The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in reward valuation and future thinking during intertemporal choice.

Intertemporal choices require trade-offs between short-term and long-term outcomes. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) damage causes steep discounting of future rewards (delay discounting [DD]) and impoverished episodic future thinking (EFT). The role of vmPFC in reward valuation, EFT, and their interaction during intertemporal choice is still unclear. Here, 12 patients with lesions to vmPFC and 41 healthy controls chose between smaller-immediate and larger-delayed hypothetical monetary rewards while we manipulated reward magnitude and the availability of EFT cues. In the EFT condition, participants imagined personal events to occur at the delays associated with the larger-delayed rewards. We found that DD was steeper in vmPFC patients compared to controls, and not modulated by reward magnitude. However, EFT cues downregulated DD in vmPFC patients as well as controls. These findings indicate that vmPFC integrity is critical for the valuation of (future) rewards, but not to instill EFT in intertemporal choice.

A Genetic Algorithm Procedure for the Automatic Updating of FEM Based on Ambient Vibration Tests.

The dynamic identification of the modal parameters of a structure, in order to gain control of its functionality under operating conditions, is currently under discussion from a scientific and technical point of views. The experimental observations obtained through structural health monitoring (SHM) are a useful calibration reference of numerical models (NMs). In this paper, the procedures for the identification of modal parameters in historical bell towers using a stochastic subspace identification (SSI) algorithm are presented. Then, NMs are manually calibrated on the identification's results. Finally, the applicability of a genetic algorithm for the automatic calibration of the elastic parameters is considered with the aim of searching for the properties of the autochthonous material, in order to reduce modelling error following the model assurance criterion (MAC). In this regard, several material values on the same model are examined to see how to approach the evolution and the distribution of these features, comparing the characterization proposed by the genetic algorithm with the results considered by the manual iterative procedure.

Proportion of patients in south London with first-episode psychosis attributable to use of high potency cannabis: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: The risk of individuals having adverse effects from drug use (eg, alcohol) generally depends on the frequency of use and potency of the drug used. We aimed to investigate how frequent use of skunk-like (high-potency) cannabis in south London affected the association between cannabis and psychotic disorders. METHODS: We applied adjusted logistic regression models to data from patients aged 18-65 years presenting to South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust with first-episode psychosis and population controls recruited from the same area of south London (UK) to estimate the effect of the frequency of use, and type of cannabis used on the risk of psychotic disorders. We then calculated the proportion of new cases of psychosis attributable to different types of cannabis use in south London. FINDINGS: Between May 1, 2005, and May 31, 2011, we obtained data from 410 patients with first-episode psychosis and 370 population controls. The risk of individuals having a psychotic disorder showed a roughly three-times increase in users of skunk-like cannabis compared with those who never used cannabis (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 2·92, 95% CI 1·52-3·45, p=0·001). Use of skunk-like cannabis every day conferred the highest risk of psychotic disorders compared with no use of cannabis (adjusted OR 5·4, 95% CI 2·81-11·31, p=0·002). The population attributable fraction of first-episode psychosis for skunk use for our geographical area was 24% (95% CI 17-31), possibly because of the high prevalence of use of high-potency cannabis (218 [53%] of 410 patients) in our study. INTERPRETATION: The ready availability of high potency cannabis in south London might have resulted in a greater proportion of first onset psychosis cases being attributed to cannabis use than in previous studies. FUNDING: UK National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Specialist Biomedical Research Centre for Mental Health, SLaM and the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, Psychiatry Research Trust, Maudsley Charity Research Fund, and th European Community's Seventh Framework Program grant (agreement No. HEALTH-F2-2009-241909 [Project EU-GEI]).