PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320352
Maria Estela Colado Tello, Josep María Dalmau Torres, Esther Gargallo Ibort, Raúl Jiménez Boraita
{"title":"Sleep quality in Spanish university professors: Association with lifestyle habits and physical and mental health indicators.","authors":"Maria Estela Colado Tello, Josep María Dalmau Torres, Esther Gargallo Ibort, Raúl Jiménez Boraita","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320352","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320352","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>There is currently a growing interest in knowing the state of health of university professors. Sleep habits are essential for health and performance in any profession, including university teaching, and are related to different aspects of a teacher's work productivity and general wellbeing.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>The study aimed to analyse sleep quality in Spanish university professors and to determine its association with lifestyle habits and physical and mental health indicators.</p><p><strong>Method: </strong>The study was carried out on a sample of 1560 university professors (47.39 ± 11.29 years) from thirteen universities belonging to the Spanish Network of Health Promoting Universities. Sleep quality, emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation, self-fulfilment, quality of life, stress, anxiety, depression, vocal fatigue, sedentary time and eating behaviour were assessed.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Thirty-three percent of university professors were found to have poor sleep quality (95% CI: 30.7% - 35.3%). Significant differences were identified based on sociodemographic factors, particularly gender, with 74.9% of men reporting good sleep quality compared to 50.5% of women. According to the regression analysis, sleep problems were associated with less improvement in vocal symptoms after rest and lower quality of life scores. Additionally, they were linked to greater vocal fatigue, physical discomfort in the voice, female gender, and higher scores in mental health disorders (stress, anxiety, and depression). University professors with poor sleep quality also showed lower levels of physical activity, increased sedentary time, and higher levels of uncontrolled and emotional eating.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Enhancing sleep quality and rest among university professors can boost cognitive and physical performance, foster better overall well-being, and lead to higher job satisfaction.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0320352"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975094/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803810","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320923
Priscila Heredia Reto, Rosita Castillo Rogel, Gabriela Palomino Lucano, Jean Louis Falen, Ricardo David Avellan Laguno, Karina Zapata Vidaurre, Marisol Saavedra Febre, Gabriel Reyes Calle, Juan Zingg Rosell, Jimmy Lopez Perez, José Morán Rosillo, Eric Mialhe, Benoit Diringer
{"title":"Assessing microbial diversity in open-pit mining: Metabarcoding analysis of soil and pit microbiota across operational and restoration stages.","authors":"Priscila Heredia Reto, Rosita Castillo Rogel, Gabriela Palomino Lucano, Jean Louis Falen, Ricardo David Avellan Laguno, Karina Zapata Vidaurre, Marisol Saavedra Febre, Gabriel Reyes Calle, Juan Zingg Rosell, Jimmy Lopez Perez, José Morán Rosillo, Eric Mialhe, Benoit Diringer","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320923","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320923","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Mine closure operations aim to restore the ecosystem to a near-original state. Microorganisms are indispensable for soil equilibrium and restoration. Metabarcoding was employed to characterize the bacterial and fungal composition in pristine soils, stockpiled soils (topsoils), enriched stockpiled soils (technosoils), enriched and revegetated soils (revegetated technosoils), and pit ecosystems in an open pit gold mine. Chao1 analysis revealed highest richness in pristine and topsoils, followed by technosoils (-17.5%) and pits (-63%). Bacterial diversity surpassed fungal diversity (-40%) in soil samples, but fungal OTUs were more abundant in pit samples (+73.4%). The findings identified the dominant microbial communities and conducted a comparative analysis of the shared microbiota. Dominant genera differed notably between pristine, topsoil, and technosoil samples for bacteria and fungi. The ecological indices' results indicated that the pristine soil microbial communities were distinct from those in the topsoils, revealing significant alterations during the stockpiling process. The revegetated technosoil showed more similarity to the pristine and topsoil samples than to the freshly prepared technosoil, suggesting that microbial restoration is an ongoing phenomenon. Microbial restoration analysis revealed that Bacterial communities recover faster than fungal communities highlighting the potential of managing technosoil physicochemical parameters to enhance microbial recovery similar to those found in pristine soils. Runoff water contribute to this rebalancing by transporting microorganisms between ecosystem. All pit samples exhibited significant differences in their microbial composition, with moisture and rock composition representing the primary axes of dissimilarity. The greater community complexity observed in soils is related to the availability of nutrients, physicochemical variations, and the possibility of interaction with other microbes. Pits represent extreme ecosystems that limit the growth of most microorganisms. The presented research provides a scientific basis for future restoration strategies to improve microbial diversity and ecosystem resilience in altered landscapes.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0320923"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975129/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0315148
Kátine Marchezan Estivalet, Tatiana Salayaran de Aguiar Pettenuzzo, Natália Lopes Mazzilli, Luis Fernando Ferreira, Fernanda Cechetti
{"title":"The use of brain-machine interface, motor imagery, and action observation in the rehabilitation of individuals with Parkinson's disease: A protocol study for a randomized clinical trial.","authors":"Kátine Marchezan Estivalet, Tatiana Salayaran de Aguiar Pettenuzzo, Natália Lopes Mazzilli, Luis Fernando Ferreira, Fernanda Cechetti","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0315148","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0315148","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative condition that impacts motor planning and control of the upper limbs (UL) and leads to cognitive impairments. Rehabilitation approaches, including motor imagery (MI) and action observation (AO), along with the use of brain-machine interfaces (BMI), are essential in the PD population to enhance neuroplasticity and mitigate symptoms.</p><p><strong>Objective: </strong>To provide a description of a rehabilitation protocol for evaluating the effects of isolated and combined applications of MI and action observation (AO), along with BMI, on upper limb (UL) motor changes and cognitive function in PD.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This study provides a detailed protocol for a single-blinded, randomized clinical trial. After selection, participants will be randomly assigned to one of five experimental groups. Each participant will be assessed at three points: pre-intervention, post-intervention, and at a follow-up four weeks after the intervention ends. The intervention consists of 10 sessions, each lasting approximately 60 minutes.</p><p><strong>Expected results: </strong>The primary outcome expected is an improvement in the Test d'Évaluation des Membres Supérieurs de Personnes Âgées score, accompanied by a reduction in task execution time. Secondary outcomes include motor symptoms in the upper limbs, assessed via the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale - Part III and the 9-Hole Peg Test; cognitive function, assessed with the PD Cognitive Rating Scale; and occupational performance, assessed with the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This study protocol is notable for its intensive daily sessions. Both MI and AO are low-cost, enabling personalized interventions that physiotherapists and occupational therapists can readily replicate in practice. While BMI use does require professionals to acquire an exoskeleton, the protocol ensures the distinctiveness of the interventions and, to our knowledge, is the first to involve individuals with PD.</p><p><strong>Trial registration: </strong>ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05696925.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0315148"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975075/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321197
Majd Mardini, Aleksey Ermolaev, Alexey Yu Kuznetsov, Alexey V Zhevnerov, Sergey Buravkov, Ludmila Khrustaleva
{"title":"Onion pollenkitt: Function, DNase activity, fatty acid composition, and SEM imaging.","authors":"Majd Mardini, Aleksey Ermolaev, Alexey Yu Kuznetsov, Alexey V Zhevnerov, Sergey Buravkov, Ludmila Khrustaleva","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0321197","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0321197","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Pollenkitt, a sticky substance produced by the tapetal cells of pollen grains, plays a crucial role in pollen functionality, yet it remains an understudied component in plant biology. In this study, we investigated the role of pollenkitt in onion (Allium cepa) pollen, focusing on its effects on pollen germination, DNase activity, fatty acid composition, and ultrastructure. Our findings reveal that pollenkitt is essential for successful onion pollen germination and tube growth on the stigma, as its removal significantly inhibited these processes. Additionally, we demonstrated that onion pollenkitt exhibits DNase activity, degrading plasmid DNA in a concentration-dependent manner, with EDTA effectively inhibiting the degradation. Gas chromatography identified 20 fatty acids in pollenkitt, with a predominance of unsaturated fatty acids. Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we showed structural differences between pollen grains with and without pollenkitt, and we observed the process of pollenkitt removal from the surface of pollen grains by water washing. These results offer valuable insights for future research aimed at optimizing pollen-mediated gene-editing systems and highlight the importance of considering pollenkitt in such applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0321197"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975101/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143804084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320333
Sirong Wu, Yuhui Deng, Junjie Liu, Xi Luo, Gengchen Sun
{"title":"Rumor detection on social networks based on Temporal Tree Transformer.","authors":"Sirong Wu, Yuhui Deng, Junjie Liu, Xi Luo, Gengchen Sun","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320333","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0320333","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The rapid propagation of rumors on social media can give rise to various social issues, underscoring the necessity of swift and automated rumor detection. Existing studies typically identify rumors based on their textual or static propagation structural information, without considering the dynamic changes in the structure of rumor propagation over time. In this paper, we propose the Temporal Tree Transformer model, which simultaneously considers text, propagation structure, and temporal changes. By analyzing observing the growth of propagation tree structures in different time windows, we use Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU) to encode these trees to obtain better representations for the classification task. We evaluate our model's performance using the PHEME dataset. In most existing studies, information leakage occurs when conversation threads from all events are randomly divided into training and test sets. We perform Leave-One-Event-Out (LOEO) cross-validation, which better reflects real-world scenarios. The experimental results show that our model achieves state-of-the-art accuracy 75.84% and Macro F1 score of 71.98%, respectively. These results demonstrate that extracting temporal features from propagation structures leads to improved model generalization.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0320333"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975086/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803446","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319949
Sankarasubramanian Jagadesan, Chittibabu Guda
{"title":"MetaDAVis: An R shiny application for metagenomic data analysis and visualization.","authors":"Sankarasubramanian Jagadesan, Chittibabu Guda","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0319949","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0319949","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The human microbiome exerts tremendous influence on maintaining a balance between human health and disease. High-throughput sequencing has enabled the study of microbial communities at an unprecedented resolution. Generation of massive amounts of sequencing data has also presented novel challenges to analyzing and visualizing data to make biologically relevant interpretations. We have developed an interactive Metagenome Data Analysis and Visualization (MetaDAVis) tool for 16S rRNA as well as the whole genome sequencing data analysis and visualization to address these challenges using an R Shiny application. MetaDAVis can perform six different types of analyses that include: i) Taxonomic abundance distribution; ii) Alpha and beta diversity analyses; iii) Dimension reduction tasks using PCA, t-SNE, and UMAP; iv) Correlation analysis using taxa- or sample-based data; v) Heatmap generation; and vi) Differential abundance analysis. MetaDAVis creates interactive and dynamic figures and tables from multiple methods enabling users to easily understand their data using different variables. Our program is user-friendly and easily customizable allowing those without any programming background to perform comprehensive data analyses using a standalone or web-based interface.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0319949"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975103/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143804078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311449
Feline F W Benavides, Edwin J B Veldhuis Kroeze, Lonneke Leijten, Katharina S Schmitz, Peter van Run, Thijs Kuiken, Rory D de Vries, Lisa Bauer, Debby van Riel
{"title":"Neuroinvasive and neurovirulent potential of SARS-CoV-2 in the acute and post-acute phase of intranasally inoculated ferrets.","authors":"Feline F W Benavides, Edwin J B Veldhuis Kroeze, Lonneke Leijten, Katharina S Schmitz, Peter van Run, Thijs Kuiken, Rory D de Vries, Lisa Bauer, Debby van Riel","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0311449","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0311449","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) can cause systemic disease, including neurological complications, even after mild respiratory disease. Previous studies have shown that SARS-CoV-2 infection can induce neurovirulence through microglial activation in the brains of patients and experimentally inoculated animals, which are models representative for moderate to severe respiratory disease. Here, we aimed to investigate the neuroinvasive and neurovirulent potential of SARS-CoV-2 in intranasally inoculated ferrets, a model for subclinical to mild respiratory disease. The presence of viral RNA, histological lesions, virus-infected cells, and the number and surface area of microglia and astrocytes were investigated. Viral RNA was detected in various respiratory tissue samples by qPCR at 7 days post inoculation (dpi). Virus antigen was detected in the nasal turbinates of ferrets sacrificed at 7 dpi and was associated with inflammation. Viral RNA was detected in the brains of ferrets sacrificed 7 dpi, but in situ hybridization nor immunohistochemistry did confirm evidence for viral RNA or antigen in the brain. Histopathological analysis of the brains showed no evidence for an influx of inflammatory cells. Despite this, we observed an increased number of Alzheimer type II astrocytes in the hindbrains of SARS-CoV-2 inoculated ferrets. Additionally, we detected increased microglial activation in the olfactory bulb and hippocampus, and a decrease in the astrocytic activation status in the white matter and hippocampus of SARS-CoV-2 inoculated ferrets. In conclusion, although SARS-CoV-2 has limited neuroinvasive potential in this model for subclinical to mild respiratory disease, there is evidence for neurovirulent potential. This study highlights the value of this ferret model to study the neuropathogenecity of SARS-CoV-2 and reveals that a mild SARS-CoV-2 infection can affect both microglia and astrocytes in different parts of the brain.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0311449"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975070/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143804082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0321416
{"title":"Retraction: Ensemble learning for multi-class COVID-19 detection from big data.","authors":"","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0321416","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0321416","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0321416"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975379/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803262","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0312585
Xia Pan, Zhenyi Wang, Gary Feng, Shan Wang, Sathishkumar Samiappan
{"title":"Automated mapping of land cover in Google Earth Engine platform using multispectral Sentinel-2 and MODIS image products.","authors":"Xia Pan, Zhenyi Wang, Gary Feng, Shan Wang, Sathishkumar Samiappan","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0312585","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0312585","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Land cover mapping often utilizes supervised classification, which can have issues with insufficient sample size and sample confusion, this study assessed the accuracy of a fast and reliable method for automatic labeling and collection of training samples. Based on the self-programming in Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud-based platform, a large and reliable training dataset of multispectral Sentinel-2 image was extracted automatically across the study area from the existing MODIS land cover product. To enhance confidence in high-quality training class labels, homogeneous 20 m Sentinel-2 pixels within each 500 m MODIS pixel were selected and a minority of heterogeneous 20 m pixels were removed based on calculations of spectral centroid and Euclidean distance. Further, the quality control and spatial filter were applied for all land cover classes to generate a reliable and representative training dataset that was subsequently applied to train the Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Random Forest (RF), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifiers. The results shows that the main land cover types in the study area as distinguished by three different classifiers were Evergreen Broadleaf Forests, Mixed Forests, Woody Savannas, and Croplands. In the training and validation samples, the numbers of correctly classified pixels under the CART without computationally intensive were more than those for the RF and SVM classifiers. Moreover, the user's and producer's accuracies, overall accuracy and kappa coefficient of the CART classifier were the best, indicating the CART classifier was more suitable to this automatic workflow for land cover mapping. The proposed method can automatically generate a large number of reliable and accurate training samples in a timely manner, which is promising for future land cover mapping in a large-scale region.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0312585"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975139/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143803824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
PLoS ONEPub Date : 2025-04-07eCollection Date: 2025-01-01DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0319967
Elisabeth Goettfried, Robert Barket, Ronen Hershman, Margarete Delazer, Michael Auer, Klaus Berek, Philipp Ellmerer, Barbara Seebacher, Harald Hegen, Franziska Di Pauli, Florian Deisenhammer, Laura Zamarian
{"title":"Face exploration, emotion recognition, and emotional enhancement of memory in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.","authors":"Elisabeth Goettfried, Robert Barket, Ronen Hershman, Margarete Delazer, Michael Auer, Klaus Berek, Philipp Ellmerer, Barbara Seebacher, Harald Hegen, Franziska Di Pauli, Florian Deisenhammer, Laura Zamarian","doi":"10.1371/journal.pone.0319967","DOIUrl":"10.1371/journal.pone.0319967","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Recognizing familiar faces and identifying emotions through facial expressions are essential for social functioning. This study aimed to examine whether people with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (PwMS) differ from healthy control individuals (HC) in their performance on different tasks related to facial emotion processing.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>In a cross-sectional controlled study, 30 PwMS and 35 HC completed a baseline neuropsychological evaluation and experimental tasks assessing visual exploration of facial stimuli through eye tracking, facial emotion recognition, and facial memory recognition. The facial stimuli displayed either a neutral expression or an emotion (happiness, fear, or disgust).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>PwMS and HC performed comparably in facial emotion recognition. In facial memory recognition, HC were significantly more accurate in recognizing previously seen fearful faces compared to neutral faces (Wilcoxon test, Z = -2.26, P = 0.024), demonstrating emotional enhancement of memory. In contrast, PwMS did not exhibit a memory advantage for fearful faces over neutral faces (P > 0.05). Groups also differed in the eye-tracking task. In all but one condition (disgust), PwMS showed a significantly greater tendency to explore the eye area rather than the mouth area compared to HC.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Changes in visual exploration and a lack of emotional enhancement of memory are observed in PwMS, who otherwise demonstrate intact facial emotion recognition. These results suggest altered emotion-cognition interactions in PwMS. Early detection of subtle changes and targeted interventions may help prevent future debilitating impairments in social functioning.</p>","PeriodicalId":20189,"journal":{"name":"PLoS ONE","volume":"20 4","pages":"e0319967"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11975382/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143804054","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"综合性期刊","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}