It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
IMAGE: SOPHIA HARLID, RESEARCHER AT DEPARTMENT OF RADIATION SCIENCES, UMEÅ UNIVERSITY, SWEDEN.view more
CREDIT: MATTIAS PETTERSSON.
There is a clear link between taking antibiotics and an increased risk of developing colon cancer within the next five to ten years. This has been confirmed by researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, after a study of 40,000 cancer cases. The impact of antibiotics on the intestinal microbiome is thought to lie behind the increased risk of cancer.
“The results underline the fact that there are many reasons to be restrictive with antibiotics. While in many cases antibiotic therapy is necessary and saves lives, in the event of less serious ailments that can be expected to heal anyway, caution should be exercised. Above all to prevent bacteria from developing resistance but, as this study shows, also because antibiotics may increase the risk of future colon cancer,” explains Sophia Harlid, cancer researcher at Umeå University.
Researchers found that both women and men who took antibiotics for over six months ran a 17 per cent greater risk of developing cancer in the ascending colon, the first part of the colon to be reached by food after the small intestine, than those who were not prescribed any antibiotics. However, no increased risk was found for cancer in the descending colon. Nor was there an increased risk of rectal cancer in men taking antibiotics, while women taking antibiotics had a slightly reduced incidence of rectal cancer.
The increased risk of colon cancer was visible already five to ten years after taking antibiotics. Although the increase in risk was greatest for those taking most antibiotics, it was also possible to observe an admittedly small, but statistically significant, increase in the risk of cancer after a single course of antibiotics.
The present study uses data on 40,000 patients from the Swedish Colorectal Cancer Registry from the period 2010–2016. These have been compared to a matched control group of 200,000 cancer-free individuals drawn from the Swedish population at large. Data on the individuals’ antibiotic use was collected from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register for the period 2005–2016. The Swedish study broadly confirms the results of an earlier, somewhat smaller British study.
In order to understand how antibiotics increase the risk, the researchers also studied a non-antibiotic bactericidal drug used against urinary infections that does not affect the microbiome. There was no difference in the frequency of colon cancer in those who used this drug, suggesting that it is the impact of antibiotics on the microbiome that increases the risk of cancer. While the study only covers orally administered antibiotics, even intravenous antibiotics may affect the gut microbiota in the intestinal system.
“There is absolutely no cause for alarm simply because you have taken antibiotics. The increase in risk is moderate and the affect on the absolute risk to the individual is fairly small. Sweden is also in the process of introducing routine screening for colorectal cancer. Like any other screening programme, it is important to take part so that any cancer can be detected early or even prevented, as cancer precursors can sometimes be removed,” says Sophia Harlid.
New research in the American Journal of Psychiatry identifies factors that may help assess suicide risk in soldiers. According to the study, Predictors of Suicide Attempt Within 30 Days After First Medically Documented Suicidal Ideation in U.S. Army Soldiers, suicide risk was highest within 30 days after ideation diagnosis and was more likely among women and combat medics.
“This Suicide Prevention Month, it’s important to remember that research can help us better understand risk factors and which populations are more vulnerable,” said APA President Vivian Pender, M.D. “It is also a reminder that we can all play a role in preventing suicide by learning to recognize signs of distress and reaching out to connect anyone at risk with help.”
The authors examined risk factors for suicide attempt within the first month after a diagnosis of suicidal ideation, looking at sociodemographic and service-related characteristics, psychiatric diagnoses, physical health care visits, injuries, and others. Using data from the Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers, the researchers reviewed records from more than 11,000 active duty enlisted soldiers with documented suicidal ideation and no prior documented suicide attempts.
About half (52.7%) of the solders identified with suicide ideation were in their first two years of service and 57.7% had never deployed. About 80% had had at least one outpatient visit in the previous two months. The most common psychiatric diagnoses were depression and related disorders, tobacco use disorder, anxiety disorder and adjustment disorder.
In the study, 7.4% soldiers with suicidal ideation subsequently attempted suicide. Almost half of the attempts, 3.5%, occurred within 30 days after suicidal ideation. The risk for suicide attempt was highest on the first day after suicidal ideation diagnosis and decreased over time.
The study found that females, combat medics, individuals with an anxiety disorder diagnosis prior to suicidal ideation, and those diagnosed with a sleep disorder on the same day as the suicidal ideation were more likely to attempt suicide within 30 days.
"Identifying suicide risk in the population, in patients in primary care, and in patients in psychiatric care who frequently have suicide ideation, are all challenging and different questions,” said Robert J. Ursano, M.D., one of the study authors and Director, Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress, Uniformed Services University. “This paper importantly speaks to psychiatrists and other mental health care providers who have to make difficult treatment and management decisions for those specifically struggling with suicide ideation."
While depression-related diagnoses were common among the soldiers with suicide ideation, they were not associated with an increased risk of suicide attempt during the first month. Major depression was diagnosed in 24% of soldiers with suicide ideation and depression-related diagnoses (such as dysthymic disorder and adjustment disorder with depressed mood) were diagnosed in nearly 60% of soldiers on the same day suicide ideation was diagnosed. A diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder was also not associated with an increased risk of suicide attempt within 30 days.
American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association, founded in 1844, is the oldest medical association in the country. The APA is also the largest psychiatric association in the world with 37,400 physician members specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and research of mental illnesses. APA’s vision is to ensure access to quality psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. For more information, please visit www.psychiatry.org.
Predictors of Suicide Attempt Within 30 Days After First Medically Documented Suicidal Ideation in U.S. Army Soldiers
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
1-Sep-2021
COI STATEMENT
Dr. Kessler has received support for epidemiological studies from SanofiAventis; he has served as a consultant for DataStat, Holmusk, Johnson & Johnson Wellness and Prevention, RallyPoint Networks, Sage Pharmaceuticals, Shire, and Takeda and on advisory boards for Johnson & Johnson Services Lake Nona Life Project; and he has stock options in Mirah, PYM, and Roga Sciences. Dr. Stein has received research support from the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and NIH; he has served as a consultant for Actelion, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, Aptinyx, ATAI Life Sciences, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bionomics, BioXcel Therapeutics, Clexio, EmpowerPharm, Engrail Therapeutics, GW Pharmaceuticals, Janssen, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, and Roche/Genentech and on scientific advisory boards for the Anxiety and Depression Association of America and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation; he receives remuneration for his editorial work on Depression and Anxiety (Editor-in-Chief), Biological Psychiatry (Deputy Editor), and UpToDate (Co-Editor-in-Chief for Psychiatry); and he has stock options in Epivario and Oxeia Biopharmaceuticals. The other authors report no financial relationships with commercial interests
Unmarried adults with heart disease living in rural areas face more hopelessness, increased risk of death
Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021
DALLAS, Sept. 1, 2021 — Living in a rural setting and being unmarried were each linked to higher rates of hopelessness among people with heart disease, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access journal of the American Heart Association.
The study is the first to explore whether living in a rural setting is a significant risk factor for hopelessness. National statistics indicate U.S. adults – those with and without cardiovascular disease – who live in rural areas have higher rates of death than those who live in urban communities. Many known risk factors for heart disease – high blood pressure, obesity, cigarette smoking and low levels of physical activity – are also more prevalent among people who live in rural settings.
Feelings of hopelessness, whether it’s a temporary response to a new event (a state), or an ongoing outlook toward life (a trait), are also linked to the progression and development of heart disease. Up to half of people with heart disease report hopeless feelings, and hopelessness can more than triple the risk of death or heart attack. And, while living in a rural area and hopelessness are each linked to heart disease, this study is the first to examine whether living in a rural setting affects hopelessness.
“That is what makes our findings so surprising,” said the study’s senior author Susan L. Dunn, Ph.D., R.N., FAHA, an associate professor and department head in the department of biobehavioral nursing science at the University of Illinois in Chicago. “We found that living in a rural area is a risk factor for hopelessness. Because we know hopelessness is predictive of death in people with heart disease, health care professionals need to recognize the subgroups who are most at risk and provide guidance and treatment.”
Researchers collected data from 628 adults at two hospitals in South Dakota and one hospital in Michigan. Participants were 18 years or older and had been diagnosed with a heart attack or severe chest pains (angina) or had undergone procedures to open clogged heart arteries (surgery or stent). About 25% of the study’s participants lived in a rural area. Overall, roughly one-third were women; about two-thirds were married and most (92%) were white. About half of the participants had a history of cardiovascular disease, and one-fourth suffered from depression.
Researchers used the State-Trait Hopelessness Scale, a self-reported questionnaire measuring a negative outlook and sense of helplessness toward the future, with higher scores equating to increased feelings of hopelessness.
Because hopelessness and depression are often associated yet distinctly different, participants also completed a questionnaire to measure the severity of their depression. In addition, decreased physical function is linked to feelings of hopelessness, so participants completed another questionnaire to gauge their ability to perform daily physical activities. Finally, researchers categorized where participants’ lived using census tract-based data.
Researchers found:
Levels of state hopelessness (sparked by a new life event, such as a heart event) in adults with heart disease living in rural areas were 10% higher than among urban adults (58.8% to 48.8%, respectively).
Levels of trait hopelessness (overall outlook on life) were relatively similar among rural and urban adults (59% to 55%, respectively).
20% more unmarried participants in rural areas experienced state hopelessness than their married, rural counterparts.
The authors suggest additional research is needed to assess whether adults with heart disease living in rural areas continue to have higher levels of state hopelessness than those who live in urban areas after hospital discharge and throughout their recovery. The connection between marital status among people living in rural areas to feelings of hopelessness is also important for future studies.
The study also has several important limitations. The sample size was small and included people living in the Great Lakes and the Great Plains regions, so more research is needed to examine rural and urban differences in various geographic regions throughout the U.S. and in the rest of the world. There was also limited racial and ethnic diversity among participants in the study, and unmarried partners who lived together were not specifically categorized.
“These results indicate that we need more information, and there is a need to develop effective prevention and treatment methods for people with heart disease who have feelings of hopelessness,” Dunn said.
###
Co-authors are Deb Bomgaars, Ph.D., R.N., C.N.E.; Gwenneth A. Jensen, Ph.D., R.N., C.N.S.; Lynn L. White, Ph.D., R.N., A.C.N.S.-B.C.; Kristin M. Van De Griend, Ph.D., M.P.H.; Angela K. Visser, M.S.; Madison P. Goodyke, B.S.N., R.N.; Anna Luong, B.S.N., R.N.; and Nathan L. Tintle, Ph.D. Authors’ disclosures are listed in the manuscript.
The study was funded by the Dordt University Office for Research and Scholarship.
Follow news from the Journal of the American Heart Association@JAHA_AHA
Statements and conclusions of studies published in the American Heart Association’s scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the Association’s policy or position. The Association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Association’s overall financial information are available here.
About the American Heart Association
The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.
JOURNAL
Journal of the American Heart Association
ARTICLE TITLE
Investigating Rurality as a Risk Factor for State and Trait Hopelessness in Hospitalized Patients with Ischemic Heart Disease
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
1-Sep-2021
Study reveals confusing mishmash of newborn bathing practices at US hospitals
IMAGE: "THE VARIATION IN WHAT HOSPITALS ARE DOING FOR NEWBORN SKINCARE IS A DIRECT RESULT OF PREVIOUSLY NOT HAVING A GOOD UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT REALLY IS THE BEST WAY TO CARE FOR A BABY'S SKIN," SAID RESEARCHER ANN L. KELLAMS, MD, OF UVA CHILDREN'S. "THE HOPE NOW IS THAT THIS WORK WILL CHALLENGE US ALL TO TAKE A LOOK AT THE EVIDENCE AND INCORPORATE PRACTICES THAT PROTECT BABIES THE MOST."view more
CREDIT: DAN ADDISON | UVA COMMUNICATIONS
A nationwide survey of hospitals has revealed a wide variety of approaches to newborn skincare – including the timing of the first bath – that could ultimately have lasting effects on a baby’s health and wellbeing.
Believed to be the first of its kind, the survey sought to document newborn skincare practices at hospitals around the country. Doctors have increasingly come to appreciate the importance of infant exposure to natural skin microbes, but there are no clear evidence-based guidelines for hospitals to follow.
The result, the researchers found, is a mishmash of practices that sometimes break down along regional lines.
“The variation in what hospitals are doing for newborn skincare is a direct result of previously not having a good understanding of what really is the best way to care for a baby’s skin,” said researcher Ann L. Kellams, MD, of UVA Children’s. “The hope now is that this work will challenge us all to take a look at the evidence and incorporate practices that protect babies the most.”
Newborn Skincare: What’s Best for Baby?
The skincare babies receive in the hours and days after birth has long-term effects, shaping breastfeeding outcomes, infant skin health and even infection rates. For example, children who are birthed vaginally are known to have decreased rates of childhood allergies compared with those born by caesarian section.
That said, there is little hard evidence on health outcomes associated with delayed bathing and other newborn skin practices, such as the use of specific soaps and cleansers. That often leaves doctors with conflicting opinions, often built on anecdote and personal experience.
To get a sense of the practices in place around the country, the researchers sent 16 questions to nursery medical directors at 109 hospitals that are members of the Better Outcomes through Research for Newborns (BORN) network. The questions asked about bathing practices, the products used and the advice given to parents, among other topics.
The responses indicated:
87% of hospitals delay the first bath by at least six hours.
10% send babies home without a bath, a practice more common in non-academic centers and on the West Coast.
There is a huge variety of products and procedures used, though almost all include a “baby” soap containing detergents known to compromise the newborn’s skin integrity.
Bathing advice for parents, such as whether they should use soap when washing the baby, is “inconsistent and potentially contradictory” among healthcare providers. This can leave parents confused and uncertain what to do.
The evidence underpinning most hospitals’ skincare practices is “scant,” the researchers report in a new scientific paper outlining their findings. They are urging the formulation of more consistent guidelines built on hard evidence.
“Given the potential widespread clinical impact of newborn skincare and the paucity of data to support or refute widespread adoption of specific practices, further research is needed to improve and standardize care in U.S. nurseries and mother-baby units,” they state.
COVID-19 guidelines may also be needed, they note. “Based on one large case series of maternal hospitals in New York City showing no increased morbidity to newborns, authors recommend that early skin-to-skin contact and delayed bathing can be practiced even in newborns born to mothers infected with COVID-19,” the researchers write.
Developing better, evidence-based guidelines in general would benefit all parents and infants, Kellams says. “In the future, we may be seeing a decreased emphasis on soap, an increased emphasis on oil-based cleansing and an increased emphasis on the application of emollients,” she said. “Better skin integrity would offer more protection to the babies against infection, development of allergies, etcetera.”
###
Findings Published
The researchers have published their findings in the scientific journal Hospital Pediatrics. The research team consisted of Julia A. Wisniewski, Carrie A. Phillipi, Neera Goyal, Anna Smith, Alice E.W. Hoyt, Elizabeth King, Dennis West, W. Christopher Golden and Kellams. The authors thank the members of the BORN network for their participation in the study.
A new USC study published in the journal Pediatrics finds a heightened risk of death from medical causes for infants with histories of reported maltreatment, suggesting a need for ongoing care coordination between the child protection system and pediatric health providers.
“Newborns in families involved with the child protection system reflect a highly vulnerable group and it is not surprising that their rates of death are elevated relative to infants never reported,” said study author Janet Schneiderman, a research associate professor emerita and former chair of the Department of Nursing at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
“Families with children who are reported to the child protection system often have risk factors that make providing adequate care for their children or meeting their children’s health care needs more difficult, especially during infancy.”
Researchers used a dataset for analysis comprised of birth and death records for all children born in California between 2010 and 2016 obtained from the California Department of Public Health, and administrative child protection system and foster care placement records made available through a data-sharing agreement between USC, the California Department of Social Services and the Children’s Data Network.
After adjusting for baseline risk factors, the researchers found that the risk of death from medical causes among infants reported for maltreatment was two to three times greater than observed for infants never reported. Among infants reported for maltreatment, the study found that periods of foster care placement reduced the risk of infant death due to medical causes by roughly half.
“Foster care placement was found to be protective against infant death from medical causes, highlighting the preventable nature of many of these deaths and raising questions of missed opportunities to ensure health and other preventive services for infants who remain at home,” Schneiderman said.
“Only one quarter of infants reported for maltreatment spent any time in foster care, and infant death is a rare event. The emergence of statistically significant differences in risk of preventable death is provocative and suggests that more intensive case management and health care supports are needed for infants remaining at home following allegations of abuse or neglect,” said co-author Emily Putnam-Hornstein, a distinguished scholar at USC, the John A. Tate Distinguished Professor for Children in Need at the University of North Carolina School of Social Work and co-director of the Children’s Data Network.
In addition to Schneiderman and Putnam-Hornstein, the study was authored by John Prindle, research assistant professor for the Children’s Data Network at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.
The study was supported by The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation, and data infrastructure support from First 5 LA for the Children’s Data Network.
IMAGE: KNOWLEDGE OF A PERSON’S PERSONALITY CAN WARP THE PERCEPTION OF A FACE’S IDENTITY AND BIAS IT TOWARD ALTERNATE IDENTITIES THAT ARE OSTENSIBLY UNRELATED. FOR EXAMPLE, IF VLADIMIR PUTIN AND JUSTIN BIEBER (ABOVE) HAVE MORE SIMILAR PERSONALITIES IN YOUR MIND, THEN THEY VISUALLY APPEAR MORE SIMILAR TO YOU AS WELL--AS SHOWN IN THE IMAGE.view more
CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF NYU’S JONATHAN FREEMAN
Do Vladimir Putin and Justin Bieber look alike? They do if you think they have similar personalities, shows a new study by a team of psychologists.
Its findings, which appear in the journal Cognition, reveal that knowledge of a person’s personality can influence the perception of a face’s identity and bias it toward unrelated identities. For example, if Vladimir Putin and Justin Bieber, a pair of faces among many tested in the research, have more similar personalities in your mind, then they visually appear more similar to you as well, even if they lack any physical resemblance.
“Our face is another’s portal into our thoughts, feelings, and intentions,” explains Jonathan Freeman, an associate professor in New York University’s Department of Psychology and the paper’s senior author. “If the perception of others’ faces is systematically warped by our prior understanding of their personality, as our findings show, it could affect the ways we behave and interact with them.”
The paper’s other authors were DongWon Oh, a postdoctoral researcher in NYU’s Department of Psychology, and Mirella Walker, a researcher at the University of Basel.
The authors add that the research informs fundamental scientific understanding of how face recognition works in the brain, suggesting that not only a face’s visual cues but also prior social knowledge plays an active role in perceiving faces.
Face recognition is essential to everyday life--in identifying a neighbor at the supermarket, an actor in a film trailer, or a relative in a photograph. And, in recent years, it has been applied to technologies, ranging from the Apple iPhone to extensive counterterrorism and law enforcement applications--with many raising concerns over accuracy.
The Association for Computing Machinery called for a suspension of both private and government use of facial-recognition technology, citing “clear bias based on ethnic, racial, gender, and other human characteristics,” Nature reported last year.
To better understand how our own perceptions--and biases--might influence how we recognize faces, the researchers conducted a series of experiments centering on perceptions of well-known individuals--Bieber, Putin, John Travolta, George W. Bush, and Ryan Gosling, among others (Note: White males were selected in order to establish a racial and gender baseline across tested faces). Racially and ethnically diverse male and female participants were drawn from “Mechanical Turk” (MTurk), a tool in which individuals are compensated for completing small tasks; it is frequently used in running behavioral science studies.
Overall, they found that when a participant believed any two individuals were more similar in personality, their faces were perceived to be correspondingly more similar.
To provide causal evidence, the researchers determined if the effect held for individuals they had never encountered before. The participants viewed images of other White males whom they reported no familiarity with. If the participants learned that these individuals’ personalities were similar (as opposed to dissimilar), their faces were perceived as more visually similar, too.
The researchers used several techniques to assess how faces were perceived at a less conscious level. Subjects’ responses were measured with an innovative mouse-tracking software Freeman previously developed; it uses individuals’ hand movements to reveal unconscious cognitive processes. Unlike surveys or ratings, in which test subjects can consciously alter their responses, this technique requires subjects to make split-second decisions, thereby uncovering less conscious tendencies through subtle deflections in their hand-motion trajectory as they move a mouse during experiments. They also used a technique known as reverse correlation, which allowed the researchers to generate face images depicting how participants perceived others “in the mind’s eye.”
“Our findings show that the perception of facial identity is driven not only by facial features, such as the eyes and chin, but also distorted by the social knowledge we have learned about others, biasing it toward alternate identities despite the fact that those identities lack any physical resemblance,” observes Freeman.
# # #
The study was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (BCS-1654731).
Do genetics control who our friends are? It seems so with mice
New UM School of Medicine study suggests pre-determined social preference may have implications for interactions ranging from relationship compatibility to understanding diseases associated with social avoidance
IMAGE: MICE BEING FRIENDLY WITH ONE ANOTHERview more
CREDIT: MICHY KELLY
Have you ever met someone you instantly liked, or at other times, someone who you knew immediately that you did not want to be friends with, although you did not know why?
Popular author Malcolm Gladwell examined this phenomenon in his best-selling book, Blink. In his book, he noted that an “unconscious” part of the brain enables us to process information spontaneously, when, for example, meeting someone for the first time, interviewing someone for a job, or faced with making a decision quickly under stress.
Now, a new study from the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) suggests that there may be a biological basis behind this instantaneous compatibility reaction. A team of researchers showed that variations of an enzyme found in a part of the brain that regulates mood and motivation seems to control which mice want to socially interact with other mice — with the genetically similar mice preferring each other.
The UMSOM researchers, led by Michy Kelly, PhD, Associate Professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology, say their findings may indicate that similar factors could contribute to the social choices people make. Understanding what factors drive these social preferences may help us to better recognize what goes awry in diseases associated with social withdrawal, such as schizophrenia or autism, so that better therapies can be developed.
The study was published on July 28 in Molecular Psychiatry, a Nature publication.
“We imagine that this is only the first among many biomarkers of compatibility in the brain that may control social preferences,” said Dr. Kelly. “Imagine the possibilities of truly understanding the factors behind human compatibility. You could better match relationships to reduce heartache and divorce rates, or better match patients and doctors to advance the quality of healthcare, as studies have shown compatibility can improve health outcomes.”
CAPTION
PDE11 (green) in the brains of two different mouse strains. In one strain the PDE11 is diffuse and the other it is bunched.
CREDIT
Michy Kelly
A succession of unlikely events and circumstances over the years eventually culminated in this research project, according to Dr. Kelly.
While she was working at a pharmaceutical company, a group of bone researchers asked Dr. Kelly to characterize the behavior of one of their mutant mice that was missing the PDE11 protein. She observed that these mice without PDE11 withdrew socially, so she knew that PDE11 had to be in the brain. She remembered a study that used a mouse model of schizophrenia in which the researchers damaged the brain’s hippocampus leading to antisocial behavior. She then looked at this part of the brain in healthy mice and found where the PDE11 protein was hiding.
Later, as a faculty member at University of South Carolina, she continued studying the social behavior of mutant mice in terms of their social reactions to scent. In the lab, researchers took wooden beads rubbed all over with pungent, airborne pheromones from one group of mice, and placed them in an enclosure with a second group. A mouse presented with one bead from a familiar friend and another from a new stranger mouse would typically spend more time investigating the bead with the stranger’s scent on it. When researchers looked at the PDE11 mutant’s preferences, they favored the stranger’s scent one hour or one week after meeting their friend, but one day after meeting—considered recent long-term memory for a mouse— their social memory seemed fuzzy, and they did not differentiate between a friend and a stranger. To the researchers this meant, the mice’s short and long-term social memory worked fine, but there was a problem coding the information into recent long-term memory—the time between short and long-term memory. Given more time, they would eventually recover that memory.
A student working in the laboratory offhandedly remarked that he noticed children with autism prefer to interact with others that have autism. So, Dr. Kelly decided they should test to see if the PDE11 mutants and normal mice had a preference with whom they interacted. The researchers found that PDE11 mutants preferred being around other PDE11 mutants over the normal mice, while normal mice also preferred their own genetic type. This discovery held true even when researchers tested other laboratory mouse strains. When they tested another genetic variant of PDE11 with a single change in the DNA code, mice with that genetic variation preferred other mice with the same variant over any others.
“So, what is it that the mice are sensing that determines their friend preferences?” said Dr. Kelly. “We eliminated smell and body movements as contributing factors, but we still have some other ideas to test.”
“What this team has done is to establish a paradigm by which researchers can identify the social underpinnings of friendship in animal models,” said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "This very important finding is just the start, but hopefully will lead to exciting new avenues of biological or social treatments for diseases like schizophrenia or age-related cognitive decline in which severe social avoidance and isolation can reduce a person’s quality of life.”
###
This study was supported by start-up funds from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH101130), and a grant from the National Institute of Aging (R01AG061200).
About the University of Maryland School of Medicine
Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research. With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding. As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 students, trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies. In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools. The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu
A genetic basis for friendship? Homophily for membrane-associated PDE11A-cAMP-CREB signaling in CA1 of hippocampus dictates mutual social preference in male and female mice.
