搜索结果：Malleable

This study systematically examined social attitudes of typically developing (TD) children toward typically developing siblings of children with autism (ASD-Sibs) in inclusive education schools. It assessed both explicit and implicit attitudes, examined the moderating role of prior contact experience with autistic peers, and tested the efficacy of an imagined contact intervention among children with negative or no prior contact experience. In Experiment 1, TD children's explicit (questionnaire) and implicit (Affective Misattribution Procedure) attitudes toward ASD-Sibs were measured, and their prior contact experience with autistic peers was categorized. Experiment 2 used a pre-post design with children reporting negative/no contact, testing effects of a single imagined-contact session on implicit attitudes and contact intentions. Explicit attitudes were favorable, but implicit attitudes depended on prior contact experience: positive contact predicted positive implicit attitudes, while negative/no contact predicted implicit bias. For the negative contact group, imagined contact significantly improved implicit attitudes and increased contact intention. This study uncovers the implicit bias against ASD-Sibs in inclusive education schools. Importantly, it demonstrates that such bias is malleable and can be effectively reduced through a brief, cost-efficient imagined contact intervention. This work not only extends contact theory by demonstrating attitude generalization from imagined contact, but also delivers a practical, evidence-based tool for educators to foster inclusion and support the well-being of children with autistic siblings.

We explore the empirical puzzle of how conflicting attitudes and desires evolve and exert competing behavioral influences, focusing on the socially contentious case of premarital sex among young women in the United States. Leveraging intensive panel data collected for up to 2.5 years among a large, population-based sample of unmarried women aged 18 to 22, we show that women's sexual attitudes and desires often follow distinct trajectories that eventually come into conflict because, on average, their desires are more socially malleable than their attitudes. When attitudes and desires disaccord, young women's sexual activity and contraceptive use generally reflect their desires more than their attitudes, especially as their desires intensify. Examining attitudes and desires together reveals new insights into how young adults experience and maneuver socially contentious decisions and further illuminates one reason why attitudes are imperfect predictors of behavior.

Ischaemic priapism (IP) is a urological emergency that can lead to erectile dysfunction (ED) if not treated promptly. This study aims to evaluate and compare clinical outcomes between early and delayed penile prosthesis insertion in patients with IP. This is a single centre retrospective observational study, which included 166 patients who underwent penile prosthesis surgery for refractory IP from 2006 to 2025. Data were collected through institutional databases. Early prosthesis insertion was performed in 112 patients, with a median time (IQR) to implantation of 10 (6-15) days. 54 patients underwent delayed insertion, with a median time of 270 (120-1460) days. In unadjusted analysis, patient satisfaction was higher in the early group (OR 2.93; 95% CI: 1.21-7.18); however, this became a non-significant trend after multivariable adjustment for prosthesis type. Delayed implantation remained independently associated with higher odds of revision surgery after adjustment for prosthesis type (OR 3.74; 95% CI: 1.22-11.44) There were no statistically significant differences between reported penile shortening and post-operative infection. Key limitations include the study's retrospective single-centre design, differential follow-up duration and the lack of a standardized questionnaire to assess patient satisfaction. Patients in both early and delayed group underwent penile prosthesis implantation, either a malleable or inflatable prosthesis was used. The findings from this study highlight the importance of timely management of IP in clinical settings. Early penile prosthesis insertion is associated with lower revision risk and demonstrates a trend toward improved satisfaction. The findings support a proactive surgical approach towards patients with refractory IP, underscoring the importance of prompt management when conservative treatment fails.

Allostatic load (AL) reflects the cumulative physiological burden of chronic stress throughout life, potentially influencing cancer onset and prognosis. However, its association with primary liver cancer (PLC) risk and potential interaction with genetic susceptibility remains unclear. To investigate this, we analyzed 374,632 UK Biobank participants. AL was evaluated using a composite score of 13 cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune biomarkers, while a weighted polygenic risk score (PRS) categorized genetic susceptibility. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards models and restricted cubic splines were utilized to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and evaluate dose-response relationships. Over a median 12.4-year follow-up, a significant dose-response correlation between AL and PLC risk was observed. In the fully adjusted model, a 1-unit increase in AL was associated with a 17% increased risk (HR = 1.17, 95% CI: 1.12-1.23), and participants in the highest AL quartile exhibited a 2.60-times higher risk than those in the lowest (HR = 2.60, 95% CI: 1.72-3.95). Despite no multiplicative interaction, stratified analyses revealed AL's impact was most substantial in individuals with intermediate genetic risk (HR = 2.00, 95% CI: 1.38-2.90), who constitute the population majority. Additionally, the risk was heightened in overweight/obese individuals and more pronounced among non-smokers. Ultimately, cumulative physiological stress, indicated by AL, is strongly associated with PLC, supporting the "wear-and-tear" theory of its development. This research highlights a "malleable zone" in individuals with moderate genetic risk, suggesting that lowering AL may meaningfully aid in preventing PLC.

Strongly interconnected neuronal populations, called assemblies, dynamically form through synaptic plasticity mechanisms and are thought to be a substrate for memories in the brain. Many assembly formation models use Hebbian excitatory-to-excitatory plasticity, where coordinated activity strengthens recurrent structure. However, these models typically yield binary assembly outcomes: networks with either weak (no assembly) or maximally strong (assembly) connectivity. We consider networks with a combination of Hebbian excitatory-to-excitatory plasticity and inhibitory-to-excitatory synapses with plasticity that homeostatically stabilizes excitatory neuron firing at a target value. When we set excitatory-to-excitatory plasticity to be homeostatically compliant, in that potentiation and depression are balanced at the homeostatic target firing rate, we find a stable continuum of synaptic strengths, and assembly structure is no longer binary. We use a recurrent network of spiking neuron models and an associated mean-field theory to identify this continuum as a line attractor in synaptic weight space. While along the attractor, homeostasis ensures that neuronal firing rates are invariant, the dynamical response properties of the network are quite malleable, with strongly coupled networks having high gain and longer timescale responses. Using our mean-field theory we show how correlated stochastic spiking activity among the excitatory neurons can destroy the line attractor, yet this can be mitigated when correlated inputs are shared across the excitatory and inhibitory neurons. Altogether, we provide a learning framework based on homeostasis, where a tunable and flexible assembly structure is possible.

In the absence of infection, the reservoir of a malfunctioning three-piece inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) is often left in place during replacement. Experts believe that the risks associated with reservoir explantation outweigh the risks of a drain-and-retain approach. However, there is no clear consensus on monitoring. The objective of this case report is to highlight the need for vigilance regarding long-term potential complications associated with retained reservoirs, as this report describes a retained reservoir eroding spontaneously into the bladder 15 years post-placement in a 69-year-old man. The patient had been reporting gross hematuria, recurrent UTIs, and worsened lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). CT imaging, followed by cystoscopy, demonstrated the decommissioned reservoir in the bladder. The patient then underwent exploratory laparotomy and bladder exploration to remove the eroding reservoir and replace the functional three-piece IPP with a malleable one. By reviewing the available literature, we found three clinical scenarios using variable clinical approaches to deal with bladder erosion by the reservoir, whether functional or decommissioned. In conclusion, patients with retained IPP reservoirs are at potential risk for complications. Prosthesis erosion may appear in the differential diagnosis when patients with a history of IPP placement present with hematuria or LUTS. Long-term investigation is needed to identify patients at high risk of complications and to elucidate proper monitoring and best surgical practices to manage these complications.

Increased sensitivity and reactivity to contextualized sound triggers is the defining feature of misophonia. Emotion regulation (ER) fluctuates at a momentary level, is a malleable misophonia risk factor, and characterizes maladaptive cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to aversive stimuli in individuals with misophonia. As misophonia symptom expression varies due to context (e.g., sound exposure), it is likely that misophonia also fluctuates momentarily. Understanding real-time associations between momentary ER and misophonia symptoms would help 1) better characterize misophonia and 2) inform an understanding of misophonia symptoms, symptom trajectories, and tailored interventions; yet, experience sampling studies of misophonia are limited. Interval- and event-contingent ecological momentary assessment methods measured misophonia, ER strategies (techniques to manage emotions), and ER abilities (capacity to manage emotions) over a 30-day period three times per day to capture ER and misophonia during and outside of triggers. Sixty individuals screening positive for misophonia were recruited, and participants completed ∼3000 momentary surveys. Intraclass correlation coefficients suggested between 23-52% of individual variability in momentary misophonia, ER abilities, and ER strategies was due to momentary-level changes. In multilevel models, within- and between-individual domains of ER strategies and abilities were related to misophonia both during and not during triggers, controlling for: 1) time since most recent trigger and 2) trigger anticipation for individuals not endorsing a current trigger. Results suggest meaningful individual variability in misophonia, ER strategies, and ER abilities. Findings will inform follow-on just-in-time adaptive interventions targeting momentary misophonia variability.

Patient advocates increasingly serve as voting members of Scientific Review Committees (SRCs) charged with evaluating the scientific merit and feasibility of clinical trial protocols. In principle, this gives advocates a seat at the table when the scientific architecture of a trial is most malleable. In practice, a recurring pattern undermines that promise. When advocates raise concerns about visit frequency, procedural invasiveness, or restrictive eligibility criteria, those concerns are often deflected on the grounds that they are ethical rather than scientific, and therefore properly the province of the Institutional Review Board. This Comment names that pattern jurisdictional dismissal and argues that it rests on a category error. Patient burden is a primary determinant of accrual, retention, data completeness, and generalizability. These are scientific concerns by any reasonable definition. When SRCs decline to engage with them, they let an unsuccessful trial proceed to ethics review with a fixed design that the IRB cannot meaningfully alter. I describe how jurisdictional dismissal operates, distinguish the scientific feasibility question that belongs to the SRC from the ethical acceptability question that belongs to the IRB, and propose four concrete changes to SRC practice that recognize feasibility as a scientific criterion in its own right. When patients and former research participants join clinical trial review committees, they bring firsthand experience of what it can be like to live through the demands of a trial. They can often tell whether weekly clinic visits are realistic for an older patient who no longer drives, whether three additional biopsies might deter people from enrolling, or which eligibility rules could quietly exclude the people most likely to benefit. No single advocate speaks for every patient, and lived experience is not the same as representative data. It is a vantage point that a committee made up only of clinicians and scientists can easily miss.But here is what often happens when a patient advocate raises one of these concerns at a Scientific Review Committee meeting: someone gently redirects the conversation. “That sounds like an ethics question. The Institutional Review Board will look at that.” The advocate’s concern gets handed off, and by the time it reaches the ethics review, the trial design is already locked in.This article argues that this handoff is a mistake. Patient burden is not only an ethics question. It is also a scientific question, because trials that ask too much of patients fail to enroll enough people, lose participants partway through, and produce results that do not apply to the wider patient community. When committees treat burden as someone else’s problem, they miss the chance to fix the trial when it is still possible to fix.I offer a name for this pattern: jurisdictional dismissal. I describe how it shows up in practice, why it weakens science, and what review committees can do about it. The fix is straightforward: treat patient burden as a scientific feasibility question, recognize advocates as scientific reviewers rather than ethics consultants, and weigh their concerns seriously, alongside concerns about statistical power or biological plausibility. The patient voice belongs in the room where the trial is designed, not only in the room where it is approved.Clinical trial number Not applicable.

Mexican-origin individuals constitute the largest immigrant subgroup in the United States. With this rapidly growing population, it is critical to identify factors that promote positive mental health outcomes among Mexican-origin youth, who face discrimination as well as elevated rates of psychopathology. Family processes can play a key malleable role in fostering resilience and mitigating internalizing symptoms. This study examined family protective factors that may buffer the impact of racial-ethnic discrimination on adolescent mental health in a sample of 344 Mexican-origin youth, aged 12-15, with 335 mothers and 171 fathers across three waves of yearly data collection in a new migration area in the Midwestern United States. Youth reported on discrimination and internalizing symptoms at all waves. Youth, mothers, and fathers reported their perspectives on familism, family cohesion, and cultural socialization at all waves. Initial levels of discrimination were positively associated with final levels of internalizing symptoms. Latent growth curve moderation analyses revealed that youth-reported family cohesion and father-reported cultural socialization were significant buffers against the association between discrimination and distress. Contrary to our hypotheses, no moderating effects of familism were observed. Implications of these results for family-level prevention and intervention programs aimed at enhancing family resilience are highlighted. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Time perception is inherently malleable, influenced by both emotional and bodily states. Past research suggests that transient heartbeat-linked interoceptive signals can modulate time perception, with some studies reporting that brief stimuli presented during cardiac systole are perceived as shorter than those during diastole. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) across two experiments to examine how such cardiac-phase effects are neurally instantiated, and how they interact with emotional content of the stimuli. In Experiment 1, participants judged the duration of brief neutral visual stimuli (Gabor patches) presented during systole or diastole. We did not observe a reliable group-level behavioural cardiac-phase effect. Despite that, EEG revealed systolic modulation of late visual activity. Crucially, exploratory analyses showed that more negative late cortical activity predicted temporal underestimation only during systole, not diastole. In Experiment 2, we extended this design to emotionally salient stimuli (neutral vs fearful faces). Fearful faces were perceived as shorter in duration and accompanied by enhanced N170-like negativity compared to neutral faces. But this effect was not modulated by cardiac phase, suggesting that emotional salience is a much more powerful driver of duration perception than subtle cardiac fluctuations. Yet, even for faces, enhanced EEG negativity predicted temporal contraction only during systole. Together, these findings reveal that while group-level behavioural cardiac-phase effects are variable, the systole-specific neural mechanism, whereby reduced cortical activity predicts temporal contraction, replicated across both experiments. This suggests that cardiac signals can shape duration perception through transient modulation of cortical processing.

Typical methods for drug delivery in fish (e.g., beaker dosing, intraperitoneal injections, or oral gavage) are time-consuming, imprecise, and/or wasteful. Because these methods are also stressful for the animals, they are poorly suited for repeated or long-term drug administration and behavioral experiments that are sensitive to handling-related confounds, thereby limiting the utility of fish models in biomedical research. To overcome these obstacles, a gelatin-based feeding method was developed to enable rapid, precise drug dosing in fish with minimal disturbance. The method involves preparing individually tailored morsels of feed composed of gelatin, brine shrimp extract, spirulina, and the drug of choice. The heat malleable properties of gelatin allow a single homogeneous preparation to be liquefied, accurately portioned according to individual body mass, and re-solidified into customized morsels. As proof of principle, the NMDA receptor antagonist MK-801 (4 mg kg⁻1) was administered to adult zebrafish prior to the novel tank test, resulting in behavioral effects consistent with reduced anxiety-like behavior. This approach is well suited for behavioral pharmacology and is readily adaptable to other aquatic model organisms.

This study tests the moderating role of essentialist beliefs about aging (i.e., perceptions of aging as a fixed versus malleable process) in the relationship between physical functioning and subjective well-being distinguishing between a) overall quality of life and b) health satisfaction among older adults in clinical care. We propose that essentialist beliefs serve as adaptive, palliative cognitions that help maintain high subjective well-being despite health challenges. In a sample of hospitalized older adults (N = 102; 67-96 years), multiple regression analyses revealed a significant interaction between essentialist beliefs and physical functioning for both quality of life and health satisfaction. For quality of life, stronger essentialist beliefs were linked to more positive evaluations under poor physical functioning, whereas more flexible beliefs were associated with lower quality of life. In contrast, for health satisfaction, more flexible beliefs were associated with a stronger link between physical functioning and subjective health, while essentialist beliefs weakened this association. These effects were particularly evident at lower levels of physical functioning. These findings highlight the domain-specific role of aging beliefs and suggest that essentialist beliefs may serve as a psychological buffer under conditions of physical decline, while more malleable beliefs promote condition-congruent evaluations of health.

Diagnosis of erectile dysfunction (ED) is increasing due to the prevalence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, lifestyle changes, and an aging population. The worldwide prevalence of ED in 2025 was projected to be 322 million men. ED can negatively affect a man's psychosocial health and quality of life. Of all the available treatment options for ED, the penile prosthesis offers the highest patient and partner satisfaction rates (the inflatable type more than the malleable type) and is covered by most insurance plans in the United States. Despite being irreversible and invasive, per the 2018 American Urological Association guidelines, it is valid for men to begin with a penile prosthesis as the first line of treatment. Consequently, approximately 30 000 penile prostheses are implanted annually in the United States. However, surgery carries inherent risks and potential complications, and like any other implant, an inflatable penile prosthesis (IPP) can be complicated by infection, mechanical failure, and malpositioning. Detection of these complications can be challenging at clinical examination, and MRI is the preferred modality to interrogate the IPP. Other imaging modalities such as CT and US may be used according to the suspected complication and provide complementary information. MRI permits anatomic evaluation of the IPP and offers functional assessment by allowing acquisition of images during both the inflated and deflated states. The aim of this article is to familiarize radiologists with the normal imaging appearance and complications of the three-piece IPP for accurate diagnosis and effective communication with referring clinicians. A structured reporting template is proposed to guide clinical practice. ©RSNA, 2026 Supplemental material is available for this article. See the invited commentary by Schuch and Chojniak in this issue.

Mixing wheat flour with water transforms an otherwise dispersible powder into a cohesive and extensible dough capable of sustaining large deformations. The emergence of this malleable material is due to polymerization of glutenin subunits. However, the molecular principles governing this transformation remain unclear. Here, we investigate the hydration-induced association behavior of the N-terminal domain of the high-molecular-weight glutenin subunit 1Dx5 (1Dx5-NTD). Upon hydration, 1Dx5-NTD adopts a collapsed, heterogeneous ensemble rather than a single, well-defined folded structure and undergoes intermolecular association into assemblies ranging from trimers to ∼70,000-mers. These associations are primarily determined by favorable enthalpic interactions that are modulated by moderate ionic strength. Hydrophobic residues (Tyr52, Phe65, Tyr66, and Trp82) are buried within the collapsed monomer yet indirectly modulate protein association through correlated ensemble dynamics, as supported by mutational analysis. Importantly, 1Dx5-NTD contains three cysteine residues (Cys10, Cys25, and Cys40) that undergo disulfide bond formation during association. While multiple disulfide linkage patterns are chemically possible, mass spectrometry-based cross-linking analysis reveals a limited subset of preferential disulfide linkages. This finding suggests that disulfide formation is biased by the conformational ensemble and local cysteine accessibility, rather than occurring randomly. Together, these results support a model in which glutenin polymerization emerges from ensemble-averaged intermolecular contacts coupled with statistically biased disulfide bond formation, giving rise to a cohesive, multidimensional protein network without requiring a uniquely defined folded structure. This work highlights how collapsed protein ensembles can encode chemical selectivity and macroscopic material properties.

It is generally accepted that non-coding DNA constitutes the vast majority of most eukaryotic genomes and is concentrated at the nuclear periphery and nucleolar surface. Building upon this spatial organization, we have previously proposed that this layer of abundant, peripherally localized non-coding DNA functions as a 3D buffer that transiently absorbs or permanently excludes DNA damage to protect the genome and the relatively central exome from external and internal mutagens in somatic cells. This review explores the potential role of non-coding DNA as a physical barrier in genome safeguarding during early developmental stages and major evolutionary transitions. During gametogenesis and early embryogenesis the barrier is first provided by abundant non-coding DNA; as heterochromatin matures from non-coding DNA, many species programmatically eliminate the now-redundant non-coding DNA. Across evolution, whole-genome duplications and repeat amplification expand the shield, facilitating major evolutionary transitions such as vertebrate origins, water-to-land colonization and survival through mass-extinction crises. Conversely, in stable ecosystems selection favors genome streamlining: redundant non-coding DNA is lost to reduce fitness costs. Thus, the dosage of non-coding DNA is negatively correlated with the strength of apomorphic safeguards (adaptive immunity, viviparity) and positively correlated with ecological or developmental stress. By integrating comparative genomics, 3D nuclear architecture and evolution, we unify a single conceptual framework: non-coding DNA acts as a malleable fortress whose thickness is tuned to the variable need for genome protection during both ontogeny and phylogeny. This perspective offers new explanatory power for the accumulation or loss of non-coding DNA and can predict genome-size trajectories.