$8 million project aims to prevent TBI in military personnel

Project to study brain inflammation in service members exposed to blasts

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA HEALTH SYSTEM

Researchers backed by an $8 million U.S. Department of Defense grant will explore how to better prevent traumatic brain injury, or TBI, in military personnel exposed to blast shock waves. 

The research team from the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center, UVA Health, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Utah will examine the role of brain inflammation in traumatic brain injury following blast exposures, seeking to understand the role of brain inflammation in TBI as well as how prior blast exposure affects brain inflammation. The goal: identify potential treatment options and ways to block brain inflammation and TBI.

“This effort is the culmination of several years of intense research by members of this collaborative team to understand the risks from repetitive blast exposures over a military career,” said program lead Capt. Stephen Ahlers (retired), PhD, of the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center. “This new grant will extend recent work implicating neuroinflammation in the brain that may underlie physiological changes resulting from blast exposure. Our efforts may pave the way for new pharmacological treatments for blast exposure and may have implications for other conditions such as long COVID that may involve brain inflammation.”

Understanding Brain Inflammation

While the brain’s immune system is vital to brain health, it can also become active in ways that damage the brain. Through brain imaging and blood sampling from active-duty and retired service members who are repeatedly exposed to blasts in training and operations, researchers in one component of the project will seek to better understand how the immune system may be contributing to brain inflammation and TBI.

"I am excited to be part of this team effort to develop the knowledge needed to protect the brains of service members against the effects of repeated low-level blast exposures," said James Stone, MD, PhD, a University of Virginia School of Medicine radiologist. Using advanced brain imaging to directly visualize inflammation along with blood sampling, we hope to develop a better understanding of how the brain and immune system react to blast exposures."

Causes of Long-Term TBI Symptoms 

While most service members recover from TBI within weeks, about a third will have long-term symptoms. The project’s second component will seek to identify inflammatory markers in the brain that are connected to longer recovery periods from a TBI, which could help identify Service Members at higher risk for poor outcomes after a brain injury as well as identify potential treatment options.

“Our new laboratory methods related to brain-derived exosomes provide a unique opportunity to understand pathological changes that may relate to the chronic symptoms observed in military personnel and veterans. Combining this with the novel imaging methods will greatly advance our understanding of blast exposures,” said Jessica Gill, PhD, RN, a Johns Hopkins School of Nursing researcher.  

Veterans with Chronic TBI

In the project’s third component, researchers will use brain imaging and blood sampling from Veterans diagnosed with chronic TBI to determine whether their brain’s immune system has been activated on a long-term basis by repeated blast exposures and how the immune system may be affecting their brain function. Researchers hope this information could be helpful in treating TBI in Service Members and Veterans who have been repeatedly exposed to blasts.

“This portion of the integrated project will provide data on the long-term consequences of persistent pathological inflammation in Veterans with exposure to TBI,” said Dr. Elisabeth Wilde, PhD, a neuropsychologist at the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at University of Utah and a George E. Wahlen VA Health Research Scientist. ”We hope to understand how immune responses influence brain structure and function so that we can identify and prevent continued secondary injury.” 

A Potential Treatment Target for Brain Diseases

The project’s final component will examine whether one of the brain’s main inflammatory responses, known as TNF-alpha, could be a useful target for treatments or preventive measures to protect against brain diseases in service members repeatedly exposed to low-level blasts. In a laboratory setting, researchers will use a drug that blocks the development of TNF-alpha to better understand how blocking this cause of inflammation could protect the brain.

“Our approach will shed light on whether a promising immune-related drug protects the brain following blast exposure. This work could translate into effective treatments for service members and law-enforcement personnel who sustain TBI following blast,” said Dr. Rania Abutarboush, PhD, a neuroscientist at the Neurotrauma Department at the Naval Medical Research Center. “The findings may also help with the search for treatments for other brain diseases where the immune system is involved, such as Alzheimer’s disease.”   

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Shedding light on spermatogenesis failure caused by testicular warming

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF NATURAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: LEFT: NORMAL SPERMATOGENESIS IN THE SCROTUM (34°C) RIGHT: IMPAIRED SPERMATOGENESIS IN THE ABDOMEN (38°C) view more 

CREDIT: NIBB

Testicles of most mammals are cooled in the scrota, and elevated testicular temperatures lead to spermatogenesis failure and male infertility. A research team led by Shosei Yoshida at the National Institute for Basic Biology in Japan detailed this process using organ culture and revealed that spermatogenesis is impaired at multiple steps in a delicate temperature-dependent fashion. In particular, although spermatogenesis is completed at 34°C (the scrotal temperature), warming to 37–38°C (temperatures in the abdomen) severely affects meiosis—the process of segregating homologous chromosomes into haploid sperms—and the damaged cells undergo cell death. Demonstrating the utility of organ culture, this study will boost the study of heat vulnerability in spermatogenesis.

Many studies have been conducted on the heat impairment of spermatogenesis by raising the testis temperature using animal models, for example, surgical relocation of the testis to the abdomen. However, actual testicular temperature could not be controlled in these experiments. Furthermore, the effects of extra-testicular factors such as the endocrine and nervous systems cannot be excluded. To overcome these limitations, the research group took advantage of the testis organ culture setting that supports complete spermatogenesis in incubators, which was developed by Takehiko Ogawa and colleagues at Yokohama City University. By culturing mouse testes at different temperatures, spermatogenesis was found to fail at multiple steps (e.g., progression of meiosis, and generation and transformation of haploid cells), showing sharp temperature dependencies between 30°C and 40°C. Yoshida says, “We did not expect such a delicate ensemble of multiple temperature-dependent events to underpin this well-known phenomenon. This discovery could only have been achieved using an organ culture system.”

The group further revealed that meiosis, through which homologous chromosomes segregate into haploid sperms, was severely affected at 37–38°C. Specifically, the repair of DNA double-strand breaks and homologous chromosome pairing, which are requisites for proper chromosome segregation, were impaired. Damaged cells undergo cell death through a surveillance mechanism or a checkpoint. Kodai Hirano, the primary contributor to this study, says, “It was surprising that essential processes, such as meiosis, can be easily damaged at normal body core temperatures. Through the combined functions of the scrotum and checkpoint, only sperm developed at low temperatures fertilizes eggs to generate the next generation. Key questions for future studies include the molecular mechanism of heat sensitivity and the biological significance of low temperatures in sperm production.”

This study has been published in Communications Biology.

***

Paper Information

Authors: Kodai Hirano, Yuta Nonami, Yoshiaki Nakamura, Toshiyuki Sato, Takuya Sato, Kei-ichiro Ishiguro, Takehiko Ogawa, Shosei Yoshida

 

Contact:

Prof. Shosei Yoshida

National Institute for Basic Biology

E-mail: shosei@nibb.ac.jp

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-03449-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animal tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

Temperature sensitivity of DNA double-strand break repair underpins heat-induced meiotic failure in mouse spermatogenesis

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-May-2022

Virginia Tech scientists to probe brain circuitry underlying preferences for tasty food

Eliminating your favorite treats could make your brain want them even more

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: SORA SHIN, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR AT THE FRALIN BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE AT VTC, RECENTLY RECEIVED A $2 MILLION NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH GRANT TO EXPLORE THE BRAIN CIRCUIT THAT IS POTENTIALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR HIGH-FAT FOOD OVERCONSUMPTION AFTER ABSTINENCE OF THE FOOD IN ORDER TO ADDRESS THERAPEUTIC STRATEGIES TO COMBAT OBESITY. view more 

CREDIT: CLAYTON METZ/VIRGINIA TECH

Eliminating your favorite treats could make your brain want them even more, according to a Virginia Tech scientist.

Sora Shin, assistant professor at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, has been awarded a five-year, $2 million National Institutes of Health grant to examine the brain circuit likely to be responsible for high-fat diet overconsumption after a period of avoiding highly craved foods.

According to the World Health Organization, more than a billion people worldwide are obese, and the number is increasing. The primary culprit contributing to this global public health crisis: the availability of too many low-cost, appetizing, and calorically dense treats.

“Overeating palatable foods such as cake, potato chips, and ice cream is a major public health problem leading to obesity,” Shin said.

With support from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, Shin’s laboratory at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute aims to identify the brain pathways responsible for high-fat diet relapse by studying the leptin-responsive circuit that connects the brain’s lateral hypothalamus to the brain stem.

Leptin is a hormone that assists in the maintenance of body weight over a long period of time through its interaction with the hypothalamus – a brain region that is responsible for self-regulating processes, such as body temperature, thirst, and hunger.

During preliminary research in mouse models, Shin discovered that after exposure to a high-fat diet, the mice not only selected high-fat foods when given the choice over their normal diet, but they also ate too much after a period of not having it.

Many individuals who achieved a successful diet show high rates of relapse to a high-fat diet and overeating, according to Shin. Her new research study addresses a core issue in preventing diet relapse after abstinence.

“Our study is significant, because for the first time we will have an important framework for clarifying how the leptin-responsive brain circuit responds to high-fat food exposure, and how that interaction increases the risk of emotional overeating following a period of abstinence,” Shin said.

Shin, who is also an assistant professor in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods and Exercise in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is principal investigator on a team that also includes In-Jee You, research associate at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, and Yeeun Bae, graduate student in the Department of Human Nutrition, Foods, and Exercise at Virginia Tech. Shin is an iTHRIV Scholar, part of the integrated Translational Research Institute of Virginia.

Judges reduce sentencing when nudged with full social and financial cost of incarceration

A research team from Georgia State University found that judges reduce prison sentences when they have more information about the full costs and benefits involved

Peer-Reviewed Publication

GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY

ATLANTA—In the U.S., the direct monetary cost of incarcerating a single inmate averages $33,000 per year, according to the Vera Institute of Justice. But that number doesn’t include collateral consequences, like financial strain on the offender’s family, difficulty offenders have in finding employment after release and the increased likelihood they will offend again once released.

Judges aren’t always given this full picture of the potential financial and social consequences of their sentencing decisions. Instead, they are given presentencing reports that are produced by prosecutors and focused only on the benefits of incarceration.

But what if judges were given a fuller picture of the impact of their decisions? In a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, researchers found that judges gave significantly shorter sentences in a hypothetical case when given both the potential negative cost and social consequences of incarceration than those who were not.

“We found that a mere awareness of financial considerations in a decision like punishment is enough to change a judge’s decision about sentencing,” said Eyal Aharoni, assistant professor of psychology, philosophy and neuroscience at Georgia State University. “We might think judges are familiar with the financial and social costs of incarceration, and they probably are, but putting it in front of them at the time of a sentencing decision made a big difference in what punishment they decided to hand down.”

In the study, 87 Minnesota state judges with at least six months of experience on the bench were given a fictional case of aggravated robbery, where an adult defendant had already been found guilty. The research team chose Minnesota because of the state’s fairly strict sentencing guidelines. Participants were recruited from virtual workshops in the Minnesota Annual Conference of State Judges held in December 2021.

The judges were split into two groups. One group was given a case summary, which included details of the crime, such as use of a deadly weapon and prior offense. In Minnesota, per state statute, these two factors mean the presumptive sentence would involve time in prison.

The second group was given the same case summary with an additional statement about the negative consequences of incarceration, including financial burden on taxpayers, emotional and financial burden on the defendant’s family, reduction in the defendant’s ability to find employment when released, and increased odds that the defendant will commit other serious crimes in the future.

The group of judges who saw the second statement about negative financial and social consequences gave sentences 15.87 percent shorter than those judges who did not see that information.

“Even with restricted ranges of sentencing guidelines, we still find an effect within this range,” Aharoni said. “We assume that judges have already formed opinions on appropriate punishment and that presenting them with this information wouldn’t make a difference, but it did.”

This is only the second study examining cost framing on professional judges, according to the researchers. Most previous research has focused on how it affects the opinions of the general public and prosecutors. In fact, in a previous study published in Frontiers in Psychology in November 2021, Aharoni and fellow researchers found that exposing prosecutors to the cost of incarceration reduced sentencing recommendations by 30 percent.

“If prosecutors stand to gain by showing that they’re tough on crime, then why were the prosecutors so receptive to the cost information?” he said. “One answer is they are willing to recognize the difficult tradeoffs that are inherent in their sentencing recommendations, but they need a little nudge.”

This isn’t just in theory, either. In California, where one year of incarceration per inmate costs $106,131 a year, Assembly Bill 1474 would require the disclosure of sentencing cost information to judges at the time of sentencing, appearing along with the expected benefits of the sentence in the presentencing report.

The bill is an “effort to increase transparency, and present just another piece of information so judges aren’t basing sentences solely on the benefits of incarcerating someone,” Aharoni said. It passed in the California Sstate Aassembly in July 2021 but has yet to be taken up in the State Senate.

The other authors of the study are Heather M. Kleider-Offutt and Sarah F. Brosnan of Georgia State, and Morris B. Hoffman, a retired Denver District Court judge.

The paper, “Nudges for Judges: An Experiment on the Effect of Making Sentencing Costs Explicit,” was published in the academic journal Frontiers in Psychology. 

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Psychology

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2022.889933 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Nudges for Judges: An Experiment on the Effect of Making Sentencing Costs Explicit

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

20-May-2022

Turn up the beat! Groovy rhythm improves cognitive ability in groove enjoyers

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba find that music with a groove enhances cognition in familiarized participants

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TSUKUBA

Tsukuba, Japan—dancing to musical rhythms is a universal human activity. But now, researchers from Japan have found that dancing doesn't just feel good, it also enhances brain function.

In a study recently published in Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Tsukuba have revealed that music with a groove, known as groove music, can significantly increase measures of executive function and associated brain activity in participants who are familiar with the music.

Music that elicits the sensation of groove can elicit feelings of pleasure and enhance behavioral arousal levels. Exercise, which has similar positive effects, is known to enhance executive function. Accordingly, this may also be an effect of listening to groove music. However, no studies have examined the effect of groove music on executive function or brain activity in regions associated with executive function, such as the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (l-DLPFC), which the researchers at University of Tsukuba aimed to address.

"Groove rhythms elicit groove sensations and positive affective responses. However, whether they influence executive function is unknown," says lead author of the study Professor Hideaki Soya. "Accordingly, in the present study, we conducted brain imaging to evaluate corresponding changes in executive function, and measured individual psychological responses to groove music."

To do this, the researchers performed functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) with a color-word matching task to examine inhibitory executive function before and after listening to music. They also conducted a survey about the subjective experience of listening to groove music.

"The results were surprising," explains Professor Soya. "We found that groove rhythm enhanced executive function and activity in the l-DLPFC only in participants who reported that the music elicited a strong groove sensation and the sensation of being clear-headed."

In fact, these psychological responses to listening to groove rhythm could predict changes in executive function and l-DLPFC activity.

"Our findings indicate that individual differences in psychological responses to groove music modulate the corresponding effects on executive function. As such, the effects of groove rhythm on human cognitive performance may be influenced by familiarity or beat processing ability," says Professor Soya.

Strategies for enhancing executive function have a wide range of potential applications, from preventing dementia in elderly people to helping employees enhance their performance. Furthermore, the positive effects of groove music on executive function could include the effects of positive emotions and of rhythmic synchronization. This could help to explain the many positive benefits of dancing, or any form of exercise conducted while listening to music. Further research is needed to develop applications for this new information.

Original Paper

The article, "Groove rhythm stimulates prefrontal cortex function in groove enjoyers" was published in Scientific Reports at DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-11324-3

Correspondence

Professor SOYA Hideaki
Advanced Research Initiative for Human High Performance (ARIHHP), Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Tsukuba

Related Link

Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences
Advanced Research Initiative for Human High Performance (ARIHHP)

 

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-11324-3 

ARTICLE TITLE

Groove rhythm stimulates prefrontal cortex function in groove enjoyers

Ancient viral elements embedded in human genome not from fossil retrovirus

The ancient retrovirus moves around our genome and may be a risk for regenerative medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KUMAMOTO UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: HERV-K IS EXPRESSED BY SOX2 AND MOVES ON THE GENOME THROUGH REVERSE TRANSCRIPTION AND INTEGRATION. view more 

CREDIT: DR. KAZUAKI MONDE

Using a next generation sequencing analysis to examine human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) integration sites, researchers from Kumamoto University, the National Institute of Genetics (Japan), and the University of Michigan (USA) have discovered that these ancient retroviruses can undergo retrotransposition (DNA sequence insertion with RNA mediation) into iPS cells. The team believes that their discovery places a spotlight on a possible risk that HERVs pose when using iPS cells in regenerative medicine.

The study of ancient retroviruses embedded in our genome requires knowledge about our coexistence with viral threats throughout history. We know that HERVs occupy approximately 8% of the human genome and obtain mutations and deletions over long periods. HERVs are also expressed in early embryos and play several physiological roles in human development. For example, HERV-W and HERV-FRD Env proteins are important for placental formation, and HERV-K is thought to protect host cells from exogenous retrovirus infection. However, uncontrollable HERV-K expression is also thought to be associated with various diseases, including various cancers and neurological diseases, but the details of this association is not well known in humans.

Since no one has yet discovered replication competent HERVs in our genome, it is thought that they are from an extinct (fossil) virus. In their current work, the research team from Japan and the US discovered that HERV-K is expressed in SOX2-expressing cells, such as those in early embryos, cancer stem cells and iPS cells. They also found that some HERV-K are newly integrated into the host genome in the absence of Env, the viral envelope glycoprotein. This integration was dependent on reverse transcriptase, integrase and protease, thus the researchers hypothesized that the HERV-K embedded in our genome is actually not from a fossil virus, but moves on the genome through the synthesis of proviral DNA reverse transcription. Interestingly, when the researchers compared the HERV-K integration sites between iPS and fibroblast cells from the same donor, they found new HERV-K integration sites in iPS cells. However, the new integration sites were rarely preserved and disappeared during long-term culturing. HERV-K is likely to be randomly integrated into genome, thus the possibility remains that HERV-K retrotransposed-cells predominantly survive depending on their integration site.

The movement of HERV-K on the genome might cause cancer and neurological diseases by altering the gene expression profile. The researchers believe that the risk of HERV-K transposition is low in iPS cells but suggest that monitoring HERV-K integration sites should be seriously considered to improve the safety of regenerative medicine using iPS cells.

This research was published online on 14 April 2022 in the Journal of Virology.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Virology

DOI

10.1128/jvi.00356-22 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Movements of ancient human endogenous retroviruses detected in SOX2-expressing cells

Supermassive black holes inside of dying galaxies detected in early universe

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF NATURAL SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: IN THESE GALAXIES STAR FORMATION CEASED AROUND 10 BILLION YEARS AGO. (3-COLOR FALSE-COLOR COMPOSITE IMAGES COMBINING DATA FROM THE SUBARU TELESCOPE AND VISTA) view more 

CREDIT: NAOJ

An international team of astronomers used a database combining observations from the best telescopes in the world, including the Subaru Telescope, to detect the signal from the active supermassive black holes of dying galaxies in the early Universe. The appearance of these active supermassive black holes correlates with changes in the host galaxy, suggesting that a black hole could have far reaching effects on the evolution of its host galaxy.

The Milky Way Galaxy where we live includes stars of various ages, including stars still forming. But in some other galaxies, known as elliptical galaxies, all of the stars are old and about the same age. This indicates that early in their histories elliptical galaxies had a period of prolific star formation that suddenly ended. Why this star formation ceased in some galaxies but not others is not well understood. One possibility is that a supermassive black hole disrupts the gas in some galaxies, creating an environment unsuitable for star formation.

To test this theory, astronomers look at distant galaxies. Due to the finite speed of light, it takes time for light to travel across the void of space. The light we see from an object 10 billion light-years away had to travel for 10 billion years to reach Earth. Thus the light we see today shows us what the galaxy looked like when the light left that galaxy 10 billion years ago. So looking at distant galaxies is like looking back in time. But the intervening distance also means that distant galaxies look fainter, making study difficult.

To overcome these difficulties an international team led by Kei Ito at SOKENDAI in Japan used the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS) to sample galaxies 9.5-12.5 billion light-years away. COSMOS combines data taken by world leading telescopes, including the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Subaru Telescope. COSMOS includes radio wave, infrared light, visible light, and x-ray data.

The team first used optical and infrared data to identify two groups of galaxies: those with ongoing star formation and those where star formation has stopped. The x-ray and radio wave data signal-to-noise ratio was too weak to identify individual galaxies. So the team combined the data for different galaxies to produce higher signal to noise ratio images of “average” galaxies. In the averaged images, the team confirmed both x-ray and radio emissions for the galaxies without star formation. This is the first time such emissions have been detected for distant galaxies more than 10 billion light-years away. Furthermore, the results show that the x-ray and radio emissions are too strong to be explained by the stars in the galaxy alone, indicating the presence of an active supermassive black hole. This black hole activity signal is weaker for galaxies where star formation is ongoing.

These results show that an abrupt end in star formation in the early Universe correlates with increased supermassive black hole activity. More research is needed to determine the details of the relationship.

These results appeared as Ito et al. “COSMOS2020: Ubiquitous AGN Activity of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at 0 < z < 5 Revealed by X-Ray and Radio Stacking” in the Astrophysical Journal on April 12, 2022.

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JOURNAL

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ac5aaf 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

COSMOS2020: Ubiquitous AGN Activity of Massive Quiescent Galaxies at 0 < z < 5 Revealed by X-Ray and Radio Stacking

Autistic individuals have poorer health and healthcare

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

Autistic individuals are more likely to have chronic mental and physical health conditions, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge. Autistic individuals also report lower quality healthcare than others. These findings, published in Molecular Autism, have important implications for the healthcare and support of autistic individuals.

Many studies indicate that autistic people are dying far younger than others, but there is a paucity of research on the health and healthcare of autistic people across the adult lifespan. While some studies have previously suggested that autistic people may have significant barriers to accessing healthcare, only a few, small studies have compared the healthcare experiences of autistic people to others.

In the largest study to date on this topic, the team at the Autism Research Centre (ARC) in Cambridge used an anonymous, self-report survey to compare the experiences of 1,285 autistic individuals to 1,364 non-autistic individuals, aged 16-96 years, from 79 different countries. 54% of participants were from the UK. The survey assessed rates of mental and physical health conditions, and the quality of healthcare experiences.

The team found that autistic people self-reported lower quality healthcare than others across 50 out of 51 items on the survey. Autistic people were far less likely to say that they could describe how their symptoms feel in their body, describe how bad their pain feels, explain what their symptoms are, and understand what their healthcare professional means when they discuss their health. Autistic people were also less likely to know what is expected of them when they go to see their healthcare professional, and to feel they are provided with appropriate support after receiving a diagnosis, of any kind.

Autistic people were over seven times more likely to report that their senses frequently overwhelm them so that they have trouble focusing on conversations with healthcare professionals. In addition, they were over three times more likely to say they frequently leave their healthcare professional’s office feeling as though they did not receive any help at all. Autistic people were also four times more likely to report experiencing shutdowns or meltdowns due to a common healthcare scenario (e.g., setting up an appointment to see a healthcare professional).

The team then created an overall ‘health inequality score’ and employed novel data analytic methods, including machine learning. Differences in healthcare experiences were stark: the models could predict whether or not a participant was autistic with 72% accuracy based only on their ‘health inequality score’. The study also found worryingly high rates of chronic physical and mental health conditions, including arthritis, breathing concerns, neurological conditions, anorexia, anxiety, ADHD, bipolar disorder, depression, insomnia, OCD, panic disorders, personality disorders, PTSD, SAD, and self-harm.

Dr Elizabeth Weir, a postdoctoral scientist at the ARC in Cambridge, and the lead researcher of the study, said: “This study should sound the alarm to healthcare professionals that their autistic patients are experiencing high rates of chronic conditions alongside difficulties with accessing healthcare. Current healthcare systems are failing to meet very fundamental needs of autistic people.”

Dr Carrie Allison, Director of Strategy at the ARC and another member of the team, added: “Healthcare systems must adapt to provide appropriate reasonable adjustments to autistic and all neurodiverse patients to ensure that they have equal access to high quality healthcare.”

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the ARC and a member of the team, said: “This study is an important step forward in understanding the issues that autistic adults are facing in relation to their health and health care, but much more research is needed. We need more research on long term outcomes of autistic people and how their health and healthcare can be improved. Clinical service providers need to ask autistic people what they need and then meet these needs.”

The research was funded by the Autism Centre of Excellence, the Rosetrees Trust, the Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, the Corbin Charitable Trust, the Queen Anne’s Gate Foundation, the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

Reference

Weir, E., Allison, C., & Baron-Cohen, S. Autistic adults have poorer quality healthcare and worse health based on self-report data. Molecular Autism (2022).

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JOURNAL

Molecular Autism

DOI

10.1186/s13229-022-00501-w 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Autistic adults have poorer quality healthcare and worse health based on self-report data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-May-2022

A climate resilient Venice: How to meet the challenge

CMCC FOUNDATION - EURO-MEDITERRANEAN CENTER ON CLIMATE CHANGE

image: The Metropolitan City of Venice. The Case study area. view more

Credit: Image credits: CMCC - UNIVE


Increases in climate-change related impacts are giving rise to environmental, economic, and social stress on coastal systems. These climate-related threats may be exacerbated by land use transformations, urbanization, over-tourism, sociopolitical tensions, and technological innovations among others.

The Metropolitan City of Venice and its lagoon, located in the north-east of Italy, along the Adriatic coast, is a coastal-urban system that is facing multiple challenges related both to changes in global phenomena and socioeconomic dynamics.

With the aim of enhancing overall system resilience to multiple climate-related disasters and a variety of other stressors, researchers at CMCC@Ca’Foscari, the strategic partnership between CMCC Foundation and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, have conducted a study that identifies the best risk management initiatives for the area. Given the context of high uncertainty caused by climate change, the main objective was to identify robust initiatives across a range of possible future scenarios.

The Prioritization of Resilience Initiatives for Climate-Related Disasters in the Metropolitan City of Venice study has been conducted in the context of ‘BRIDGE’, a project of great relevance for the cooperation between Italy and the United States, coordinated by Andrea Critto, Professor at Ca’Foscari University of Venice and Senior Scientist at the CMCC. It concludes that, given the situation of uncertainty, the best possible strategy is to use a portfolio of risk-management initiatives – instead of a single initiative – to enhance the resilience of the whole system. This set of measures should include physical initiatives – such as the adaptation of hydraulic defense structures to cope with large scale and intense events – together with cognitive and social initiatives – such as updating and implementation of plans and regulations – which can be flexible enough to be effective against a range of hazards.

The study integrates qualitative information – derived from the involvement of stakeholders in a workshop – and quantitative information derived from climate sciences (i.e., climate-change projections).

At first, different groups of local stakeholders, including local authorities, civil protection agencies, research institutions, parks and NGOs identified the critical components of the system (natural, cultural, social, and economic) that should be protected in the area.

Secondly, stakeholders and experts identified a set of policy initiatives to support these critical functions, divided into: Information initiatives (early warning systems and information production and sharing); physical initiatives (green and blue infrastructure networks, adaptation and optimization of the water network and supply, adaptation of hydraulic defense structures and emergency response arrangements); cognitive initiatives (updating and implementation of plans and regulations, civil protection machine planning; as well as plans and strategies for restoration and recovery of historical areas); and social initiatives (environmental education and awareness and citizen science).

Finally, the above risk management initiatives were ranked, through a scenario-informed MultiCriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), across four scenarios describing main climate threats expected in the area: storm surges, pluvial floods, heatwaves and drought.

Results show that different climate scenarios, when analyzed individually, lead to a specific prioritization of the set of risk management initiatives. Likewise, the priority of initiatives changes when considering the joint occurrence of several scenarios. However, given the large uncertainty in predicting which hazard scenarios may occur in the future in this particular area, the best option is to build overall resilience of coastal systems in the face of a range of adverse events.

The management alternatives acting on the physical domain, despite being considered a priority by stakeholders, generally only enhance resilience across a few scenarios. These results can be explained by the fact that physical initiatives are usually designed and implemented targeting very specific typologies of extreme climate events. For example, the design of hydraulic defense structures and the implementation of emergency response arrangements including set infrastructural projects like the MOSE – (MOdulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico) or temporary solutions (e.g. footbridges, pumps and mobile bulkheads on private buildings and doors) are specifically designed for the protection of the Metropolitan City of Venice from storm surge and high waters events, while lacking any ability to increase the system resilience in relation to other kinds of hazard, such as drought and heatwaves.

On the contrary, cognitive, informative, and social initiatives seem to be more stable under changing conditions, as they maintain their position when climate change scenarios are introduced.

Implementing initiatives strongly oriented to cope with specific hazards could lead to an increase of a risk toward other kinds of hazards (i.e., maladaptation) thus undermining efforts and resources invested for risk reduction. Accordingly, the study recommends the adoption of a portfolio of risk-management initiatives to enhance the resilience of the system. These should include physical initiatives to cope with large scale and intense events, together with cognitive and social ones which can be flexible enough to be effective against a range of hazards.

“Climate risks are interconnected and do not occur in isolation” says Silvia Torresan, co-director of the Risk Assessment and Adaptation Strategies Division at the CMCC Foundation. “If we don’t employ a multi-risk approach in the assessment and management of risks, we could adopt measures that address one problem but generate or amplify others.”



For more information:

Bonato M., Sambo B., Sperotto A., Lambert J.H., Linkov I., Critto A., Torresan S., Marcomini A.
2021, Risk Analysis: An International Journal, Risk Analysis, Vol. 0, No. 0, 2021, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13823

No 'echo chambers' in Reddit climate debate

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER

Climate change debates on Reddit don't happen in polarised "echo chambers", new research suggests.

The study found evidence suggestive of more "deliberative debate".

University of Exeter researchers examined the topics, information sources and the existence of different communities in Reddit climate discussions.

They found little evidence of echo chambers – contrasting with previous research on Twitter which found discussions of climate change often occur within polarising echo chambers. 

However, the study did find evidence of polarisation, with the most common topic in climate-related posts and comments being "incivil debate" (containing name-calling and unfriendly language).

"We also found evidence suggestive of more 'deliberative debate', with lots of discussion about important aspects of the climate crisis and many topics suggestive of debate that is not incivil," said lead author Kathie Treen, from the University of Exeter.

"It was encouraging to see a lack of echo chambers, aside from a single pro-Trump community which has since been banned by Reddit.

"Even though there's polarisation in terms of opinion, the two sides are debating in the same place."

The researchers used three methods to analyse climate discussions on Reddit:

• Topic modelling (data on words commonly found together, which can reveal the subjects being discussed). This showed wide-ranging discussions on subjects including the causes and impacts of climate change, politics, economics and science. But "incivil debate" was dominant in more posts and comments than any other subject, and climate scepticism/denial was a close second.
• Community detection (which people engage with each other?). A “reply network” based on who replies to whom was used to detect communities of individuals. Mapping the interactions between these communities revealed what Treen called a "hairball" of interconnected communities. Rather than echo chambers whose members only spoke to each other, the different communities were "highly connected" (measured by the level of interaction between the different communities). 
• Analysis of sources (which sources did users cite?). The sources cited suggest an overall leaning that is somewhat left-wing politically and environmentalist in its climate perspective. Wikipedia was the most shared source, followed by YouTube and Twitter. The only traditional "expert-generated" sources in the top 10 were the Guardian and Nasa. The IPCC – the authoritative assessment of climate change information – was 35th.

Treen explained that “whilst most research on social media climate debate has focussed on Twitter, Reddit has a different platform architecture, for example community moderation and theme-based rather than follower-based information flows".

She added: “The findings of our paper suggest that platform architecture plays a key role in shaping climate debate online.”

The study used data from 1 April to 30 June 2017 – an important period in climate politics, as the US announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on 1 June that year.

The researchers analysed 18,558 posts and 267,147 comments from 93,850 users related to the issue of climate change.

The paper, published in the journal Environmental Communication, is entitled: "Discussion of Climate Change on Reddit: Polarized Discourse or Deliberative Debate?"

The paper's authors include researchers working on ACCESS, a new five-year project funded by the Economic and Social Research Council that aims to provide leadership on the social science contribution to tackling and solving a range of environmental problems. It will build leadership capacity in a new cohort of early career researchers and collaborate with stakeholders to ensure social science evidence informs decision-making.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Communication

DOI

10.1080/17524032.2022.2050776 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Discussion of Climate Change on Reddit: Polarized Discourse or Deliberative Debate?