Feeling anxious about being anxious? Don’t worry about it, because you may be more attuned to danger.

According to a study by French researchers, the brain allocates more processing resources to social situations that are more threatening than benign. Also, anxious individuals identify threats in a different brain region than individuals who are calmer. Anxious individuals process threats in brain regions responsible for action. Calmer people process threats in sensory regions that are responsible for face recognition.

“In contrast to previous work, our findings demonstrate that the brain devotes more processing resources to negative emotions that signal threat, rather than to any display of negative emotion,” said lead author Marwa El Zein from the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) and the Ecole Normale Supérieurein Paris.

Twenty-four volunteers had electrical signals measured in their brains. They were asked in the study to decide if a digitally altered face expressed anger or fear, with some of the faces displaying the same expression but with a different gaze. The researchers found that the direction a person looks is key to enhancing sensitivity to their emotions. For example, anger paired with a direct gaze produced a brain response in 200 milliseconds faster than if the anger was directed elsewhere.

“In a crowd, you will be most sensitive to an angry face looking towards you, and will be less alert to an angry person looking somewhere else,”  El Zein said.

For anxious people, the neural “coding” of a threat shifts to motor circuits that produce action, compared to sensory circuits, which help people recognize faces.

(Image: Amanda Tipton/Creative Commons)

We as an association get to make some exciting decisions in 2016 regarding future conference strategies. I encourage each of you to join our members-only IAVM webinar on January 6 so your IAVM leadership and IAVM staff can share data that will lay out relevant information your board is currently pondering.

We have been presenting this same data to various committees in order to gather input and feedback from as many of you as possible. Our hope is a webinar may work for many that have not had the opportunity as of yet to see and hear the shared information.

At the end of January, the IAVM Board of Directors will meet in Dallas to hear further information that has been requested of staff. The goal is to make a decision as to the best course of action for the future of our conferences. The action decided upon will not affect conferences in 2016.

The board takes its responsibility seriously and wants as much feedback as we can gather so the end result will be a positive, forward movement for our association, for our members, and a clear direction for our CEO and staff as it relates to the future of our conference structure.

Please join us January 6, 2016 at 4pm EST!

Sign up now.

Here’s some good news for your new year. A study published in the Economic Development Quarterly shows that the arts boost urban economies overall.

“Economic development in the current century may favor those metropolitan areas that attract the ‘knowledge class,'” the researchers wrote in the study’s Abstract.

In fact, let’s continue on with the rest of the Abstract:

“This study provides a cross-sectional analysis associating the presence of one or more professional symphony, opera, or ballet/dance organizations with knowledge class growth. The authors find that the presence of one type of such organization is associated with a 1.1 percent change in knowledge class employment over the period from 2000 to 2010, two types are associated with a 1.5 percent change, and all three are associated with a 2.2 percent change. Between 2000 and 2010, the presence of at least one professional performing arts organization is associated with about 540,000 knowledge class jobs, generating about $60 billion in annual income among those 118 metropolitan areas with professional performing arts organizations. Metropolitan economic development implications are offered.”

In addition, areas with only one or two performing arts organizations experienced positive economic impacts. For example, Austin, Texas; Cincinnati, Ohio; Nashville, Tennessee; Providence, Rhode Island; Sacramento, California; and San Antonio, Texas (home of this year’s Performing Arts Managers Conference); “each generated over $200 million in knowledge-class income.”

For more on the study, please read Richard Florida’s article, “How the Arts Add to Urban Economies” in CityLab.

(Image: Lake Crimson/Creative Commons)

These are selected news articles that showed up in our inboxes on Monday morning that we want to pass along to you.

How CES is Handling Security at its Massive Show (Trade Show Executive)
“The most-visible security requirements will be at the entry points. Each attendee will have to pass through a metal detector, and new restrictions on luggage and other bags will be in place to prevent contraband from entering.”

Local Nonprofit Uses Baseball Stadiums to Help Find Missing Kids (ActionNewsJax.com)
“The Bairfind Foundation has put up signs for missing children in 40 minor league baseball stadiums across the country so far with the goal of reaching all 160 minor league stadiums and eventually all arenas and stadiums nationwide.”

The Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2016 (The Wall Street Journal)
“Science fiction will become science fact this year when you take virtual-reality vacations and your dishwasher reorders its own soap. Are you ready for a drone that follows you around like paparazzi?”

Now Anyone Can Play Goalie for the New York Rangers (FORTUNE)
“The experience is located on the main concourse, where guests can put on an HTC Vive head-mounted display and use hand controllers to simulate the goalie stick and blocker pad.”

5 NBA Tech Storylines From 2015 That Will Further Evolve the League in 2016 (SportTechie.com)
“The NBA is one of the most–if not the most–technologically advanced leagues in this day and age.”

(Image: Dave Taylor/Creative Commons)

Thank you members, partners, sponsors, and volunteer leaders for helping make 2015 an eventful year at IAVM! We’re grateful for all of the great things that happen when we work together, and we look forward to where that will take us in 2016.