Presentation 1: Subjective Cognitive Failures: What Can They Tell Us? 

Absract: What do safe driving, healthy eating, and understanding someone else’s perspective all have in common? They are all underscored by attentional control - the need for attentional control in our everyday lives is ubiquitous, and individual differences in it have implications for our health, safety, and relationships. Developing behavioural measures that can reliably capture the full richness and diversity of attentional control in our lives has proved challenging. In this talk, I will discuss the insights offered from an alternative approach: subjective measures of attentional control. I will focus on the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), which quantifies individual differences in the extent to which people experience failures of attentional control in everyday life, such as forgetting appointments and daydreaming when supposed to be listening. I will present research from my lab about how CFQ scores relate to objective performance on important tasks that require attentional control such as low prevalence visual search, and how they relate to different aspects of empathy and negative affect. Finally, I will discuss our development and validation of the new “Cognitive Failures Questionnaire 2.0” and show how it explains greater variance in objective attentional control performance than the original CFQ. This highlights the insights offered by subjective measures of attentional control and the role attentional control plays across cognitive, social, and emotional domains.

Presenter: Associate Professor Stephanie Goodhew completed a Bachelor of Psychological Science with First Class Honours and University Medal from the University of Queensland in 2007, before completing her PhD at the University of Queensland in 2011 and receiving a Dean’s Award from Research Higher Degree Excellence. She then completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto (2011-2012), before commencing a research-and-teaching academic position at the Australian National University in 2012, where she is now an Associate Professor.

The uniting theme of her research is attentional control – how humans can regulate their attention in the service of goals. Stephanie is interested in understanding how individuals differ with respect to attentional control, as well as how to enhance it to promote performance on safety-critical tasks, such as driving and visual search of diagnostic medical images. She is also interested in the role of attentional control in social and emotional domains, such as its role in psychopathy, anxiety, and empathy.

Presentation 2: Newer avenue of pacing therapy in heart failure

Abstract: Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is typically attempted with biventricular (BiV) pacing. Left bundle branch area pacing (LBBAP) has been evaluated as an alternative means. Objective: In a series of studies, we aimed to assess the feasibility and clinical response of permanent LBBAP as an alternative to BiV pacing and assess correlation between characteristics of paced QRS on electrocardiogram and clinical outcomes in heart failure (HF) patients. Methods: To assess the efficacy of LBBAP, 50 with BiV-CRT and 51 with LBBAP-CRT were included in this analysis after study exclusions in Select-Site Cohort Study. Quality-of-Life (QoL) assessments, echocardiographic measurements, and New York Heart Association (NYHA) class were obtained at baseline and at 6-monthly intervals. In a follow up study, 59 HF patients with LBBAP were categorized into various groups based on paced QRS morphology in lead V1 (qR and Qr), QRS axis (normal, left or right) and V6 R wave peak time (RWPT, ≤80 or >80 ms) to compare echocardiographic outcomes. Results: The LBBAP-CRT group showed greater improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction at 6 months (P = .001) and 12 months (P = .021), accompanied by greater reduction in left ventricular end-systolic volume (P = .007). QRS duration < 120 ms (baseline 160.82 ± 21.35 ms vs 161.08 ± 24.48 ms) was achieved in 30% in the BiV-CRT group vs 71% in the LBBAP-CRT group (P ≤ .001). Improvement in NYHA class (P = .031) and QoL index was greater (P = .014). Reduced heart failure admissions (P = .003) and health care utilization (P < .05) and improved lead performance (P < .001) were observed in the LBBAP-CRT group. In follow study, RWPT was significantly shorter (75.7±17.5 vs 85.3±11.3 ms, P=0.014), transition during threshold test more commonly observed (81.5% vs 53%, P=0.02) and improvement in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) was significantly greater in qR group (21.4±6.4 vs 16.4±8.3%, P=0.013) compared to Qr group. RWPT or LVEF did not differ in patients with different paced QRS axis (P>0.05). While qR morphology and presence of transition during threshold test independently predicted LVEF improvement, RWPT lacked predictive value. Non-responders had greater incidence of loss of ‘R’ prime (P=0.009) and prolonged RWPT (P=0.003) on follow up compared to average and super-responders. Conclusion: LBBAP-CRT is feasible and effective CRT. It results into a meaningful improvement in QoL and reduction in health care utilization. This can be offered as an alternative to BiV-CRT or potentially as first-line therapy. Paced qR morphology and transition during threshold test predicted greater improvement in LVEF while RWPT lacked predictive value. Loss of terminal ‘R’ in lead V1 and prolongation of RWPT on follow up prognosticated non-response to LBBAP.

Presenter: Dr Jenish Shroff completed his training in interventional cardiology and is currently pursuing a PhD in cardiac electrophysiology. His research focuses on left bundle branch pacing. Among his notable contributions are the Select-Site Cohort Study, which evaluated the efficacy of left bundle branch pacing in heart failure, and an observational study that examined ECG predictors of response to left bundle branch pacing in heart failure patients. Both studies were published in the prestigious Heart Rhythm journal, reflecting his commitment to advancing clinical understanding in this area.