US deaths normally change less than 2% eachyear; in 2020, they rose nearly 23%

Black Americans experienced highest per capita excess death rates, while regional surges contributed to higher excess death rates from COVID-19 and other causes, a VCU-led JAMA study finds

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Research News

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IMAGE: A MAP OF THE UNITED STATES SHOWING THE RATE OF EXCESS DEATHS. THE DAKOTAS, NEW ENGLAND, THE SOUTH AND SOUTHWEST HAD SOME OF THE HIGHEST EXCESS DEATHS PER 100,000 PEOPLE... view more 

CREDIT: VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY

Extended surges in the South and West in the summer and early winter of 2020 resulted in regional increases in excess death rates, both from COVID-19 and from other causes, a 50-state analysis of excess death trends has found. Virginia Commonwealth University researchers' latest study notes that Black Americans had the highest excess death rates per capita of any racial or ethnic group in 2020.

The research, publishing Friday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offers new data from the last 10 months of 2020 on how many Americans died during 2020 as a result of the effects of the pandemic -- beyond the number of COVID-19 deaths alone -- and which states and racial groups were hit hardest.

The rate of excess deaths -- or deaths above the number that would be expected based on averages from the previous five years -- is usually consistent, fluctuating 1% to 2% from year to year, said Steven Woolf, M.D., the study's lead author and director emeritus of VCU's Center on Society and Health. From March 1, 2020, to Jan. 2, 2021, excess deaths rose a staggering 22.9% nationally, fueled by COVID-19 and deaths from other causes, with regions experiencing surges at different times.

"COVID-19 accounted for roughly 72% of the excess deaths we're calculating, and that's similar to what our earlier studies showed. There is a sizable gap between the number of publicly reported COVID-19 deaths and the sum total of excess deaths the country has actually experienced," Woolf said.

For the other 28% of the nation's 522,368 excess deaths during that period, some may actually have been from COVID-19, even if the virus was not listed on the death certificates due to reporting issues.

But Woolf said disruptions caused by the pandemic were another cause of the 28% of excess deaths not attributed to COVID-19. Examples might include deaths resulting from not seeking or finding adequate care in an emergency such as a heart attack, experiencing fatal complications from a chronic disease such as diabetes, or facing a behavioral health crisis that led to suicide or drug overdose.

"All three of those categories could have contributed to an increase in deaths among people who did not have COVID-19 but whose lives were essentially taken by the pandemic," said Woolf, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at the VCU School of Medicine.

The percentage of excess deaths among non-Hispanic Black individuals (16.9%) exceeded their share of the U.S. population (12.5%), reflecting racial disparities in mortality due to COVID-19 and other causes of death in the pandemic, Woolf and his co-authors write in the paper. The excess death rate among Black Americans was higher than rates of excess deaths among non-Hispanic white or Hispanic populations.

Woolf said his team was motivated to break down this information by race and ethnicity due to mounting evidence that people of color have experienced an increased risk of death from COVID-19.

"We found a disproportionate number of excess deaths among the Black population in the United States," said Woolf, VCU's C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity. "This, of course, is consistent with the evidence about COVID-19 but also indicates that excess deaths from some conditions other than COVID-19 are also occurring at higher rates in the African American population."

Surges in excess deaths varied across regions of the United States. Northeastern states, such as New York and New Jersey, were among the first hit by the pandemic. Their pandemic curves looked like a capital "A," Woolf said, peaking in April and returning rapidly to baseline within eight weeks because strict restrictions were put in place. But the increase in excess deaths lasted much longer in other states that lifted restrictions early and were hit hard later in the year. Woolf cited economic or political reasons for decisions by some governors to weakly embrace, or discourage, pandemic control measures such as wearing masks.

"They said they were opening early to rescue the economy. The tragedy is that policy not only cost more lives, but actually hurt their economy by extending the length of the pandemic," Woolf said. "One of the big lessons our nation must learn from COVID-19 is that our health and our economy are tied together. You can't really rescue one without the other."

According to the study's data, the 10 states with the highest per capita rate of excess deaths were Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Arizona, Alabama, Louisiana, South Dakota, New Mexico, North Dakota and Ohio.

Nationally, Woolf expects the U.S. will see consequences of the pandemic long after this year. For example, cancer mortality rates may increase in the coming years if the pandemic forced people to delay screening or chemotherapy.

Woolf said future illness and deaths from the downstream consequences of the devastated economy could be addressed now by "bringing help to families, expanding access to health care, improving behavioral health services and trying to bring economic stability to a large part of the population that was already living on the edge before the pandemic." Among other research, his team's 2019 JAMA study of working-age mortality underscores the importance of prioritizing public health measures like these, he said.

"American workers are sicker and dying earlier than workers in businesses in other countries that are competing against America," Woolf said. "So investments to help with health are important for the U.S. economy in that context just as they are with COVID-19."

Derek Chapman, Ph.D., Roy Sabo, Ph.D., and Emily Zimmerman, Ph.D., of VCU's Center on Society and Health and the School of Medicine joined Woolf as co-authors on the paper published Friday, "Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the United States, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021."

Their study also confirms a trend Woolf's team noted in an earlier 2020 study: Death rates from several non-COVID-19 conditions, such as heart disease, Alzheimer's disease and diabetes, increased during surges.

"This country has experienced profound loss of life due to the pandemic and its consequences, especially in communities of color," said Peter Buckley, M.D., dean of the VCU School of Medicine. "While we must remain vigilant with social distancing and mask-wearing behaviors for the duration of this pandemic, we must also make efforts to ensure the equitable distribution of care if we are to reduce the likelihood of further loss of life."

Based on current trends, Woolf said the surges the U.S. has seen might not be over, even with vaccinations underway.

"We're not out of the woods yet because we're in a race with the COVID-19 variants. If we let up too soon and don't maintain public health restrictions, the vaccine may not win out over the variants," Woolf said. "Unfortunately, what we're seeing is that many states have not learned the lesson of 2020. Once again, they are lifting restrictions, opening businesses back up, and now seeing the COVID-19 variants spread through their population.

"To prevent more excess deaths, we need to hold our horses and maintain the public health restrictions that we have in place so the vaccine can do its work and get the case numbers under control."

Excess Deaths From COVID-19 and Other Causes in the US, March 1, 2020, to January 2, 2021 | Infectious Diseases | JAMA | JAMA Network

Significant vaccine distrust found among incarcerated populations, increasing risks

UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Research News

Fewer than half of inmates in jails and prisons surveyed in a study by the CDC and University of Washington said they would accept a COVID-19 vaccine, while the majority either said they wanted to wait before getting the vaccine or would refuse one.

"This is a population already at risk for COVID-19, and outbreaks among incarcerated people can worsen inequities in COVID-19 outcomes as well as contribute to spread in the surrounding community," said lead author Dr. Marc Stern, affiliate assistant professor of health services in the UW School of Public Health. "So culturally and health-literacy informed interventions are needed to help them feel more confident about getting vaccinated."

The study conducted by CDC researchers and led by Stern was published Wednesday on the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The researchers surveyed more than 5,000 inmates, men and women, in late 2020 from three prisons and 13 jails in Washington, California, Florida and Texas.

Among those asked about their willingness to receive a vaccine, only 45% said they were willing. More than 45% said they would refuse, and nearly 10% said they might or weren't sure they would receive it.

The most common reasons the participants gave for vaccine hesitancy fell into the response categories of waiting for more information or to see others take it first, and efficacy or safety concerns. The most common reason for given for refusal was distrust of the health care system, correctional or government personnel and institutions.

The survey was conducted before vaccines were available, but at the time Black and younger respondents were the least willing to get the vaccine. The researchers added that a lower willingness to receive a vaccine among Black participants was "not unexpected given historical mistreatment and higher rates of distrust" of these institutions.

"People of color are subject to a 'double whammy' -- they are at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19 and they are disproportionately incarcerated, living in facilities where they are more likely to become infected," Stern said.

"I hope this study sheds light on the need to find ways of assuring high levels of vaccination of incarcerated individuals," Stern added, "not just for their own health, but for the health of the community. Vaccinating incarcerated individuals not only decreases the risk that officers and other staff will bring COVID-19 home to their family, friends and community, it is also an efficient way to vaccinate a large number of people who are otherwise hard for public health providers to reach once they return to their communities."

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Co-authors include Alexandra Piasecki, Priti Patel, Rena Fukunaga and Nathan Furukawa from the CDC COVID-19 Response Team; Poornima Rajeshwar, Erika Tyagi and Sharon Dolovich from University of California, Los Angeles; and Lara Strick, at the UW and the Washington State Department of Corrections.

 

Evidence of Antarctic glacier's tipping point confirmed for first time

Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level

NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: DR SEBASTIAN ROSIER AT PINE ISLAND GLACIER IN 2015 view more 

CREDIT: DR SEBASTIAN ROSIER

Researchers have confirmed for the first time that Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica could cross tipping points, leading to a rapid and irreversible retreat which would have significant consequences for global sea level.

Pine Island Glacier is a region of fast-flowing ice draining an area of West Antarctica approximately two thirds the size of the UK. The glacier is a particular cause for concern as it is losing more ice than any other glacier in Antarctica.

Currently, Pine Island Glacier together with its neighbouring Thwaites glacier are responsible for about 10% of the ongoing increase in global sea level.

Scientists have argued for some time that this region of Antarctica could reach a tipping point and undergo an irreversible retreat from which it could not recover. Such a retreat, once started, could lead to the collapse of the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by over three metres.

While the general possibility of such a tipping point within ice sheets has been raised before, showing that Pine Island Glacier has the potential to enter unstable retreat is a very different question.

Now, researchers from Northumbria University have shown, for the first time, that this is indeed the case.

Their findings are published in leading journal, The Cryosphere.

Using a state-of-the-art ice flow model developed by Northumbria's glaciology research group, the team have developed methods that allow tipping points within ice sheets to be identified.

For Pine Island Glacier, their study shows that the glacier has at least three distinct tipping points. The third and final event, triggered by ocean temperatures increasing by 1.2C, leads to an irreversible retreat of the entire glacier.

The researchers say that long-term warming and shoaling trends in Circumpolar Deep Water, in combination with changing wind patterns in the Amundsen Sea, could expose Pine Island Glacier's ice shelf to warmer waters for longer periods of time, making temperature changes of this magnitude increasingly likely.

The lead author of the study, Dr Sebastian Rosier, is a Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow in Northumbria's Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences. He specialises in the modelling processes controlling ice flow in Antarctica with the goal of understanding how the continent will contribute to future sea level rise.

Dr Rosier is a member of the University's glaciology research group, led by Professor Hilmar Gudmundsson, which is currently working on a major £4million study to investigate if climate change will drive the Antarctic Ice Sheet towards a tipping point.

Dr Rosier explained: "The potential for this region to cross a tipping point has been raised in the past, but our study is the first to confirm that Pine Island Glacier does indeed cross these critical thresholds.

"Many different computer simulations around the world are attempting to quantify how a changing climate could affect the West Antarctic Ice Sheet but identifying whether a period of retreat in these models is a tipping point is challenging.

"However, it is a crucial question and the methodology we use in this new study makes it much easier to identify potential future tipping points."

Hilmar Gudmundsson, Professor of Glaciology and Extreme Environments worked with Dr Rosier on the study. He added: "The possibility of Pine Island Glacier entering an unstable retreat has been raised before but this is the first time that this possibility is rigorously established and quantified.

"This is a major forward step in our understanding of the dynamics of this area and I'm thrilled that we have now been able to finally provide firm answers to this important question.

"But the findings of this study also concern me. Should the glacier enter unstable irreversible retreat, the impact on sea level could be measured in metres, and as this study shows, once the retreat starts it might be impossible to halt it."

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The paper, The tipping points and early warning indicators for Pine island Glacier, West Antarctica, is now available to view in The Cryosphere.

Northumbria is fast becoming the UK's leading university for research into Antarctic and extreme environments.

As well as the £4m tipping points study, known as TiPPACCs, Northumbria is also the only UK university to play a part in two projects in the £20m International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration - the largest joint project undertaken by the UK and USA in Antarctica for more than 70 years - where Northumbria is leading the PROPHET and GHC projects. This particular study was funded through both TiPPACCs and PROPHET.

CAPTION

Pine Island Glacier

CREDIT

Dr Sebastian Rosier

Physicians must advocate for common sense gun laws for good of public health

This content published in Annals is free to the public

AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS

Research News

 

Below please find a summary of a new article that is published in Annals of Internal Medicine today. The summary is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information.

Physicians must advocate for common sense gun laws for good of public health
#thisisourlane
FREE content: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-1505

A pointed editorial by Douglas DeLong, MD, Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, NY, suggests that it's time for physicians to move past talking and start taking action to protect patients from gun violence and unintentional injury. Dr. DeLong says that in addition to educating patients and their families about firearm safety, physicians must also act locally to stand up against the NRA and advocate for common sense gun laws.

While mass shootings were down overall in 2020, any cause for celebration was short-lived. In March 2021, the U.S. experienced 2 mass shootings taking a total of 18 lives within the span of less than 1 week. The first shooting targeted women and Asian Americans. The motive for the second shooting is not yet known, but the usual "blah, blah, blah" of "thoughts and prayers" was the predictable response from both sides of the political divide.

Dr. DeLong says that now is the time to educate, advocate, and legislate. This means that physicians, given their respected role in society and obligation to promote individual and public health, need to both command their place in the lane (#thisisourlane) and to be at the head of the line with respect to efforts to reduce firearm injury. Dr. DeLong suggests writing letters to editors of local newspapers and to local politicians advocating sensible firearm policy. Physicians can also work with professional societies, such as the American College of Physicians (ACP), which has published several policy papers, position papers, and recommendations on firearm safety, to lobby at all levels for sane firearm injury prevention laws.

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All firearm-related content is available for free at the Annals of Internal Medicine website. Physicians are invited to take a pledge to talk to their patients about firearm safety and gun ownership when risk factors for harm to their patients or the public are present https://acp1.survey.fm/commitment-to-help-reduce-firearm-related-injuries-deaths.

Media contacts: For a PDF of this editorial, please contact acollom@acponline.org. To speak with the author, Douglas M. DeLong, MD, please contact Angela Blair at angela.blair@bassett.org or Gabrielle Argo at gabrielle.argo@aofmh.org.

M-C-M

SPECULATORS

Finnish study detects lottery-like behavior in cryptocurrency market

UNIVERSITY OF VAASA

Research News

 

IMAGE: OUR STUDY IS THE FIRST THAT DEMONSTRATES THAT LOTTERY-LIKE BEHAVIOR IS ALSO AN IMPORTANT DRIVING FORCE THAT PLAYS A ROLE FOR PRICING CRYPTOCURRENCIES, SAYS DR. KLAUS GROBYS FROM THE UNIVERSITY... view more 

CREDIT: PEXELS.COM ALISIA KOZIK (CC)

Recent research from the University of Vaasa and the University of Jyväskyla shows that speculation and lottery-like behavior is a fundamental factor for the pricing of cryptocurrencies. Speculation could explain the enormous increase in the market capitalizations of cryptocurrencies.

Nowadays more than 8000 cryptocurrencies have been launched. Unlike traditional assets like stocks, research has shown that investments in cryptocurrencies are associated with a considerably higher level of uncertainty. The price of Bitcoin, which is the first traded cryptocurrency, increased by from $7,200.17 to $29,374.15 in January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021 period corresponding to a return of more than 300 percent in one year.

Interestingly, the sharp increase in the prices for cryptocurrencies happens in a period where the uncertainty in the market for traditional currencies has risen due to the enormous amounts of money that governments worldwide have decided to supply in an attempt to help economies that are on the edge of collapsing due to the ongoing worldwide COVID-19 crisis. The question arises what are the driving forces for pricing cryptocurrencies?

A recently published research article from Klaus Grobys, University of Vaasa and Juha Junttila, University of Jyväskylä in the well-known Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money explores this current issue.

In their study, the researchers examined the role of speculative behavior in cryptocurrency markets, that is, lottery-like demand. Their study makes use of a set of 20 cryptocurrencies to implement the analysis of the so-called MAX-effect over the January 2016-December 2019 period. These cryptocurrencies exhibited the highest market capitalizations. Their findings indicate that the portfolio of cryptocurrencies that exhibited the lowest daily log-return in the week preceding portfolio formation generates, on average, significantly higher returns than the portfolio of cryptocurrencies that exhibited the highest daily log-return in the week preceding portfolio formation. However, it is important to note that this result is based on portfolio analysis.

The authors also propose a new statistical methodology to compute risk-adjust the payoffs which is based on blocks bootstraps using different block lengths. They show that their new statistical methodology has some benefits because it ensures both (i) latent regimes in the first or second moment in that data generating process are preserved, and (ii) valuable information in the data is not lost.

Moreover, the authors explore the transition probabilities which answers the question of how likely is it that a single cryptocurrency will exhibit an extreme return in the time period that follows the portfolio formation. In this regard, their findings indicate that cryptocurrencies that have experienced extreme positive returns in the past are more likely to generate extreme positive returns in the future than generating extreme negative returns which in turn implies that investors' expectations appear to be rational.

The authors argue that their findings are also interesting from a theoretical point of view because they suggest that similar behavioral mechanisms of underlying investor behavior observed for stock markets are present even in digital financial markets.

- Earlier studies have shown that short-term return reversal and size are priced in the cross section of expected cryptocurrency returns. Another recent stream of research has shown that 50% of Bitcoin turnover is associated with criminal activities. Our study is the first that demonstrates that lottery-like behavior is also an important driving force that plays a role for pricing cryptocurrencies, says Dr. Klaus Grobys.

- Lottery-like behavior might actually explain part of the very recently observed rocket-wise rising valuation of some segments of cryptocurrency markets, too, emphasizes Professor Juha Junttila.

- A good example of this kind of betting behavior is the case of Wallstreetbets forum available from the social media site Reddit. There, the sudden increase in the number of micro level investors investing in some individual stocks has now caused a huge increase in the valuation of these stocks, and the fundamental pricing factors (like the expected future economic performance of the firm in question) have lost their role in the pricing behavior, at least for a short run. In cryptocurrency markets, this kind of behavior has been actually observed, too, so the MAX behavior in cryptocurrency markets can actually be also a reflection of these kinds of activities at the micro investor level. Obviously, our current results deserve much more scrutiny in the near future, says Junttila.

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Research article:

Grobys, K., J.-P. Junttila. Speculation and Lottery-Like Demand in Cryptocurrency Markets, Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, forthcoming.

DOI: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042443121000081

Further information:

Klaus Grobys, University of Vaasa, kgrobys@univaasa.fi, tel. +358 40 631 7042 Juha Junttila, University of Jyväskylä, juha-pekka.j-p.junttila@jyu.fi

Mimes help us 'see' objects that don't exist

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

When we watch a mime seemingly pull rope, climb steps or try to escape that infernal box, we don't struggle to recognize the implied objects -- our minds automatically "see" them, a new study concludes.

To explore how the mind processes the objects mimes seem to interact with, Johns Hopkins University cognitive scientists brought the art of miming into the lab, concluding that invisible, implied surfaces are represented rapidly and automatically. The work appears today in the journal Psychological Science.

"Most of the time, we know which objects are around us because we can just see them directly. But what we explored here was how the mind automatically builds representations of objects that we can't see at all but that we know must be there because of how they are affecting the world," said senior author Chaz Firestone, an assistant professor who directs the university's Perception & Mind Laboratory. "That's basically what mimes do. They can make us feel like we're aware of some object just by seeming to interact with it."

In the experiments, 360 people were tested online. They watched clips where a character (Firestone himself) mimed colliding with a wall and stepping over a box in a way that suggested those objects were there, only invisible. Afterward, a black line appeared in the spot on the screen where the implied surface would have been. This line could be horizontal or vertical, so it either matched or didn't match the orientation of the surface that had just been mimed. Participants had to quickly answer if the line was vertical or horizontal. The team found people responded significantly faster when the line aligned with the mimed wall or box, suggesting that the implied surface was actively represented in the mind - so much so that it affected responses to the real surface participants saw immediately after.

Participants had been told not to pay attention to the miming, but they couldn't help but be influenced by those implied surfaces, said lead author Pat Little, who did the work as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, and is now a graduate student at New York University.

"Very quickly people realize that the mime is misleading them, and that there is no actual connection between what the person does and the type of line that appears," Little said. "They think, 'I should ignore this thing because it's getting in my way', but they can't. That's the key. It seems like our minds can't help but represent the surface that the mime is interacting with - even when we don't want to."

The work is partly inspired by a phenomenon in psychology called the Stroop Effect, where the name for one color is written in ink of a different color (e.g., the word "red" is written in blue ink); when a person is given the task of saying the color of the ink (blue), they can't help but read the mismatched text (red), which distracts them and slows them down. In this regard, miming is like reading: Just as you can't help but read the text you see (even when you're supposed to ignore it), you can't help but recognize the object being mimed, even when it's getting in the way of another task.

While it could seem that the findings diminish the work of mimes - since it suggests our brains are going to imagine these objects automatically - the researchers insist mimes still deserve credit.

"This suggests that miming might be different from other kinds of acting," Little said. "If the mime is skilled enough, understanding what's going on doesn't require any effort at all -- you just get it automatically."

The findings could also inform artificial intelligence related to vision.

"If you're trying to build a self-driving car that can see the world and steer around objects, you want to give it all the best tools and tricks," Firestone said. "This study suggests that, if you want a machine's vision to be as sophisticated as ours, it's not enough for it to identify objects that it can see directly -- it also needs the ability to infer the existence of objects that aren't even visible at all."

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The work was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant #2021053), the Johns Hopkins Science of Learning Institute, and a STAR award from the Johns Hopkins Office of Undergraduate Research.

 BrainGate: First human use of high-bandwidth wireless brain-computer interface

BROWN UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: A PARTICIPANT IN THE BRAINGATE CLINICAL TRIAL USES WIRELESS TRANSMITTERS THAT REPLACE THE CABLES NORMALLY USED TO TRANSMIT SIGNALS FROM SENSORS INSIDE THE BRAIN. view more 

CREDIT: BRAINGATE.ORD

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University and Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center] -- Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging assistive technology, enabling people with paralysis to type on computer screens or manipulate robotic prostheses just by thinking about moving their own bodies. For years, investigational BCIs used in clinical trials have required cables to connect the sensing array in the brain to computers that decode the signals and use them to drive external devices.

Now, for the first time, BrainGate clinical trial participants with tetraplegia have demonstrated use of an intracortical wireless BCI with an external wireless transmitter. The system is capable of transmitting brain signals at single-neuron resolution and in full broadband fidelity without physically tethering the user to a decoding system. The traditional cables are replaced by a small transmitter about 2 inches in its largest dimension and weighing a little over 1.5 ounces. The unit sits on top of a user's head and connects to an electrode array within the brain's motor cortex using the same port used by wired systems.

For a study published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, two clinical trial participants with paralysis used the BrainGate system with a wireless transmitter to point, click and type on a standard tablet computer. The study showed that the wireless system transmitted signals with virtually the same fidelity as wired systems, and participants achieved similar point-and-click accuracy and typing speeds.

"We've demonstrated that this wireless system is functionally equivalent to the wired systems that have been the gold standard in BCI performance for years," said John Simeral, an assistant professor of engineering (research) at Brown University, a member of the BrainGate research consortium and the study's lead author. "The signals are recorded and transmitted with appropriately similar fidelity, which means we can use the same decoding algorithms we used with wired equipment. The only difference is that people no longer need to be physically tethered to our equipment, which opens up new possibilities in terms of how the system can be used."

The researchers say the study represents an early but important step toward a major objective in BCI research: a fully implantable intracortical system that aids in restoring independence for people who have lost the ability to move. While wireless devices with lower bandwidth have been reported previously, this is the first device to transmit the full spectrum of signals recorded by an intracortical sensor. That high-broadband wireless signal enables clinical research and basic human neuroscience that is much more difficult to perform with wired BCIs.

The new study demonstrated some of those new possibilities. The trial participants -- a 35-year-old man and a 63-year-old man, both paralyzed by spinal cord injuries -- were able to use the system in their homes, as opposed to the lab setting where most BCI research takes place. Unencumbered by cables, the participants were able to use the BCI continuously for up to 24 hours, giving the researchers long-duration data including while participants slept.

"We want to understand how neural signals evolve over time," said Leigh Hochberg, an engineering professor at Brown, a researcher at Brown's Carney Institute for Brain Science and leader of the BrainGate clinical trial. "With this system, we're able to look at brain activity, at home, over long periods in a way that was nearly impossible before. This will help us to design decoding algorithms that provide for the seamless, intuitive, reliable restoration of communication and mobility for people with paralysis."

The device used in the study was first developed at Brown in the lab of Arto Nurmikko, a professor in Brown's School of Engineering. Dubbed the Brown Wireless Device (BWD), it was designed to transmit high-fidelity signals while drawing minimal power. In the current study, two devices used together recorded neural signals at 48 megabits per second from 200 electrodes with a battery life of over 36 hours.

While the BWD has been used successfully for several years in basic neuroscience research, additional testing and regulatory permission were required prior to using the system in the BrainGate trial. Nurmikko says the step to human use marks a key moment in the development of BCI technology.

"I am privileged to be part of a team pushing the frontiers of brain-machine interfaces for human use," Nurmikko said. "Importantly, the wireless technology described in our paper has helped us to gain crucial insight for the road ahead in pursuit of next generation of neurotechnologies, such as fully implanted high-density wireless electronic interfaces for the brain."

The new study marks another significant advance by researchers with the BrainGate consortium, an interdisciplinary group of researchers from Brown, Stanford and Case Western Reserve universities, as well as the Providence Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. In 2012, the team published landmark research in which clinical trial participants were able, for the first time, to operate multidimensional robotic prosthetics using a BCI. That work has been followed by a steady stream of refinements to the system, as well as new clinical breakthroughs that have enabled people to type on computers, use tablet apps and even move their own paralyzed limbs.

CAPTION

The wireless device enables transmission of full broadband brain signals while consuming a small amount of power. Batteries last for up to 36 hours.

CREDIT

Nurmikko Lab / Brown University

"The evolution of intracortical BCIs from requiring a wire cable to instead using a miniature wireless transmitter is a major step toward functional use of fully implanted, high-performance neural interfaces," said study co-author Sharlene Flesher, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford and is now a hardware engineer at Apple. "As the field heads toward reducing transmitted bandwidth while preserving the accuracy of assistive device control, this study may be one of few that captures the full breadth of cortical signals for extended periods of time, including during practical BCI use."

The new wireless technology is already paying dividends in unexpected ways, the researchers say. Because participants are able to use the wireless device in their homes without a technician on hand to maintain the wired connection, the BrainGate team has been able to continue their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"In March 2020, it became clear that we would not be able to visit our research participants' homes," said Hochberg, who is also a critical care neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and director of the V.A. Rehabilitation Research and Development Center for Neurorestoration and Neurotechnology. "But by training caregivers how to establish the wireless connection, a trial participant was able to use the BCI without members of our team physically being there. So not only were we able to continue our research, this technology allowed us to continue with the full bandwidth and fidelity that we had before."

Simeral noted that, "Multiple companies have wonderfully entered the BCI field, and some have already demonstrated human use of low-bandwidth wireless systems, including some that are fully implanted. In this report, we're excited to have used a high-bandwidth wireless system that advances the scientific and clinical capabilities for future systems."

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Brown has a licensing agreement with Blackrock Microsystems to make the device available to neuroscience researchers around the world. The BrainGate team plans to continue to use the device in ongoing clinical trials.

Other authors on this latest research were Thomas Hosman, Jad Saab, Marco Vilela, Brian Franco, Jessica Kelemen, David Brandman, John Ciancibello, Paymon Rezaii, Emad Eskandar, David Rosler, Krishna Shenoy and Jaimie Henderson.

The work was supported in part by NIH BRAIN Initiative - NINDS (UH2NS095548), the Department of Veterans Affairs (N9228C, N2864C, A2295R, B6453R, P1155R); NIH-NIDCD (R01DC009899, R01DC014034); NIH-NIBIB (R01EB007401); the Executive Committee on Research (ECOR) of Massachusetts General Hospital; MGH-Deane Institute; DARPA REPAIR; Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford; Larry and Pamela Garlick; Samuel and Betsy Reeves; the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Stanford University and Conquer Paralysis Now (004698).

Disclosure: Arto Nurmikko is an inventor of wireless neural device U.S. Patent #10433754. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH, the Department of Veterans Affairs or the U.S. Government.

Caution: Investigational device. Limited by federal law to investigational use.

Low risk of researchers passing coronavirus to North American bats

USGS risk assessment examined likelihood of transmission during winter research season

US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

Research News

 

IMAGE: USGS WILDLIFE DISEASE SPECIALIST KIMBERLI MILLER COLLECTS FIELD SAMPLES FROM A WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME POSITIVE CAVE IN VERMONT. view more 

CREDIT: USGS

The risk is low that scientists could pass coronavirus to North American bats during winter research, according to a new study led by the U.S. Geological Survey. Scientists find the overall risk to be 1 in 1,000 if no protective measures are taken, and the risk falls lower, to 1 in 3,333 or less, with proper use of personal protective equipment or if scientists test negative for COVID-19 before beginning research.

The research specifically looked at the potential transmission of SARS-CoV-2, which is the type of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, from people to bats. Scientists did not examine potential transmission from bats to people.

"This is a small number, but the consequences of human-to-bat transmission of coronavirus are potentially large," said USGS scientist Evan Grant, an author of the new rapid risk assessment. "The virus has not been identified in North American bats, but if it is introduced, it could lead to illness and mortality, which may imperil long-term bat conservation. It could also represent a source for new exposure and infection in humans."

"These are hard risks for wildlife managers and other decision makers to weigh as they consider whether and how to allow researchers to study bats in their winter colonies," continued Grant.

Bats provide natural services that people value; for example, previous USGS studies found that bats save the U.S. agriculture industry more than $3 billion per year by eating pests that damage crops, reducing the need for pesticides. Yet they are often erroneously portrayed as menacing creatures at Halloween and in horror movies. They are also under duress from white-nose syndrome, a disease that has killed millions of bats in North America.

The origin of SARS-CoV-2 is not confirmed, but studies indicate the virus likely originated from similar viruses found in bats in the Eastern Hemisphere.

CAPTION

Bats showing signs of infections with Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome.

CREDIT

Kimberli Miller, USGS

The rapid risk assessment conducted by the USGS and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service focused on the winter season, when some wildlife scientists conduct field work that may require close contact with or direct handling of the animals. This includes research on white-nose syndrome and population studies that support Endangered Species Act decisions.

"If scientists wear protective equipment, particularly properly fitted masks with high filtration efficiency, or test negative for COVID-19 before conducting the research, they greatly reduce the risk of transmission to North American bats," said USGS scientist Michael Runge, another author on the new assessment.

"The current assessment represents the best available information and is useful for informing time-sensitive management decisions, but there are still many unknowns about how susceptible North American bats are to SARS-CoV-2 and how future virus variants may affect transmission," said Grant.

"The potential for SARS-CoV-2 to infect wildlife is a real concern for state and federal wildlife management agencies and reflects the important connections between human health and healthy environments," said Jeremy Coleman, National White-nose Syndrome Coordinator for the USFWS and an author of the paper. "Natural resource managers need information from these kinds of analyses to make science-based decisions that advance conservation efforts while also protecting the health of people, bats, and other wildlife."

Three bat species - free-tailed bats, little brown bats and big brown bats - were included in the analysis. They were chosen because they have physical and behavioral differences and are typical of the kinds of bats studied in winter. Scientists considered different ways the virus could be transmitted between humans and bats, with airborne transmission as the main pathway.

This study estimates transmission risk to at least one bat during a typical winter survey, which includes a team of five scientists spending one hour in a cave colonized by 1,000 bats.

This research builds on a USGS-led study published last year that examined the likelihood of researchers transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to bats during summer research. Since that study, a substantial amount of new data and knowledge on the virus has been acquired and applied. Winter and summer research can involve different settings and activities.

CAPTION

Insect-eating Brazilian free-tailed bats.

CREDIT

Paul Cryan, USGS

The USGS research was conducted through the Eastern Ecological Science Center at the Patuxent Research Refuge and National Wildlife Health Center.

Read the study, "Risks Posed by SARS-CoV-2 to North American Bats During Winter Field Work" published in Conservation Science and Practice at https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/csp2.410.