NO MENTION IF COPPER INFUSED

Compression treatment could relieve horses’ painful swollen limbs

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: EQ PRESS view more 

CREDIT: ROB UNDERHILL PRODUCTIONS

Researchers from North Carolina State University have taken technology aimed at helping humans suffering from lymphedema – in which the accumulation of excess lymph fluid causes swollen limbs – and developed a medical device to aid horses suffering from the same condition. In a pilot study the device, called the EQ Press, was successful in moving fluid up the limbs and into the lymph nodes. This could lead to relief for horses with chronic conditions, as well as with temporary swelling due to injury or inactivity.

“Across the board, horses are predisposed to lower limb swelling,” says Lauren Schnabel, associate professor of equine orthopedic surgery at NC State and study co-author. “Lymphatic flow is driven by muscle contractions that circulate lymph fluid through the lymphatic system – horses are prone to lymphatic issues because they have very little musculature in the lower limbs.”

The severity of the condition can vary widely – from temporary swelling due to curtailed mobility, to lymphangitis caused by infections that can scar the lymphatic system. Owners will usually treat the condition by wrapping the limbs and icing them while encouraging exercise. But the effects of these treatments are usually only temporary.

“Humans suffer from the exact same type of lymphedema horses do, but the difference is that human medicine has a very effective treatment option – pneumatic compression devices,” Schnabel says. “So we wanted to create a horse-specific version of those devices and see if it would be similarly effective.”

Working closely with a company that manufactures human pneumatic compression devices, Schnabel developed the EQ Press in collaboration with former NC State veterinary student Irina Perdew.

The full EQ Press system comprises custom garments designed to accommodate the front and rear limbs of horses. Powered by pumps that tuck into a saddle pad, the device creates cycles of dynamic pressure waves that start at the bottom of the limb and move up, forcing fluid up the limb and eliminating backflow.

“There was anecdotal data that indicated compression treatment worked well for horses, but we wanted scientific evidence that demonstrates the utility of pneumatic compression for such large animals,” Schnabel says. “So we designed the NC State pilot study.”

In the study, six healthy thoroughbreds were injected with a tracer isotope in their lower front limbs – a harmless sulfur colloid that is taken up and excreted through the lymphatic system. A specialized camera followed the progression of the isotope up the lymphatic system and into a lymph node in the upper limb, a process known as lymphoscintigraphy.

Each horse underwent lymphoscintigraphy twice – once with treatment by the EQ Press on the front limbs and once without – randomized between treatment and control.

In all of the EQ Press treated horses, the camera showed the tracer isotope moving from the lower limb to the lymph node in the upper limb within a 60-minute window. Of the control horses, only one showed that the tracer isotope was able to reach the lymph node.

Overall, EQ Press treated horses had significantly accelerated lymphatic flow compared to untreated horses, recorded as both time to move out of the lower limb and also as time to reach the lymph node in the upper limb.

Schnabel and the research team found the results encouraging and want to determine whether pneumatic compression treatment will be as helpful for horses as it is for humans.

“Now we have compelling evidence that pneumatic compression treatments can accelerate lymphatic flow in healthy horses,” Schnabel says. “Our next step is to study the effectiveness of the EQ Press for treatment of horses with medical conditions such as lymphedema.”

The study appears in the American Journal of Veterinary Research. Drew Koch, postdoctoral fellow at NC State, is corresponding author of the work. Schnabel is co-founder and chief medical officer of Vetletics, Inc., the company that manufactures the EQ Press.

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Pneumatic compression therapy using the EQ Press accelerates lymphatic flow in healthy equine forelimbs as determined by lymphoscintigraphy”

DOI: doi.org/10.2460/ajvr.22.12.0214

Authors: Drew Koch, Lauren Schnabel, Justin Reynolds, Clifford Berry, North Carolina State University
Published: Online Feb. 21, 2023 in the American Journal of Veterinary Research

Abstract:
OBJECTIVE
Limb lymphedema in horses can be debilitating and painful. Pneumatic compression therapy has shown significant benefits for people suffering from lymphedema. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of a novel, equine-specific pneumatic compression device on the lymphatic flow of healthy horse forelimbs as determined by Tc-99m sulfur colloid lymphoscintigraphy.
ANIMALS
Six healthy Thoroughbreds.
PROCEDURES
In a randomized crossover design, horses underwent bilateral forelimb lymphoscintigraphy following subcutaneous injection of Tc-99m sulfur colloid at the coronary band as untreated control or with pneumatic compression therapy using the EQ Press. Lateral, static images were obtained of the distal limb (time 0 to 60 minutes) and proximal limb (time 30 to 60 minutes) using a standard gamma camera. Lymphatic flow was determined by assigning a score to the time point at which Tc-99m sulfur colloid was first visualized at the level of the accessory carpal bone (1 to 7) in the distal limb and the cubital lymph node (1 to 4) in the proximal limb.
RESULTS
EQ Press treatment led to a significantly faster lymphatic flow of Tc-99m sulfur colloid to the predetermined anatomic locations of the accessory carpal bone (P = .002) in the distal limb and the cubital lymph node (P = .001) in the proximal limb.
CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Pneumatic compression therapy as provided by an equine-specific device encouraged lymphatic flow in healthy, nonedematous equine forelimbs. These data support further study of the EQ Press for pneumatic compression therapy in horses clinically affected by lymphedema and lymphatic drainage disorders.

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Veterinary Research

DOI

10.2460/ajvr.22.12.0214 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Pneumatic compression therapy using the EQ Press accelerates lymphatic flow in healthy equine forelimbs as determined by lymphoscintigraphy

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

27-Feb-2023

COI STATEMENT

LVS is a cofounder and Chief Medical Officer of Vetletics Inc, which supplied the EQ Press for this study.

HIV reservoirs are established earlier than expected

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL HOSPITAL RESEARCH CENTRE (CRCHUM)

 

IMAGE: NICOLAS CHOMONT (RIGHT), A CRCHUM RESEARCHER AND PROFESSOR AT UNIVERSITÉ DE MONTRÉAL, WITH PIERRE GANTNER, A FORMER POSTDOCTORAL STUDENT IN CHOMONT’S LAB AND THE STUDY’S FIRST AUTHOR view more 

CREDIT: CHUM

Montreal, February 28, 2023—For the first time in humans, a research team has shown that, as early as the first days of infection, HIV is able to create reservoirs where it will hide and persist during antiretroviral therapy.

Until now, the scientific community did not know exactly when or how these viral reservoirs—the existence of which is a major obstacle to curing HIV—are established in human beings.

In a study published in the journal Immunity, scientists led by Nicolas Chomont, a researcher at the CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) and professor at Université de Montréal, found that a small fraction of the virus integrates into the genome of CD4+ T cells in the very first weeks of infection (the acute phase), but does not replicate there. It therefore escapes the notice of the fastest diagnostic tool to date, which detects active viral replication.

CD4+ T cells are HIV’s primary targets. They are white blood cells responsible for activating the human body’s defence against infections.

“With the help of an analysis technique developed in our laboratory, we were able to observe and count the T cells infected by the virus in human samples collected in the earliest stages of the infection,” said Chomont, the study’s principal author. “We succeeded in detecting the presence of the virus through sequencing even when it was hidden in cells that weren’t participating in viral replication.”

To study these initial phases of the spread of the virus, Pierre Gantner, a former postdoctoral student in Chomont’s lab and the study’s first author, had access to samples of blood and inguinal lymph node tissue from 25 people in the first acute-infection cohort of the U.S. Military HIV Research Program in Thailand.

This cohort, RV254/SEARCH010, was launched more than 10 years ago in collaboration with the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre and has enrolled nearly 800 volunteers. Chomont and his team have been closely cooperating with their colleagues in Thailand since its launch.

 

Mapping the types of infected cells

Through their analysis technique, the CRCHUM scientists succeeded in counting the CD4+ T cells infected by the virus during the acute phase of the infection.

These infected cells increased in number from 10 to 1,000 per million CD4+ T cells in less than seven days, thereby showing the extreme speed with which HIV spreads.

The scientists also observed that the characteristics of the cells targeted by HIV in the first weeks of the infection varied quickly and differed depending on whether they were located in the blood or lymph nodes.

“For example, we noticed that few Tfh—T follicular helper cells—are infected by the virus during the acute phase of the infection,” said Chomont. “Since they play a crucial role in viral replication, the scientific community thought that they were the first to be infected.”

“In fact, we counted a lot more [infected Tfh] during the chronic phase of the disease, which is about two months after infection. At that point, they are actively contributing to the development of the disease.”

Until now, these types of studies have been carried out on animal models. Therefore, this is the first time that the early stages of the infection in humans have been described so precisely.

 

Destabilizing the reservoirs

A large part of global research dedicated to the study of HIV focuses on how to reactivate the virus lying dormant in the reservoirs in order to neutralize it.

“’The earlier we start antiretroviral therapy, the more we prevent the virus from replicating and the more we limit the size of the reservoirs. We proved that in 2020,“ said Chomont.

“However, it seems clear that early antiretroviral therapy should be combined with another treatment to force the virus out of its hiding places, because at the time of diagnosis latent reservoirs will have already been established in people infected with HIV.”

In collaboration with scientists from the United States, Chomont’s research team is currently evaluating whether this type of treatment administered in the acute infection phase would prevent the establishment of viral reservoirs.

 

Science writing: Bruno Geoffroy

 

###

 

About this study

“HIV rapidly targets a diverse pool of CD4+ T cells to establish productive and latent infections” by Pierre Gantner et al., was published online Feb. 17, 2023, in Immunity.

The study was funded by the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; the Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR Research Consortium on HIV Eradication); the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; the Canadian HIV Cure Enterprise (CanCURE); the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Network of the Fonds de Recherche du Québec-Santé; the Thai Red Cross Research Center; and, in part, the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

 

About the CRCHUM

The CHUM Research Centre (CRCHUM) is one of North America’s leading hospital research centres. It strives to improve the health of adults through a continuum of research spanning disciplines such as basic science, clinical research and population health. More than 2,150 people work at the CRCHUM, including nearly 500 researchers and nearly 650 students and postdoctoral fellows. crchum.com

About Université de Montréal 

Deeply rooted in Montréal and dedicated to its international mission, Université de Montréal is one of the top universities in the French-speaking world. Founded in 1878, Université de Montréal today has 13 faculties and schools, and together with its two affiliated schools, HEC Montréal and Polytechnique Montréal, constitutes the largest centre of higher education and research in Quebec and one of the major centres in North America. It brings together 2,300 professors and researchers and has 70,000 students. umontreal.ca 

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JOURNAL

Immunity

DOI

10.1016/j.immuni.2023.01.030 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Human tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

HIV rapidly targets a diverse pool of CD4+ T cells to establish productive and latent infections

Study finds association between lifetime experiences of discrimination and incidence of dementia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ATRIUM HEALTH WAKE FOREST BAPTIST

 

IMAGE: MIKE BANCKS, PH.D., M.P.H., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EPIDEMIOLOGY AND PREVENTION AT WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE view more 

CREDIT: WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Feb. 28, 2023 – According to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine, people who experience discrimination during their lifetimes have an increased risk of dementia.

The study appears in the February issue of Alzheimer’s & Dementia, the journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

“We need a better understanding of how experiences of discrimination impact health and dementia risk as well as racial/ethnic disparities in dementia,” said Mike Bancks, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of epidemiology and prevention at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and corresponding author of the study.

In the study, researchers assessed data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a medical research study involving more than 6,500 men and women from six communities in the United States—Baltimore; Chicago; Forsyth County, North Carolina; Los Angeles; New York City; and St. Paul, Minn. Participants were contacted by telephone annually and invited to participate in five follow-up in-person clinic examinations from 2000 to 2018.

The research team gathered data from self-reported experiences of lifetime and everyday discrimination. For the lifetime discrimination scale, participants were asked whether they had been treated unfairly in six domains such as being denied a promotion or treated unfairly by police. Participants were also asked to indicate the perceived reason for the unfair treatment such as race, religion, gender, physical appearance, income or sexual orientation.

For the everyday discrimination scale, participants were asked to indicate the frequency with which certain experiences of unfair treatment occur in their day-to-day life.

The prevalence of experiencing any lifetime discrimination was 42% across all MESA participants and higher among Black adults at 72% with experiences of discrimination. Over a median of 15.7 years of follow-up, there were 466 incident cases of dementia. Individuals reporting lifetime discrimination in more than two domains (compared to none) had a greater risk for dementia.

“Our findings suggest an association between greater experiences of discrimination during one’s lifetime and higher risk for dementia,” Bancks said. “In alignment with other MESA findings, it’s clear that Black adults bear an unequal burden of exposure to discrimination, and discrimination is harmful to health.”

Researchers also noted that the strength of association between discrimination and dementia did not appear to differ by race/ethnicity.

According to Bancks, there are a few potential mechanisms that may link experiences of lifetime discrimination to cognitive impairment such as chronic stress, receiving inadequate or delayed health care, and undiagnosed or untreated high blood pressure, but additional research is needed.

“Future studies should assess how the accumulation of experiences of discrimination are related to dementia risk to help guide strategies to intervene on discrimination and dementia risk,” Bancks said.

This study was supported by National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute grants R01HL127659, 75N92020D00001, HHSN268201500003I, N01-HC-95159, 75N92020D00005, N01-HC-95160, 75N92020D00002, N01-HC-95161, 75N92020D00003, N01-HC-95162, 75N92020D00006, N01-HC-95163, 75N92020D00004, N01-HC-95164, 75N92020D00007, N01-HC-95165, N01-HC-95166, N01-HC-95167, N01-HC-95168 and N01-HC-95169; the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences grants UL1-TR-000040, UL1-TR-001079 and UL1-TR-001420; and by National Institute on Aging grants R01AG054069 and 1RF1AG054474. 

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JOURNAL

Alzheimer s & Dementia

DOI

10.1002/alz.12947 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Self-reported experiences of discrimination and incident dementia

Portable breath-based volatile organic compound monitoring for detection of COVID-19

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: The findings of this diagnostic study with 167 participants suggest that breath analysis has promise for COVID-19 detection. However, similar to rapid antigen testing, the emergence of new variants poses diagnostic challenges. The results of this study warrant additional evaluation on how to overcome these challenges to use breath analysis to improve the diagnosis and care of patients. 

Authors: Xudong Fan, Ph.D., and Kevin R. Ward, M.D., of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, are the corresponding authors.  

doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.0982

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

#  #  #

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

Super-fast insect urination powered by the physics of superpropulsion

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: A SHARPSHOOTER INSECT FORMING A URINE DROPLET BEFORE IT CATAPULTING IT HIGH ACCELERATION. view more 

CREDIT: GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

Saad Bhamla was in his backyard when he noticed something he had never seen before: an insect urinating. Although nearly impossible to see, the insect formed an almost perfectly round droplet on its tail and then launched it away so quickly that it seemed to disappear. The tiny insect relieved itself repeatedly for hours.

It’s generally taken for granted that what goes in must come out, so when it comes to fluid dynamics in animals, the research is largely focused on feeding rather than excretion. But Bhamla, an assistant professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, had a hunch that what he saw wasn’t trivial.

“Little is known about the fluid dynamics of excretion, despite its impact on the morphology, energetics, and behavior of animals,” Bhamla said. “We wanted to see if this tiny insect had come up with any clever engineering or physics innovations in order to pee this way.”

Bhamla and Elio Challita, a bioengineering graduate student, investigated how and why glassy-winged sharpshooters – tiny pests notorious for spreading disease in crops – excrete the way they do. By using computational fluid dynamics and biophysical experiments, the researchers studied the fluidic, energetic, and biomechanical principles of excretion, revealing how an insect smaller than the tip of a pinky finger performs a feat of physics and bioengineering – superpropulsion. Their research, published in Nature Communications, is the first observation and explanation of this phenomenon in a biological system.

Small but Mighty: Observing Insect Excretion

The researchers used high-speed videos and microscopy to observe precisely what was happening on the insect’s tail end. They first identified the role played by a very important biophysical tool called an anal stylus, or, as Bhamla termed, a “butt flicker.”

Challita and Bhamla observed that when the sharpshooter is ready to urinate, the anal stylus rotates from a neutral position backward to make room as the insect squeezes out the liquid. A droplet forms and grows gradually as the stylus remains at the same angle. When the droplet approaches its optimal diameter, the stylus rotates farther back about 15 degrees, and then, like the flippers on a pinball machine, launches the droplet at incredible speed. The stylus can accelerate more than 40Gs – 10 times higher than the fastest sportscars.

“We realized that this insect had effectively evolved a spring and lever like a catapult and that it could use those tools to hurl droplets of pee repeatedly at high accelerations,” Challita said.

Then, the researchers measured the speed of the anal stylus movement and compared them to the speed of the droplets. They made a puzzling observation: the speed of the droplets in air was faster than the anal stylus that flicked them. They expected the droplets to move at the same speed as the anal stylus, but the droplets launched at speeds 1.4 times faster than the stylus itself. The ratio of speed suggested the presence of superpropulsion – a principle previously shown only in synthetic systems in which an elastic projectile receives an energy boost when its launch timing matches the projectile timing, like a diver timing their jump off a springboard.

Upon further observation, they found the stylus compressed the droplets, storing energy due to surface tension just before launch. To test this, the researchers placed the water droplets on an audio speaker, using vibrations to compress them at high speeds. They discovered that, at tiny scales, when water droplets are launched, they store energy due to inherent surface tension. And if timed just right, droplets can be launched at extremely high speeds.

But the question of why sharpshooters urinate in droplets was still unanswered. A sharpshooter’s almost zero-calorie diet consists only of plant xylem sap – a nutrient-deficient liquid containing only water and a trace of minerals. They drink up to 300 times their body weight in xylem sap per day and are therefore required to constantly drink and efficiently excrete their fluid waste, which is 99% water. Different insects, on the other hand, also feed exclusively on xylem sap but can excrete in powerful jets.

The team sent sharpshooter samples to a specialized lab. Micro CT scans enabled Bhamla and Challita to study the sharpshooter’s morphology and take measurements from inside the insects. They used the information to calculate the pressure required for a sharpshooter to push the fluid through its very small anal canal, determining how much energy was required for a sharpshooter to urinate.

Their research reveals that superpropulsive droplet ejection serves as a strategy for sharpshooters to conserve energy per feeding-excretion cycle. Sharpshooters face major fluid dynamic challenges due to their small size and energy constraints, and urinating in droplets is the most energy efficient way for them to excrete.  

Promising Applications for Insect Superpropulsion

By combining biology, physics, and engineering, the research has implications for several fields. Understanding the role of excretion in animal behavior, size, and evolution can have applications for ecology and population dynamics. For example, sharpshooters are a major agriculture pest in California and Florida as they spread diseases in vineyards and citrus crops, causing millions of dollars of damage. Sharpshooter excretion could potentially serve as a vector surveillance tool as the issue will likely get worse with climate change. The team’s analysis also stresses the importance of studying excrement processes as they can reveal a multifaceted perspective about an organism’s behavior.

Studying how sharpshooters use superpropulsion can also provide insights into how to design systems that overcome adhesion and viscosity with lower energy. One example is low-power water-ejection wearable electronics, such as a smart watch that uses speaker vibrations to repel water from the device.

“The subject of this study may seem whimsical and esoteric, but it’s from investigations like this that we gain insight into physical processes at size scales outside of our normal human experience,” said Miriam Ashley-Ross, a program director in the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the U.S. National Science Foundation, which partially funded the work. “What the sharpshooters are dealing with would be like us trying to fling away a beachball-sized globe of maple syrup that was stuck to our hand. The efficient method these tiny insects have evolved to solve the problem may lead to bio-inspired solutions for removing solvents in micro-manufacturing applications like electronics or shedding water rapidly from structurally complex surfaces.”

The mere fact that insects urinate is compelling on its own, mostly because people don’t often think about it. But by applying the lens of physics to an everyday miniature biological process, the researchers’ work reveals new dimensions for appreciating small behaviors beyond what meets the eye.

“This work reinforces the idea of curiosity-driven science being valuable,” Challita said. “And the fact that we discovered something that is so interesting – superpropulsion of droplets in a biological system and heroic feats of physics that have applications in other fields – makes it even more fascinating.”

 

A sharpshooter insect uses its anal stylus to catapult a urine droplet at high acceleration (slow motion GIF).

Two sharpshooters on a plant, urinating in droplets (full-speed GIF).

Sharpshooters on a basil plant.

CREDIT

Georgia Institute of Technology

Citation: Elio J. Challita, Prateek Sehgal, Rodrigo Krugner & M. Saad Bhamla. “Droplet superpropulsion in an energetically constrained insect,” Nature Communications (2023).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36376-5

YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO8Xy6-u5Rc

Writer: Catherine Barzler

Video and Multimedia: Candler Hobbs

######

The Georgia Institute of Technology, or Georgia Tech, is one of the top public research universities in the U.S., developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute offers business, computing, design, engineering, liberal arts, and sciences degrees. Its more than 46,000 students, representing 50 states and more than 150 countries, study at the main campus in Atlanta, at campuses in France and China, and through distance and online learning. As a leading technological university, Georgia Tech is an engine of economic development for Georgia, the Southeast, and the nation, conducting more than $1 billion in research annually for government, industry, and society.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-023-36376-5 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Droplet superpropulsion in an energetically constrained insect

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Feb-2023 

Gender, racial, ethnic Inequities among recipients of multiple NIH research project grants

JAMA Network Open

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this study of National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigators from 1991 to 2020, researchers found a growing gap among NIH investigators that created a cohort of highly funded NIH investigators. Importantly, there were persistent gender, ethnic, and racial inequities among this elite class of super principal investigators (investigators receiving three or more research project grants). As the NIH develops critical initiatives and reforms to promote equity among its investigators, consideration of the persistent gender and ethnic and racial gaps in this elite class and the influence they have is critical for meaningful reform. 

Authors: Mytien Nguyen, M.S., of the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, is the corresponding author. 

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.0855)

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

JUST IN TIME FOR SHARK WEEK

Jurassic shark – Shark from the Jurassic period was already highly evolved

New phylogenetic tree provides new insights into the evolutionary history of sharks and rays

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA

 

IMAGE: FOSSIL OF THE LATE JURASSIC SHARK PROTOSPINAX ANNECTANS FROM SOLNHOFEN AND EICHSTÄTT, GERMANY view more 

CREDIT: C: SEBASTIAN STUMPF

Cartilaginous fish have changed much more in the course of their evolutionary history than previously believed. Evidence for this thesis has been provided by new fossils of a ray-like shark, Protospinax annectans, which demonstrate that sharks were already highly evolved in the Late Jurassic. This is the result of a recent study by an international research group led by palaeobiologist Patrick L. Jambura from the Department of Palaeontology at the University of Vienna, which was recently published in the journal Diversity.

Cartilaginous fishes (sharks, rays, and ratfish) are an evolutionarily very old group of animals that already lived on earth before the dinosaurs more than 400 million years ago and have survived all five mass extinctions. Their fossil remains can be found in large numbers all over the world - however, usually only the teeth remain, while the cartilaginous skeleton decays together with the rest of the body and does not fossilize.

A unique window into the past

In the Solnhofen archipelago, a so-called "Konservat Lagerstätte" in Bavaria, Germany, skeletal remains and even imprints of skin and muscles of Late Jurassic vertebrates (including cartilaginous fishes) have been preserved due to special preservation conditions. The research team used this circumstance to take a closer look at the previously unclear role of the already extinct species Protospinax annectans in the evolution of sharks and rays, also with the help of modern genetic evidence.

"Protospinax carried features that are found in both sharks and rays today," explains study author Patrick L. Jambura. Protospinax lived some 150 million years ago and was a 1.5-m-long, dorso-ventrally flattened cartilaginous fish with expanded pectoral fins and a prominent fin spine in front of each dorsal fin. Although known from well preserved fossils, the phylogenetic position of Protospinax has puzzled researchers ever since it was first described in 1918. "Of particular interest," Jambura continued, "is whether Protospinax represents a transition between sharks and rays as a 'missing link' - a hypothesis that has gained considerable appeal among experts over the past 25 years." Alternatively, Protospinax could have been a very primitive shark, an ancestor of rays and sharks, or an ancestor of a certain group of sharks, the Galeomorphii, which includes the great white shark today - all of which are exciting ideas whose plausibility has now been clarified by scientists.

One mystery solved, another one remains

Incorporating the latest fossil finds, Jambura and his international team reconstructed the family tree of extant sharks and rays using genetic data (mitochondrial DNA) and embedded fossil groups - including Protospinax annectans - using morphological data. The results of the analysis were startling: Protospinax was neither a "missing link" nor a ray nor a primitive shark - but a highly evolved shark.
"We tend to think of evolution like a hierarchical, ladder-like system, in which older groups are at the base, while humans, as a very young species in Earth history, are at the top. In truth, however, evolution has never stopped even for these primitive representatives, but they continue to evolve day by day via changes in their DNA, just as we do. This is the only way they have been able to adapt to constantly changing environments and survive to this day," says Jambura.

Even though cartilaginous fishes as a group have survived to this day, most species disappeared during its evolution, including Protospinax. Why Protospinax became extinct at the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary some 145 million years ago and why there is no comparable shark species today, while the ecologically similarly adapted rays exist relatively unchanged to this day, remains a mystery at this point.

Palaeoreconstruction of the Solnhofen Archipelago 150 million years ago showing Protospinax annectans and the Jurassic ray Asterodermus platypterus

CREDIT

C: Manuel Andreas Staggl

JOURNAL

Diversity

DOI

10.3390/d15030311 

ARTICLE TITLE

Systematics and Phylogenetic Interrelationships of the Enigmatic Late Jurassic Shark Protospinax annectans Woodward, 1918 with Comments on the Shark-Ray Sister Group Relationship.

'Informal carers’ experienced mental health decline ‘akin to divorce’ during COVID lockdowns

UK people who became carers during COVID-19 by helping family members, friends or neighbours in need experienced a sharp decline in their own mental health, new research from Lancaster University reveals.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LANCASTER UNIVERSITY

People who became carers during Covid-19 by helping family members, friends or neighbours in need experienced a sharp decline in their own mental health, new research from Lancaster University reveals.

Using the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) scale – a psychometrically validated and widely used index of psychological distress – researchers studied individual responses to the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society).

They looked at 4698 participants from a total of 11 surveys - three before COVID-19 and eight collected between April 2020 and March 2021.

They carefully focused on three groups of people – ‘existing carers’ (totalling 349 people who had caring responsibilities for people outside of their home before the pandemic), ‘new carers’ who started helping and continually provided care during the pandemic (1655 individuals), and a group of ‘never-carers’ (2694 respondents).

Results found that the most statistically significant “moments of distress” for new caregivers occurred when national lockdowns were in place. Existing carers within the sample experienced a 0.48 point increase in mental deterioration during the third national lockdown, imposed by the Government in January 2021. This measurement indicates worse mental ill-health than men who lose their jobs (measured at 0.41 points on the GHQ scale – for unemployed women, it’s 0.60 points), while the death of a partner leads to worse mental health by 0.51 points for women, and 0.53 for men.

Overall, the study finds mental health in the UK fluctuated according to the social restrictions imposed by Government, but the mental health of those who started providing care informally during the pandemic was consistently worse than those who did not provide any informal care at all.

 “Our evidence suggests that while social restrictions were put in place to curb infection rates and protect the public from Covid-19, the mental toll this had on informal caregivers was sizeable,” explains Chiara Costi, a PhD student from Lancaster University Management School and lead author of the study. “This is the first time, to our knowledge, there has been any focus on the mental health of the vast number of people who became informal carers during Covid-19 in the UK.

“While each group of informal carers we focused on is different, it is important to note that all respondents had similar levels of mental health before providing informal care.

 “When you look at our data, the stay-at-home orders during Covid most certainly harmed the mental health of carers across the UK, but had a particularly severe affect on those who took on additional caring roles purely as a result of the pandemic.

“The effect on those who had been caring for people before the pandemic started is also very interesting. While existing carers were coping relatively well with the pandemic at the beginning, imposing the third lockdown almost one year after the start of the pandemic looks to have really impacted their mental health when you look at the sharp decline in scores in January 2021.”

Data taken from the informal carers’ responses for the study also shows:

• Existing carers are older, on average, than those who have never provided informal care for others, while the new informal carers are the youngest group
• Existing carers are less likely to be single or live alone, and are more likely to be widowed or divorced when compared to new carers or never carers
• New carers tend to have more dependent children and are more likely to be employed
• Existing caregivers have poorer physical health with greater functional limitations and long-standing illnesses
• White people generally have better mental health than other ethnicities (a decrease of 1.19 GHQ points for existing carers and 0.81 points for new carers on the GHQ scale)
• Amongst existing carers, women tend to have better mental health than men (a decrease of 0.71 GHQ compared to men on the scale)
• Being in paid employment is correlated with better mental health (0.36 GHQ points)

“While all groups we studied have similar demographics in terms of gender, ethnicity and education, existing carers are older on average, when compared to new carers”, said co-author, Dr Vincent O’Sullivan from the University of Limerick. “This could mean that existing carers may have started to provide care earlier to support older parents or relatives, hence having better mental health at the start of the pandemic when compared to those who just started care-giving.”

Researchers say their findings should be helpful for policymakers who may look to provide psychological support for new informal care givers.

Co-author, Dr Eugenio Zucchelli from Autonoma University of Madrid, added: “Our evidence would suggest it is important to look at other forms of support for caregivers that goes beyond financial or respite care.”

 “Hopefully we won’t see a pandemic like the last for quite some time, but for any future public health crisis, it would be important to not overlook those who may be picking up caring duties for the first time – especially if they may be socially isolated and therefore lacking any in-person support or network,” adds co-author Professor Bruce Hollingsworth from Lancaster University.

The paper, Does caring for others affect our mental health? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic, is published in the Social Science and Medicine journal, and is written by Chiara Costi from Lancaster University Management School; Professor Bruce Hollingsworth from Lancaster University; Dr Vincent O’Sullivan from the University of Limerick, and Dr Eugenio Zucchelli from Autonoma University of Madrid​ and the Madrid Institute for Advanced Study.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115721

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JOURNAL

Social Science & Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.115721 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Does caring for others affect our mental health? Evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic