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06/07 . ¿Sobre qué hombros se apoya la investigación en salud? Un meta-análisis de la influencia de las grandes farmacéuticas y universidades líderes en las agendas de investigación biomédica mundial y del CONICET
Federico Testoni, Mercedes García Carrillo, Marc-André Gagnon, Cecilia Rikap y Matías Blaustein
It is well documented that conflicts of interest in medical research can influence research results. Corporate interests can also drive research agendas away from those questions that are most relevant to public health. However, whether this influence represents a phenomenon observed at the margin of biomedical investigations or drives the dominant biomedical research agenda remains an open question. Here, we created a protocol to determine health and biomedical sciences (HBMS) research agendas that excludes both the assumption of direct connections with corporations and the bias based on researchers’ personal beliefs, two shortfalls shared by previous investigations. Basically, we performed a bibliometric and lexical analysis of scientific articles published between 1999 and 2018 in the highest impact factor journals within HBMS, using the Web of Science database and the CorText platform. Our results show that large pharmaceutical companies integrate the HBMS dominant global knowledge network and that their influence has increased in the last ten years. Scientific production in HBMS is becoming more unified and spinning around a group of leading organizations from a core of countries. The global HBMS agenda is dominated by a perspective where medical knowledge is mostly based on molecular biology, with a bias towards cancer and cardiovascular research. Studies on pathogenic viruses, microorganisms, and vectors associated with recent epidemics or the current pandemic were marginal. The research agenda of a non-dominant science & technology organization, Argentina’s National Research Council (CONICET), is aligned with that of the HBMS global agenda, shedding light on an indirect connection between large pharmaceutical companies’ research agenda and non-dominant research institutions. In CONICET´s HBMS agenda, locally relevant research -including endemic diseases- coexists or competes with the dominant agenda. In summary, our results reveal that leading corporations’ research agenda is intertwined with that of leading research institutions with a bias (both in dominant and non-dominant HBMS research agendas) to prioritize research on pharmacological intervention over research on prevention and socio-environmental factors influencing disease onset or progression.
13/07. PAPER: What Are Memories For? The Hippocampus Bridges Past Experience with Future Decisions
Nicolás Fernández Larrosa
Many decisions require flexible reasoning that depends on inference, generalization, and deliberation. Here, we review emerging findings indicating that the hippocampus, known for its role in long-term memory, contributes to these flexible aspects of value-based decision-making. This work offers new insights into the role of memory in decision-making and suggests that memory may shape decisions even in situations that do not appear, at first glance, to depend on memory at all. Uncovering the pervasive role of memory in decision-making challenges the way we define what memory is and what it does, suggesting that memory’s primary purpose may be to guide future behavior and that storing a record of the past is just one way to do so.
20/07. ESPACIO DE DISCUSIÓN: FAKE NEWS
Bibliografía interesante para discutir en este espacio:
Why do so Few People Share Fake News? It Hurts Their Reputation.
Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections
Videos interesantes:
27/07. Modulación de la consolidación de la memoria a través de intervenciones basadas en música
Veronika Abrahan y Nadia Justel
Los seres humanos organizan los acontecimientos pasados como “memorias”, es decir, que ciertos eventos del entorno se guardan para ser utilizados posteriormente y adaptarse mejor a situaciones futuras. El proceso de la formación de la memoria es dinámico, presentando una serie de fases (codificación, consolidación y recuperación) susceptibles de modificación, ya sea para aumentar o reducir el recuerdo de lo aprendido. En los últimos años, se identificaron diferentes factores y tratamientos con la capacidad para modular la memoria, entre los cuales se puede mencionar a la música. Estudios específicos, operacionalizando a la música de diferentes formas, indagan sobre su capacidad de interferir sobre la fase de la consolidación de la memoria.
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