It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, May 06, 2021
Methane nibbling bacteria are more active during summer
IMAGE: FRIEDERIKE GRÜNDGER WORKING ON BOARD RESEARCH VESSEL HELMER HANSSEN. view more
CREDIT: PHOTO: RANDALL HYMAN
"The findings of our study tell us where and when greenhouse gas is being most absorbed in Arctic waters." Says Friederike Gründger, who conducted the study as part of her post-doctoral research at CAGE.
The study, which was conducted on the shallow shelf west of Svalbard, took a closer look at communities of bacteria that use methane as an energy source and carbon substrate for growth. The results from the study show that these methane-oxidizing bacteria are highly affected by the specific underwater landscape and seasonal conditions in the study area.
"Several large depressions, up to 40m deep, are observed along the shallow shelf off Western Svalbard, in an area which is also characterized by numerous methane flares. Our study shows that the bacteria are allowed to prosper in these sheltered depressions. We found 2 - 3 times higher methane consumption rates here than reported previously from other locations at the continental shelf around Svalbard ." Says Gründger
"Moreover, we found that in summer, these specific types of bacteria are much more active in utilizing methane, compared with other seasons. "
Microbial consumption is the final sink for the methane gas
Microbial methane oxidation is the final sink for the greenhouse gas that is released from the seafloor before it is liberated into the atmosphere. This means that they are able to dimmish the amount of methane reaching the atmosphere.
"Our results have considerably improved our understanding of the influence of the landscape, and seasonality on the relationship between methane release and microbial communities that thrive in the methane-rich environment."
It is extremely important for scientist to gain a better understanding of the diversity, distribution, and activity of methane-oxidizing bacteria. This allows them to better estimate the balance between the amounts of methane released from the sediments, converted into biomass and potentially released into the atmosphere.
###
Urgent action needed to protect dolphins and porpoises from bycatch in European waters
Marine scientists are calling on the EU to adopt a comprehensive plan to protect dolphins and porpoises from fisheries bycatch in European waters.
Marine scientists are calling on the EU to adopt a comprehensive plan to protect dolphins and porpoises from fisheries bycatch in European waters.
A team of conservation experts, including Newcastle University's Professor Per Berggren, highlight limitations in EU's efforts to address and mitigate bycatch. The scientists argue this infective response is a result of scattered and complicated management responsibility for the conservation of dolphins and porpoises in Europe, and from a lack of quantitative conservation objectives, including biological reference points that will guide management action to ensure that bycatch does not exceed sustainable levels.
To help address the bycatch issue, which is the primary global threat to dolphins and porpoises, the researchers put forward a framework to reduce bycatch levels.
Publishing their recommendations in the journal Fish and Fisheries, the scientists outline a two-step approach that involves establishing a quantitative management objective for each population and implementing monitoring programmes.
To ensure an accurate estimation of bycatch levels, the experts recommend using electronic monitoring systems that allow a more comprehensive and representative sampling of the fleets.
The scientists also recommend regular formal assessments of small cetacean populations, including generation of estimates of abundance and bycatch mortality. If total bycatch has been estimated to exceed the calculated biological reference point, then a mitigation strategy needs to be put in place while monitoring is continued until levels are below the reference points.
The research team, involving experts from University College Cork, Ireland and Duke University, USA, argue that European countries outside the EU also have a responsibility to address the bycatch of dolphins and porpoises in their Exclusive Economic Zones. This includes the UK, which has an important responsibility to develop frameworks to address bycatch.
Professor Per Berggren, of Newcastle University's School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, said: "Among the most distinctive species of marine wildlife in Europe, cetaceans are vital to the history and culture of European maritime communities and generate significant revenue from ecotourism. However, bycatch of small cetaceans in European fisheries is widespread, including very large numbers of common dolphins in trawl fisheries and bycatch of the critically endangered population of harbour porpoise in the Baltic Sea."
Professor Andrew Read, of Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment, said: "The failure to effectively conserve Europe's dolphins and porpoises is not a result of a lack of scientific knowledge or difficulties in monitoring fisheries and bycatch. Instead, it reflects a lack of political will to ensure that these iconic animals are protected from unsustainable mortality in commercial fisheries throughout European waters. We can and must do better."
Professor Emer Rogan, from University College Cork, added: "Despite a number of EU Regulations and Directives, there is no clear European framework to reduce the mortality of dolphins and porpoises in fisheries to sustainable levels. This limitation hampers the effective implementation of effective management actions."
###
Reference:
Rogan, E, Read, AJ, Berggren, P. Empty promises: The European Union is failing to protect dolphins and porpoises from fisheries by?catch. Fish Fish. 2021; 00: 1- 5. https://doi.org/10.1111/faf.12556
IMAGE: TWO CROCODILES SIT ATOP EACH OTHER view more
CREDIT: DAVID CLODE
Relatives of the giant crocodile might have been kings of the waterways during the Cretaceous period, eating anything--including dinosaurs--that got a little too close to the water's edge, but the largest of these apex predators still started off small. Figuring out how these little crocs grew up in a world surrounded by giants is no small task. Now crocs fossils from Texas are shedding light on how these animals changed their diets as they grew, helping them find a place of their own in environments alongside their bigger, badder relatives.
According to the study, published by Cambridge University Press, the crocodiless in question are members of the Deltasuchus motherali and lived along the coastline of Texas 96 million years ago. Previously known from a single adult skull, this 20-foot-long crocodile left behind bite marks on turtles and, yes, dinosaurs. The new discoveries include at least 14 more members of Deltasuchus, ranging from sizes as large as the original specimen down to a paltry (if still snappy) four feet in length.
Having so many crocs from the same fossil population is not common, and the smaller, more delicate bones of juveniles often did not survive the fossilization process.
"So many fossil groups are only known from one or a handful of specimens," said paleontologist Stephanie Drumheller, lead author of the study and a lecturer of earth and planetary sciences at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. "It can be easy to fall into the trap of only thinking about the adults." The researchers ran into challenges piecing together this ancient ecosystem, however. Deltasuchus wasn't alone in its coastal swamps.
Living alongside Deltasuchus were other large crocs, like Terminonaris and Woodbinesuchus.
"These two large croc species were comparable in size to an adult Deltasuchus, but because they had long, narrow snouts with slender interlocking teeth, they were targeting smaller prey in the environment," said Thomas Adams, co-author of the new study and curator of paleontology and geology at the Witte Museum in San Antonio.
A smaller crocodile, Scolomastax, lived in the area as well, but its unusual jaw and chunky dentition hint that it preferred hard food and maybe even plants.
"These results confirm previous work that shows fossil crocs were much more diverse and creative when it came to coexisting in the same environments," said Chris Noto, co-author and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside. "The very warm conditions of the Cretaceous supported a greater number of reptiles and allowed them to explore new niches not possible in the present day."
When these crocodiles died, their skeletons fell apart as they fossilized, getting jumbled together and complicating efforts to tell which bones went with which animal. To help solve this puzzle, the team turned to 3D scanning technology to help reconstruct the skulls. UT undergraduate student Hannah Maddox meticulously scanned each piece and stitched them together into 3D models of complete skulls.
"It was like solving a great puzzle," said Maddox. "Every piece brought you closer to seeing a toothy grin that hadn't been seen in millions of years."
As the models came together, a more complete picture of how Deltasuchus lived started to take shape.
The juveniles had lighter, skinnier snouts and teeth than their older relatives--faces better suited to snap up quicker, softer prey than the heavier, powerful jaws of their parents. This might have helped make sure that little Deltasuchus were not in direct competition with the similarly sized hard-prey specialists in their environments, but as they grew they had other neighbors to consider. The large-bodied, slender-snouted role was already filled by other species. So Deltasuchus shifted in another direction as it grew, bulking up and taking on the heavy jaws and sturdy teeth of an ambush predator.
"This is an amazing fossil discovery where we not only have a population of a single species, but in an ecosystem that has multiple predators coexisting by filling separate niches," said Adams.
Similar results were found in recent analyses of young tyrannosaurs, which spent their teenaged years outcompeting other medium-sized predators in their ecosystems.
IMAGE: GENETIC SAMPLES OF THE NEW FROG, KNOWN SCIENTIFICALLY AS LIMNONECTES BELONCIOI (OR COMMONLY AS THE MINDORO FANGED FROG), WERE COLLECTED YEARS AGO BY KU SCIENTISTS WORKING IN THE FIELD ON... view more
CREDIT: SCOTT TRAVERS
LAWRENCE -- Researchers at the University of Kansas have described a new species of fanged frog discovered in the Philippines that's nearly indistinguishable from a species on a neighboring island except for its unique mating call and key differences in its genome.
The KU-led team has just published its findings in the peer-reviewed journal Ichthyology & Herpetology.
"This is what we call a cryptic species because it was hiding in plain sight in front of biologists, for many, many years," said lead author Mark Herr, a doctoral student at the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology. "Scientists for the last 100 years thought that these frogs were just the same species as frogs on a different island in the Philippines because they couldn't tell them apart physically. We ran a bunch of analyses -- and they do indeed look identical to the naked eye -- however, they are genetically isolated. We also found differences in their mating calls. They sound quite different. So, it was a case of using acoustics to determine that the species was different, as well as the new genetic information."
Genetic samples of the new frog, known scientifically as Limnonectes beloncioi (or commonly as the Mindoro Fanged Frog), were collected years ago by KU scientists working in the field on Mindoro Island in the central Philippines but weren't analyzed until recently. Because of its nearly identical physical similarity to a fanged frog on the island of Palawan, called Acanth's Fanged Frog, it was assumed to be the same species.
"You can look at two different things, but to the human eye without intensive investigation they might seem the same," Herr said. "So, we took a bunch of measurements of hundreds of these frogs -- how long their digits were specifically, how wide the tip of their toe was, the length of one specific segment of their leg, the diameter of their eye -- in order to compare populations statistically, even if we thought they look the same. We ran statistical analyses on body shape and size, including a principal component analysis which uses all the measurements at once to compare the frog morphology in multivariate space. After all that, just like the scientists before us, we found nothing to differentiate the frogs based on the shape of their bodies and their size."
However, because the fanged frogs inhabit islands separated by miles and miles of ocean, the researchers had doubts they were the same species, in part because they had different-sounding calls. They decided to analyze the frogs' genome and determined the Mindoro Fanged Frog qualified as its own distinct species.
"We ran genetic analyses of these frogs using some specific genetic markers, and we used a molecular clock model just to get a very basic estimate how long we thought that these frogs may have been separated from one another," Herr said. "We found they're related to each other, they are each other's close relatives, but we found they'd been separate for two to six million years -- it's a really long time for these frogs. And it's very interesting that they still look so similar but sound different."
The KU graduate student specializes in studying the many species of fanged frog across Southeast Asia, where he's carried out extensive fieldwork. He said the frogs' fangs likely are used in combat for access to prime mating sites and to protect themselves from predators. The Mindoro Fanged Frog, a stream frog, is sometimes hunted by people for food.
But the frog's characteristic call, different from Acanth's Fanged Frog, proved difficult for researchers to record.
"They're really wary of us when we're out there with our sound recorders trying to get recordings of these frogs -- that's a really tough aspect, and we were lucky in this project that we had people over many years that were out there and had recorded both of these frogs on Palawan and Mindoro. So, we had recordings from both islands, and that's kind of rare with this group of fanged frogs because people eat them. They call at night, but the second a flashlight or human voice wanders into the equation they're just going to take off -- because they know that they can be killed by people."
Herr's description of the Mindoro Fanged Frog continues a long tradition of KU field research into the herpetological biodiversity of the Philippines and Southeast Asia, according to his faculty adviser Rafe Brown, professor of ecology & evolutionary biology and curator-in-charge of the Herpetology Division of the Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum.
"Mark's discovery reinforces a lesson we've learned over and over through the years -- things we thought we knew, combined with new information, emerge to teach us something completely unexpected," Brown said. "A century ago, KU professor Edward Taylor identified the Mindoro Island population as Acanth's Fanged Frog, the same species as he had named, a few years before, from Palawan Island -- an arrangement that made very little sense. Zoom forward a hundred years, and we find with new technology, genetic information and bioacoustic data that the two islands' populations are actually very well-differentiated, as we would expect. But not morphologically; their physical characteristics have not diverged. This is a case in which the formation of species has not been accompanied by morphological differentiation -- so called 'cryptic speciation.'"
###
Herr's co-authors on the new paper are Brown; KU graduate students Johana Goyes Vallejos and Robin Abraham; Camila Meneses of the University of the Philippines at Los Baños; Rayanna Otterholt of Haskell Indian Nations University; Cameron Siler of the University of Oklahoma; and Edmund Leo B. Rico of the Center for Conservation Innovations and College of Sciences De La Salle University-Dasmariñas, Philippines.
How a Yale scientist and REM star named an ant for a Warhol 'Superstar'
IMAGE: THE NEW SPECIES OF ANT, DISCOVERED IN AN ECUADORIAN RAIN FOREST, IS NOTABLE FOR ITS SMOOTH AND SHINING CUTICLES AND LARGE TRAP JAW MANDIBLES. view more
CREDIT: PHIL HOENLE
The ant came in a small vial of ethanol, sealed in a plastic bag, and packed in a small cardboard box. It was addressed to Yale's Douglas B. Booher.
In the late 1970s, Ayers returned to his hometown of Athens and helped give birth to a thriving artistic community that spawned some of the most popular American bands of the 1980s, including the B-52's and Stipe's R.E.M. Nestled in the deep South, the college town nurtured a post-Bohemian art scene that drew poets, sculptors, and musicians. The community also welcomed straight, gay, lesbian, and transgender people long before LGBTQ entered the popular lexicon.
And Ayers, philosopher, multi-media artist, and political activist, was the creative straw that stirred this rich stew of creative talent, one person at a time, Stipe recalls.
Stipe and Ayers became close friends; Ayers even wrote songs for R.E.M. So taken with Ayers was Stipe that he asked Ayers to dance to a musical piece he created. In the video, Jeremy's Dance, Ayers moves with awkward purpose and a total lack of self-consciousness to Stipe's synthesized beat. The video was shown at Moogfest, in 2016, soon after Ayers unexpected death following a seizure. He was 68.
"His curiosity for every single person he ever met was the foundation of a fascinating and cross-cultural network of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, often with Jeremy at the very center of several overlapping colonies," Stipe recalled. "He created the salon, laid the trails; he was the connector, the queen ant if you will, the bringer-togetherer."
Studying -- and celebrating -- the diversity of life
The allure of Athens' creative scene also captured Douglas Booher.
He arrived in 1993 and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Georgia, where he studied ecology. He always had a love of nature's biodiversity, but eventually dropped his pursuit of a Ph.D. (he was studying the sexual selection and mating practices of the eastern bluebird) to become a building contractor.
For the next 12 years he built his own flooring company, which manufactured and designed custom carpets and installed wood products from demolished buildings. On weekends, however, Booher transformed into DJ cut-a-rug, a disc jockey and performance dancer who, along with his artistic partner, The Big Nastee, led explosive dances late into the Georgia night. One of their performances was memorialized in this video, shot in Jeremy Ayers' garden.
But his love of the natural world never waned. One evening he joined Stipe on a visit with Ayers, who was excited to share a book with Booher. "He knew I loved insects and he had recently bought a book on the Chinese culture of keeping crickets for their sounds," Booher recalled. "He was also endlessly fascinated with nature. He knew it would bring me joy."
The act defined Ayers, who always saw the individual amidst the great diversity of his community.
"He gave people the freedom to be who they wanted to be," Booher said.
By 2012, Booher decided he wanted to pursue a career in entomology, the study of insects. He completed his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA, where his dissertation was on the structure and assembly of ant communities.
Last year, he joined the Yale Center for Biodiversity and Global Change as a postdoctoral associate in the lab of biologist Walter Jetz. Like Ayers' embrace of members of the Athens' art scene, the goal of the Jetz lab was to explore the global diversity of life, one species at a time, he said.
In the case of the new ant found in the forests of Ecuador, its large trap jaw mandibles and shining and smooth cuticles set it apart from more than 850 species of its genus, Strumigenys, Booher determined. This was a new species. And tradition allows the discoverers to name newly discovered life.
Booher and Stipe already knew what they wanted to do. Booher discussed the issue with Hoenle, who agreed that Ayers was a worthy designee. They considered the name Strumigenys ayers.
But knowing that Ayers would shy away from an honor that was solely personal, they wanted to find a name that would also honor the many people across the gender diversity spectrum who he so often championed.
"Naming species in honor of people is a centuries old tradition among taxonomists," Hoenle said. "To honor someone means to respect their self-identity, and gender is part of that."
As it happened, in 2007 a publication clarified that the International Code of Nomenclature did not require that new species carry Latin suffixes based on the gender of the individual being honored. So rather than using one of the traditional Latin suffixes -- either ae, which designates a female, or i for a male, or orum for a group of male and female individuals -- Booher and Stipe adopted a new suffix that recognizes non-binary individuals and honors the spirit of Ayers, an activist who had always fought for, celebrated, and honored the diversity of life, including those gender diverse individuals who didn't fit neatly into a binary category.
They named the ant Strumigenys ayersthey.
"I knew Jeremy, and knew of no other human that better represented the pan and inclusive world of humans," Booher said. "He was also a lover of biodiversity, so it just seemed to fit."
###
The study on the new species was published in the open-access, peer-reviewed scientific journal ZooKeys.
Emergency physicians first to safely treat vaccine-induced blood clot with heparin alternative
WASHINGTON, DC -- A new case report, detailed in Annals of Emergency Medicine, is the first known case of a patient with VITT (vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia) treated with a heparin alternative following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance.
An otherwise healthy female patient in her 40s came to the emergency department at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital twelve days after receiving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine with a headache, dizziness, and vision changes. The patient was treated on April 13, 2021, the same day that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced a pause in the administration of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. CDC guidance recommended treatment with heparin alternatives but did not recommended any specific alternative in that announcement.
Bivalirudin was given to the patient and the authors write that, "this patient's early outcomes suggest that bivalirudin may be a safe alternative to heparin in patients demonstrating a presentation consistent with VITT."'
"Our experience shows us that these clot reactions are very rare, but they can be treated," said R. Todd Clark, MD, MBA, lead co-author and assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "Americans can feel comfortable getting vaccinated and should discuss any vaccination concerns with their doctor. Getting vaccinated is a critical step in combatting this pandemic so we can return to our normal lives."
While more research is needed on the efficacy of this medicine, the early outcomes of this case may inform the decision making of other health professionals who may be selecting heparin alternatives for patients with VITT, the authors said.
Annals of Emergency Medicine is one of the peer-reviewed scientific journals for the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), the national medical society representing emergency medicine. Annals of Emergency Medicine is the largest and most frequently cited circulation peer-reviewed journal in emergency medicine and publishes original research, clinical reports, opinion, and educational information related to the practice, teaching, and research of emergency medicine.
Contact: Steve Arnoff | sarnoff@acep.org | Twitter: @emergencydocs
What is driving reductions in residential greenhouse gas emissions in the US?
A study from Yale School of the Environment finds smarter home construction and decarbonization of electric supply are contributing to lower emissions from individual households, but trends show other factors could begin to cancel out this progress
In 2005, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from residential energy use hit an all-time high in the United States. Each year since, emissions have dropped at an average annual rate of 2 percent.
In a study published in Environmental Research Letters, "Drivers of change in US residential energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, 1990-2015," a team of researchers from the Yale School of the Environment (YSE) outlined several factors that have contributed to this decrease, highlighting efficiencies in new home construction, energy consumption and household appliances, as well as less emissions in electric generation.
"Without the reductions in GHG intensity of electricity, residential GHG emissions would have been higher," growing by 30 percent from 1990 to 2015 rather than the current 6 percent, says YSE PhD student Peter Berrill from the Center for Industrial Ecology, who co-authored the paper with Ken Gillingham, associate professor of economics at YSE, and former YSE faculty member Edgar Hertwich.
Using detailed data gathered from multiple U.S. housing surveys and energy reviews, Berrill found positives in less GHG-intensive electricity, but added that it's "too risky" to rely on only electricity to decarbonize the residential sector in the coming decades. This, he says, is due to other troubling trends: population growth; reduction of household size, including more senior citizens living on their own; substantial increases in floor area per house in recent decades; and increased access to residential cooling.
To stem the tide against those trends, Berrill sees a need for societal change.
"Without it, we're not going to see meaningful change," he says. More attention needs to be paid, says Berrill, to building smaller homes, including more multi-family housing, and retrofitting existing homes to be more efficient. He also suggested regional approaches -- for example, population growth is slower in the Northeast and Midwest, and more attention needs to be paid to renovating and retrofitting older homes in areas with slowly growing housing stock.
Berrill, Gillingham and Hertwich also authored a related paper recently published in Environmental Science Technology, focused on how housing policy and types of housing are linked to residential energy demand. The researchers analyzed federal policy changes in the 1970s and 1980s that increased single-family housing construction considerably -- an estimated 14 million new homes by 2015, leading to a greater need for heating and cooling, water and electricity.
The researchers estimate that a shift from single-family housing to multi-family housing could reduce energy demand by as much as 47 percent per household and more than 8 percent across the entire U.S. housing stock.
"Removing policy barriers and disincentives to multifamily housing can unlock a large potential for reducing residential energy demand and GHG emissions in the coming decades," the researchers say.
Temple scientists: Drug derived from cannabis shows promising pain-halting effects in mice
IMAGE: SARA JANE WARD, PHD, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHARMACOLOGY AT THE LEWIS KATZ SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT TEMPLE UNIVERSITY. view more
CREDIT: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM
(Philadelphia, PA) - For patients with chronic pain, ineffective treatments, lowered work productivity, and other factors often coalesce, fueling feelings of hopelessness and anxiety and setting the stage for even bigger problems, including substance use disorders. In 2017 alone, some 18 million Americans misused prescription pain relievers over the course of the previous year. In many of these instances, patients suffering from chronic pain became addicted to prescription opioids.
In addition to being highly addictive, many studies suggest that prescription opioids do not effectively control pain over the long term, and hence researchers have been exploring various alternatives, including cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is a non-psychoactive substance derived from the Cannabis plant.
Studies have shown that while CBD reduces pain sensation in animals, its ability to do so in humans is limited by low bioavailability, the extent to which the drug successfully reaches its site of action. Now, new work by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University suggests this obstacle may be overcome by a novel CBD analog known as KLS-13019.
"In a mouse model of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), we've been able to show for the first time that KLS-13019 works as well as, if not better than, CBD in preventing the development of neuropathy and reversing pain sensitivity after pain has been established," said Sara Jane Ward, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at the Katz School of Medicine and senior investigator on the new study. The findings were published online April 6 in the British Journal of Pharmacology.
KLS-13019, developed by the Pennsylvania-based bio-pharmaceutical and phyto-medical company Neuropathix, Inc., is among the most promising neuroprotective CBD analogs currently under investigation. In previous work in cell models, it was found to be more potent than CBD, and studies in animals suggested it had improved bioavailability.
Encouraged by those initial studies, Dr. Ward and colleagues set out to better understand the pain-relieving capabilities of KLS-13019, relative to CBD, in animals with CIPN. CIPN is a common side effect of certain cancer treatments that damage peripheral nerves, which carry sensory information to the arms, legs, and brain. The severe pain, or peripheral neuropathy, caused by CIPN manifests in different ways in human patients but frequently involves tingling or burning sensations and numbness, weakness, or discomfort in the limbs.
In a series of experiments designed to gauge animals' pain responses, the researchers found that pain sensitivity was greatly reduced in animals with CIPN that were treated with KLS-13019 or CBD. KLS-13019 further reversed sensitivity to painful stimuli in animals in which peripheral neuropathy was already established, an effect that was not observed in CBD-treated animals.
Earlier studies have also hinted at the possibility that CBD is able to reduce opioid craving in patients with opioid use disorder.
"Many patients who use opioids for pain management enter a cycle of reinforcement, where each use of opioids triggers reward pathways and perceived pain relief, leading to addiction," Dr. Ward explained.
While Dr. Ward and colleagues did not find evidence supporting a role for CBD in reducing opioid craving, they did observe significantly reduced opioid-seeking behavior in KLS-13019-treated animals.
"This tells us that KLS-13019 has benefits beyond its ability to alleviate pain," Dr. Ward said.
The researchers suspect that while likely sharing a mechanism with CBD for pain relief, KLS-13019 may have an additional mechanism of action, one that breaks up the pathways reinforcing opioid use.
In future work, Dr. Ward and her team plan to explore the mechanisms by which KLS-13019 exerts its effects, particularly those underlying the drug's ability to disrupt opioid-seeking behavior. They also plan to test the ability of KLS-13019 to alleviate other types of pain, beyond CIPN.
###
Other researchers who contributed to the study include Jeffery D. Foss, Daniel J. Farkas, and Lana M. Huynh, Center for Substance Abuse Research at the Katz School of Medicine, and William A. Kinney and Douglas E. Brenneman, Neuropathix, Inc., Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center, Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
The research was funded in part by National Institutes of Health grant R41 DA044898-01.
Prenatal environmental contaminants and childhood disease
IMAGE: THE PEDIATRIC ACADEMIC SOCIETIES (PAS) MEETING CONNECTS THOUSANDS OF PEDIATRICIANS AND OTHER HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS WORLDWIDE. view more
CREDIT: PAS
A state of the art plenary session during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2021 Virtual Meeting discussed prenatal environmental contaminants and childhood disease, and the latest evidence for epigenetic mechanisms associated with transgenerational disease and public policy implications.
Three generational animal models now conclusively demonstrate that fetal exposure to the same environmental chemicals now found in virtually every human pregnancy is linked to multigenerational disease. The diseases range from onset of puberty abnormalities, obesity, immune disorders, cancer, polycystic ovaries, abnormal sperm, behavioral abnormalities and perinatal complications. The mechanism of transmission of disease across generations appears to be non-genetic and correlates with epigenetic changes seen in exposed offspring and their descendants.
This session presented the latest animal data after fetal exposure to: pesticides (DDT, permethrin, vinclozolin, atrazine, glyphosate, DEET), dioxins, jet fuel, plastics and BPA. Presenters discussed the latest data on human pesticide exposures and outcomes of pregnancy (glyphosate) and long-term outcomes after organophosphate exposures in pregnancy. Diseases which have been induced in third generation descendants in rodents were compared with human disease trends and latest funded research was reviewed.
Environmental contaminants are pervasive in pregnant women, and diseases which they cause in animals are increasing in humans. Can we begin to apply what has been learned in animals to human health (while we wait the 100 years it might take to follow a three generational human study)? Finally, presenters discussed the state of governmental agencies whose mandate to protect pregnant mothers and children from environmental contamination.
Presentations included:
Pesticides in Pregnancy: Implications for Children's Health & Environmental Health Policy; presenter: Paul D. Winchester, MD, MA - Indiana University School of Medicine
Environmental Toxicant Induced Epigenetic Transgenerational Inheritance of Disease: Generational Toxicology; presenter: Michael Skinner, PhD - Washington State University
In utero exposure to pesticides and child development in an agricultural population; presenter: Brenda Eskenazi, PhD - University of California Berkeley
Protecting Children from Environmental Hazards; presenter: Ruth Etzel, MD, PhD - George Washington University
The objectives of the session were to review:
epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease in animal data including DNA methylation, Histone retention and non-coding RNA expression after fetal exposures.
how toxicant-induced transgenerational disease may be transmitted to non-exposed third generation descendants.
human data suggestive of adverse outcomes linked to fetal exposure to pesticides and other toxicants.
pathways to discovering biomolecular mechanisms of disease and to mitigation measures available now and in the future.
how practitioners, basic scientists, government regulators and industry might cooperate to achieve health and wealth in this unusual moment in history.
Dr. Winchester chaired the plenary, "Prenatal Environmental Contaminants and Childhood Disease: Latest Evidence for Epigenetic Mechanisms Associated With Transgenerational Disease and Public Policy Implications," on Saturday, May 1 at 5:30 p.m. EDT. Reporters interested in an interview with the presenters should contact PAS2021@piercom.com.
The PAS Meeting connects thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers worldwide. For more information about the PAS Meeting, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org.
###
About the Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting
The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) Meeting connects thousands of pediatricians and other health care providers worldwide. This international gathering offers opportunities for a global audience of physician-scientists, clinicians, and educators to share research, explore new ideas, build career opportunities, and collaborate on future projects. The PAS Meeting is produced through a partnership of four pediatric organizations that are leaders in the advancement of pediatric research and child advocacy: American Pediatric Society, Society for Pediatric Research, Academic Pediatric Association and American Academy of Pediatrics. For more information, please visit http://www.pas-meeting.org. Follow us on Twitter @PASMeeting, Instagram PASMeeting and #PAS2021, and like us on Facebook PASMeeting.
Neighborhood disadvantage may be an environmental risk factor for brain development
USC study suggests improving social and educational resources could alleviate risk
A new USC study suggests that certain neighborhoods - particularly those characterized by poverty and unemployment - may pose an environmental risk to the developing brains of children, impacting neurocognitive performance and even brain size.
The research was published May 3 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
These findings highlight the importance of neighborhood environments for child and adolescent brain development, the researchers said, and suggest that policies, programs and investments that help improve local neighborhood conditions and empower communities could support children's neurodevelopment and long-term health.
"This is the first large, national study of neurodevelopment to determine that the role of neighborhood disadvantage is similar across all regions of the country, and we found that what mattered most were the local differences in neighborhood disadvantage within each city, rather than how cities differ from each other overall," said lead author Daniel Hackman, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
Researchers from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the Keck School of Medicine of USC used data from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, collected from October 2016 - 2018. The ABCD Study is the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.
Neighborhood disadvantage, after accounting for family socioeconomic status and perceptions of neighborhood safety, showed associations with multiple aspects of neurocognition and smaller total cortical surface area, particularly in the frontal, parietal and temporal lobes.
"Our findings aren't specific to the child's home life, as we adjusted for socioeconomic factors at each child's home. But the research suggests neighborhoods may have different levels of social and educational resources and opportunities that can impact a child's neurodevelopment," said senior author Megan Herting, assistant professor at the department of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC.
In addition, the researchers said, disadvantaged neighborhoods may lack quality health services, access to nutritional foods, and well-maintained parks and rec facilities; they may also expose residents to more pollutants or social stressors.
"This research is important as it not only highlights that neighborhoods matter, but it also suggests that promoting neighborhood equity based on the unique local conditions within cities may improve short and long-term health and development of children and adolescents," said Hackman.
###
In addition to Herting and Hackman, other study authors include Dora Cserbik, Jiu-Chiuan Chen, and Rob McConnell of the department of preventive medicine at the Keck School; Bita Minaravesh of the USC Dornsife Spatial Sciences Institute; and Kiros Berhane of the Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.
The study was supported with grants from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (P30ES007048-23S1 and P01ES022845), the National Institutes of Health (R01ES031074 and R21HD099596) and the Rose Hills Foundation.
For a PDF of the study, contact Leigh Hopper at lhopper@usc.edu
