Blinking Gif For New Replies to Subscribed Thread(s)? (similar to new PM gif)

[FreakyG'sMom]

I am attempting to implement a notification icon at the top of my "Welcome" NAV which will indicate to users whether there have been any new replies to the threads that the user is subscribed to. It doesn't matter how many of the user's threads have replies -- just that at least one he/she is subscribed to has had a reply.

The first conditional below notifies users of new PMs, by displaying a blinking PM icon. This works perfectly.

<vb:if condition="$bbuserinfo['pmunread']">
	<a href="private.php?"><img border="0" src="images/icons/PMAlert.gif" /></a>
</vb:if>

<vb:if condition="$bbuserinfo['?????????']">
	<a href="private.php?"><img border="0" src="images/icons/NPAlert.gif" /></a>
</vb:if>

It's the second conditional in red that is not working. I wondered if anyone knew what the proper code or conditional syntax would be?

Again - the purpose is to merely determine if there have been any new replies to threads that the user is subscribed to. The count doesn't matter, just whether true or false. And if true, the goal is to display the animated gif icon.

<vb:if condition="$????????['xxxxxxxxx']>

Kind thanks.