Study finds specialty behavioral health establishments increased, but more needs to be done

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE:  "THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT THIS NEW DATA RESOURCE WE'VE ASSEMBLED DOCUMENTS A GROWTH IN THE NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENTS AND IN THE WORKFORCE, MEANING AN INCREASE IN TREATMENT CAPACITY, " SAID... view more 

CREDIT: INDIANA UNIVERSITY

The number of specialty behavioral health establishments, their workforce and their wages have increased steadily between 2011 and 2019, according to a new study by Indiana University and University of Michigan researchers.

The largest increases were found in the number of outpatient establishments and the size of their workforce, as well as an increase in the average wage at residential health establishments.

Researchers say while these increases are important in closing the gaps in needed treatment, more work needs to be done to increase behavioral health workforce deficits, especially in areas with an elevated drug overdose mortality rate.

At the county-level, they found that the growth of residential specialty behavioral health establishments was positively and significantly associated with the county's drug mortality rate. They did not observe a similar positive association in other settings, including outpatient clinics and hospitals.

"The good news is that this new data resource we've assembled documents a growth in the number of establishments and in the workforce, meaning an increase in treatment capacity," said Kosali Simon, co-author of the study and a Herman B. Wells Endowed Professor in IU's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. "However, the growth in the need for treatment still outpaces available resources, as the number of overdose deaths continues to rise."

The study was published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. It is the first study to examine recent changes in the specialty behavioral health workforce and the job characteristics, specifically wages, for individuals working in these settings.

"Limited availability of specialty behavioral health providers is often reported as a key barrier to filling treatment gaps," said Thuy Nguyen, research assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and lead author of the study. "Through our study, we found increases in the number of establishments, employees and average wages in the treatment sector in recent years, which may indicate that the specialty behavioral health workforce is responding to the increased need for treatment."

According to the study, the number of specialty behavioral health establishments has increased 34 percent from 2011, with the largest increase in outpatient establishments (46 percent) compared to 29 percent for hospitals and 22 percent for residential establishments.

Within each type of specialty behavioral health establishment setting, the study found the number of employees also increased considerably: 33 percent in outpatient establishments, 23 percent in residential and 5 percent in hospitals. By comparison, the increase in the total employment in the health care sector was 20 percent.

Using a longitudinal dataset from the U.S. Census Bureau, the study quantified national and county-level changes in specialty behavioral health workforce outcomes and assessed associations between these measures and age-adjusted drug mortality rate. The study described specialty behavioral health workforce outcomes in 3,130?U.S. counties between 2011 and 2019.

The study stratified workforce outcomes, including the number of establishments, likelihood of having establishments, mean number of workers and average wage of workers per county by service settings: outpatient, residential, and hospital.

###

IU Research

IU's world-class researchers have driven innovation and creative initiatives that matter for 200 years. From curing testicular cancer to collaborating with NASA to search for life on Mars, IU has earned its reputation as a world-class research institution. Supported by $854 million last year from federal, foundation, and other external support, IU researchers are building collaborations and uncovering new solutions that improve lives in Indiana and around the globe.

 

Anyone can get super-hearing

New audio technique can track bats in flight and help localise sources of ultrasonic sound

AALTO UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: THE SPHERICAL ARRAY HAS 6 MICROPHONES SENSITIVE TO ULTRASOUND. THE ULTRASOUNDS ARE PLAYED BACK TO THE HEADPHONES SO THAT THE LISTENER CAN DETECT THE DIRECTION OF THEIR SOURCE CORRECTLY. view more 

CREDIT: VILLE PULKKI/AALTO UNIVERSITY

Humans can observe what and where something happens around them with their hearing, as long as sound frequencies lie between 20 Hz and 20 000 Hz. Researchers at Aalto University have now developed a new audio technique that enables people to also hear ultrasonic sources that generate sound at frequencies above 20,000 Hz with simultaneous perception of their direction. The results have been published in Scientific Reports on 2 June 2021.

'In our study, we used bats in their natural habitat as sources of ultrasonic sound. With our new technique, we can now hear the directions-of-arrival of bat sounds, which means we can track bats in flight and hear where they are - we're essentially giving ourselves super hearing,' says Professor Ville Pulkki from Aalto University.

Small devices have been used before to listen to bats but previous versions haven't allowed listeners to locate the bats, just hear them. With their device the researchers record ultrasound using an array of microphones flush mounted and uniformly distributed on the surface of a small sphere. After the signal has been pitch-shifted to audible frequencies, the sound is played back on the headphones immediately. Currently, the pitch-shifting is performed on a computer, but, in the future, it could be done with electronics attached to the headphones.

'A sound-field analysis is performed on the microphone signals, and as a result we obtain the most prominent direction of the ultrasonic sound field and a parameter that suggests that the sound comes only from a single source. After this, a single microphone signal is brought to the audible frequency range of human hearing and its single-source signal is played back on the headphones so that the listener can perceive the source from the direction the sound was analysed to arrive,' Pulkki says.

On top of its popular appeal, the technique has tangible real-world applications.

'In science and art, people have always been interested in how they could improve their senses. Finding sources of ultrasonic sound is also useful in many practical situations, such as finding leaks in pressurised gas pipes. Minor pipe leaks often produce strong ultrasound emissions not detected by normal hearing. The device allows us to spot the sound source quickly,' Pulkki explains.

'Sometimes, damaged electrical equipment also emit ultrasound, and the device could be used for locating faulty equipment faster in places such as data centres,' he continues.

CAPTION

Hearing ultrasonic sounds with the device in the quietest place in Finland, Aalto University's anechoic chamber.

CREDIT

Ville Pulkki/Aalto University

The Open Access article is available via the link http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-90829-9

Listen to the sounds of bats and see the video to get acquainted with the study. The effect can be heard with headphones only. https://youtu.be/HMkZs7a1nQc

 

World's smallest, best acoustic amplifier emerges from 50-year-old hypothesis

Acousto-electric devices reveal new road to miniaturizing wireless tech

DOE/SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

Research News

 

IMAGE: SCIENTISTS MATT EICHENFIELD, LEFT, AND LISA HACKETT LED THE TEAM AT SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES THAT CREATED THE WORLD'S SMALLEST AND BEST ACOUSTIC AMPLIFIER. view more 

CREDIT: BRET LATTER, SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have built the world's smallest and best acoustic amplifier. And they did it using a concept that was all but abandoned for almost 50 years.

According to a paper published May 13 in Nature Communications, the device is more than 10 times more effective than the earlier versions. The design and future research directions hold promise for smaller wireless technology.

Modern cell phones are packed with radios to send and receive phone calls, text messages and high-speed data. The more radios in a device, the more it can do. While most radio components, including amplifiers, are electronic, they can potentially be made smaller and better as acoustic devices. This means they would use sound waves instead of electrons to process radio signals.

"Acoustic wave devices are inherently compact because the wavelengths of sound at these frequencies are so small -- smaller than the diameter of human hair," Sandia scientist Lisa Hackett said. But until now, using sound waves has been impossible for many of these components.

Sandia's acoustic, 276-megahertz amplifier, measuring a mere 0.0008 square inch (0.5 square millimeter), demonstrates the vast, largely untapped potential for making radios smaller through acoustics. To amplify 2 gigahertz frequencies, which carry much of modern cell phone traffic, the device would be even smaller, 0.00003 square inch (0.02 square millimeter), a footprint that would comfortably fit inside a grain of table salt and is more than 10 times smaller than current state-of-the-art technologies.

The team also created the first acoustic circulator, another crucial radio component that separates transmitted and received signals. Together, the petite parts represent an essentially uncharted path toward making all technologies that send and receive information with radio waves smaller and more sophisticated, said Sandia scientist Matt Eichenfield.

"We are the first to show that it's practical to make the functions that are normally being done in the electronic domain in the acoustic domain," Eichenfield said.

Resurrecting a decades-old design

Scientists tried making acoustic radio-frequency amplifiers decades ago, but the last major academic papers from these efforts were published in the 1970s.

Without modern nanofabrication technologies, their devices performed too poorly to be useful. Boosting a signal by a factor of 100 with the old devices required 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) of space and 2,000 volts of electricity. They also generated lots of heat, requiring more than 500 milliwatts of power.

The new and improved amplifier is more than 10 times as effective as the versions built in the '70s in a few ways. It can boost signal strength by a factor of 100 in 0.008 inch (0.2 millimeter) with only 36 volts of electricity and 20 milliwatts of power.

Previous researchers hit a dead end trying to enhance acoustic devices, which are not capable of amplification or circulation on their own, by using layers of semiconductor materials. For their concept to work well, the added material must be very thin and very high quality, but scientists only had techniques to make one or the other.

Decades later, Sandia developed techniques to do both in order to improve photovoltaic cells by adding a series of thin layers of semiconducting materials. The Sandia scientist leading that effort happened to share an office with Eichenfield.

"I had some pretty heavy peripheral exposure. I heard about it all the time in my office," Eichenfield said. "So fast forward probably three years later, I was reading these papers out of curiosity about this acousto-electric amplifier work and reading about what they tried to do, and I realized that this work that Sandia had done to develop these techniques for essentially taking very, very thin semiconductors and transferring them onto other materials was exactly what we would need to make these devices realize all their promise."

Sandia made its amplifier with semiconductor materials that are 83 layers of atoms thick -- 1,000 times thinner than a human hair.

Fusing an ultrathin semiconducting layer onto a dissimilar acoustic device took an intricate process of growing crystals on top of other crystals, bonding them to yet other crystals and then chemically removing 99.99% of the materials to produce a perfectly smooth contact surface. Nanofabrication methods like this are collectively called heterogeneous integration and are a research area of growing interest at Sandia's Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications complex and throughout the semiconductor industry.

Amplifiers, circulators and filters are normally produced separately because they are dissimilar technologies, but Sandia produced them all on the same acousto-electric chip. The more technologies that can be made on the same chip, the simpler and more efficient manufacturing becomes. The team's research shows that the remaining radio signal processing components could conceivably be made as extensions of the devices already demonstrated.

Work was funded by Sandia's Laboratory Directed Research and Development program and the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies, a user facility jointly operated by Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories.

So how long until these petite radio parts are inside your phone? Probably not for a while, Eichenfield said. Converting mass-produced, commercial products like cell phones to all acousto-electric technology would require a massive overhaul of the manufacturing infrastructure, he said. But for small productions of specialized devices, the technology holds more immediate promise.

The Sandia team is now exploring whether they can adapt their technology to improve all-optical signal processing, too. They are also interested in finding out if the technology can help isolate and manipulate single quanta of sound, called phonons, which would potentially make it useful for controlling and making measurements in some quantum computers.

CAPTION

An acousto-electric chip, top, produced at Sandia National Laboratories includes a radio-frequency amplifier, circulator and filter. An image taken by scanning electron microscopy shows details of the amplifier.

CREDIT

Photo by Bret Latter. Microscopy image courtesy of Matt Eichenfield

Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.

Study evaluates the filtration efficacy of 227 commercially available face masks in Brazil

Models for professional use were the most effective at retaining aerosol particles of a size equivalent to the novel coronavirus, followed by TNT masks sold in drugstores; the efficacy of fabric masks ranged from 15% to 70%

FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

Research News

 

IMAGE: DIGITAL MICROSCOPE IMAGE OF DIFFERENT FACE MASKS MADE OF HYBRID MATERIAL. view more 

CREDIT: FERNANDO G. MORAIS

By Karina Toledo  |  Agência FAPESP - The novel coronavirus is transmitted mainly via inhalation of saliva droplets or respiratory secretions suspended in air, so that face covering and social distancing are the most effective ways to prevent COVID-19 until enough vaccines are available for all. In Brazil, fabric masks are among the most widely used because they are cheap, reusable and available in several colors or designs. However, this type of face covering's capacity to filter aerosol particles of a size equivalent to the novel coronavirus can vary between 15% and 70%, according to a study conducted in Brazil by the University of São Paulo (USP).

The study was supported by FAPESP, and the principal investigator was Paulo Artaxo, a professor in the university's Physics Institute (IF-USP). It was part of an initiative called (respire! to assure access to safe masks for the university community. The results are reported in an article in the journal Aerosol Science and Technology.

"We appraised the filtration efficacy of 227 models sold by drugstores and other common types of store in Brazil to see how much genuine protection they afford the general public," Artaxo told Agência FAPESP.

The scientists conducted a test using a device that contained a sodium chloride solution and emitted aerosol particles of 100 nanometers. SARS-CoV-2 is about 120 nanometers in diameter. A burst of aerosols was triggered, and particle concentration was measured before and after the mask.

As expected, surgical masks were most effective in the test, as were the FFP2 or N95 models certified for professional use, filtering 90%-98% of the particles. Next came masks made of non-woven fabric (TNT) or polypropylene and sold in many kinds of store, with an efficiency of 80%-90%, followed by those made of ordinary cotton, spandex or microfiber, which filtered 40% on average (15%-70%). 

Several factors were critical in enhancing or reducing the degree of protection. "Generally speaking, masks with a central seam protect less because the sewing machine makes holes that increase the passage of air. A tightly fitting top edge improves filtration significantly. Some masks made of fabric include fibers of nickel, copper or other metals that inactivate the virus and hence protect the wearer more effectively. There are even electrically charged models that retain more particles. In all cases, however, efficacy drops when the mask is washed because of wear and tear," said Fernando Morais, first author of the article. Morais is a PhD candidate at IF-USP and a researcher at the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (IPEN), an agency of the São Paulo State Government. 

Breathability

According to Artaxo, dual-layer cotton masks filtered considerably better than single-layer models, but efficacy was hardly altered by a third layer, which reduced breathability.

"The study innovated in several ways. One was its evaluation of breathability or resistance to air passage," Artaxo said. "TNT and cotton masks were best in this regard. The FFP2 and N95 models were not as comfortable, but paper masks were the worst. This is important because if a person can't bear wearing a mask even for five minutes, it's useless."

The authors of the article note that although mask efficacy varies, all types help reduce transmission of the virus, and mask-wearing in conjunction with social distancing is fundamental to control the pandemic. They advocate mass production of FFP2/N95 masks for distribution free of charge to the general public. This "should be considered in future pandemics", according to Vanderley John, penultimate author and coordinator of (respire!, which is organized by USP's Innovation Agency.

"Transmission of the virus is demonstrably airborne and wearing a mask all the time is one of the best prevention strategies, as well as leaving doors and windows open to ventilate rooms as much as possible," Artaxo said.

###

About São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP)

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) is a public institution with the mission of supporting scientific research in all fields of knowledge by awarding scholarships, fellowships and grants to investigators linked with higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, Brazil. FAPESP is aware that the very best research can only be done by working with the best researchers internationally. Therefore, it has established partnerships with funding agencies, higher education, private companies, and research organizations in other countries known for the quality of their research and has been encouraging scientists funded by its grants to further develop their international collaboration. You can learn more about FAPESP at http://www.fapesp.br/en and visit FAPESP news agency at http://www.agencia.fapesp.br/en to keep updated with the latest scientific breakthroughs FAPESP helps achieve through its many programs, awards and research centers. You may also subscribe to FAPESP news agency at http://agencia.fapesp.br/subscribe.

 BEWARE THE FUNGI FROM YUGGOTH

Using the fungal electrical activity for computing

A UOC scientific publication analyses and proposes techniques for correctly interpreting the fungal electrical internal activity

UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA (UOC)

Research News

 

Materials have a variety of properties that can be used to solve computational problems, according to studies in substrate-based computing. BZ computers, slime mould computers, plant computers, and collision-based liquid marbles computers are just a few examples of prototypes produced for future and emergent computing devices. Modelling the computational processes that exist in such systems, however, is a difficult task in general, and determining which part of the embodied system is doing the computation is still somewhat ill-defined.

Claiming that fungi are the most intelligent living organisms in the world sounds like an exaggeration. However, a recent study by Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, a UOC researcher who is contributing to a growing body of knowledge on the use of fungal materials, concurs with this idea. Its implications are numerous and practical in both the medium and the long term. They include the possibility of using fungal tissues as actual computing devices. How could we use a fungus as if it were a computer?

Converting the fungal electrical signals into messages

Fungal mycelium like Pleurotus djamor, also known as the pink oyster mushroom, can resolve an incredible range of computational geometry problems, explained Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi in a previously published article on fungal materials. "By changing the environmental conditions, we can reprogramme a geometry and a theoretical structure of the graphics of mycelium networks and then use the electrical activity of the fungi to create computing circuits", confirmed the researcher.

In a recent study, Electrical activity of fungi: Spikes detection and complexity analysis, published by Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi of the Scene Understanding and Artificial Intelligence Lab (SUNAI) group at the UOC Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications, in collaboration with Andrew Adamatzky of the Unconventional Computing Laboratory at the UWE Bristol, the researchers demonstrate that the pink oyster mushroom generates a series of spikes in electrical potential that are propagated by a growing mycelium.

The electrical activity property of the fungus corresponds to the extremely complex internal communication it uses, and this can be analysed and utilized to operate and develop computing measures. In the research project, the authors propose a variety of measures to be able to "translate" these electrical signals into messages according to the classification of the spikes in potential that can be detected.

The electrical signals in the fungal tissue are so faint and complex that it is impossible to analyse them using the standard techniques of neuroscience, the discipline that traditionally measures them. The researchers' proposal consists of a method for detecting spike arrival time through an exhaustive algorithm that enables fairly efficient characterization of the electrical activity.

The key to the complex language of fungi

Fungi are among the largest, most widely distributed and oldest groups of living organisms in the world. The many advantages for which they are considered an interesting material include their tremendous availability at no cost, their resilience, their capacity for self-maintenance and their rapid growth. To all of this, as demonstrated in the study, we must add the communicative complexity shown by the electrical signals of the fungus.

To obtain a better idea, the researchers have proven that the complexity of this "language" is greater than that of many human languages in terms of communication. That reality opens up the possibility of using the signals as an efficient and practical means of information transmission and computing, giving fungi a very interesting potential as computers.

"At the moment, there are two major challenges to be confronted [in being able to use fungi as computers]", explained Dehshibi. "The first is to implement a computing purpose that makes sense. The second is to characterize the properties of the fungal substrates to discover their true computational potential". These two steps are essential for building functional computing units.

Designing environmental sensors

Will we really see, then, a laptop computer with a microprocessor made with fungi? For the author, the objective of fungal computers is not to replace silicon chips, as the actions in this type of computer are too slow for that. But the properties of fungi could be used as an "environmental sensor on a large scale". Fungal networks could monitor large quantities of data flows as part of their day-to-day activity. If we were able to connect to their networks and interpret the signals, they use to process information, we could learn more about what is happening in an ecosystem and act accordingly.

###

This research project is in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 9, to build resilient infrastructure, promote sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Related paper

Mohammad Mahdi Dehshibi, Andrew Adamatzky. "Electrical activity of fungi: Spikes detection and complexity analysis". Biosystems (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biosystems.2021.104373

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century, by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health. Over 500 researchers and 51 research groups work among the University's seven faculties and two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and open knowledge serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu. #UOC25years

ECT HAS BEEN USED FOR TORTURE

Pandemic shows essential role of ECT as treatment for severe depression

Survey of 20 centers nationwide reveals impacts of reduced services

MICHIGAN MEDICINE - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Research News

  

IMAGE: AN ECT TREATMENT ROOM AT MICHIGAN MEDICINE, THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN'S ACADEMIC MEDICAL CENTER view more 

CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

When the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in North America in March 2020, health care facilities stopped providing all but "essential" care, to reduce infection risks and preserve protective gear known as PPE.

That included changes at many centers that provide ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) for severe depression and other conditions, a new survey shows.

Because ECT involves anesthesia, so that patients are unconscious when carefully controlled pulses of electricity are delivered to key areas of the brain, it is considered an 'aerosol generating' procedure. That means it poses special risks when a respiratory virus such as the novel coronavirus is in widespread circulation.

In a new commentary in the American Journal of Psychiatry, a team led by Daniel Maixner, M.D., of the University of Michigan Department of Psychiatry and U-M Eisenberg Family Depression Center, describes the experiences of ECT centers during spring of 2020. Maixner leads the ECT program at Michigan Medicine, U-M's academic medical center.

Some centers temporarily stopped accepting new patients for ECT, or prioritized ECT care for only the most severely ill and hospitalized patients. Many changed the schedule for the repeated treatments that a course of ECT entails. All followed newly developed protocols to reduce staff exposure to aerosols using patient screening, used advanced personal protective equipment, also called PPE, and collaborated extensively with anesthesia teams to safely administer treatments.

In all, 16 of the centers reduced their capacity to less than half of their usual patient volume between March and June, including 5 that treated less than a quarter of their usual number of patients. For new patients, and those who had completed their initial course of treatment but needed maintenance, 18 of the 20 centers reduced the frequency of treatments.

The changes came with a price. One center lost a patient to suicide. Three other centers had patients who made serious suicide attempts. Seventy percent of sites had patients return to inpatient psychiatric care after living in the community because they weren't able to receive ECT on the planned schedule, and 80% of the centers had patients who had to restart ECT care from the beginning to get back on track.

Because of this, the authors call for ECT to be seen as "essential" in future waves of COVID-19 activity, and in other crises and pandemics, so that care can continue.

With improved availability of COVID testing and PPE, and treatment protocols, most of the academic ECT programs were able to react promptly and return to caring for most patients again by mid-summer 2020, despite many challenges.

However, Maixner said, "risks are high for our patients during the time of COVID-19 and any other pandemic if access to ECT is curtailed. It is important for psychiatrists and patients to advocate for ECT to remain an essential treatment and not just be considered elective."

The survey was conducted by the ECT Task Group of the National Network of Depression Centers. In addition to the new commentary, Maixner presented additional data on the effects of the pandemic on ECT practice at a recent meeting of the International Society for ECT and Neurostimulation, which has also issued a position statement on the essential role of ECT.

Maixner and colleagues have also studied the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of ECT as a key option for patients who have not responded to other forms of treatment for depression and other mental health conditions.

After 15 years, deep brain stimulation still effective in people with Parkinson's

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY

Research News

 

MINNEAPOLIS - Deep brain stimulation continues to be effective in people with Parkinson's disease 15 years after the device is implanted, according to a study published in the June 2, 2021, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Researchers found that compared to before deep brain stimulation, study participants continued to experience significant improvement in motor symptoms, which are symptoms that affect movement, as well as a reduction in medications 15 years later.

Parkinson's disease can progressively affect speech, walking and balance due to a gradual reduction of a chemical in the brain called dopamine. Parkinson's symptoms of muscle stiffness, tremor and slowness of movement can be treated with a medication call levodopa that temporarily restores dopamine. However, that process of rising and falling levels of dopamine throughout the day can cause dyskinesia, a side effect of medication that may include twisting, swaying or head bobbing.

Deep brain stimulation controls motor symptoms from Parkinson's disease with electrodes that are placed in certain areas of the brain. The electrodes are connected to a device placed under the skin in the upper chest. The device controls the electrical impulses.

"Deep brain stimulation benefits seem to last for several years but not enough data have been available to show that these effects are still present more than 15 years after surgery," said study author Elena Moro, MD, PhD, of the Grenoble Alpes University in France and a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. "We wanted to know if people with Parkinson's disease continue to benefit from this treatment. It is exciting to report that our study found in the long run, deep brain stimulation continues to be effective in people with Parkinson's disease."

For the study, researchers identified 51 people who had a deep brain stimulation device implanted at the university hospital. The average age for diagnosis of Parkinson's disease was 40. The average age for device implantation was 51. Study participants had the device an average of 17 years.

Researchers reviewed data for each participant on movement problems, quality of life, medication and scores on tests that measure the severity and progression of Parkinson's disease.

Researchers found that when comparing data on participants before having a device implanted to data 15 years later, the amount of time participants experienced dyskinesia was reduced by 75%.

Researchers also found the amount of time spent in an "off state," when medication was no longer working well, was reduced by 59%. Also, the use of medications to control dopamine levels was reduced by 51%.

Researchers found few side effects of having the stimulation for 15 years and such side effects were mostly manageable.

"Our study also found that despite the natural progression of Parkinson's disease and the worsening of some symptoms that become resistant to medications over the years, participants still maintained an overall improvement in quality of life," said Moro. "Future studies should continue to examine the benefits of deep brain stimulation over longer periods of time and in larger groups of people."

A limitation of the study was that many of the people who had deep brain stimulation at the hospital were not available for study 15 years later, either because researchers were no longer able to contact them or because they had died. It is possible that the people in the study may have been healthier than those not included, meaning the results may not fully reflect the experience of all people using deep brain stimulation.

###

Learn more about Parkinson's disease at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Learn more about Parkinson's disease at BrainandLife.org, home of the American Academy of Neurology's free patient and caregiver magazine focused on the intersection of neurologic disease and brain health. Follow Brain & Life® on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

When posting to social media channels about this research, we encourage you to use the hashtags #Neurology and #AANscience.

The American Academy of Neurology is the world's largest association of neurologists and neuroscience professionals, with over 36,000 members. The AAN is dedicated to promoting the highest quality patient-centered neurologic care. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as Alzheimer's disease, stroke, migraine, multiple sclerosis, concussion, Parkinson's disease and epilepsy.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit AAN.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

 

Gender differences exist even among university students' wage expectations

Though both male and female students have optimistic wage expectations compared to actual wages of similar graduates, when given information about actual wages, women tended to decrease their expectations--while men actually increased their expectations

PLOS

Research News

 

Gender wage gaps are a well-documented issue, and expectations related to this phenomenon seem to be present even among university students discussing future employment, according to a study published June 2, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ana Fernandes from the Berner Fachhochschule and the University of Fribourg and Martin Huber from the University of Fribourg, and Giannina Vaccaro from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

The gender wage gap is a well-established phenomenon in today's labor market, with elements both explainable (e.g. certain job paths being predominantly held by one gender) and as-yet unexplained. In this paper, the authors assessed the effect of gender on wage expectations in university students.

To gather their data, the authors surveyed a total of 865 students across two Swiss universities. The survey covered general demographic information; professional information, e.g. the type of job and workplace the student hoped to have after graduation and their expected wage (both directly after graduation and three years on); and personal information, e.g. hopes for a future family and/or children, preferences between full- and part-time work in the presence of children, home location, etc. One version of the survey included a bar graph with information on monthly gross income in the private sector.

There was a gender wage gap even among expected wages for surveyed students: this gap was 9.7 percent directly following graduation, and 11.6 percent for wages three years afterward. When comparing expected wages from the students surveyed to averages of actual wages from comparable graduates, the authors found that both men and women were optimistic about their expected wages: on average, male students' expected wages exceeded the actual wages of similar graduates by 13 percent, whereas female students' expected wages exceeded the actual wages of similar graduates by 11.2 percent. Interestingly, for those students given the extra bar graph of gross income information, male students actually increased their average expected wages (incorrectly, based on the actual wages of similar graduates), while female students tended to decrease their average expected wages.

The authors note that including the personal and professional responses in their statistical analysis greatly reduced (by approximately 30 percent) the direct, unexplained effect of gender on wage expectations. Nevertheless, a non-negligible, statistically significant direct, unexplained effect of gender on wage expectations remains for most cases under several statistical models considered.

The authors add: "Males typically forecast higher future earnings than females. We find that a broad set of personal and professional controls -- collected in an own survey of two Swiss institutions of higher education - largely accounts for those gender differences in expectations across most empirical specifications."

###

Research article

Peer reviewed; Survey; People

Citation: Fernandes A, Huber M, Vaccaro G (2021) Gender differences in wage expectations. PLoS ONE 16(6): e0250892. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250892

Funding: G.V. Project Grant: P400PS_180732 Swiss National Science Foundation http://www.snf.ch/en/Pages/default.aspx The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250892

Transgender teens may turn to substance use to cope with stress

PLOS

Research News

 

Over half of transgender or gender minority (GM) adolescents engage in substance use, seemingly as a coping strategy in response to GM stressors, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sabra L. Katz-Wise of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, US, and colleagues.

Compared to cisgender adolescents, adolescents who have a different gender identity than was their sex assigned at birth report higher rates of emotional distress. Previous studies have found higher prevalence of substance use among GM youth but have not examined longitudinal compounding risk factors and protective factors.

In the new study, researchers surveyed 30 GM adolescents aged 13 to 17 as part of the longitudinal Trans Teen and Family Narratives Project. Participants were asked to complete an online survey every six months for two years. GM-related stressors, including rejection, harassment and threats due to gender identity, were quantified along with substance use and possible risk and protective factors. Most participants were white (73 percent) and participants identified as trans feminine (11), trans masculine (15) and nonbinary (4).

Among all participants at the outset of the study, 17 percent reported any substance use, including tobacco, alcohol and marijuana; by the conclusion of the study two years later, 56 percent of participants reported any substance use. Higher exposure to GM stressors significantly increased the odds of alcohol use (OR=1.59, 95% CI 1.02-2.49) but not tobacco or marijuana use. Internalized transphobia was found to be a significant mediator of the association between these stressors and substance use. Increased resilience and gender-related pride tended to predict lower odds of substance use (all adjusted odds ratios below 1), and family functioning and social support both significantly moderated the association between GM stressors and alcohol use. The authors conclude that future interventions with GM youth should focus on addressing internalized transphobia and strengthening resilience, gender-related pride and family functioning.

The authors add: "This study found that gender minority adolescents use substances to cope with gender minority stress experiences. Interventions to address substance use in gender minority adolescents should focus on addressing internalized transphobia and strengthening resilience, gender-related pride, and family functioning."

###

Research article

Peer reviewed; Survey; People

Citation: Katz-Wise SL, Sarda V, Austin SB, Harris SK (2021) Longitudinal effects of gender minority stressors on substance use and related risk and protective factors among gender minority adolescents. PLoS ONE 16(6): e0250500. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0250500

Funding: The Trans Teen and Family Narratives Project was funded by grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (K99R00HD082340) and the Boston Children's Hospital Aerosmith Endowment Fund for Prevention and Treatment of AIDS and HIV Infections, both awarded to SKW. SKW and SBA were also funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration (Leadership Education in Adolescent Health project 6T71-MC00009). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250500