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  • Many Close Relatives of People with Alcohol Use Disorder Experience Similar Cognitive Weaknesses, Manifesting as Social and Emotional Struggles

    Many Close Relatives of People with Alcohol Use Disorder Experience Similar Cognitive Weaknesses, Manifesting as Social and Emotional Struggles

    Many people with a family history of alcohol use disorder (AUD) struggle with certain cognition issues that often accompany AUD itself, even if they don’t themselves drink dangerously, according to a novel study. The findings suggest that these issues may be markers of vulnerability for the condition. A family history of AUD—having one or more first-degree relatives with the disorder—increases the risk of developing it, owing to genetic and environmental factors. Differences in cognitive functioning, especially in executive function (EF) and social cognition (SC), may predispose people to AUD and be amplified by chronic drinking. EF involves mental flexibility, inhibiting responses, and working memory, among other processes. SC facilitates social interactions through theory of mind (understanding others’ mental states), emotion recognition, and empathy. Research on healthy people with a family history of AUD has identified EF and SC differences in their neural networks, though little is known about SC processes in this population or whether those neural differences also manifest behaviorally. A better understanding of EF and SC as vulnerability markers may help identify people at risk for AUD. For the study in Alcohol: Clinical & Experimental Research, investigators in France explored behavioral SC in people without AUD who have first-degree relatives with the disorder and assessed the cognitive impact of SC and EF difficulties.

    Researchers worked with 120 adults, of whom 60 had a father or sibling with AUD but did not themselves drink dangerously. The two groups—with and without a family history of AUD—were matched for age, sex, and education level. The participants were assessed for intellectual functioning, psychiatric conditions, problematic drinking, nicotine dependence, depressive symptoms, anxiety, and childhood trauma. They underwent neuropsychological tasks evaluating their EF and theory of mind (a key component of SC) and self-reported impulsivity, alexithymia (“emotional blindness”), and empathy. The investigators used statistical analysis to compare the EF and SC profiles of participants with and without family histories of AUD as groups and individually.

    In tests, the participants with family histories of AUD showed lower resistance to interference—or difficulties suppressing automatic responses and impaired attentional control—EF issues. They also demonstrated weaknesses in theory of mind. (Other differences between groups dissipated after controlling for age, anxiety, and depressive symptoms.) Some participants with AUD relatives had mainly EF difficulties, others predominantly theory of mind. Individual analyses showed EF or SC weaknesses in 53% of people with a family history of AUD; of these, six out of ten struggled with one outcome, the others with more. Those with impaired theory of mind revealed diminished emotional arousal, fantasy, empathy, and perspective-taking. Overall, the findings suggest that EF and SC may drive AUD vulnerability through separate cognitive mechanisms. The participants with close AUD relatives had higher rates of past suicide attempts, anxiety disorders, and childhood trauma than those without such family histories; these mental health symptoms may increase the risk of heavy drinking. The variability in findings was consistent with previous studies suggesting heterogeneous cognitive manifestations in people with AUD as well as in close relatives without the disorder.

    This is the first known study to highlight SC difficulties in a behavioral task measuring theory of mind among healthy close relatives of people with AUD and extends our understanding of the breadth of socioemotional issues affecting this population. Cognitive vulnerabilities involving EF or SC appear to represent a continuum. Despite these risk factors, many people with family histories of AUD likely have protective resiliency factors. More research is needed to examine the relative roles of EF and theory of mind in the development of AUD and to identify people with higher clinical and cognitive vulnerability to AUD, facilitating prevention.

    Patterns of executive functions and theory of mind in adults with a family history of alcohol use disorder: Combined group and single-case analyses. F. Schmid, A. Henry, F. Benzerouk, S. Barrière, J. Gondrexon, A. Kaladjian, F. Gierski. (pp xxx)

    ACER-23-5740.R2

    Research Society on Alcoholism

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  • Endless biotechnological innovation requires a creative approach

    Endless biotechnological innovation requires a creative approach

    BYLINE: Laura Thomas

    Newswise — Scientists working on biological design should focus on the idiosyncrasies of biological systems over optimisation, according to new research.

    In a study, published today in Science Advances, researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Ghent have shown how exploring the unknown may be the crucial step needed to realise the continual innovation needed for the biotechnologies of the future.

    Recognising the role of open-endedness in achieving this goal and its growing importance in fields like computer science and evolutionary biology, the team mapped out how open-endedness is linked to bioengineering practice today and what would be required to achieve it in the lab.

    For success, algorithms used for biological design should not solely focus on moving toward a specific goal – such as better yield ­– but also consider the creation and maintenance of novelty and diversity in the solutions that have been found.

    Dr Thomas Gorochowski, co-author and Royal Society University Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at Bristol, explained: “When we try to design a complex biological process, it’s often tempting to just tweak something that partially works rather than take the risk of trying something completely new.

    “In this work we highlight that in these situations the best solutions often come from unexpected directions, because we don’t always fully understand how everything works. With biology, there are lots of unknowns and so we need a vast and diverse toolkit of building blocks to ensure we have the best chance of finding the solution we need.”

    Professor Michiel Stock, lead author from Ghent University, added: “Biological systems have a natural capacity for innovation that has led to the overwhelming biodiversity we see in nature today.

    “Our own attempts to engineer biology, in contrast, lack this creativity – they are far more rigid, less imaginative, and often doesn’t make the best use of what biology is capable of.

    “With all life around us originating from the open-ended process of evolution, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could harness some of that power for our own biological designs.”

    The ability to create new biotechnologies is becoming increasingly important for tackling global challenges spanning the sustainable production of chemicals, materials and food, to advanced therapeutics to combat emerging diseases. Fueling this progress are innovations in how biology can be harnessed in new ways. This work supports this goal by offering a fresh direction for new research and design approaches.

    The study was made possible due to a travel grant from the FWO Flanders and funding from the Royal Society, BBSRC and EPSRC.

    Paper:

    ‘Open-endedness in synthetic biology: a route to continual innovation for biological design’ by Michiel Stock and Thomas E. Gorochowski in Science Advances (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi3621)

    University of Bristol

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  • How does social media materialism induce stress and unhappiness?

    How does social media materialism induce stress and unhappiness?

    Six questionnaires answered by over 1,200 people

    Newswise — The researchers headed by Dr. Phillip Ozimek from the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, recruited 1,230 people for their online survey. In order to participate, respondents had to use at least one social media channel at least once a week. On average, the participants stated that they spent just over two hours a day on social media.

    The research team used six different questionnaires to determine the extent to which the participants had a materialistic attitude and tended to compare themselves with others, whether they used social media more actively or passively, whether they were addicted to social media, how stressed and how satisfied they were with their lives. 

    Downward spiral set in motion

    “The data showed that a stronger materialistic approach goes hand in hand with a tendency to compare oneself with others,” points out Phillip Ozimek. This comparison is very easy to make on social media, primarily through passive use, i.e. by looking at the content posted by other users. Materialism and passive use were also linked to addictive use of social media. “By this we mean, for example, that users are constantly thinking about the respective channels and fear that they are missing out on something if they are not online,” explains Phillip Ozimek. This in turn leads to symptoms of poorer mental health, i.e. stress. The final link in the chain is reduced life satisfaction. “Social media is one of six stepping stones to unhappiness,” concludes Phillip Ozimek.

    Social media attracts and breeds materialists

    “Overall, the study provides further evidence that the use of social media is associated with risks, especially for people with a highly materialistic mindset,” says the psychologist. This is particularly worrying, because social media can trigger and increase materialistic values, for example through (influencer) marketing. At the same time, the platforms attract materialists anyway, as they are a perfect way to satisfy many materialistic needs.

    “It’s definitely a good idea to be aware of the amount of time you spend on social media and to reduce it,” recommends Phillip Ozimek. He advises against giving up Social Media completely. “If you did, you’re likely to overcompensate.” The research team also suggests recording materialism and social media use in patients undergoing treatment for mental health disorders. “While these factors are often irrelevant, they can be a starting point for additional interventions that patients can try out at home.”

    Ruhr-Universitat Bochum

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  • Study reveals high social mobility in China’s Tang dynasty.

    Study reveals high social mobility in China’s Tang dynasty.

    Newswise — In studying social mobility in today’s industrialized nations, researchers typically rely on data from the World Economic Forum or, in the United States, the General Social Survey. But examining the same phenomena from past centuries is a more daunting task because relevant statistics are harder to come by. 

    However, a social science research team has now discovered a way to examine professional advancement in medieval China (618-907 CE) by drawing from the tomb epitaphs during the Tang Dynasty. These epitaphs contain the ancestral lineages, names, and office titles (e.g., Minister of Personnel, Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, and Palace Deputy Imperial Censor) of the deceased’s father and grandfather as well as the deceased’s career history and educational credentials—ample data points for measuring social mobility across generations. 

    Notably, their analysis shows that education during this period was a catalyst for social mobility.

    “Epitaphs written in medieval China, including the Tang Dynasty, tend to be highly detailed descriptions of an individual’s life with stylized prose and poems, and they contain granular information about the ancestral origins, family background, and career history of each deceased individual,” says Fangqi Wen, an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State University. 

    “This information, to some extent, mirrors what would have been included in a contemporary social mobility survey,” adds Erik H. Wang, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Politics.

    Wang studies historical political economy while Wen examines social mobility in contemporary societies. After recognizing the high level of data quality embedded in these epitaphs, they realized that the artifacts were a vessel that merged their scholarly interests. Later they recruited the NYU professor of sociology Michael Hout, Wen’s dissertation advisor and a leading scholar on social stratification and mobility, to join the project.

    Their findings, which appear in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), show that the patterns of relationships of social origins, education, and adult achievement somewhat resemble the patterns in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. In drawing from 3,640 epitaphs of males as well as other data from reliable historical sources, such as dynastic records and third-party compiled genealogies, the researchers’ analysis revealed a decline of Chinese medieval aristocracy and the rise of meritocracy 1300 years ago.

    The researchers discovered a specific reason for this development: whether or not the deceased passed the Keju, or the Imperial Exam, which was developed during this period for the purposes of selecting officials for civil service posts. They found that the Keju, which was administered until the early 20th century, served as a catalyst for social mobility—much as higher education has done in the U.S. since at least the 1960s.

    “Our statistical analysis shows that coming from a prominent ancient great house or ‘branch’

    mattered less for career success in the bureaucratic system after roughly 650 CE while passing the Keju came to matter more,” the authors write. “Furthermore, passing the competitive exam may have even equalized chances of subsequent success, as a father’s status was not a factor in the bureaucratic rank of men who passed the Keju.”

    “Education is central to our understanding of intergenerational mobility,” observes Hout. “Many think it was a 20th-century development. But, as we can see from centuries-old data, there are phenomena linking origin, education, and careers very much like contemporary patterns.”

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    New York University

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  • Supports help keep Aussie firefighters safe

    Supports help keep Aussie firefighters safe

    Newswise — House fires, road crashes and emergency rescues – they’re all part of the job for Aussie firefighters. And in such physically demanding roles, maintaining a high level of fitness and movement quality is essential.

    Now, new research from health and fitness experts at the University of South Australia shows that professional firefighters have reduced movement quality as they age, which could put them at greater risk of injury.

    Conducted by UniSA masters researcher, Alex Redshaw, in partnership with the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS), the findings indicate that firefighters over the age of 50 generally have lower movement quality than their younger counterparts, and would benefit from additional functional strength training to maintain a fit and healthy workforce.

    Good movement quality underpins all essential movements required to safely perform critical components of physical function, including balance, stability, and muscular strength. It is developed through functional strength training using exercises that replicate body movements and patterns seen in daily activities (such as lunging, squatting, bracing, pressing).

    This is the first study on the effect of age on movement quality in Australian firefighters, and largest firefighter cohort in the world.

    Statistics shows that firefighters have an injury rate more than three times that of the non-tactical workforce. It is well-established that movement quality deteriorates with age in the general population, but there is conflicting evidence in older tactical populations.

    With an ageing population and more than 40% of South Australian firefighters aged over 50, the MFS was keen to understand how they could best support their members to maintain a safe and healthy career for as long as possible.

    Assessing movement quality, physical activity, injury history and body mass index (BMI) among 324 South Australian MFS firefighters, researchers found that firefighters older than 50 were more likely to have poor movement quality.

    It also found that firefighters with a high BMI, who participate in less than 150 minutes of physical exercise per week, and have had a musculoskeletal injury in the past 12 months, have lower movement quality, and may be at an increased risk of injury.

    UniSA researcher, Dr Hunter Bennett, says exercise interventions could be offered as part of a supportive workplace health and safety program.

    “Firefighters are routinely exposed to unique physiological and physical hazards, including extreme temperatures, heavy personal protective gear and unstable workspaces, all of which contribute to an increased risk of injury,” Dr Bennett says.

    “Good movement quality supports well-coordinated performance within these environments, but ageing can deteriorate these functions, which may put older firefighters at risk.

    “The MFS deploys a range of supports to maintain a fit and healthy workforce but is always on the lookout for additional improvements to benefit their members.

    “In this study we found that older firefighters had poorer movement quality than their younger counterparts, and that this increased with age. Additionally, firefighters who did more exercise (more than five hours a week) had better movement quality.

    “Knowing this, the MFS can support their members by offering specific movement quality programs to better maintain their physical capabilities as they age.”

    Notes to editors:

    The University of South Australia would like to thank the South Australian Metropolitan Fire Service for supporting this UniSA postgraduate research project.

    The research paper can be accessed here: Redshaw, Alex & Carrick-Ranson, Graeme & Bennett, Hunter & Norton, Kevin & Walker, Anthony. (2023). Effect of Aging on Movement Quality in Australian Urban Firefighters. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 37. e601-e608. 10.1519/JSC.0000000000004528

     

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    University of South Australia

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  • Amnesia Caused by Head Injury Reversed in Early Mouse Study

    Amnesia Caused by Head Injury Reversed in Early Mouse Study

    Newswise — WASHINGTON – A mouse study designed to shed light on memory loss in people who experience repeated head impacts, such as athletes, suggests the condition could potentially be reversed. The research in mice finds that amnesia and poor memory following head injury is due to inadequate reactivation of neurons involved in forming memories.

    The study, conducted by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, is reported January 16, 2024, in the Journal of Neuroscience.

    Importantly for diagnostic and treatment purposes, the researchers found that the memory loss attributed to head injury was not a permanent pathological event driven by a neurodegenerative disease.  Indeed, the researchers could reverse the amnesia to allow the mice to recall the lost memory, potentially allowing cognitive impairment caused by head impact to be clinically reversed.

    The Georgetown investigators had previously found that the brain adapts to repeated head impacts by changing the way the synapses in the brain operate. This can cause trouble in forming new memories and remembering existing memories. In their new study, investigators were able to trigger mice to remember memories that had been forgotten due to head impacts.

    “Our research gives us hope that we can design treatments to return the head-impact brain to its normal condition and recover cognitive function in humans that have poor memory caused by repeated head impacts,” says the study’s senior investigator, Mark Burns, PhD, a professor and Vice-Chair in Georgetown’s Department of Neuroscience and director of the Laboratory for Brain Injury and Dementia.

    In the new study, the scientists gave two groups of mice a new memory by training them in a test they had never seen before. One group was exposed to a high frequency of mild head impacts for one week (similar to contact sport exposure in people) and one group were controls that didn’t receive the impacts. The impacted mice were unable to recall the new memory a week later.

    “Most research in this area has been in human brains with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), which is a degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive head impact,” said Burns. “By contrast, our goal was to understand how the brain changes in response to the low-level head impacts that many young football players regularly experience.”

    Researchers have found that, on average, college football players receive 21 head impacts per week with defensive ends receiving 41 head impacts per week. The number of head impacts to mice in this study were designed to mimic a week of exposure for a college football player, and each single head impact by itself was extraordinarily mild.

    Using genetically modified mice allowed the researchers to see the neurons involved in learning new memories, and they found that these memory neurons (the “memory engram”) were equally present in both the control mice and the experimental mice.

    To understand the physiology underlying these memory changes, the study’s first author, Daniel P. Chapman, Ph.D., said, “We are good at associating memories with places, and that’s because being in a place, or seeing a photo of a place, causes a reactivation of our memory engrams. This is why we examined the engram neurons to look for the specific signature of an activated neuron. When the mice see the room where they first learned the memory, the control mice are able to activate their memory engram, but the head impact mice were not. This is what was causing the amnesia.”

    The researchers were able to reverse the amnesia to allow the mice to remember the lost memory using lasers to activate the engram cells. “We used an invasive technique to reverse memory loss in our mice, and unfortunately this is not translatable to humans,” Burns adds. “We are currently studying a number of non-invasive techniques to try to communicate to the brain that it is no longer in danger, and to open a window of plasticity that can reset the brain to its former state.”

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    In addition to Burns and Chapman the authors include Stefano Vicini at Georgetown University and Sarah D. Power and Tomás J. Ryan at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

    This work was supported by the Mouse Behavior Core in the Georgetown University Neuroscience Department and by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) / National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) grants R01NS107370 & R01NS121316. NINDS also supported F30 NS122281 and the Neural Injury and Plasticity Training Grant housed in the Center for Neural Injury and Recovery at Georgetown University (T32NS041218). Seed funding is from the CTE Research Fund at Georgetown.

    The authors report having no personal financial interests related to the study.

    Georgetown University Medical Center

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  • Count of neurosurgeon density reflects global unmet needs

    Count of neurosurgeon density reflects global unmet needs

    Newswise — Rolling Meadows, IL (January 16, 2024) How many neurosurgeons are needed worldwide? Recent reports have suggested that a neurosurgeon ratio of approximately 1 neurosurgeon per 65,000 individuals may not be adequate. Investigators from Harvard Medical School attempted to systematically provide the most accurate count of neurosurgeon density around the world, as well the number in each country. Using data collected from 99.5% of all countries and 96.2% of all additional territories, states, and disputed regions, the authors report that there are approximately 72,967 neurosurgeons globally, representing a pooled density of 0.93 neurosurgeons per 100,000 individuals, and a median national density of 0.44 neurosurgeons per 100,000 individuals. The study detailing these findings was published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery (https://thejns.org/doi/10.3171/2023.9.JNS231615). 

    The authors used contacts with national and regional neurosurgery societies, their own personal contacts, bibliometric and Google searches, and World Bank and United Nations data to obtain perhaps the most accurate count of global neurosurgeon density to date. There were wide disparities in the neurosurgery workforce and access to resources in different WHO regions and World Bank income categories. The African region, with 0.11 neurosurgeons per 100,000 individuals, and the Southeast Asia region, with 0.34 per 100,000 individuals, had the lowest neurosurgeon density, while the Western Pacific region (WPR) had the highest density, with 1.58 per 100,000 individuals. The authors found that there were 29 countries, 14 territories, and 1 independent state with no neurosurgeons at all, representing almost 36 million individualswithout access to a neurosurgeon. Among these 29 countries, 21 were low- and middle-income countries (LMICs; 72.4%), and most were located in the WPR (n = 10, 34.5%) or African region (n = 9, 31.0%). 

    The greatest growth in the number of neurosurgeons from 2016 to 2022 was in the Southeast Asia region (33.0% per year), while the slowest growth was in the African region (2.0% per year); 15 countries in the African region had a decrease in their neurosurgery densities, and 7 of these 15 countries were in West Africa. Some of the strongest predictors of annual relative growth in neurosurgery density included the presence of a national neurosurgery society, development aid, and national gross domestic product. 

    “We were excited to find that the neurosurgery workforce is growing worldwide, but the growth in LMICs has been disproportionately slow,” said Dr. Saksham Gupta, the lead author of the study. “The number of neurosurgeons in many LMICs remains insufficient to manage their countries’ needs, and neurosurgeons in LMICs have fewer resources to provide subspecialized care. These imbalances will negatively affect population health in LMICs and could contribute to burnout amongst already overworked LMIC neurosurgeons.” 

    In a related companion article (https://thejns.org/doi/10.3171/2023.9.JNS231616), the authors also attempted to determine the global density of neurosurgeon trainees. They estimated there were 1261 training programs with 10,546 neurosurgery trainees worldwide. The Southeast Asia (0.04 per 100,000 people) and African (0.05 per 100,000 people) regions had the lowest pooled trainee density, and there were no training programs in 22.4% of high-income countries (HICs) and in 35.2% of LMICs. Surveys of African young neurosurgeons and trainees highlighted some of the educational limitations that most trainees face, which included low exposure to educational conferences, the inability to attend national and international research conferences, and low access to cadaver laboratories.

    Regarding solutions to correct these imbalances, Gupta stated, “Collaboration between LMICs and HICs as well as between LMICs themselves is key and will help new perspectives flourish and best practices spread. Furthermore, there have been several impressive educational efforts, including but certainly not limited to Dr. Rutka’s work with the Ukraine Pediatric Fellowship Program, Dr. Baticulon’s work in the Philippines, the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS)—sponsored training center in Rabat, and numerous Foundation for International Education in Neurological Surgery courses and partnerships. Education is the bedrock of neurosurgery, and we should continue supporting existing educational tools (such as cadaver laboratories, weekend courses, year-long fellowships) while promoting emerging teaching modalities (webinars, high-fidelity dissection models, and open-access operative videos).”

    Articles:  Gupta S, Gal ZT, Athni TS, Calderon C, Callison WÉ, Dada OE, Lie W, Qian C, Reddy R, Rolle M, Baticulon RE, Chaurasia B, Dos Santos Rubio EJ, Esquenazi Y, Golby AJ, Pirzad AF, and Park KB, on behalf of the WFNS Global Neurosurgery Committee, EANS Global and Humanitarian Neurosurgery Committee, and CAANS Executive Leadership Committee. Mapping the global neurosurgery workforce. Part 1: Consultant neurosurgeon density. Journal of Neurosurgery. Published online January 16, 2024; DOI: 10.3171/2023.9.JNS231615. Mapping the global neurosurgery workforce. Part 2: Trainee density. Journal of Neurosurgery. Published online January 16, 2024; DOI: 10.3171/2023.9.JNS231616.

    Disclosures: The authors report no conflict of interest concerning the materials or methods used in these studies or the findings specified in these papers.

    Funding: Mr. Athni was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH, under grant no. T32GM144273.

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    The global leader for cutting-edge neurosurgery research for more than 75 years, the Journal of Neurosurgery (www.thejns.org) is the official journal of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) representing over 12,000 members worldwide (www.AANS.org).

    Journal of Neurosurgery

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  • Urgent Message from WCS as the Avian Influenza Virus Threatens Wildlife Across the Globe

    Urgent Message from WCS as the Avian Influenza Virus Threatens Wildlife Across the Globe

    New York, January 15, 2024 – The Wildlife Conservation Society is issuing the following statement about H5N1 Avian Influenza due to ongoing wildlife die-offs across the world:

    Said Dr. Chris Walzer, WCS Executive Director of Health: 

    “With the frightening die-off of animals across the globe due to avian influenza, WCS is calling for governments internationally to treat this growing crisis with the urgency it demands. As we continue to monitor the death of innumerable species and track the movement of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) into mammal populations, we must strengthen the focus on integrating the surveillance of emerging influenza clades in wild birds and mammals to support critical vaccine libraries.

    “H5N1 now presents an existential threat to the world’s biodiversity. It has infected over 150 wild and domestic avian species around the globe as well as a dozens of mammalian species. The bird flu outbreak is the worst globally and also in U.S. history, with hundreds-of-million birds dead since it first turned up in domestic waterfowl in China in 1996. Bird flu is highly transmissible, spread through droplet and feces-borne infections, and exacerbated by climate-change-altering migration schedules for birds and its repeated re-circulation in domestic poultry. 

    “Globally, HPAI H5N1 has now infected many mammals—including foxes, pumas, skunks, and both black and brown bears in North America. Some 700 endangered Caspian seals died from HPAI near Dagestan in 2023. Additionally, outbreaks in mink farms in Spain and Finland that serve as potential mixing vessels for reassortment have also been documented. HPAI H5N1 has arrived in Latin America with devastating consequences, afflicting multiple countries that include WCS land- and seascapes in Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, and Argentina. 

    “More than 95 percent of the Southern elephant seal (Mirounga leonina) pups born along 300 km of the Patagonia coastline died at the end of 2023. It’s the first report of massive elephant seal mortality in the area from any cause in the last half century. The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic. This 2023 die-off contrasts starkly with the 18,000 pups born and successfully weaned in 2022.  

    “As the virus continues to spread through mammal populations, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called on public health officials to prepare for a potential spillover of H5N1 to people. The “R naught” value—or the number of people infected by a single infected person—for COVID initially ranged from 1.5 to 7. For H5N1 among birds, it is around 100. It is imperative that we take a collaborative One Health approach to identifying emerging strains of bird flu across the globe to support the development of specific and universal vaccines that can quickly treat infection in people to prevent another pandemic.

    “The cost of inaction is already causing major devastation to wildlife. As we work to help affected populations recover, we must remain vigilant against the spread of this deadly pathogen to people before it’s too late. 

     

    Background

    Wildlife Conservation Society Health Program

    In the last few decades, it has become increasingly evident that conservation, our own health, and the health of wild and domestic animals are all inextricably linked. A single pathogen can wipe out the last populations of an endangered species and, in turn, threaten the stability of local human populations. Thus there is an urgent need to simultaneously address the health of people, animals and the environment recognizing that disease poses challenges to both conservation of the planet’s biodiversity and efforts to improve the quality of human life.

    Additional Background: Global leaders in wildlife and human health issued 10 principles – The Berlin Principles – with an urgent call to governments, academia, and civil society that all sectors need to break down barriers to ensure a united effort to prevent the emergence or resurgence of diseases that threaten humans, wildlife, and livestock.

     

    Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)

    WCS combines the power of its zoos and an aquarium in New York City and a Global Conservation Program in more than 50 countries to achieve its mission to save wildlife and wild places. WCS runs the world’s largest conservation field program, protecting more than 50 percent of Earth’s known biodiversity; in partnership with governments, Indigenous People, Local Communities, and the private sector. It’s four zoos and aquarium (the Bronx Zoo, Central Park Zoo, Queens Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo, and the New York Aquarium ) welcomes more than 3.5 million visitors each year, inspiring generations to care for nature. Founded in 1895 as the New York Zoological Society, the organization is led (as of June 1, 2023) by President and CEO Monica P. Medina. Visit: newsroom.wcs.org. Follow: @WCSNewsroom. For more information: +1 (347) 840-1242. Listen to the WCS Wild Audio podcast HERE.

     

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    Wildlife Conservation Society

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  • Research sheds new light on Moon rock formation, solving major puzzle in lunar geology

    Research sheds new light on Moon rock formation, solving major puzzle in lunar geology

    Newswise — The study, published today in Nature Geoscience, reveals a key step in the genesis of these distinctive magmas.  A combination of high temperature laboratory experiments using molten rocks, together with sophisticated isotopic analyses of lunar samples, identify a critical reaction that controls their composition.

    This reaction took place in the deep lunar interior some three and a half billion years ago, involving exchange of the element iron (Fe) in the magma with the element magnesium (Mg) in the surrounding rocks, modifying the chemical and physical properties of the melt.  

    Co-lead author Tim Elliott, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Bristol, said: “The origin of volcanic lunar rocks is a fascinating tale involving an ‘avalanche’ of an unstable, planetary-scale crystal pile created by the cooling of a primordial magma ocean. 

    “Central to constraining this epic history is the presence of a magma type unique to the Moon, but explaining how such magmas could even have got to the surface, to be sampled by Space missions, has been a troublesome problem. It is great to have resolved this dilemma.”

    Surprisingly high concentrations of the element titanium (Ti) in parts of the lunar surface have been known since the NASA Apollo missions, back in the 1960s and 1970s, which successfully returned solidified, ancient lava samples from the Moon’s crust. More recent mapping by orbiting satellite shows these magmas, known as ‘high-Ti basalts’, to be widespread on the Moon.

    “Until now models have been unable to recreate magma compositions that match essential chemical and physical characteristics of the high-Ti basalts. It has proven particularly hard to explain their low density, which allowed them to be erupted some three and a half billion years ago,” added co-lead author Dr Martijn Klaver, Research Fellow at the University of Münster Institute of Mineralogy.

    The international team of scientists, led by the Universities of Bristol in the UK and Münster in Germany managed to mimic the high-Ti basalts in the process in the lab using high-temperature experiments.  Measurements of the high-Ti basalts also revealed a distinctive isotopic composition that provides a fingerprint of the reactions reproduced by the experiments.

    Both results clearly demonstrate how the melt-solid reaction is integral in understanding the formation of these unique magmas. 

    Paper

    ‘Titanium-rich basaltic melts on the Moon modulated by reactive flow processes’ by Martijn Klaver et al in Nature Geoscience

    University of Bristol

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  • Few older adults use direct-to-consumer health services; many who do don’t tell their regular provider

    Few older adults use direct-to-consumer health services; many who do don’t tell their regular provider

    Newswise — Only a small percentage of older Americans have jumped on the rising trend of getting health care services and prescriptions directly from an online-only company, rather than seeing their usual health care providers in person or via telehealth, a new poll finds.

    But that could change rapidly, the University of Michigan survey suggests.

    In all, 7.5% of people between the ages of 50 and 80 have used at least one direct-to-consumer health care service from an online-only provider, according to the new findings from the National Poll on Healthy Aging.

    Of those who did use such a service, most said they were driven by convenience. More than 60% of them received a prescription, mostly for a one-time treatment. But only one-third of them told their regular health care provider about the prescription.

    People in their pre-Medicare years of 50 to 64 were more than twice as likely as adults over 65 to have used direct-to-consumer, or DTC, online health services (10% vs. 4%). Meanwhile, 47% of those over 65 said they had never heard of such companies.

    Looking to the future, nearly a third of all older adults, and more than 42% of those age 50 to 64, said they’d be interested in using such services in the future.

    The poll is based at the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, and supported by AARP and Michigan Medicine, U-M’s academic medical center.

    For the DTC survey, the poll team worked with members of U-M’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, who are interested in how cost and convenience influence people’s health care decisions and the continuity of care delivery.

    A rapidly growing sector spurs concerns

    The rise of DTC sites and subscription-based apps that promise convenient online access to providers who can evaluate symptoms, make diagnoses and prescribe medicines has received a lot of attention, especially amid a national crunch in availability of primary care providers and timely appointments.

    Such companies include Amazon Clinic, Sesame, Roman, BetterHelp, Rosy, Lemonaid, Hims & Hers, and don’t require a referral or health insurance. Drug companies and membership-based organizations including Weight Watchers and Costco have also started offering access to such direct services.

    But the trend has raised concern because of the potential for patients to receive care and prescriptions from providers who don’t know their full health history, don’t have access to their full medical records, and may not check for potentially dangerous interactions between medications.

    One-third of those who had used a DTC service said their primary care provider wasn’t aware they had done so. If they received a new prescription through an encounter with a DTC health service, one-third said their regular primary care provider was not made aware of the new medication they were prescribed. The majority of those who received prescriptions through a DTC service said it was for a one-time treatment.

    “These compelling findings have important implications for patient safety and continuity of care,” said Mark Fendrick, M.D., director of VBID and IHPI member who is a primary care physician at Michigan Medicine. “With rapid growth in this sector of health care predicted for this year and beyond, all providers, insurers and regulators need to pay more attention to how patients are using these services and why, and the impact on care quality and safety.” Fendrick is a professor of internal medicine in the Division of General Medicine at the U-M Medical School.

    His colleague Nicole Hadeed, M.D., who also worked on the poll and is a clinical assistant professor, notes that while the number of poll participants who said they had used DTC services was relatively small, the analysis gives clues that should inform further research.

    Types of care received

    Nearly half of those who had used a DTC service said it has been for general health care such as treatment of allergies, sinus infections, pink eye or acid reflux, though again there was a clear divide between the 50-64 and 65-80 age groups.

    Overall, nearly 12% said they’d used a service for mental health reasons, but the proportion was much higher (50%) among respondents who said they considered their mental health to be fair or poor and had used a DTC service of any kind.

    As for other types of care, 15% had sought help from a DTC service for a sexual health issue, 9% had used it for skin care, 6% had used it for weight management, nearly 5% had used it for hair loss and a similar percentage had used it for pain management.

    Convenience topped the list of reasons for choosing a DTC service, with 55% saying this drove their decision. But lack of access to their regular health care provider, not having a regular health care provider, or needing a service when their health provider was not open or available were each cited by around 20%. Discomfort discussing a sensitive health topic with a provider – often cited in marketing by such companies – was only mentioned by 10% of those who had turned to a DTC service.

    “For both patients and providers, these findings drive home the importance of open dialogue and transparency about the potential uses, benefits and risks of these services – and the importance of maintaining contact for ongoing primary care,” said Jeffrey Kullgren, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., director of the poll and a primary care provider at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System who is also an associate professor at the Medical School.

    More than 55% of the poll respondents who had used a direct-to-consumer service said the overall quality of care they get from their primary care provider is better than what they received from a DTC provider.

    Fendrick and Hadeed wrote about the potential long-term change to primary care use from telehealth services in a piece published early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the American Journal of Managed Care.

    And in fact, 58% of poll respondents who had used a DTC service had started doing so in 2020, 2021 or 2022.

    The rapid pivot during the pandemic to vaccination in pharmacies, and not just primary care clinics, has also changed how people think about alternate ways of getting care that might be closer to home or have more flexible hours.

    However, Fendrick notes, pharmacies share information about vaccination with insurance companies and statewide immunization registries that primary care providers can access.

    “Patients will increasingly seek care online because of the convenience it can provide, especially for those willing to pay the cost out of pocket,” said Fendrick. “Its use will likely be boosted by the rapidly increasing number of online vendors and the national shortage of primary care clinicians. The recent launch of a telemedicine platform offering home delivery for the new highly popular weight loss drugs is a noteworthy example of this trend.”

    He added, “Given a likely expansion of online care, it is critical that individuals inform their usual clinician and that we providers consistently ask our patients regarding their use. Similar to my routinely asking patients about which supplements, vitamins and over-the-counter medications they’re taking, it should become standard practice for me to inquire about prescriptions or diagnoses they’ve received online, as it might influence their care.”

    The poll was a nationally representative survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for IHPI and administered online and via phone in July and August 2023 among 2,657 adults aged 50 to 80. In all, 168 respondents reported having used a DTC health care service. The sample was subsequently weighted to reflect the U.S. population. Read past National Poll on Healthy Aging reports and about the poll methodology.

    Michigan Medicine – University of Michigan

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  • Psychotherapy treats PTSD after multiple traumas.

    Psychotherapy treats PTSD after multiple traumas.

    Newswise — Psychotherapy is an effective treatment for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following exposure to multiple traumatic events. This is the conclusion arrived at by an international team of researchers led by psychologists Dr Thole Hoppen and Prof Nexhmedin Morina from the Department for Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Münster (Germany). The efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions for treating PTSD in adults has been well-documented in various studies. However, until now, it had not been established whether the efficacy of psychotherapeutic interventions varies depending on whether the disorder is caused by one single event – for example, a traffic accident – or by multiple traumatic events such as during warfare or repeated incidents of sexual or physical violence. The meta-analysis, carried out based on data from around 10,600 patients, has now been published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry.

    In this study, the team of researchers – which also included Prof Richard Meiser-Stedman from the University of East Anglia (UK), Dr Ahlke Kip from the University of Münster, and Prof Marianne Skogbrott Birkeland from the Research Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies in Norway – evaluated 137 empirical articles published over the past four decades on the treatment of PTSD in adults. Nexhmedin Morina concludes: “The data show that several psychological interventions are highly effective in treating PTSD following multiple traumatic events – in fact, they are about as effective as when the PTSD follows a single trauma.” These results had, to date, only been reported for the treatment of children and adolescents with PTSD. Now, this study confirms that it also applies in the treatment of PTSD in adults. This is “very encouraging news” for both patients and therapists.

    Around four per cent of the global population suffers from PTSD as a result of traumatic events. The characteristic symptoms of PTSD include distressing intrusive traumatic memories, avoidance behaviour and difficulty with emotional regulation. The new findings have implications for the clinical practice and training of psychotherapists and mental health professionals more generally. “Our data helps remove treatment barriers for patients with a history of multiple traumatic events,” says Thole Hoppen. “In addition to patients’ fear of talking about their traumatic experiences, some psychotherapists hesitate to directly address traumatic experiences during treatment,” he adds. “However, trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy – a form of psychotherapy which helps process the traumatic memories – is not only very effective according to the accumulated data but more effective than non-trauma-focused interventions.” As a result, trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy is the first line of treatment recommended in national and international treatment guidelines. However, adds Hoppen, future research requires longer-term data to enable a more solid estimation of the long-term efficacy of the treatment.

     

    University of Munster

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  • Mitochondria: Boost energy, minimize damage?

    Mitochondria: Boost energy, minimize damage?

    Is it possible to amp up the energy production of mitochondria, the “power centers” of cells, without also boosting potentially harmful byproducts? If so, such a method could be used to treat a host of neurodegenerative diseases in which impaired mitochondria are believed to play a central role.

    Gladstone Institutes

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  • Study: Reflective surfaces, tree irrigation cool hot city by 4.5°C.

    Study: Reflective surfaces, tree irrigation cool hot city by 4.5°C.

    Newswise — It’s possible to significantly reduce the temperatures of a major city in a hot desert climate while reducing energy costs, a new study by UNSW Sydney shows.

    The findings, published today in Nature Cities, detail a multi-faceted strategy to cool Saudi Arabia’s capital city by up to 4.5°C, combining highly reflective ‘super cool’ building materials developed by the High-Performance Architecture Lab with irrigated greenery and energy retrofitting measures. The study, which was conducted in collaboration with the Royal Commission of Riyadh, is the first to investigate the large-scale energy benefits of modern heat mitigation technologies when implemented in a city.

    “The project demonstrates the tremendous impact advanced heat mitigation technologies and techniques can have to reduce urban overheating, decrease cooling needs, and improve lives,” says UNSW Scientia Professor Mattheos (Mat) Santamouris, Anita Lawrence Chair in High-Performance Architecture and senior author of the study.

    Prof. Santamouris specialises in developing heat mitigation technologies and strategies to decrease urban temperatures in cities. Extreme urban heat affects more than 450 cities worldwide, increasing energy consumption needs and adversely impacting health, including heat-related illness and death. 

    Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is one such city. Situated in the centre of a desert, it is one of the hottest cities in the world, with temperatures that can exceed 50°C during summer. Furthermore, climate change and rapid urbanisation are increasing the magnitude of overheating.

    “Limited greenery and large artificial surfaces made of conventional building materials like asphalt and concrete trap heat, meaning the city continues to heat up,” says Prof. Santamouris. “Additional heat from car pollution and industrial activities also increases the city’s temperature.” 

    Simulating city-scale heat mitigation scenarios

    For the study, the team led by UNSW researchers ran large-scale cooling climatic and energy simulations of the Al Masiaf precinct of Riyadh, including the energy performance of 3323 urban buildings, under eight different heat mitigation scenarios to evaluate optimal strategies for lowering the temperature of the city and reducing cooling needs.

    The modelling, which considered different combinations of super cool materials, vegetation types and energy retrofitting levels, found it’s possible to decrease the outdoor temperature in the city by nearly 4.5°C during summer. The strategy would also improve cooling energy conservation for the city by up to 16 per cent.

    The recommended heat mitigation (or cooling) scenario for Riyadh includes using super cool materials implemented in the roof of the buildings and more than doubling the number of irrigated trees to improve transpiration cooling. 

    On the contrary, a blind implementation of urban cooling techniques not based on detailed and advanced scientific optimisation, like the use of non-irrigated greenery, may result in a substantial increase in the city’s temperature. 

    “By implementing the right combination of advanced heat mitigation technologies and techniques, it is possible to decrease the ambient temperature at the precinct scale,” says Prof. Santamouris. “For a sweltering city the size of Riyadh, significantly reducing cooling needs is also tremendous for sustainability.”

    Prof. Santamouris says lowering the temperature of the city helps increase thermal comfort for people as well as reduce health issues from severe heat, decrease the concentration of pollutants and improve human productivity. While not a part of this study, previous research found implementing similar cooling strategies in other cities can help reduce heat-related deaths.

    Reducing energy demand at the urban scale 

    The research also simulated the energy impact of retrofitting measures for all 3323 buildings, alongside heat mitigation technologies implemented at the urban scale. Combining the optimal cooling technologies with energy retrofitting options – namely, improving the building envelope through better windows, insulation, solar and cool roofs – could decrease the cooling demand by up to 35 per cent.

    “This represents a substantial reduction to the energy needs for Riyadh that would help further reduce costs associated with cooling for the city while improving the quality of life for the local population,” says Prof. Santamouris.

    The researchers now hope to work with the Royal Commission of Riyadh to begin implementing the tailored heat mitigation plan in the city, which would be the largest of its kind in the world.

    “Once implemented at the city scale, these advanced heat mitigation technologies will deliver important health, sustainability and economic outcomes for the city for years to come,” says Prof. Santamouris. 

    The research team also included researchers from the University of Sydney, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Royal Commission of Riyadh City, the University of Calcutta and the University of Athens. 

    University of New South Wales

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  • Africans discovered fossils first

    Africans discovered fossils first

    Newswise — Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. Robert Plot, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to describe a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Over the next two centuries dinosaur palaeontology would be dominated by numerous British natural scientists.

    But our study shows that the history of palaeontology can be traced back much further into the past. We present evidence that the first dinosaur bone may have been discovered in Africa as early as 500 years before Plot’s.

    We’re a team of scientists who study fossils in South Africa. Peering through the published and unpublished archaeological, historical and palaeontological literature, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for as long as there have been people on the continent.

    This is not a surprise. Humankind originated in Africa: Homo sapiens has existed for at least 300,000 years. And the continent has a great diversity of rock outcrops, such as the Kem Kem beds in Morocco, the Fayum depression in Egypt, the Rift Valley in east Africa and the Karoo in southern Africa, containing fossils that have always been accessible to our ancestors.

    So it wasn’t just likely that African people discovered fossils first. It was inevitable.

    More often than not, the first dinosaur fossils supposedly discovered by scientists were actually brought to their attention by local guides. Examples are the discovery of the gigantic dinosaurs Jobaria by the Tuaregs in Niger and Giraffatitan by the Mwera in Tanzania.

    Our paper reviews what’s known about African indigenous knowledge of fossils. We list fossils that appear to have long been known at various African sites, and discuss how they might have been used and interpreted by African communities before the science of palaeontology came to be.

    Bolahla rock shelter in Lesotho

    One of the highlights of our paper is the archaeological site of Bolahla, a Later Stone Age rock shelter in Lesotho. Various dating techniques indicate that the site was occupied by the Khoesan and Basotho people from the 12th to 18th centuries (1100 to 1700 AD). The shelter itself is surrounded by hills made of consolidated sediments that were deposited under a harsh Sahara-like desert some 180 million to 200 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

    This part of Lesotho is particularly well known for delivering the species Massospondylus carinatus, a 4 to 6 metre, long-necked and small-headed dinosaur. Fossilised bones of Massospondylus are abundant in the area and were already so when the site was occupied by people in the Middle Ages.

    In 1990, archaeologists working at Bolahla discovered that a finger bone of Massospondylus, a fossil phalanx, had been transported to the cave. There are no fossil skeletons sticking out the walls of the cave, so the only chance that this phalanx ended up there was that someone in the distant past picked it up and carried it to the cave. Perhaps this person did so out of simple curiosity, or to turn it into a pendant or toy, or to use it for traditional healing rituals.

    After heavy rains, it is not unusual that the people in the area discover the bones of extinct species that have been washed out of their mother-rock. They usually identify them as belonging to a dragon-like monster that devours people or even whole houses. In Lesotho, the Basotho call the monster “Kholumolumo”, while in South Africa’s bordering Eastern Cape province, the Xhosa refer to it as “Amagongqongqo”.

    The exact date when the phalanx was collected and transported is unfortunately lost to time. Given the current knowledge, it could have been at any time of occupation of the shelter from the 12th to 18th centuries. This leaves open the possibility that this dinosaur bone could have been collected up to 500 years prior to Robert Plot’s find.

    Early knowledge of extinct creatures

    Most people knew about fossils well before the scientific era, for as far back as collective societal memories can go. In Algeria, for example, people referred to some dinosaur footprints as belonging to the legendary “Roc bird”. In North America, cave paintings depicting dinosaur footprints were painted by the Anasazi people between AD 1000 and 1200. Indigenous Australians identified dinosaur footprints as belonging to a legendary “Emu-man”. To the south, the notorious conquistador Hernan Cortes was given the fossil femur of a Mastodon by the Aztecs in 1519. In Asia, Hindu people refer to ammonites (coiled fossil-sea-shells) as “Shaligrams” and have been worshipping them for more than 2,000 years.

    Claiming credit

    The fact that people in Africa have long known about fossils is evident from folklore and the archaeological record, but we still have much to learn about it. For instance, unlike the people in Europe, the Americas and Asia, indigenous African palaeontologists seem to have seldom used fossils for traditional medicine. We are still unsure whether this is a genuinely unique cultural trait shared by most African cultures or if it is due to our admittedly still incomplete knowledge.

    Also, some rather prominent fossil sites, such as the Moroccan Kem Kem beds and South African Unesco Cradle of Humankind caves, have still not provided robust evidence for indigenous knowledge. This is unfortunate, as fossil-related traditions could help bridge the gap between local communities and palaeontologists, which in turn could contribute preserving important heritage sites.

    By exploring indigenous palaeontology in Africa, our team is putting together pieces of a forgotten past that gives credit back to local communities. We hope it will inspire a new generation of local palaeoscientists to walk in the footsteps of these first African fossil hunters.

    University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg

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  • Discover Excellence in ASEAN and Thailand’s Top Corporate Brands 2023!

    Discover Excellence in ASEAN and Thailand’s Top Corporate Brands 2023!

    Newswise — Step into the world of branding brilliance. The Department of Marketing, Chulalongkorn Business School, Chulalongkorn University, cordially invites you to the grand event  ‘ASEAN and Thailand’s Top Corporate Brands 2023’ on January 23, 2024, from 12:00 – 16:00 hrs. at the Chulalongkorn University Auditorium. 

    Based on a 14-year continuous brand evaluation research conducted by Prof. Emeritus Dr. Guntalee Ruenrom and Asst. Prof. Dr. Ake Pattaratanakun, the event honors and presents awards to the outstanding companies with the highest brand value in Thailand and ASEAN for the year 2023.  

    The event will also include an exclusive seminar on ‘Corporate Brand and Governance for Sustainability.’  Our distinguished speakers, including Prof. Dr. Pornanong Budsaratragoon, Secretary-General of Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission; Mr. Somchai Lertsutiwong, CEO of Advance Info Service Public Company Limited; and Prof. Dr. Wilert Puriwat, Dean of Chulalongkorn Business School, Chulalongkorn University, will share insights to inspire ethical values in every organizational brand.  Prof. Dr. Bundhit Eua-arporn, President of Chulalongkorn University, will preside over the event. 

    We welcome all executives, academics, and all interested individuals to pre-register at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpIViuWIlK3IJSfD99aFUZ0UrshDJ7vOMdU_UDCO9mF-XXkA/viewform?usp=send_form  or register on-site. 

    Don’t miss the chance to be part of this enriching experience and celebrate the best in corporate branding with us! 

     

                     

     

    Chulalongkorn University

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  • How can the brain compete with AI?

    How can the brain compete with AI?

    Can the shallow brain architecture compete with deep learning? (Video)

     

    Neural network learning techniques stem from the dynamics of the brain. However, these two scenarios, brain learning and deep learning, are intrinsically different. One of the most prominent differences is the number of layers each one possesses. Deep learning architectures typically consist of numerous layers that can be increased to hundreds, enabling efficient learning of complex classification tasks. Contrastingly, the brain consists of very few layers, yet despite its shallow architecture and noisy and slow dynamics, it can efficiently perform complex classification tasks.

    The key question driving new research is the possible mechanism underlying the brain’s efficient shallow learning — one that enables it to perform classification tasks with the same accuracy as deep learning. In an article just published in Physica A, researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel show how such shallow learning mechanisms can compete with deep learning. “Instead of a deep architecture, like a skyscraper, the brain consists of a wide shallow architecture, more like a very wide building with only very few floors,” said Prof. Ido Kanter, of Bar-Ilan’s Department of Physics and Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, who led the research.

    “The capability to correctly classify objects increases where the architecture becomes deeper, with more layers. In contrast, the brain’s shallow mechanism indicates that a wider network better classifies objects,” said Ronit Gross, an undergraduate student and one of the key contributors to this work. “Wider and higher architectures represent two complementary mechanisms,” she added.  Nevertheless, the realization of very wide shallow architectures, imitating the brain’s dynamics, requires a shift in the properties of advanced GPU technology, which is capable of accelerating deep architecture, but fails in the implementation of wide shallow ones.

    Bar-Ilan University

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  • 3Spine Announces Completion of FDA Clinical Trial Enrollment Achieving 325 Surgeries in 2023

    3Spine Announces Completion of FDA Clinical Trial Enrollment Achieving 325 Surgeries in 2023

     

    Newswise — CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., Jan. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — 3Spine, Inc., a medical device company developing a transformational alternative to lumbar spinal fusion, today announced achievement of US clinical trial enrollment, with 151 completed MOTUS lumbar total joint replacement surgeries and 174 real-world posterior lumbar fusions as of December 2023. The company enrolled a larger fusion cohort in an adaptive statistical design to improve propensity score matching between data sets. The trials involved patients experiencing chronic leg and back pain ranging in age from 23 to 79 across 14 U.S. states. 3Spine plans to seek FDA approval through the Premarket Approval pathway.

    3Spine’s MOTUS device is a ‘first-of-kind’ breakthrough medical technology indicated for the biomechanical reconstruction and stabilization of a spinal motion segment following decompression at one lumbar level from L1/L2 to L5/S1. MOTUS replaces the function of the disc and facet joints through a posterior approach, where the dual bearings resist rotation and shear much like the two native facet joints, while carrying compressive axial loads like the disc. The technology is similar to other modern orthopaedic joint replacements, utilizing highly cross-linked antioxidant vitamin E polyethylene, compression molded into a CoCr, titanium plasma sprayed substrate.

    MOTUS has been in development for over two decades. In 2020 the FDA designated MOTUS as a Breakthrough Device, a category that identifies and accelerates life-saving treatments for significant disease states affecting the U.S. population. 80% of Americans will experience low-back problems in their lifetime, resulting in an estimated 500,000 lumbar spine surgeries in the U.S. per year. A growing body of evidence suggests that preserving low back flexibility is far more important than once thought, even for simple activities like sitting at a desk or comfortably riding in a car. The FDA Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) to study joint reconstruction of the lumbar spine as an alternative to rigid spinal fusion was approved in June 2022.

    “I would like to personally thank my friends and colleagues across the U.S. who contributed to this important research,” said Jeffrey A. Goldstein, MD, national Principal Investigator for the MOTUS IDE study. “Learning a totally new and potentially game-changing spine procedure has been incredibly rewarding, and our own experience here at NYU suggests that we have developed something with remarkable significance.”

    Pierce D. Nunley, MD, chairman of the American Board of Spine Surgery, continued, “True change only comes along once in a generation. When I first saw the concept, it seemed too simple. But in medicine, simple is best. I believe MOTUS has the potential to fundamentally change spine care.”

    MOTUS utilization was tracked throughout clinical enrollment under CPT code 0719T (posterior vertebral joint replacement, including bilateral facetectomy, laminectomy, and radical discectomy, including imaging guidance, lumbar spine, single segment) published by the American Medical Association in 2022. A full list of indications and contra-indications for MOTUS lumbar total joint replacement is available at NCT05438719. Information on the real-world fusion clinical trial is available at NCT04823858.

    About 3Spine

    3Spine, Inc. is a privately financed healthcare company headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Following two Medtronic clinical pilot studies in South Africa with a novel posterior total joint replacement, Drs. Scott Hodges, Craig Humphreys, and Marc Peterman formed the independent, private spinout 3Spine, Inc. to develop and commercialize MOTUS lumbar total joint replacement.

    MOTUS has the potential to transform the treatment of lumbar spine conditions worldwide, improving care and expanding the market similar to other total joint replacements such as artificial hips, knees, shoulders, and ankles, which are considered some of the most important medical innovations of all time.

    Learn more at LinkedIn, Facebook, X, or by visiting www.3Spine.com.

    CONTACT: MEDIA CONTACT: Katherine Har, SweeneyVesty USA, 79 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10016, katherine.har@sweeneyvesty.com, Tel. 212 226 5105 Mob. 917 275 7102

    3Spine

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  • Discovery: Nine snail species in Papua New Guinea, a biodiversity hotspot at risk.

    Discovery: Nine snail species in Papua New Guinea, a biodiversity hotspot at risk.

    Newswise — Nine new species of carnivorous land snails have been found in the remote forests of Papua New Guinea, a biodiversity hot spot. A new study describes the species, which are so small that all nine could fit together on a U.S. nickel. They present a rare opportunity to study a group that in many other places is disappearing fast. Worldwide, mollusks account for more than 50% of all recorded extinctions since the year 1500, and many of these were land snails from Pacific islands.

    The island of New Guinea accounts for less than 1% of Earth’s land area, but it contains roughly 5% of the planet’s biodiversity and the largest intact rainforests in Australasia. Wildlife thrives within this large swath of undeveloped land, but Papua New Guinea’s old-growth forests are also highly desirable to loggers and are likely to become a conservation battleground in the future.

    “These new species of snails were found in areas that still have native vegetation and still appear to be doing well, but they could easily become endangered if things change,” said John Slapcinsky, lead author of the paper and manager of the Florida Museum’s invertebrate zoology collection.

    To reach Papua New Guinea’s isolated forests, researchers had to travel on foot over steep mountains, sometimes using fallen trees to cross crevices that were more than 100 feet deep. There are few roads in the country, which historically posed a challenge to scientists interested in researching the region but has also shielded native plants and animals from human disturbance and habitat destruction.

    Slapcinsky took nine trips to Papua New Guinea between 2002 and 2012, each time staying for at least a month to comb through the soil and fallen leaves. He ultimately collected more than 19,000 snails from over 200 sites.

    Only 31% of the snail species he surveyed had been previously documented, a sign of Papua New Guinea’s high biodiversity and low levels of sampling. But the snails are also exceptionally hard to find because of their small size, pickiness about their habitats and limited distribution. Nearly all of them are restricted to a single island or mountain.

    The newly named snails have tightly coiled, Frisbee-shaped shells in various shades of brown and tan, some with attractive gold or brown flamelike bands.  One of the new species, Torresiropa paterivolans, was named for its resemblance to flying saucers (in Latin, “patera” means “saucer,” and “volans” means “flying”).

    All nine species have dagger-shaped teeth on their radula, which is characteristic of predatory snails. Just what they’re eating, Slapcinsky said, is a mystery, since the snails did not eat anything under observation. Still, the shape of the teeth, combined with the fact that other species in the same family — Rhytididae — are predators, suggests that these newly discovered snails do eat meat.

    There is not yet enough data to know the conservation status of the new species, but it is a promising sign that their habitat has not yet been dramatically altered by human activity.

    Slapcinsky contrasted this with the Hawaiian Islands, where native snails are at imminent risk of extinction. He works with a team at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu that collaborates with the state and federal government on captive breeding programs for native snail colonies, many of which harbor the last members of their species. They also provide native snails for fenced-in areas, known as exclosures, where predators have been removed and the native forest has been replanted. These are expensive programs that Papua New Guinea still has the chance to avoid, Slapcinsky said, by slowing deforestation and preventing the introduction of non-native predators before it becomes a more serious problem.

    Snails are highly vulnerable to habitat disturbances because they cannot easily travel long distances and are usually adapted only to the environment in their immediate vicinity. “When these habitats are threatened, snails are often out of luck, since they can’t go anywhere,” Slapcinsky said.

    Many past discoveries of new snail species, especially on Pacific islands, have come after it was too late to save them. Scientists did not know that many snails lived on Easter Island, which was completely deforested centuries ago, until examining fossil deposits. But species on the island of New Guinea can still be saved if the forest is saved. The newly named snails provide a rare glimpse at an ecosystem that remains largely intact, and there are surely many similar discoveries yet to be made.

    “We don’t know everything that’s out there,” Slapcinsky said. “Most people may not realize how poorly known most of the invertebrates are, even though 95 to 99% of all animals are invertebrates. You can go to a place, look around for a few months and find all sorts of things that haven’t been described before.”

    Florida Museum of Natural History

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  • New Insights into OCD: Understanding the Role of Insight in Treatment and Neuroimaging

    New Insights into OCD: Understanding the Role of Insight in Treatment and Neuroimaging

    Newswise — Marking a substantial advancement in understanding OCD, researchers from Zhejiang University School of Medicine have revealed key connections between clinical characteristics, neuroimaging and treatment, heralding new opportunities for improved diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. The study was published in Psychoradiology on 08 November, 2023.

    The study involved a comprehensive review of the concept of insight in OCD, exploring its clinical characteristics, corresponding changes in neuroimaging, and how insight relates to treatment effectiveness. Insight in OCD refers to the patient’s awareness of their thoughts and behaviors as symptoms of a disorder. Notably, about 13–36% of patients show poor insight, linked to more severe symptoms and poorer treatment outcomes.

    Neuroimaging studies have played a pivotal role in understanding the neurological basis of insight. Structural and functional abnormalities have been observed in critical brain areas, including the frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. Specifically, reduced cortical thickness in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, left anterior cingulate cortex, and right lateral parietal cortex has been associated with poor insight. These findings suggest that insight-related changes might reflect a reduction in neurons within cortical columns.

    Although treatment like CBT and pharmacotherapy have shown some effectiveness in enhancing insight, the response to these treatments varies, emphasizing the need for personalized treatment strategies. Neuroleptics and atypical antipsychotics, often prescribed to patients with limited insight, have yet to show consistent effectiveness.

    The study’s leading researcher highlighted the importance of this study: “Our research not only advances our understanding of the neural underpinnings of OCD but also opens up new avenues for targeted treatments. By identifying specific neural networks associated with OCD severity, we can develop more personalized and effective interventions.”

    The implications of this research are profound. By enhancing our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying OCD, this study paves the way for more precise and personalized treatment approaches. It also underscores the potential of Connectome-based Predictive Modeling and other data-driven multimodal fusion techniques in psychiatric research, promising to transform diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for OCD and other complex psychiatric disorders.

    ###

    References

    DOI

    10.1093/psyrad/kkad025

    Original Source URL

    https://doi.org/10.1093/psyrad/kkad025

    Funding information

    The National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFF0702200); The National Natural Science Foundation of China (82101323); The Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant (LGF19H090015); The Key R&D Program of Zhejiang Province (2021C03001); The Medical Health Science and Technology Project of Zhejiang Provincial Health Commission (2022KY993); The Key Project for Hangzhou Medical Disciplines, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019XZZX003-20).

    About Psychoradiology

    Psychoradiology is an open-access journal co-published by Oxford University Press and West China Hospital. It has been indexed by Scopus, DOAJ and the APC is waived during its early stage. We welcome interdisciplinary submissions in the fields of radiology, psychology, psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience, as well as medical imaging, interventional medicine, artificial intelligence, and computer science, etc. A fast-track production mode will be adopted to ensure the manuscript is published as soon as possible.

    Chinese Academy of Sciences

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  • Some mosquitoes like it hot

    Some mosquitoes like it hot

    Newswise — Certain populations of mosquitoes are more heat tolerant and better equipped to survive heat waves than others, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

    This is bad news in a world where vector-borne diseases are an increasingly global health concern. Most models that scientists use to estimate vector-borne disease risk currently assume that mosquito heat tolerances do not vary. As a result, these models may underestimate mosquitoes’ ability to spread diseases in a warming world.

    Researchers led by Katie M. Westby, a senior scientist at Tyson Research Center, Washington University’s environmental field station, conducted a new study that measured the critical thermal maximum (CTmax), an organism’s upper thermal tolerance limit, of eight populations of the globally invasive tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus. The tiger mosquito is a known vector for many viruses including West Nile, chikungunya and dengue.

    “We found significant differences across populations for both adults and larvae, and these differences were more pronounced for adults,” Westby said. The new study is published Jan. 8 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

    Westby’s team sampled mosquitoes from eight different populations spanning four climate zones across the eastern United States, including mosquitoes from locations in New Orleans; St. Augustine, Fla.; Huntsville, Ala.; Stillwater, Okla.; St. Louis; Urbana, Ill.; College Park, Md.; and Allegheny County, Pa.

    The scientists collected eggs in the wild and raised larvae from the different geographic locations to adult stages in the lab, tending the mosquito populations separately as they continued to breed and grow. The scientists then used adults and larvae from subsequent generations of these captive-raised mosquitoes in trials to determine CTmax values, ramping up air and water temperatures at a rate of 1 degree Celsius per minute using established research protocols.

    The team then tested the relationship between climatic variables measured near each population source and the CTmax of adults and larvae. The scientists found significant differences among the mosquito populations.

    The differences did not appear to follow a simple latitudinal or temperature-dependent pattern, but there were some important trends. Mosquito populations from locations with higher precipitation had higher CTmax values. Overall, the results reveal that mean and maximum seasonal temperatures, relative humidity and annual precipitation may all be important climatic factors in determining CTmax.

    “Larvae had significantly higher thermal limits than adults, and this likely results from different selection pressures for terrestrial adults and aquatic larvae,” said Benjamin Orlinick, first author of the paper and a former undergraduate research fellow at Tyson Research Center. “It appears that adult Ae. albopictus are experiencing temperatures closer to their CTmax than larvae, possibly explaining why there are more differences among adult populations.”

    “The overall trend is for increased heat tolerance with increasing precipitation,” Westby said. “It could be that wetter climates allow mosquitoes to endure hotter temperatures due to decreases in desiccation, as humidity and temperature are known to interact and influence mosquito survival.”

    Little is known about how different vector populations, like those of this kind of mosquito, are adapted to their local climate, nor the potential for vectors to adapt to a rapidly changing climate. This study is one of the few to consider the upper limits of survivability in high temperatures — akin to heat waves — as opposed to the limits imposed by cold winters.

    “Standing genetic variation in heat tolerance is necessary for organisms to adapt to higher temperatures,” Westby said. “That’s why it was important for us to experimentally determine if this mosquito exhibits variation before we can begin to test how, or if, it will adapt to a warmer world.”

    Future research in the lab aims to determine the upper limits that mosquitoes will seek out hosts for blood meals in the field, where they spend the hottest parts of the day when temperatures get above those thresholds, and if they are already adapting to higher temperatures. “Determining this is key to understanding how climate change will impact disease transmission in the real world,” Westby said. “Mosquitoes in the wild experience fluctuating daily temperatures and humidity that we cannot fully replicate in the lab.”

    Washington University in St. Louis

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