Dataset Information

Most self-touches are with the nondominant hand.

ABSTRACT: Self-touch may promote the transfer of microorganisms between body parts or surfaces to mucosa. In overt videography of a post-graduate office, students spent 9% of their time touching their own hair, face, neck, and shoulders (HFNS). These data were collected from 274,000 s of surveillance video in a Chinese graduate student office. The non-dominant hand contributed to 66.1% of HFNS-touches. Most importantly, mucous membranes were touched, on average, 34.3 (SE?=?2.4) times per hour, which the non-dominant hand contributed to 240% more than the dominant hand. Gender had no significant effect on touch frequency, but a significant effect on duration per touch. The duration per touch on the HFNS was fitted with a log-log linear distribution. Touch behaviour analysis included surface combinations and a probability matrix for sequential touches of 20 sub-surfaces. These findings may partly explain the observed variation in the literature regarding the microbiome community distribution on human skin, supporting the importance of indirect contact transmission route in some respiratory disease transmission and providing data for risk analysis of infection spread and control.

SUBMITTER: Zhang N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7320184 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Most self-touches are with the nondominant hand.

Zhang Nan N Jia Wei W Wang Peihua P King Marco-Felipe MF Chan Pak-To PT Li Yuguo Y

Scientific reports 20200626 1

Self-touch may promote the transfer of microorganisms between body parts or surfaces to mucosa. In overt videography of a post-graduate office, students spent 9% of their time touching their own hair, face, neck, and shoulders (HFNS). These data were collected from 274,000 s of surveillance video in a Chinese graduate student office. The non-dominant hand contributed to 66.1% of HFNS-touches. Most importantly, mucous membranes were touched, on average, 34.3 (SE = 2.4) times per hour, which the n ...[more]

PMID: 32591572

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Project description:Opioids are routinely prescribed after hand surgery, but there is limited research about surgeon variation in prescription patterns and attitudes toward the use of these drugs. We sought to examine hand surgeons' attitudes, beliefs, and self-reported practices regarding the use of opioids.An invitation to an online cross-sectional survey was sent to 3225 hand surgeons across the USA via email, of whom 502 (16 %) responded. We used previously published data to compare hand surgeons' concerns about potential adverse opioid-related events with those of primary care physicians.Most hand surgeons (76 %) reported prescription opioid abuse to be a big or moderate problem in their communities, and 89 % felt that opioids are overused to treat pain. Nearly all (94 %) were very or moderately confident about their clinical skills regarding opioid prescribing, but only 40 % reported always or often asking about a history of opioid abuse or dependence before scheduling surgery. Most (75 %) were very or moderately comfortable refilling opioid prescriptions following fracture surgery, while only 13 % were comfortable doing so after minor elective surgery. Nearly half (49 %) reported being less likely to prescribe opioids compared to 1 year ago, and 67 % believed that the best approach to reduce postoperative opioid use is to discuss pain management and expectations with the patient before surgery. Compared to primary care physicians, hand surgeons were less likely to be concerned about potential adverse patient (e.g., opioid-related addiction [67 vs. 84 %], death [37 vs. 70 %], sedation [57 vs. 71 %]) and prescriber (e.g., malpractice claim [22 vs. 46 %], prosecution [15 vs. 45 %], censure by state medical boards [16 vs. 44 %]) outcomes.Hand surgeons have become aware of the extent and public health implications of the prescription opioid epidemic, and many are taking an active role by reducing their reliance on these drugs. Additional research using pharmacy data is needed to confirm the extent to which hand surgeons' reliance on prescription opioids is actually decreasing.

Project description:Vision is known to be shaped by context, defined by environmental and bodily signals. In the Taylor illusion, the size of an afterimage projected on one's hand changes according to proprioceptive signals conveying hand position. Here, we assessed whether the Taylor illusion does not just depend on the physical hand position, but also on bodily self-consciousness as quantified through illusory hand ownership. Relying on the somatic rubber hand illusion, we manipulated hand ownership, such that participants embodied a rubber hand placed next to their own hand. We found that an afterimage projected on the participant's hand drifted depending on illusory ownership between the participants' two hands, showing an implication of self-representation during the Taylor illusion. Oscillatory power analysis of electroencephalographic signals showed that illusory hand ownership was stronger in participants with stronger ? suppression over left sensorimotor cortex, whereas the Taylor illusion correlated with higher ?/? power over frontotemporal regions. Higher ? connectivity between left sensorimotor and inferior parietal cortex was also found during illusory hand ownership. These data show that afterimage drifts in the Taylor illusion do not only depend on the physical hand position but also on subjective ownership, which itself is based on the synchrony of somatosensory signals from the two hands. The effect of ownership on afterimage drifts is associated with ?/? power and ? connectivity between frontoparietal regions and the visual cortex. Together, our results suggest that visual percepts are not only influenced by bodily context but are self-grounded, mapped on a self-referential frame. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT:Vision is influenced by the body: in the Taylor illusion, the size of an afterimage projected on one's hand changes according to tactile and proprioceptive signals conveying hand position. Here, we report a new phenomenon revealing that the perception of afterimages depends not only on bodily signals, but also on the sense of self. Relying on the rubber hand illusion, we manipulated hand ownership, so that participants embodied a rubber hand placed next to their own hand. We found that visual afterimages projected on the participant's hand drifted laterally, only when the rubber hand was embodied. Electroencephalography revealed spectral dissociations between somatic and visual effects, and higher ? connectivity along the dorsal visual pathways when the rubber hand was embodied.

Dataset Information

Most self-touches are with the nondominant hand.

Publications

Most self-touches are with the nondominant hand.

Similar Datasets

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