical use. Using a compiled database of 'normal' pediatric computed tomography (CT) scans, we report Normscan, an open-source platform built in Python that allows users to generate normative models of CT scans through user-defined landmarks. We use the basion, nasion, and left and right porions as anatomical landmarks for initial correspondence and then register the models using the iterative closest points algorithm before downstream averaging. Normscan is fast and easy to use via our user interface and also creates highly accurate average models of any number of input models. Additionally, it is highly repeatable, with coefficients of variance for the surface area and volume of the average model being less than 3% across ten independent trials. Average models can then be 3D printed and/or visualized in augmented reality. Normscan provides an end-to-end pipeline for the creation of average models of skulls. These models can be used for the generation of databases of specific demographic anatomical models as well as for intraoperative guidance and surgical planning. While Normscan was designed for craniosynostosis repair, due to the modular nature of the algorithm, Normscan has many applications in other areas of surgical planning and research.

Plateau-linear reaction norm model analysis of number born alive in purebred Landrace pigs using meteorological data in Japan.

We performed a plateau-linear reaction norm model (RNM) analysis of number born alive (NBA) in purebred Landrace pigs, where breeding value changes according to maximum temperature at mating day, using public meteorological observation data in Japan. We analysed 52,668 NBA records obtained from 10,320 Landrace sows. Pedigree data contained 99,201 animals. Off-farm daily temperature data at the nearest weather station from each of the farms were downloaded from the Japan Meteorological Agency website. A plateau-linear RNM analysis based on daily maximum temperature on mating day (threshold temperature of 16.6°C) was performed. The percentage of the records with daily maximum temperatures at mating days of ≤16.6, ≥25.0, ≥30.0 and ≥35.0°C were 34.3%, 33.6%, 14.0% and 0.8%, respectively. The value of Akaike's information criterion for the plateau-linear RNM was lower than that for a simple repeatability model (RM). With the plateau-linear RNM, estimated value of heritability ranged from 0.14 to 0.15, while that from the RM analysis was 0.15. Additive genetic correlation between intercept and slope terms was estimated to be -0.52 from the plateau-linear RNM analysis. Estimated additive genetic correlations were >0.9 between NBA at different temperatures ranging from 16.6 to 37.6°C. For the 10,320 sows, average values of prediction reliability of the intercept and slope terms for breeding values in the plateau-linear RNM were 0.47 and 0.16, respectively. Increasing weight for slope term in linear selection index could bring positive genetic gain in the slope part, but prediction accuracy would decrease. Our results imply that genetically improving heat tolerance in sows reared in Japan focusing on NBA using RNM is possible, while RNM is more complex to implement and interpret. Therefore, further study should be encouraged to make genetic improvement for heat tolerance in sows more efficient.

408. Deviations From Normative Brain Models Mental Health Treatment Seeking Youth With Psychosis Spectrum Symptoms: Data From the Toronto Adolescent and Youth (TAY) CAMH Cohort Study

408. Deviations From Normative Brain Models Mental Health Treatment Seeking Youth With Psychosis Spectrum Symptoms: Data From the Toronto Adolescent and Youth (TAY) CAMH Cohort Study

Dissecting Bayes: Using influence measures to test normative use of probability density information derived from a sample.

Bayesian decision theory (BDT) is frequently used to model normative performance in perceptual, motor, and cognitive decision tasks where the possible outcomes of actions are associated with rewards or penalties. The resulting normative models specify how decision makers should encode and combine information about uncertainty and value-step by step-in order to maximize their expected reward. When prior, likelihood, and posterior are probabilities, the Bayesian computation requires only simple arithmetic operations: addition, etc. We focus on visual cognitive tasks where Bayesian computations are carried out not on probabilities but on (1) probability density functions and (2) these probability density functions are derived from samples. We break the BDT model into a series of computations and test human ability to carry out each of these computations in isolation. We test three necessary properties of normative use of pdf information derived from a sample-accuracy, additivity and influence. Influence measures allow us to assess how much weight each point in the sample is assigned in making decisions and allow us to compare normative use (weighting) of samples to actual, point by point. We find that human decision makers violate accuracy and additivity systematically but that the cost of failure in accuracy or additivity would be minor in common decision tasks. However, a comparison of measured influence for each sample point with normative influence measures demonstrates that the individual's use of sample information is markedly different from the predictions of BDT. We will show that the normative BDT model takes into account the geometric symmetries of the pdf while the human decision maker does not. An alternative model basing decisions on a single extreme sample point provided a better account for participants' data than the normative BDT model.

Normative Modeling of Brain Morphometry in Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Normative Modeling of Brain Morphometry in Clinical High Risk for Psychosis

Normative Modeling of Brain Morphometry Across the Lifespan Using CentileBrain

Normative Modeling of Brain Morphometry Across the Lifespan Using CentileBrain

청소년소설과 젠더 -한국 청소년문학상 수상작을 중심으로-

This study focuses on the ways in which Korean society's gender norms are reinterpreted by the winners of the Young Adult Literature Awards. First, I examined how the gendered family system in Korean society has been transformed and reconfigured, and how it affects the youth identity. Families in the Young Adult Fiction do not conform to conventional models of normal families and gender role norms. However, I critically examined the direction of family narratives by pointing out that the newly transformed familism limits the imagination of Young Adult Fiction. Next, I examined the representation of adolescent sexuality as a consistent practice. Male adolescents were often portrayed as the protagonists of events, which is problematic from a gender-sensitive perspective, and female adolescent sexuality had largely been addressed in the realm of pregnancy, abortion, and childbirth. However, I expect to see more narratives exploring female sexual self-determination in a new light. Finally, I highlighted issues of queer identity that are not captured by the gender binary. The winners of the Young Adult Literature Prize tend to deal with queer identity issues in friendships, and the recent winners have portrayed queer issues in new ways and formats through a combination of family, travel narratives, and romance narratives. Unlike in the past, when queer people were categorically excluded, minority issues have recently been addressed in terms of human rights education; however, it remains to be seen whether this will generate meaningful reflections in the future.

Resting-State Changes in Aging and Parkinson’s Disease Are Shaped by Underlying Neurotransmission: A Normative Modeling Study

BackgroundHuman healthy and pathological aging is linked to a steady decline in brain resting-state activity and connectivity measures. The neurophysiological mechanisms that underlie these changes remain poorly understood. MethodsMaking use of recent developments in normative modeling and availability of in vivo maps for various neurochemical systems, we tested in the UK Biobank cohort (n = 25,917) whether and how age- and Parkinson’s disease–related resting-state changes in commonly applied local and global activity and connectivity measures colocalize with underlying neurotransmitter systems. ResultsWe found that the distributions of several major neurotransmitter systems including serotonergic, dopaminergic, noradrenergic, and glutamatergic neurotransmission correlated with age-related changes across functional activity and connectivity measures. Colocalization patterns in Parkinson’s disease deviated from normative aging trajectories for these, as well as for cholinergic and GABAergic (gamma-aminobutyric acidergic) neurotransmission. The deviation from normal colocalization of brain function and GABAA correlated with disease duration. ConclusionsThese findings provide new insights into molecular mechanisms underlying age- and Parkinson’s-related brain functional changes by extending the existing evidence elucidating the vulnerability of specific neurochemical attributes to normal aging and Parkinson’s disease. The results particularly indicate that alongside dopamine and serotonin, increased vulnerability of glutamatergic, cholinergic, and GABAergic systems may also contribute to Parkinson’s disease–related functional alterations. Combining normative modeling and neurotransmitter mapping may aid future research and drug development through deeper understanding of neurophysiological mechanisms that underlie specific clinical conditions.

Contrapuntal Citizenship: Solidarity Protests and Multi-layered Belonging in the Lebanese Diaspora in France

ABSTRACT Normative models of citizenship delimit rights and obligations within the territorial boundaries of the modern state. These models fail to capture how political belonging can be stretched and reconfigured across polities. The 2019 ‘17 October Revolution’ in Lebanon galvanised widespread solidarity protests and initiatives in the Lebanese diaspora in France. As sites of cultural encounter, solidarity protest movements in the diaspora created opportunities for different cultural and political identities to collide, producing ‘contrapuntal’ forms of citizenship. Drawing insights from Edward Said’s examination of the ‘contrapuntal,’ this paper argues that as sites of encounter, diasporic solidarity initiatives pluralised definitions of political belonging producing contrapuntal forms of citizenship. By thinking through music, this paper will examine the overlapping layers, or melodies, of political belonging that constitute diasporic citizens. It will contend that diaspora solidarity initiatives allowed activists to enact multiple, sometimes contradicting, claims to belonging. In doing so, it will shift from hybrid to contrapuntal models of diasporic citizenship.

Explaining sustainable purchase behavior in online flight booking—combining value-belief-norm model and theory of planned behavior

This article of the journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. focuses on the factors that influence CO2 offsetting behavior when booking flights. By combining the Value Belief Norm model (VBN) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the study investigates which factors generally influence people’s willingness and behavior to make CO2 offsets for air travel. In addition, a concrete booking process is used to experimentally test how high the actual willingness to pay is in this situation and how much it depends on the representation. An online survey with a partially experimental design yielded 514 usable data sets. The results of the structural equation model essentially confirmed the assumptions of the VBN and TPB theories regarding the influence on compensation behavior, with the personal norm being the most important influencing factor. However, the specific fictitious booking process revealed the special role of price: the cheapest compensation packages always had the highest choice probabilities, and absolute price did not play a role. This was confirmed in qualitative analyses. The results expand previous knowledge on factors influencing CO2 compensation behavior and provide flight providers with important information for designing their CO2 compensation offers.

Who ought to look towards the horizon? A qualitative study on the collective social responsibility of scientific research

There is a growing concern for the proper role of science within democratic societies, which has led to the development of new science policies for the implementation of social responsibility in research. Although the very expression ‘social responsibility of science’ may be interpreted in different ways, many of these emerging policy frameworks define it, at least in part, as a form of anticipative reflection about the potential impacts of research in society. What remains a rather under-discussed issue is the definition of the bearer of the social responsibility of science. In other words, it is not clear who is supposed to engage in such an anticipative reflection, whether individual researchers or research groups. In the past few years, philosophers of science have begun to use qualitative research methods to fill the gaps between normative models of the organisation of ideal scientific communities and the reality of actual scientific practices. In this article, I follow this approach to discuss the issue of the collective dimension of the social responsibility of science. I rely on a qualitative study conducted on an interdisciplinary research group and I describe how group dynamics position individuals and distribute duties and roles, including social responsibility. Qualitative descriptions of the distribution of duties within actual research groups should inform the formulation of general prescriptive theories on the collective responsibility of science.

The relationship between maternal-infant bonding and postpartum depression/anxiety: moderating effect of childhood psychological abuse and validation of the Mother-to-Infant Bonding scale (MIBS-8) in Arabic

BackgroundThe emotional bond that a mother senses to her infant is essential to their social, emotional, and cognitive development. Understanding the level of mother-infant bonding plays an imperative role in the excellence of care. However, in Lebanon, there is a paucity of information about mother-infant bonding in the postpartum period. Given that Lebanese pregnant women constitute an important part of the population to look at, the objectives of the study were to (1) validate the Arabic version of the mother–infant bonding scale and (2) the relation between mother-infant bond and postpartum depression/anxiety; (3) the moderating effect of child abuse in the association between mother-infant bond and postpartum depression/anxiety.MethodsThis cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2022 until June 2023, enrolling 438 women 4–6 weeks after delivery (mean age: 31.23 ± 5.24 years). To examine the factor structure of the mother-infant bond scale, we used an Exploratory-Confirmatory (EFA-CFA) strategy. To check if the model was adequate, several fit indices were calculated: the normed model chi-square (χ2/df), the Steiger-Lind root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), the Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) and the comparative fit index (CFI).ResultsEFA was conducted on the first subsample. Three items were removed. The five items remaining loaded on one factor, which explained 73.03% of the common variance (ω = .91 / α = .90). After adding a correlation between residuals for items 2–7 and 5–8, fit indices of the CFA results were acceptable: χ2/df = 6.97/3 = 2.32, RMSEA = .068 (90% CI .001, .135), SRMR = .017, CFI = .996, TLI = .988. The interaction maternal-infant bonding by child psychological abuse was significantly associated with depression and anxiety respectively. At low, moderate and high levels of child psychological abuse, higher maternal-infant bonding scores (greater difficulty in bonding) were significantly associated with higher depression and higher anxiety respectively.ConclusionThis study provides, for the first time, a specific Arabic scale to assess mother-infant bonding reliably and validly. Furthermore, our study has suggested the existence of factors that have additive effects in potentiating the risk for depression and anxiety among Lebanese postpartum women, namely a history of psychological child abuse. Therefore, laborious awareness programs and healthcare services need to be implemented in order to prevent maternal mental health disorders from being unrecognized and left untreated.

Dopamine encoding of novelty facilitates efficient uncertainty-driven exploration.

When facing an unfamiliar environment, animals need to explore to gain new knowledge about which actions provide reward, but also put the newly acquired knowledge to use as quickly as possible. Optimal reinforcement learning strategies should therefore assess the uncertainties of these action-reward associations and utilise them to inform decision making. We propose a novel model whereby direct and indirect striatal pathways act together to estimate both the mean and variance of reward distributions, and mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons provide transient novelty signals, facilitating effective uncertainty-driven exploration. We utilised electrophysiological recording data to verify our model of the basal ganglia, and we fitted exploration strategies derived from the neural model to data from behavioural experiments. We also compared the performance of directed exploration strategies inspired by our basal ganglia model with other exploration algorithms including classic variants of upper confidence bound (UCB) strategy in simulation. The exploration strategies inspired by the basal ganglia model can achieve overall superior performance in simulation, and we found qualitatively similar results in fitting model to behavioural data compared with the fitting of more idealised normative models with less implementation level detail. Overall, our results suggest that transient dopamine levels in the basal ganglia that encode novelty could contribute to an uncertainty representation which efficiently drives exploration in reinforcement learning.

National norms for the obstetric nurses’ and midwives’ health education competence, and its influencing factors: a nationwide cross-sectional study

BackgroundStrengthening obstetric nurses’ and midwives’ health education competence is the investment and guarantee for the population’s future health. The purpose of study is to establish national norms for their health education competence, and explore possible influencing factors for providing an uniform criterion identifying levels and weaknesses.MethodsAn online questionnaire with a standard process was used to collect data. Three normative models were constructed, and multiple linear regression analysis analyzed possible influencing factors.ResultsThe sample respondents (n = 3027) represented obstetric nurses and midwives nationally. Three health education competency normative norms (mean, percentile and demarcation norm) were constructed separately. Locations, hospital grade, department, marital status, training times and satisfaction with health education training influenced obstetrical nurses’ and midwives’ health education competence (P<0.05).ConclusionThis study constructed the first national standard for assessing obstetric nurses’ and midwives’ health education competence, providing a scientific reference to evaluate the degree of health education competence directly. These known factors could help clinical and policy managers designate practice improvement measures. In future research, Grade I hospitals should be studied with larger sample sizes, and indicators need to improve to reflect health education’s effect better.