New approach to school transition

Child perspectives differ to adults, study finds

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY PHD DR JENNIFER FANE, NOW PROJECT COORDINATOR OF THE CAPU WORK INTEGRATED LEARNING INITIATIVES IN VANCOUVER, CANADA. view more 

CREDIT: JENNIFER FANE

The change from early years services into formal educational settings has long been considered an integral transition point for young people. Now research from Flinders University now asks, "Is service integration actually important to the children?"

A recent paper, published in Children's Geographies, led by Flinders University PhD Dr Jennifer Fane, who is now based at Capilano University in Canada, actually seems to have little impact on children's experiences of this transition.

The Australian Government has supported the Integrated Early Years Services since 2005, following what is considered best practice policy for supporting children and families. It is considered to constitute services that are connected in ways that create a comprehensive and cohesive system of support for children and families, including early childhood care and education, health, social services, parenting, and family services.

"For adults, this concept seems to intuitively make sense - it's basically a one-stop-shop where families can access services and reduce the need to negotiate between sectors and disciplines to access the care, health, and educational needs of their children and support their overall well-being," explains Dr Fane. "What we wanted to know, though, was whether they made life better for the children they were servicing."

The researchers identified potential early childhood education and care services by mapping them against their socio-economic status and level of service integration to reflect the diversity of these services across metropolitan South Australia. All four-to-five year old children attending the eight selected sites who were due to start school in 2017 were invited to participate. Twenty children participated with parental or guardian consent given.

Service integration did not appear to be a significant factor for young children during their transition to school.

Eighteen of the 20 participants spoke positively about their transition to school, with most sharing their perception that school provided a lot of time for play and that the rules were 'good' and fair. These 18 children were from all transition categories, with children attending fully integrated early childhood education and child services generally having no marked difference from children in the moderate or low service integration categories.

"Service integration has come under critique before," explains Dr Fane. "The work across disciplines is complex, and while in theory everyone works together, it can often be the case that the services are delivered side-by-side and effectively siloed rather than truly integrating practices".

"What adults value is different from what children value, and we must recognise this," says Dr Fane.

"What we have learned from doing wellbeing research with instead of on young children is that their experiences of wellbeing are broader than what adults are currently measuring. For example, play and agency are key aspects of wellbeing to children that are not measured or assessed currently in child wellbeing frameworks".

Through the study, the researchers found that 90 percent of the children reported positively on their play experiences - a key indicator of their wellbeing, by their own estimations - after transition, regardless of how integrated their service was.

"Most children thought that school offered more opportunity for play than their early childhood setting, even though we know this isn't actually the case," says Dr Fane. "This being such a strong marker for wellbeing for children, though, indicates that they saw this very positively, regardless of the integration levels of their early years service."

Most of the children also reported that there were more rules at school than their early childhood service, but they did not view this as a bad thing. The rules made sense to the children, and they could see the benefits to the rules that the adults put in place.

"The children, regardless of the integration level of the services, saw the rules as fair and in place to keep them safe, and expressed that the felt good when following the rules set out for them at school," says Dr Fane.

"The study found that - at least for the young children in this study - service integration in and of itself did not have a significant impact on children's experiences of wellbeing during the transition.

"Informal integrations and partnerships were just as successful as the more formal arrangements, and so holding service integration up as the best way to go might not be rooted in reality. There are some things that intuitively seem to make sense, but don't necessarily hold up to further scrutiny.

"We need further research into whether this is actually best practice, or whether it just appears to be so on paper."

###

Fane, J, Jovanovic, J, Redmond, G and MacDougall, C (2021). Preschool aged children's experiences of integrated early years services in Australia: Including missing perspectives. Children's Geographies (Taylor & Francis) DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2021.1942790

SEE R.D. LAING ESSAY; 'WHAT IS OBVIOUS FROM HIS BOOK DIALECTICS OF LIBERATION 1971

 

Dignity support at end of life

How a two-way approach can promote quality care

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY OCCUPATIONAL THERAPIST DR DEIDRE MORGAN, FROM THE RESEARCH CENTRE FOR PALLIATIVE CARE, DEATH AND DYING (REPADD). view more 

CREDIT: FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

At the end of life, people may have to rely on others for help with showering, dressing and going to the toilet. This loss of privacy and independence can be confronting and difficult.

Now Australian occupational therapy (OT) researchers have interviewed 18 people receiving palliative care about how they feel about losing independence with self-care, specifically their intimate hygiene, as function declines with disease progression. The study aims to raise awareness of how to provide better care for people at the end of life.

Lead researcher Dr Deidre Morgan, a Flinders University occupational therapist with 26 years of clinical experience, says the clear message is there are specific ways to provide assistance with intimate hygiene that may conserve or compromise a person's dignity.

At its core, it comes down to effective two-way communication and providing opportunities for the person to influence how they receive care.

"Asking a person which parts of their intimate hygiene they want help with, which parts they want to do themselves, and how they want this help to be provided can boost a person's sense of agency and control over their care," says Dr Morgan.

The researchers, including OT experts from the Flinders University, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Monash University and SA Government agencies, say the study is a vital reference for health professionals to raise awareness about their responsibilities to enable agency and even support partial independence.

"What we do and what we say can have a profound effect on a person's dignity - especially if we are helping in intimate tasks like showering and going to the toilet," says co-author Celia Marston, from the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne.

"It is critical that we hear what a person wants the care to look like, or not look like."

One participant, a 65-year-old professional woman with advanced cancer, told researchers that loss of agency and intimate hygiene dependency was so confronting that she couldn't ask for the help she actually wanted.

This shows how important it is for carers to create opportunities for people to voice the help they want, researchers conclude.

###

The article, Conserving dignity and facilitating adaptation to dependency with intimate hygiene for people with advanced disease: A qualitative study (2021) by DD Morgan, C Marston, E Barnard and C Farrow, has been published in Palliative Medicine (Sage) DOI: 10.1177/02692163211017388 https://doi.org/10.1177/02692163211017388

FROM THE ARCHIVE
SUBPEONA BANNON!
THE LEAD UP TO JAN 6 INSURRECTION

Molly Butler / Media Matters

YouTube terminated Steve Bannon's account. He had blood on his hands after months of calling for revolution and violence.

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

MEDIA MATTERS

PUBLISHED 01/08/21 


One of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s mantras is “action, action, action” -- a call to his followers to be engaged and ready for political fights. On January 8, YouTube finally acted, removing Bannon's War Room account, after months of Bannon calling for revolution and violence.


On January 6, a group of pro-Trump insurrectionists took action, staging an attack on the U.S. Capitol to try to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and causing the deaths of five people. Some of the rioters described it as “the beginning of another American revolution.”


During the insurrection itself, one of the insurrectionists directly echoed Bannon:

In the lead-up to the attack, Bannon used his YouTube channel to repeatedly call for violence and revolution around the 2020 election while spreading false claims that it was being stolen from President Donald Trump. I’ve compiled a noncomprehensive review of this rhetoric, from before and after the insurrection.

Two days prior to Election Day, Bannon compared the response to the 2020 election to the American Revolution and likened himself to the founders who were labeled “insurrectionists” -- what he called the “Bannon types” of the era. Co-host Jack Maxey reminded his listeners that the founders “pledged their lives and their sacred honor” to the cause, and Bannon asked, “What have you guys done out there in the audience?”

Steve Bannon compares himself to John Adams

STEVE BANNON (CO-HOST): We’re not backing off of this, are you kidding me? This is what we’re built for, this is what we live for, right? Human fate, human destiny, all in your hands. Human action. You control your own fate. Your life, your country’s life, is what you make it. You think those guys before the revolution had to make a decision -- we wouldn’t have ever broken off from the British Empire.

JACK MAXEY (CO-HOST): Remember, those guys pledged their lives and their sacred honor.

BANNON: Sacred honor. Donald J. Trump took an oath to God on the Holy Bible. Took an oath to God before the world, right? An oath that’s been passed down from time immemorial, from Washington — right? — in an unbroken chain. Took that oath. What have you guys done out there in the audience?

MAXEY: And a third of those guys who signed the Declaration of Independence kept that oath and gave their lives.

BANNON: Yep. I tell you -- had to fight for it. And by the way, they knew they were going to hang. That’s what Franklin told them. Here’s what happened: They tried to redress it with the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Dickinson, John Dickinson, a Quaker, who I understand his argument. Hey, we’re Englishman; let’s try to work this out with Parliament.

They sent the bill of grievances, what they said, and Dickinson said, hey, we’re going to go to the king and we’re going to get this worked out. And I want John Adams, I want the hotheads, I want the Bannon types to shut up because they’re stirring trouble, they’re insurrectionists. I want them to shut up, I want to get them -- these Boston guys, that Sam Adams guy, this Hancock guy is nothing but a -- they’re all gun runners, they’re all making money bringing contraband in, they’re all scumbags. Right? That’s what they said. Hancock is a bad guy, Sam Adams is a bad guy, John Adams is a lawyer for the bad guys. Shut up because they’re insurrectionists. We’ll work this out.

And the king came back, he thought it -- they sent it to him, the bill of grievances from Dickinson, they got it, they reviewed it, sent it back, here it is, how about this. It’s treason and if you keep it up you’re all going to hang, right?

...

We’ve gone through this before, this is an inflection point, it’s a fourth turning, this is an inflection point. Didn’t tell you it’s going to be easy, it’s not going to be easy. All you have to do is have his back.

And the day before the violent pro-Trump mob overtook the U.S. Capitol, Bannon declared on his War Room: Pandemic podcast that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”

His violent talking points undermining the democratic process extend back to months before the election, and they continued in its aftermath:

In September, he launched a national speaking tour called “The Plot to Steal 2020,” pushing various fantasies about election fraud, “lawfare,” and impending violence by liberals that would supposedly be used to elect Joe Biden to the presidency.

On the September 21 edition of War Room: Pandemic, he described the run-up to the election as “the pre-game to the civil war in the United States.”

During that same broadcast, he claimed Democrats are “trying to foist an illegitimate regime onto the republic of the United States. That would be Joe Biden.”

On September 28, he told his audience on YouTube the election would “be a knife fight” and said Trump needs “knife fighters.” He also challenged them to become election officials and “contest every ballot.”

On Election Day, before polls had closed, Bannon hosted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani to declare Trump the winner. Suggesting the president would declare victory that night, Bannon said: “We're going to set the ground rules ... about not stealing this election.”

On November 5, Bannon called for Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray to be beheaded, saying: “I'd put the heads on pikes — right? — I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats.”

He also called for Attorney General Bill Barr to “arrest Jack Dorsey today” after Twitter put ”disputed” labels on Trump’s tweets falsely claiming victory.

Bannon declared that pro-Trump demonstrations show “we control the streets now,” comparing the situation to the American Revolution and the Civil War.

On November 4, Bannon compared the 2020 election results to what Aaron Burr supposedly said about the duel that killed Alexander Hamilton: “‘When it came to that split second, Hamilton’s hand shook and mine didn’t, right? So whose hand is going to shake today?” The former Trump adviser then added, “I saw the war dance. We got a good war dance. Don’t need a war dance, need a war party.”

Bannon targeted a Michigan man who stood up for voting rights, baselessly suggesting he is a domestic terrorist who should be punished like dissidents during China’s Cultural Revolution.

With votes still being counted, Bannon appeared on Fox Business to declare that “Trump is already in his second term.”

On November 21, he used bogus voter fraud claims to declare that “we’re not going to count all the votes.”

Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood appeared on War Room: Pandemic and called for Trump supporters to do what “our Founding Fathers did in 1776” and “be prepared to fight for their freedom” against “people trying to take over our country.” Bannon said Wood makes him “proud to be an American and a southerner.”

Now that his persistent fantasizing has become a painful reality, Bannon suddenly doesn’t want anything to do with it -- yet he also didn’t want to lose the hardcore audience he’s whipped up to violence. Since the events of January 6, Bannon has tried to walk a thin line:

After the Capitol insurrection, Bannon directed Trump supporters to “color inside the lines,” meaning they should not resort to violence, and to “color boldy.”

He also said that “you can’t justify” the violence that took place at the Capitol because “we don’t believe in taking matters into our own hands; we believe in the rule of law,” then blamed Vice President Mike Pence and “feckless Republicans” for failing Trump and inviting the riot.

He also downplayed the violence after the fact, saying, “It looks like 99% of the people are really peaceful, staying in the plaza.”

But his objections ring hollow, especially as he’s continued to discourage his audience from changing course or reconsidering their support for Trump “because we know you’re not summer soldiers or sunshine patriots.”

After an insurrectionist at the Capitol repeated Steve Bannon's call for violence, his show is still streaming via Google Play

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ
MEDIA MATTER
PUBLISHED 01/09/21 2


Yesterday I reported that an insurrectionist at the Capitol on Wednesday had repeated Steve Bannon’s call to put federal bureaucrats' “heads on pikes.”



At the time of Bannon’s remarks, YouTube issued a strike against the former White House chief strategist’s channel and suspended his show War Room: Pandemic from streaming for a week. Twitter removed him from the platform altogether, Bannon’s lawyers dropped him as a client, and Spotify later followed suit.


After Bannon made more than a half a dozen calls for violence and revolution, YouTube finally took the long overdue step of suspending his channel.




But it comes too late; YouTube deserves no congratulations.

We’ve now seen how his words have been directly connected to a violent insurrection. Only after the worst possible outcome became a terrifying reality did YouTube decide to enforce its own policies against inciting violence and pushing misinformation related to the 2020 election.

YouTube’s parent company Google must now follow through with its commitment to deplatform War Room: Pandemic. The co-hosts are now directing their audience to watch them on the app for Real America's Voice, the cable network that hosts the show. The app is accessible via Google Play, which has a policy against the incitement of violence on the platform. If the company is serious about preventing further political violence in this country, it must take action to ban this app

"All the lonely people": The impact of loneliness in old age on life and health expectancy

DUKE-NUS MEDICAL SCHOOL

Research News

Singapore, 7 July 2021 - In 1966, The Beatles cemented the plight of lonely older people in the popular imagination with the iconic 'Eleanor Rigby', a song that turned pop music on its head when it stayed at number one on the British charts for four weeks. Today, the impact of loneliness in old age on life and health expectancy has been categorically quantified for the first time in a study by scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School (Singapore), Nihon University (Tokyo, Japan) and their collaborators, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

"We found that lonely older adults can expect to live a shorter life than their peers who don't perceive themselves as lonely," summarised the study's lead author, Assistant Professor Rahul Malhotra, Head of Research at Duke-NUS' Centre for Ageing Research and Education (CARE). "Furthermore, they pay a penalty for their shorter life by forfeiting potential years of good health."

Associate Professor Angelique Chan, Executive Director of CARE and a senior author of the study, noted, "Besides being the year associated with the coronavirus disease, 2019 was also when the number of adults aged over 30 made up half the total global population for the first time in recorded history, marking the start of an increasingly ageing world. In consequence, loneliness among seniors has become an issue of social and public health concern."

Research Project Professor Yasuhiko Saito, from the College of Economics, Nihon University, a senior co-author of the study, added, "This study is timely because stay-at-home and physical distancing measures instituted since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic have only intensified concern for the mental and physical well-being of older persons."

Key findings: Loneliness has real, physical consequences

The study findings show that people aged 60, who perceive themselves to be sometimes lonely or mostly lonely, can expect to live three to five years less, on average, compared to peers who perceive themselves as never lonely. Similarly, at ages 70 and 80, lonely older persons can, on average, expect to live three to four and two to three years less, respectively, compared to non-lonely peers.

Using the same dataset, the researchers found that the perception of loneliness has a similar impact on two types of health expectancy--remaining years of life lived in a self-rated state of good health as well as remaining years of life lived without being limited when going about 'activities of daily living'. Such activities include routines like bathing and dressing, rising from or settling into a bed or chair, and preparing meals.

At age 60, sometimes lonely or mostly lonely seniors can expect to spend three to five fewer years of their remaining life, on average, without limitations in daily living activities, compared to never-lonely peers. At age 70, their active life expectancy goes down to two to four fewer years, on average. At age 80, it is at one to three fewer years, on average.

How common is loneliness among older adults in Singapore?

Singapore is a particularly relevant setting for studying how loneliness impacts older adults because the country has a rapidly ageing population, and a 'collectivistic' culture, in which relationships and the interconnectedness between people are central--in contrast to an 'individualistic' culture, where each individual's needs and desires are considered to be more important. Previous studies found levels of loneliness to be higher in collectivistic societies, suggesting loneliness may have a more detrimental impact in Singaporean society.

In 2016 and 2017, CARE researchers conducted a study--known as the Transitions in Health, Employment, Social Engagement, and Intergenerational Transfers in Singapore (THE SIGNS) study--to look into factors influencing health, well-being, and activity and productivity levels in older Singaporeans. Nationally representative data, collected from more than 2,000 older Singapore citizens and permanent residents, showed that a third (34 per cent) perceived themselves to be lonely. This proportion increased with age, from 32 per cent among those aged 60-69 years, to 40 per cent among those aged 80 and above.

More males (37 per cent) were lonely, relative to females (31 per cent). Across education levels, the proportion of lonely older Singaporeans was lowest (33 per cent) among those with no formal education, and highest (38 per cent) among those with higher-than-tertiary education. This proportion was nearly 10 per cent higher among seniors who lived alone (43 per cent) compared to those who did not live alone (33 per cent).

"Building on THE SIGNS study, our recent findings highlight the population health impact of loneliness, and the importance of identifying and managing it among older adults," said Asst Prof Malhotra. "This is part of a series of studies to assess the impact of important health and social constructs, like loneliness, sensory impairments, obesity, gender and education, on life and health expectancy among older adults."

"With older persons at potentially greater risk of loneliness as a result of pandemic control measures, there has been increasing policy interest in loneliness around the world," said Assoc Prof Chan. "In 2018, the UK launched a national strategy for tackling loneliness and, in 2021, Japan appointed a 'Minister of Loneliness'. We hope this study helps galvanise more policies to tackle loneliness among older persons."

More and more older people suffer a traumatic brain injury due to falls

RUHR-UNIVERSITY BOCHUM

Research News

 

The study is the first on epidemiology and causes of traumatic brain injury in over 20 years. The research team reports in the journal BMJ Open of 4 June 2021.

Falling and cycling without a helmet are common causes

From a minor fall on a bicycle to a serious road traffic accident: The causes of a traumatic brain injury are manifold. About 90 percent of the approximately 270,000 cases per year are classified as mild, ten percent as moderate or severe. Current findings show that traumatic brain injury is increasing in the age group of over-65s. The research team at BG Kliniken in Bochum, Hamburg, Berlin, Halle, Frankfurt, Ludwigshafen and Murnau found that there has been a shift in the age group most frequently affected and that there is a discernible correlation between the severity of a traumatic brain injury, age and cause.

The study shows that the most frequent causes of traumatic brain injury are falls and no longer road traffic accidents. There has also been a shift with regard to road traffic accidents: The largest group here is no longer car occupants, but cyclists without helmets.

"We are registering a clear shift in the majority of the affected age group towards the older generation. This phenomenon can be observed in almost all industrialised countries," explains Professor Peter Schwenkreis, senior physician at the Neurological Clinic at Bergmannsheil. A link with the age of those affected is also discernible. Falls are the most common cause, especially among older women and men. "Older people are significantly more prone to falls and thus suffer a traumatic brain injury more quickly than other age groups. In addition, the severity of the injury is higher in these patients", Schwenkreis specifies. "This also explains why we are seeing an increase in deaths caused by such an injury in this age group."

Study with over 3,500 participants

For the study, a neuroscientific research group of the BG Kliniken observed and evaluated the development, treatment and impact for patients with traumatic brain injury. A total of 3,514 patients were included in the study. All of them were treated at one of the participating BG Kliniken between 1 October 2014 and 30 September 2015. The prerequisite was that the medical care had taken place within the first 24 hours after suffering the traumatic brain injury.

The results were collected using two different methods: Evaluation of documentation forms from initial care to rehabilitation on the one hand, and standardised telephone interviews with the affected persons three and twelve months after they suffered the trauma on the other hand. A study of this magnitude on the epidemiology of traumatic brain injury has not been published in Germany since 2000/2001.

Simple measures can have a big impact

As moderate to severe traumatic brain injuries occur more frequently in older people, the research group identifies a specific need for more prevention work here. "Training measures for safe walking, training in the use of walking aids or redesigning the home by removing tripping hazards are conceivable. As simple as these measures sound, they can prevent serious injuries", says Peter Schwenkreis. "The advances in passenger protection in cars have had a clearly demonstrable effect", he explains further. "Now it is important to implement the protection of pedestrians and cyclists as part of the emerging shift in mobility."

Traumatic brain injury

A traumatic brain injury is any injury to the skull, with or without fracture, that involves damage to the brain. Just like the causes, the symptoms can also be very diverse. They range from headaches, dizziness and lightheadedness to amnesia or impaired consciousness. However, even minor injuries to the skull can cause bleeding or swelling the brain, which is why a traumatic brain injury should be assessed immediately after an accident.

###

Muscles retain positional memory from fetal life

New perspectives on the pathological mechanisms of muscle diseases and regenerative medicine development

KUMAMOTO UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: MUSCLE STEM CELLS PROLIFERATE TO PRODUCE NEW MYOFIBERS. view more 

CREDIT: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR YUSUKE ONO

A research collaboration based in Kumamoto University, Japan has discovered that muscles and the resident stem cells (satellite cells) responsible for muscle regeneration retain memory of their location in the body. This positional memory was found to be based on the expression pattern of the homeobox (Hox) gene cluster, which is responsible for shaping the body during fetal life. These findings are expected to provide clues to elucidate the pathogenesis of muscle diseases such as muscular dystrophy, in which the position of muscle vulnerability varies depending on the type of muscle, and to help develop regenerative medicine based on positional memory.

There are various types of the intractable muscle disease muscular dystrophy and each type has a different symptom location. Similarly, age-related muscle fragility (sarcopenia) does not occur evenly throughout the body. The physical location of the symptoms of these diseases cannot be explained by differences in muscle fiber types or physical activity patterns alone, and requires a new perspective to elucidate their respective pathogeneses.

The developmental origin of cells that form muscles differ in the fetal stage. For example, most of the craniofacial muscles originate from the cranial mesoderm, while the limb muscles originate from the body segments. Development of limb and craniofacial muscles in the fetal period involves specific molecular mechanisms that depends on their origin. However, differences in the properties of mature skeletal muscle depending on body position after birth have not been fully discussed. Thus, a research collaboration worked to visualize the body's positional information by studying the epigenomic state and gene expression patterns of skeletal muscle and the muscle stem cells responsible for regeneration.

Using skeletal muscle and associated muscle stem cells isolated from the heads and hind limbs of adult mice, researchers investigated positional specificity at the epigenomic level using DNA methylome analysis. They found characteristic differences in the DNA methylation status at the homeobox (Hox) loci. Among four regions, A to D, the Hox-A locus in particular had an overall DNA hypermethylation state in hindlimb skeletal muscle and muscle stem cells compared to the head. Additionally, both skeletal muscle and muscle stem cells in the hind limbs showed high expression of the Hox-A gene. Many of these Hox-A genes reflected expression patterns in the fetal period. These findings suggest that skeletal muscle and muscle stem cells remember positional information during fetal life, and that epigenomic regulation by DNA methylation may be involved in positional memory.

The researchers then focused on the Hoxa10 gene, which was highly expressed only in the limb muscles. When hindlimb-derived muscle stem cells expressing Hoxa10 were isolated and transplanted into craniofacial muscles that do not express Hoxa10, Hoxa10 gene expression became detectable in the craniofacial muscles. In other words, hindlimb-derived muscle stem cells were able to innervate the craniofacial muscle with strong retention of positional memory even after ectopic transplantation.

They then created mice lacking the Hoxa10 gene in muscle stem cells to analyze its function. A Hoxa10 deficiency severely impaired the regeneration of hindlimb muscles but had no effect on craniofacial muscle regeneration. A detailed investigation of the mechanism behind the hindlimb muscle regeneration disorder revealed that it is caused by genomic instability due to abnormal chromosome distribution during muscle stem cell division. Furthermore, analysis of human head and leg muscle stem cells also showed that only leg muscle cells expressed the HOX-A gene and that its inhibition resulted in abnormal cell division, confirming that muscle cell positional memory is retained in humans and mice.

This research suggest that the positional memory of muscle stem cells based on the position-specific distribution of Hox gene expression may determine the position-specific properties of skeletal muscle, rather than merely persisting from fetal life.

"In the future, we expect that the functional aspects of muscle stem cell positional memory will lead to the clarification of the mechanisms that lead to location-specificity of symptoms that are observed in various muscle diseases like muscular dystrophy," said Associate Professor Yusuke Ono, who led the study. "In addition, ectopic transplantation experiments, in which muscle stem cells are transplanted to a location different from where they were harvested, have shown that they maintain positional memory and regenerate. From a different perspective, skeletal muscles regenerated from xenotransplantation may not possess their original positional information which may impair their normal function. There has been rapid progress recently in the differentiation of iPS cells into various progenitor cells and the development of mass culture techniques, but the location of induced progenitor cells has not been considered. In the future, our group will attempt to develop regenerative therapy applications for muscle diseases by artificially controlling the positional memory of cells and by utilizing the properties of cells with positional memory in the right places."

CAPTION

Muscle stem cells isolated from the hindlimb and ectopically transplanted into the head cause the craniofacial muscles to acquire the positional memory of the hindlimb.

CREDIT

Associate Professor Yusuke Ono

CAPTION

Regenerated muscle after 2 weeks of transient muscle injury: Hoxa10-deficient mice show reduced regeneration and muscle atrophy in the hind limbs, but no effect in the craniofacial muscles.

CREDIT

This research was posted online in Science Advances on 9 June 2021.

Source:

Yoshioka, K., Nagahisa, H., Miura, F., Araki, H., Kamei, Y., Kitajima, Y., ... Ono, Y. (2021). Hoxa10 mediates positional memory to govern stem cell function in adult skeletal muscle. Science Advances, 7(24), eabd7924. doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd7924

 

Study reveals source of remarkable memory of "superagers"

For the first time, researchers have used fMRI to understand how some older adults can learn and remember new information as well as a 25-year-old.

MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL

Research News

BOSTON -- As we age, our brains typically undergo a slow process of atrophy, causing less robust communication between various brain regions, which leads to declining memory and other cognitive functions. But a rare group of older individuals called "superagers" have been shown to learn and recall novel information as well as a 25-year-old. Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have now identified the brain activity that underlies superagers' superior memory. "This is the first time we have images of the function of superagers' brains as they actively learn and remember new information," says Alexandra Touroutoglou, PhD, director of Imaging Operations at MGH's Frontotemporal Disorders Unit and senior author of the paper published in Cerebral Cortex.

In 2016, Touroutoglou and her fellow researchers identified a group of adults older than 65 with remarkable performance on memory tests. The superagers are participants in an ongoing longitudinal study of aging at MGH led by Bradford Dickerson, MD, director of the Frontotemporal Disorders Unit at MGH, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, PhD, a research scientist in Psychiatry at MGH. "Using MRI, we found that the structure of superagers' brains and the connectivity of their neural networks more closely resemble the brains of young adults; superagers had avoided the brain atrophy typically seen in older adults," says Touroutoglou.

In the new study, the investigators gave 40 adults with a mean age of 67 a very challenging memory test while their brains were imaged using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which, unlike typical MRI, shows the activity of different brain areas during tasks. Forty-one young adults (mean age of 25) also took the same memory test while their brains were imaged. The participants first viewed 80 pictures of faces or scenes that were each paired with an adjective, such as a cityscape paired with the word "industrial" or a male face paired with the word "average." Their first task was to determine whether the word matched the image, a process called encoding. After 10 minutes, participants were presented with the 80 image-word pairs they had just learned, an additional 40 pairs of new words and images, and 40 rearranged pairs consisting of words and images they had previously seen. Their second task was to recall whether they had previously seen each specific word-picture pair, or whether they were looking at a new or rearranged pair.

While the participants were in the scanner, the researchers paid close attention to the visual cortex, which is the area of the brain that processes what you see and is particularly sensitive to aging. "In the visual cortex, there are populations of neurons that are selectively involved in processing different categories of images, such as faces, houses or scenes," says lead author Yuta Katsumi, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Psychiatry at MGH. "This selective function of each group of neurons makes them more efficient at processing what you see and creating a distinct memory of those images, which can then easily be retrieved."

During aging, this selectivity, called neural differentiation, diminishes and the group of neurons that once responded primarily to faces now activates for other images. The brain now has difficulty creating unique neural activation patterns for different types of images, which means it is making less distinctive mental representations of what the person is seeing. That's one reason older individuals have trouble remembering when they may have seen a television show, read an article, or eaten a specific meal.

But in the fMRI study, the superagers' memory performance was indistinguishable from the 25-year-olds', and their brains' visual cortex maintained youthful activity patterns. "The superagers had maintained the same high level of neural differentiation, or selectivity, as a young adult," says Katsumi. "Their brains enabled them to create distinct representations of the different categories of visual information so that they could accurately remember the image-word pairs."

An important question that researchers still must answer is whether "superagers' brains were always more efficient than their peers, or whether, over time, they developed mechanisms to compensate for the decline of the aging brain," says Touroutoglou.

Previous studies have shown that training can increase the selectivity of brain regions, which may be a potential intervention to delay or prevent the decline in neural differentiation in normal aging adults and make their brains more like those of superagers. Currently the researchers are conducting a clinical trial to evaluate whether noninvasive electromagnetic stimulation, which delivers an electrical current to targeted areas of the brain, can improve memory in older adults. The researchers also plan to study different brain regions to further understand how superagers learn and remember, and they will examine lifestyle and other factors that might contribute to superagers' amazing memory.

###

Major funding for this study was provided by the National Institute on Aging.

Touroutoglou is an assistant professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dickerson is professor of Neurology at HMS. Barrett is distinguished professor of Psychology at Northeastern University. The other co-author is Joseph Andreano, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Psychiatry at MGH and an instructor of Psychiatry at HMS.

About the Massachusetts General Hospital

Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The Mass General Research Institute conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the nation, with annual research operations of more than $1 billion and comprises more than 9,500 researchers working across more than 30 institutes, centers and departments. In August 2020, Mass General was named #6 in the U.S. News & World Report list of "America's Best Hospitals."

 

Work like a dream: new anticholinergic drug keeps PTSD flashbacks and nightmares away

Researchers find that central anticholinergic drug trihexyphenidyl can potentially keep away post-traumatic stress disorder-related flashbacks and nightmares

CACTUS COMMUNICATIONS

Research News

 

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rings a bell for many, due to its rampant references in pop culture, and more, importantly, its prevalence in today's society. It is only probable that this disorder, which develops after shocking or dangerous events, would unfortunately affect the lives of many people. Medical researchers have been hard at work trying to come up with solutions to combat this condition and its manifestations effectively. Unfortunately, the neurological mechanisms of PTSD aren't clear, and without knowing this exactly, trying to find a cure is a shot in the dark.

Fortunately, a group of Japanese researchers from the Sogo PTSD Institute, Medical Corporation Sogokai, Japan led by Dr. Masanobu Sogo appear to have made a breakthrough in PTSD treatment! They have identified a drug called trihexyphenidyl, that can significantly reduce the flashbacks and nightmares experienced by patients with PTSD, according to a study published in Brain and Behavior, a sister open access journal to ACTA J.

Trihexyphenidyl is a central anticholinergic drug used to manage disorders like parkinsonism, and alleviate several side-effects induced by drugs acting on the central nervous system (CNS). It acts by blocking the activity of a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, in the CNS. Interestingly, it has been available for therapeutic use for around 66 years.

So, what inspired the researchers to pick up this drug? In 2009, they encountered a patient who suffered severe PTSD-related flashbacks and nightmares for 9 years, was diagnosed with bacterial diarrhea at another hospital, and administered a drip infusion containing antibiotics and scopolamine butyl bromide (SB), which is a peripheral anticholinergic that doesn't cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB, penetration rate 0.01%). Twenty minutes after the infusion, the patient's flashbacks completely disappeared!

Since SB is a "peripheral" anticholinergic agent, it shouldn't be able to cross the BBB, but it is probable that the patient's brain was in a state of severe brain excitement due to PTSD. There are eight acetylcholine basal ganglia in the brain, of which the largest, the Meynert nucleus, is closely associated with BBB permeability. The researchers hypothesized that due to abnormal excitement of the Meynert basal ganglia, SB enters the brain and activates anticholinergic action to suppress abnormal acetylcholine secretion of acetylcholine-memory-related circuits centered on the Meynert basal ganglia, eliminating the flashbacks.

From this valuable clinical experience, they figured that PTSD is generated through an acetylcholine-memory-related-circuit centered on Meynert. Based on this, Dr. Sogo and his team considered the use of a central anticholinergic agent: trihexyphenidyl.

Excited at the discovery, the researchers went on to devise an exploratory study, to check if trihexyphenidyl is effective against similar symptoms in other patients with PTSD. They administered trihexyphenidyl in 34 patients with PTSD, who had previously received psychiatric treatment for several years without therapeutic benefits, and determined its effect through interviews.

A significant 88% of the analyzed patients reported mild to no PTSD-related nightmares. Similarly, 79% of the analyzed patients reported similar responses for PTSD-related flashbacks. Notably, the researchers found that trihexyphenidyl has efficacy and a rapid onset (1-2 days) in the treatment of PTSD-related nightmares and flashbacks. Clearly, trihexyphenidyl is the elusive silver bullet against PTSD!

Dr. Sogo states, "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first pharmacological report describing the novel use of trihexyphenidyl for PTSD-related nightmares, which doesn't respond to conventional psychiatric treatment." While further studies are needed to prove the mechanism of PTSD, repurposing trihexyphenidyl to treat PTSD would be a promising turn of events, since the drug is inexpensive, and has no adverse effects. Here's to hope for patients suffering from PTSD, with the discovery of trihexyphenidyl!

###

Reference

Authors: Katsumasa Sogo, Masanobu Sogo, Yoshie Okawa

Title of original paper: Centrally acting anticholinergic drug trihexyphenidyl is highly effective in reducing nightmares associated with post-traumatic stress disorder

Journal: Brain and Behavior

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/brb3.2147

Affiliations: Sogo PTSD Institute, Medical Corporation, Sogokai, Hiroshima-city, Japan

About Dr. Masanobu Sogo

Dr. Masanobu Sogo is a researcher affiliated to Sogo Clinic, Hiroshima City, Japan. His primary research interests involve post-traumatic stress disorder and its treatment.

Novel study of high-potency cannabis shows some memory effects

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

PULLMAN, Wash. - Even before the pandemic made Zoom ubiquitous, Washington State University researchers were using the video conferencing app to research a type of cannabis that is understudied: the kind people actually use.

For the study, published in Scientific Reports, researchers observed cannabis users over Zoom as they smoked high-potency cannabis flower or vaped concentrates they purchased themselves from cannabis dispensaries in Washington state, where recreational cannabis use is legal. They then gave the subjects a series of cognitive tests.

The researchers found no impact on the users' performance on decision-making tests in comparison to a sober control group but did find some memory impairments related to free recall, source memory and false memories.

While the findings are in line with previous research on low-potency cannabis, this study is one of the few to investigate cannabis that contains much more than 10% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant's main psychoactive ingredient. This is only the second known study to examine the effect of cannabis concentrates.

"Because of federal restrictions to researchers, it was just not possible to study the acute effects of these high-potency products," said Carrie Cuttler, WSU psychologist and lead researcher on the study. "The general population in states where cannabis is legal has very easy access to a wide array of high- potency cannabis products, including extremely high-potency cannabis concentrates which can exceed 90% THC, and we've been limited to studying the whole plant with under 10% THC."

While 19 states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis for recreational use, the U.S. federal government still classifies it as a Schedule 1 drug, implying it has a high potential for abuse and no medicinal benefits. Until recently, researchers interested in studying cannabis were limited to using low-potency plants of around 6% THC supplied by the National Institute of Drug Abuse. In June, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration indicated it may allow some companies to start growing cannabis for research purposes.

For this study, which began in 2018, Cuttler and her colleagues found a way to study the effects of high-potency cannabis while still complying with federal guidelines. The study participants bought their own products and used them in their own homes. They were never in a laboratory on federal property, and the researchers never handled the cannabis themselves. Participants were not reimbursed for their purchase. Instead they were compensated for their time with Amazon gift cards. All participants were over 21 and experienced cannabis users who reported no past negative reactions to cannabis like panic attacks. The study's method was cleared by WSU Division of the Office of the Attorney General and the university's research ethics board.

The 80 participants were divided into four groups: two groups used cannabis flower with more than 20% THC but one containing cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, and the other without CBD. Another group vaped cannabis concentrates with more than 60% THC that included CBD. A fourth group remained sober.

For all cannabis using groups, the researchers found no effect on a range of decision-making tests including risk perception and confidence in knowledge. On a few memory tests there were also no significant differences between the cannabis-using and sober groups, including prospective memory, the ability to remember to do things at a later time, such as attend an appointment. The cannabis-using participants also did well on temporal order memory, the ability to remember the sequence of previous events.

However, the groups that smoked cannabis flower with CBD did worse on verbal free recall trials- they were unable to recall as many words or pictures that were shown to them compared to the sober group. This finding was contrary to a small number of previous studies indicating CBD might have a protective effect on memory. The groups that used cannabis without CBD and the group that used concentrates, performed worse on a measure of source memory which means being able to distinguish the way previously learned information was presented.

Finally, all three cannabis-using groups did poorly on a false memory test - when given a new word and asked if it had been presented before, they were more likely to say it had when it had not.

There was also an unexpected finding: people who vaped the high-potency concentrates with more than 60% THC performed comparably to those who smoked cannabis flower. This may have been because they tended to self-titrate - using less of the drug to achieve a similar level of intoxication and impairment as the people who smoked the less-potent cannabis flower.

Cuttler said this was cause for cautious optimism on the little-studied but widely available concentrates.

"There's been a lot of speculation that these really high-potency cannabis concentrates might magnify detrimental consequences, but there's been almost zero research on cannabis concentrates which are freely available for people to use," said Cuttler. "I want to see way more research before we come to any general conclusion, but it is encouraging to see that the concentrates didn't increase harms."

###

Faulty memories of our past whereabouts: The fallacy of an airtight alibi

ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE

Research News

 

When someone is suspected of criminal activity, one of the most important questions they are asked is if they have a credible alibi. Playing back past events in our minds, however, is not like playing back a video recording. Recollections of locations, dates, and companions can become muddled with the passage of time. If a suspect's memories are out of line with documented events, a once-plausible alibi can crumble and may be seen as evidence of guilt.

To put people's memories of past whereabouts to the test, a team of researchers tracked the locations of 51 volunteers for one month and found that their recollections were wrong approximately 36% of the time.

"This is the first study to examine memory for where an event happened," said Simon J. Dennis, director of the Complex Human Data Hub at the University of Melbourne's School of Psychological Sciences and lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Psychological Science. "We were able to use experience-sampling methods to actually examine people's memories and analyze what is affecting memory error in their everyday life."

In the study, an app on the participants' smartphones continuously (and securely) recorded their locations and surroundings via GPS. The app also made sound recordings of the environment every 10 minutes. Participants had the freedom to turn off the app or to delete events--a mechanism designed to protect privacy.

At the end of the month, the participants received a memory test in which they were given a time and date and then asked to select one of four markers on Google Maps to show where they had been at that moment.

The results revealed that participants tended to confuse days across weeks. They also often confused weeks in general and hours across days. The participants had the poorest recall when memories of one event become entwined with memories of a similar experience, such as filling up a car with gas at a different location of the same gas-station chain.

Additionally, the researchers found that people tended to confuse places they had visited at similar times or locations, such as multiple bars visited in one evening. People also made mistakes--although less frequently--when events involved similar sounds or movement patterns, such as when they had walked through town on different days while listening to their favorite music.

"This has implications for alibi generation, as jurors tend to assume that a suspect who is wrong is lying," said Dennis. "These results can alert investigators to the questions they should ask in order to catch the memory errors that suspects are likely to make."

###

Reference: Laliberete, E., Yim, H., Stone, B., & Dennis, S. (2021). The fallacy of an airtight alibi: Understanding human memory for "where" using experience sampling. Psychological Science, 23(6), 944-951https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797620980752

Additional research can be found in the APS Research Topic on Memory.