Today, February 11, the International Day of Women and the Girl in Science is celebrated. This initiative promotes the realization of activities that, visibilizing the work of scientists, commemorate that day, promote scientific vocations in girls and help to close the gender gap in science. This third edition hosts more than 2,200 activities from today until February 15.

In 2015, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed on February 11 the International Day of Women and the Girl in Science. The goal is to achieve full and equal access and participation in science for women and girls, as well as achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. This platform was created by a group of women scientists and teachers, who propose to carry out activities that “help to visibilize the work of scientists, to create female roles in the fields of science and engineering and to promote practices that favor the gender equality in the scientific field “.

In this third edition there are actions programmed in educational centers, libraries, cultural centers, etc. You will find the activities https://11defebrero.org/

Researchers at the University of Barcelona, the Bellvitge Institute for Biomedical Research, the Santa Creu i Sant Pau Hospital Institute for Biomedical Research, the Autonomous University of Barcelona and McGill University (Montreal) have published a study that shows for the first time a causal relationship between the dopamine system and music.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) reveals a causal relationship between dopamine and reward responses in humans when listening to music. The study was carried out by researchers from the Cognition and Brain Plasticity Research Group at the University of Barcelona and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (UB-IDIBELL), as well as the former Human Neuropsychopharmacology Research Group and the PK / PD Modeling and Simulation groups coordinated by Dr. Marta Valle del Dra. Marta Valle from the Institut d’Investigació Biomèdica de l’Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University.

The researchers pharmacologically manipulated the transmission of dopamine in twenty-two participants while listening to music, and have shown for the first time the causal relationship between dopamine and the motivation and satisfaction of listening to music. While the precursor of dopamine, levodopa, increased hedonic experience and motivational responses, such as wanting to buy a song, risperidone reduced them. These results open up a new view of the neurobiology and neurochemistry of reward responses associated with music, and contribute to the open debate about understanding the human brain.

Humans regularly participate in comforting activities such as listening to music, singing or playing. Understanding how the brain translates a sequence of sounds such as music into a satisfying experience is challenging.

In this study, researchers asked whether dopamine, a neurotransmitter with an important role in regulating pleasurable experiences and motivating people to act in one way or another, has a direct role in the positive experience music provokes. To answer this question, they pharmacologically manipulated the availability of dopamine to the neuronal receptors of the participants. In three different sessions, one week apart, the experts orally administered a dopamine precursor (levodopa, which increases dopamine availability), its antagonist (risperidone, which reduces dopamine signaling), and a placebo (lactose, as a control). Researchers anticipate that, if dopamine has a causal role in the satisfaction of music, levodopa and risperidone should have opposite effects in terms of musical satisfaction and motivation.

Laura Ferreri, researcher at UB-IDIBELL and first author of the article, explains that “the study clarifies the role of the human dopamine system in terms of abstract rewards. In addition, “these results challenge those of previous studies that have been done on animal models, in which dopaminergic manipulations showed a clear role for dopamine in motivation and learning, but in which its role in regulating hedonic responses with primary prizes such as food remained controversial”. The researcher concludes that these results “indicate that dopaminergic transmission in humans may have different roles from those proposed in affective processing, specifically with respect to abstract cognitive activities, such as listening to music”.

Electrodermal response

The authors indirectly measured changes in the sensation of pleasure and reward by checking the electrodermal activity of the participants, a technique for evaluating emotional changes (in this case, the hedonic impact of music). In each session, participants listened to their favorite songs to more than ten other songs (the authors and groups chosen were Alejandro Sanz, Amaia Montero, Antonio Orozco, Auryn, Birdy, Katy Perry, Maldita Nerea, Melendi, One Direction and Taylor Swift). The purpose was for them to evaluate the experiences subjectively (real-time evaluation and general evaluation of each song). Motivational responses were also measured by asking participants how much they would pay for each song. In order to control the implication of reward processes in a situation without music, the researchers also carried out a task that evaluated monetary reward, in which participants could earn or lose money.

Overall, the results showed that pharmacological interventions modulated the reward responses provoked by music. Risperidone, unlike levodopa, reduced participants’ chills, considered a physical manifestation of the peak of satisfaction when listening to music. As shown with changes in electrodermal activity, participants’ scores on emotional responses were higher with levodopa and lower with risperidone, scores that were also compared with placebo. These results coincide with those obtained when money was used as a reward, since, in response to a higher prize, enthusiasm was increased with levodopa and reduced with risperidone. Finally, participants were more open to spending money on levodopa than on risperidone: they were more motivated to listen to more music when dopamine transmission was improved than when it was blocked.

Antoni Rodríguez Fornells, ICREA researcher and head of the UB-IDIBELL group, explains that this study “shows for the first time the causal role of dopamine in musical satisfaction and motivation: enjoying music, taking pleasure, wanting to listen to a song again, and wanted to buy it …, all this depends on the dopamine we release.

Article reference:
Ferreri, L.; Mas-Herrero, E.; Zatorre, R.; Ripollés, P.; Gómez-Andrés, A.; Alicart, E.; Olivé, G.; Marco-Pallarés, J.; Antonijoan, R. M.; Valle, M.; Riba, J., i Rodríguez-Fornells, A. «Dopamine modulates the reward experiences elicited by music», Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 2019.

A study signed by Dr. Carolina Moreno, researcher at the IIB Sant Pau of the Oncological Hematology and Transplant Group, and consultant at the Hospital’s Hematology Service, has recently been published in the scientific journal The Lancet Oncology. The work compares the standard treatment of Chronic Lymphatic Leukaemia in patients over 65 years of age (chemoimmunotherapy) with a treatment that incorporates Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors (ibutrinib) and demonstrates a clear benefit in terms of duration of response, as well as a reduction of the risk of disease progression by 80%. In patients who suffer a genetic alteration that predisposes to a poor response to standard treatment, the risk reduction is 85%.

The standard treatment for patients over the age of 65 suffering from Chronic Lymphatic Leukaemia (CLL), the most prevalent in Western countries, is so far chemotherapy with Chlorambucil in combination with a monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody obinotuzumab. In recent years there have been great advances in this disease with the introduction of new biological treatments targeting specific targets such as the Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Ibrutinib). The Illuminate study compares standard treatment with chemoimmunotherapy versus combination of ibrutinib with obinotuzumab in patients with CLL over 65 or with previously untreated comorbidities.

With conventional treatment the average duration of response is 19 months, while with this new combination, after 31 months, most patients maintain the response.

The drug combination proposed in the study is pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is expected to be approved and available in the United States in the first half of 2019. In Europe, it is expected to be on the market by the end of this year.

Dr. Moreno, a researcher at the IIB Sant Pau and a consultant with the Hospital’s Haematology Service, presented the results of the study at the latest congress of the American Society of Haematology (ASH) held in San Diego and is the first signatory to the study recently published in The Lancet Oncology. Her presentation was the most viewed online of all those presented at this conference.

Sant Pau is the center that has recruited more patients in the study in which also participate more than 25 centers around the world.

Estudy: Lancet Oncol. 2018 Nov 30. pii: S1470-2045(18)30788-5. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(18)30788-5. [Epub ahead of print]

Signants: Moreno C, Greil R, Demirkan F, Tedeschi A, Anz B, Larratt L, Simkovic M, Samoilova O, Novak J, Ben-Yehuda D, Strugov V, Gill D, Gribben JG, Hsu E, Lih CJ, Zhou C, Clow F, James DF, Styles L, Flinn IW.

Ibrutinib plus obinutuzumab versus chlorambucil plus obinutuzumab in first-line treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (iLLUMINATE): a multicentre, randomised, open-label, phase 3 trial.

The study published in the journal Circulation and led by Dr. Maria Sabater Lleal, researcher Miquel Servet and recently incorporated into the group of the Genomics Unit of Complex Diseases of the IIB Sant Pau, is a meta-analysis of global data of the genome carried out with the CHARGE consortium (Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology) with more than 46,000 individuals analyzed.

“Genome-wide association trans-ethnic meta-analyses identifi novela associations Regulating coagulation Factor VIII and von Willebrand Factor plasma levels” is the title of the work done largely at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm by Dr. Sabater and supervised by Professor Nicholas L. Smith of the University of Washington.

The work identifies new genes regulating the levels of factor VIII and factor von Willebrand in plasma, and demonstrates a causal effect of these coagulation proteins in thrombotic pathology, specifically in coronary diseases, ischemic stroke and venous thrombosis.

The study published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, in which the Chronic Respiratory Diseases Group of the Sant Pau Research Institute and the Pneumology Service of the Hospital, the Jiménez Díaz Foundation and the Autonomous University of Madrid participate, has demonstrated how anxiety and depression pose an independent risk in the control of asthma. In the work in which 180 pulmonologists and allergists participated, it was proposed to find out the association of the diagnosis of asthma with symptoms of depression and anxiety and their degree of control.

These associations were made at the beginning of the diagnosis and six months, after a treatment only for asthma and carried out by a specialist. We included 3,182 asthmatic patients who were evaluated by specialists in pneumology or allergology, to measure their level of asthma control, level of anxiety and depression.

Subsequently, the specialist decided to treat the patients, who were re-evaluated three and six months after the first consultation. Thus, the work showed that in the first consultation 24 percent of the patients were diagnosed with anxiety, and 12 percent with depression, so the anxiety figures were higher than those of the general Spanish population (9 percent), although the depression figures were similar.

After six months, the researchers were able to observe that both anxiety and depression improved, while evidencing an improvement in lung function and asthma control.

The Lilly Foundation announces the 18th edition of the Lilly Foundation Awards for Preclinical and Clinical Biomedical Research, aimed at researchers who have contributed to the development of Biomedicine and Health Sciences in the State. The deadline for submission of candidatures is 15 February 2019.

Here you will find the terms and conditions of the call: CARTEL-BASES DE LA CONVOCATORIA