New York fetes French Nobel literature winner Ernaux

AFP -

French author and feminist figure Annie Ernaux received a standing ovation at a New York bookstore on Monday as the recent Nobel literature prize winner attended a cultural event to speak about her career and writing.


Nobel laureaute Annie Ernaux is the pioneer of France's 'autofiction' genre, which gives narrative form to real-life experience© Andrea RENAULT

Ernaux, whose works have been translated and studied in the United States for the past 30 years, had been honored last week by the Nobel committee "for the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements and collective restraints of personal memory."

At the Albertine bookstore in New York, the writer spoke for an hour about the literary process in conversation with American novelist Kate Zambreno.

At least 300 people, the majority of them women, gave her a standing ovation at the event in the Villa Albertine, which houses the cultural services of the French embassy in the United States.

"I have always been nurtured by literature since childhood. As far back as I look and as I can remember books are my life," Ernaux, 82, said in remarks translated by an interpreter.

Personal experiences of class and gender are the source for all Ernaux's work and she is the pioneer of France's "autofiction" genre, which gives narrative form to real-life experience.

Her more than 20 books, many of which have been school texts in France for decades, offer one of the most subtle, insightful windows into the social life of modern France, casting a critical eye on social structures and her own complicated emotions.

During an exchange with the audience, Ernaux was warmly thanked by a young woman for getting her into feminism, in particular due to reading "The Happening," her autobiographical novel about having an illegal abortion in the 1960s.

"I must say that what I just heard was something truly marvelous and gives me energy because I don't feel responsible for the effect that my books have on the young generation," the writer replied.

Ernaux, who is visiting New York this week, also presented with her son David Ernaux-Briot their family documentary "The Super 8 years" at the 60th New York Film Festival Monday evening.

On Wednesday, she will be received at Barnard College at Columbia University in New York, a liberal arts college for women.

nr/elm/mtp/mca

New Zealand outlines plans to tax livestock burps, farts

AFP - 

New Zealand on Tuesday unveiled plans to tax the greenhouse gas emissions from farm animals, in a controversial proposal designed to tackle climate change.


© Marty MELVILLE

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the levy would be the first of its kind in the world.

Gases naturally emitted by New Zealand's 6.2 million cows are among the country's biggest environmental problems.

The scheme would see farmers pay for gas emissions from their animals, such as methane gas in the farts and burps from cows, and nitrous oxide in the urine of livestock.

Ardern told farmers they should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.

She said the "pragmatic proposal" would reduce agricultural emissions while making produce more sustainable by enhancing New Zealand's "export brand".

The government hopes to sign off the proposal by next year and the tax could be introduced in just three years' time.

But with New Zealand going to the polls in the next 15 months, the proposal could cost Ardern rural votes as farmers quickly condemned the plan.

Andrew Hoggard, president of the Federated Farmers lobby group, said the scheme would "rip the guts out of small-town New Zealand".

He argued the tax could push farmers into growing trees on fields currently used to rear livestock.

Beef + Lamb New Zealand, representing the country's sheep and cattle farmers, said the plan failed to take into account rural measures already in place to counter greenhouse gases.

"New Zealand farmers have more than 1.4 million hectares of native forest on their land which is absorbing carbon," said chairman Andrew Morrison.

"It's only fair this is appropriately recognised in any framework from day one."

ryj/arb/axn

Haitians protest government’s call for foreign police forces


Issued on: 11/10/2022 - 

Police fire tear gas during a protest in Port-au-Prince, Haiti October 10, 2022. © Ralph Tedy Erol

Thousands of Haitians demonstrated Monday in Port-au-Prince to protest against the government and its call for foreign assistance to deal with endemic insecurity, a humanitarian crisis and a burgeoning cholera epidemic.

A day after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for immediate deployment of a special international armed force in Haiti to help the crisis-hit Caribbean state, the demonstration in the capital was marred by violence, with police using tear gas to disperse looters, an AFP correspondent said.

"We certainly need help to develop our country, but we don't need boots" on the ground, one protester told AFP, charging that the international community was "interfering in the internal affairs of Haiti" and that the government had "no legitimacy to ask for military assistance."

Several people were shot and one person was reported to have been killed during the rallies. Protesters blamed the police for the fatality.

"It is a crime perpetrated by the police. This young girl posed no threat. She was killed expressing her desire to live in dignity," said another protester, who declined to give his name.

Haiti has been the scene for several weeks of violent demonstrations and looting, after the announcement by the head of government of an increase in fuel prices.

Demonstrators calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who appealed for international support, also took to the streets in other cities across the country.

The Haitian government on Friday formalized its request for international assistance to staunch spiraling insecurity.

Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, is facing an acute political, economic, security and health crisis, with a cholera epidemic now looming – circumstances that have paralyzed the country and sparked a breakdown of law and order.

Since mid-September, the country's largest fuel import terminal, in Varreux, has been controlled by armed gangs.

And last week health experts warned of a resurgence of cholera, three years after an epidemic that killed 10,000 people.

The health ministry said Monday 32 confirmed cases of the disease and 16 deaths have already been recorded, with another 224 suspected cases during the period from October 1 to 9.

The ministry also said cases have been detected in the Port-au-Prince's prison, the largest in the country, where the conditions of detention are dire.

(AFP)

Climate change and deforestation may drive tree-dwelling primates to the ground, large-scale study shows

by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

Propithecus Verreauxi. Credit: San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

A large-scale study of 47 species of monkeys and lemurs has found that climate change and deforestation are driving these tree-dwelling animals to the ground, where they are at higher risk due to lack of preferred food and shelter, and may experience more negative interaction with humans and domestic animals.

The study, slated to publish Oct. 10 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was led by Timothy Eppley, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance (SDZWA), and examined more than 150,000 hours of observation data on 15 lemur species and 32 monkey species at 68 sites in the Americas and Madagascar. This study was a remarkable worldwide collaboration, including 118 co-authors from 124 unique institutions.

"This study began with a discussion among colleagues about how we'd noticed certain populations of arboreal primates spending more time on the ground," said Dr. Eppley, "yet at sites with relatively less disturbance, members of the same species may never descend to the ground."

The authors estimated the influence of ecological drivers, including potential human-induced pressures and/or species-specific traits, on the level of terrestriality (time spent on the ground) in arboreal primates. The study found that primates that consume less fruit and live in large social groups were more likely to descend to the ground. The authors suggest that these traits act as a potential "pre-adaptation" to terrestriality. Furthermore, primates living in hotter environments, and with less canopy cover, were more likely to adapt to these changes by shifting toward more extensive ground use.

Many of these species are already burdened with living in warmer, fragmented and heavily disturbed environments that often have fewer available dietary resources. As climate change worsens and arboreal habitats diminish, the study suggests primates consuming a more generalized diet and living in larger groups may more easily adapt to a terrestrial lifestyle.

"It's possible that spending more time on the ground may cushion some primates from the effects of forest degradation and climate change; however, for the less-adaptable species, fast and effective conservation strategies will be necessary to ensure their survival," Eppley said.

The study also found that primate populations closer to human infrastructures are less likely to descend to the ground. Luca Santini, Ph.D., from Sapienza University of Rome, one of the two senior authors of the study, said, "This finding may suggest that human presence, which is often a threat to primates, may interfere with the natural adaptability of the species to global change."

The transition from an arboreal to terrestrial lifestyle has occurred previously in primate evolution, but today's rapid changes are a serious threat.

"Though similar ecological conditions and species traits may have influenced previous evolutionary shifts of arboreal primates, including hominins, to ground living, it is clear that the current pace of deforestation and climate change puts most primate species in peril," said Giuseppe Donati, Ph. D., of Oxford Brookes University, one of the senior authors of the study.

Nadine Lamberski, SDZWA Chief Conservation and Wildlife Health Officer, who was not involved in the study, remarked on the impressive scale of this collaborative scientific initiative.

"This is an extraordinary effort to convene 118 authors and review data of this magnitude. It is also a tremendous example of the insights that can be gleaned and strides that can be made when conservation is examined on a global scale," Lamberski said.Primates' ancestors may have left trees to survive asteroid

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More information: Eppley, Timothy M., Factors influencing terrestriality in primates of the Americas and Madagascar, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2121105119. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2121105119

Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance

Voters agree on need for more protections from chemicals

Reports and Proceedings

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

American voters overwhelmingly say they want government and industry to ensure the products they buy are free of harmful chemicals, and they are willing to pay more for it, according to a national online survey commissioned by the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment (PRHE) at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

“At a time when most issues are politically polarized, the issue of keeping people safe from harmful chemicals finds widespread agreement among Democrats, Republicans and Independent voters,” said Celinda Lake, President of Lake Research Partners, which conducted the poll. 

The survey of 1,200 registered voters found broad agreement that the government require products to be proven safe before they are put on the market. More than 90% of those surveyed support this requirement and two-thirds strongly agree with these ideas.

The poll also found:

• 92% of voters agree and 63% of voters strongly agree that the government should require products to be proven safe before companies are allowed to put them on the  market. 
• 93% of voters agree and 62% strongly agree that companies should do a better job of removing harmful chemicals from consumer products. 
• 88% agree that companies should do a better job of removing plastic and plastic packaging from consumer products.
• 76% are concerned about the impact that chemicals and plastics have on climate change.  
• 54% say chemical regulations are not strong enough, while 21% say they are about right and 10% say they are too strong. 
• 89% support (56% strongly support) the goal of the Toxic Substances Control Act to make it easier to limit or ban harmful chemicals and better protect vulnerable populations like pregnant women, children and people who live near polluting factories. 
• 93% agree (57% strongly) that it is important to remove harmful chemicals from where we live, work and go to school even if it increases the costs for some products, and similar numbers agree that it is important for companies to keep harmful chemicals out of everyday products, even if it increases costs for some products.

Voters are concerned about all of the chemicals they were asked about in the survey and expressed the most worry about chemicals ingested through water, food and food packaging. Still, they are unsure of how the chemical regulatory system works. About half (49%) say the chemicals in food and consumer products have been tested for safety, although this is not true.

“People assume that what they buy is safe and that almost always isn’t the case,” said Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, who directs PRHE and the EaRTH Center at UCSF. “The good news is this survey reveals overwhelming support for the government to do a better job of protecting people from harmful chemicals.”  

The poll was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. 

Survey methodology: Lake Research Partners designed and administered this online dial survey that was conducted May 25 to June 5, 2022. The survey reached a total of 1,200 registered voters nationwide including 800 base voters and oversamples of 100 Black registered voters, 100 Latinx registered voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander registered voters, and 100 Gen-Z registered voters. Oversamples were designed to ensure the results were representative of the U.S. voting population.

About UCSF: The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is exclusively focused on the health sciences and is dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care. UCSF Health, which serves as UCSF's primary academic medical center, includes top-ranked specialty hospitals and other clinical programs, and has affiliations throughout the Bay Area. UCSF School of Medicine also has a regional campus in Fresno. Learn more at https://ucsf.edu, or see our Fact Sheet.

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Fixed-duration strikes can revitalize labor

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

ITHACA, N.Y. – “Fixed-duration” strikes – such as the three-day walkout by 15,000 nurses in mid-September – protect worker interests and impose financial and reputational costs on employers, suggesting that confrontational tactics can help unions counteract increasing employer power, according to new Cornell University ILR School research.

“Retooling Militancy: Labour Revitalization and Fixed-Duration Strikes,” published Sept. 8 in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, authored by doctoral student Johnnie Kallas, tracks the rise of militant leadership at the California Nurses Association in the mid-1990s and its strategic adaptation of the strike.

Kallas examined 10 fixed-duration strikes by the California nurses between 2011 and 2015. Most of the strikes lasted one day. Three-dozen interviews and other research led Kallas, who was an organizer with the union from 2016 to 2017, to determine that militant leadership and staff resulted in the adoption of the fixed-duration strike.

The fixed-duration strikes by thousands of nurses built a more militant membership and organization as it developed a social justice vision while resisting nearly 100 concessions proposed at the bargaining table and laying the foundation for larger wage gains in subsequent contracts, he said.

The fixed-duration strike “is a crucial component of labour revitalization and the union’s strategy to resist both individual hospital employers and the broader private healthcare system in the United States,” he wrote.

U.S. unions and labor organizations representing teachers, fast food workers and others are retooling the strike to confront increasing employer power and to revitalize the labor movement, Kallas said. He is director of the ILR Labor Action Tracker, which recorded 545 labor actions in 803 U.S. locations between Jan. 1 and Sept. 29. Although there has been a dramatic uptick in work stoppages in the past four years, the number of U.S. strikes has fallen sharply since the 1980s.

Fixed-duration strikes, Kallas wrote, create economic and reputational costs for employers. For instance, the hospitals impacted by the nurses’ strikes couldn’t shut down; they were forced to hire temporary nurses with expensive fees. The unionized nurses did not abandon patients; they returned to work after the strike.

The disadvantages of fixed-duration strikes are that they might not force a settlement, Kallas said, but they can be highly effective tool to “protect the economic interests of nurses and advance their role as patient care advocates, while still imposing financial and reputational costs on employers.”

For additional information, see this Cornell Chronicle story.

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JOURNAL

British Journal of Industrial Relations

DOI

10.1111/bjir.12709 

ARTICLE TITLE

Retooling militancy: Labour revitalization and fixed-duration strikes

U$A

Urban trees rooted in redlining and environmental injustice

Neighborhood street trees in Baltimore tell a tale of both historical racial discrimination and modern reparation, according to new UMD-led study.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

A University of Maryland-led team discovered that trees in Baltimore reflect the city’s history of institutionalized racism, but also more recent efforts to counter environmental injustice.

Funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this research is the latest contribution to the 25-year Baltimore Ecosystem study. The team’s findings were published on October 5, 2022 in the journal Ecology.

In the study, researchers analyzed street trees in 36 Baltimore neighborhoods that were once classified by the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC), a New Deal program intended to expand homeownership. Infamously, HOLC classified and color-coded neighborhoods by perceived mortgage risk—green was designated as “best,” while red was deemed “hazardous.”

Often, the criteria used to classify neighborhoods was explicitly discriminatory; neighborhoods with high populations of racial and religious minorities as well as immigrants were more likely to be “redlined.” As a result, residents in those areas often experienced lower property values, resource investment by cities and wealth accumulation decades into the future.

“We found that previously redlined neighborhoods had consistently lower street tree diversity and were much less likely to have larger, older trees on a site,” said Karin Burghardt, lead author of the study and an assistant professor of entomology at UMD. “This is important because the differences in tree size and diversity affect the natural ecological services provided by trees—ultimately impacting the quality of life for residents living nearby.”

The team discovered that green, low-risk neighborhoods were nine times more likely to have larger and older trees present than red, high-risk neighborhoods. Additionally, trees found in green neighborhoods were significantly more diverse containing more types of trees than in red neighborhoods. The researchers found that present-day street trees in Baltimore contained signatures of the 1937 HOLC loan risk classifications that had been based on racially discriminatory criteria.

“Older, larger trees have more canopy cover than smaller trees, which can impact variables like local heat islands, air quality, soil health and even stormwater management. Similarly, higher tree diversity allows for more resiliency against invasive pest or disease outbreaks,” Burghardt explained. “These differences in tree communities and size may help explain why red-lined spaces have become associated with poorer health outcomes and shorter life expectancies for people living in them.”

On the other hand, the researchers also noted a greater dominance of smaller, younger trees in formerly redlined neighborhoods—possible evidence of Baltimore’s recent efforts to address the disparity between neighborhoods. 

According to Burghardt, Baltimore’s new sustainability goals and efforts by city foresters and local tree-planting organizations have likely created an ongoing push to increase tree canopy cover and biodiversity in previously under-invested areas in the city. With this movement and others like it, she believes that more people from all communities in Baltimore will be able to enjoy the natural benefits that trees provide and do their part in the fight against climate change.

But the researchers did inject a note of caution; they discovered that these new communities of young trees planted in previously redlined neighborhoods were made up of fewer species than those in green areas and are heavily planted with a single species, red maple, across all previously redlined neighborhoods. While red maple is an adaptable, native tree species, the lessons of the massive loss of ash and elm trees from cities due to imported diseases and pests suggest that relying on one or a few species could decrease the resilience of these new urban forests in the future.

Ultimately, the research team hopes that its study will help Baltimore residents and policymakers gauge current efforts at promoting environmental justice and biodiversity. Data from HOLC color-coded maps and records of existing trees suggest that more can be done to overcome Baltimore’s socioecological challenges, including additional maintenance of young trees after planting and more focus on social investment in redlined communities.

“We can still see the negative effects of redlining in today’s street tree communities,” Burghardt said. “But our research indicates that the people of Baltimore are making real strides toward correcting environmental injustice.”

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JOURNAL

Ecology

DOI

10.1002/ecy.3881 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Current street tree communities reflect race-based housing policy and modern attempts to remedy environmental injustice

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

5-Oct-2022

Making the invisible water crisis visible

Sustainable Development Goal for wastewater treatment not enough

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT FACULTEIT GEOWETENSCHAPPEN

 

IMAGE: WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT, PICTURE BY IZZET CAKALLI view more 

CREDIT: IZZET CAKALLI

While achieving the United Nations (UN) ambitious Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) for wastewater treatment would cause substantial improvements in global water quality, severe water quality issues would contain to persist in some world regions. So conclude researchers at Utrecht University. They developed a new water quality model to further elucidate the current and future pollution status of rivers and streams globally. The paper was published on 6th October in Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

Water quality issues are branded an “invisible crisis” by the World Bank, being under-monitored, difficult to detect and often imperceptible to the human eye. Nevertheless, the quality of global water resources is increasingly coming under pressure due to population growth, economic development and climate change. Yet, clean water is vital for our societal needs – such as public health, energy generation and crop production – and for protecting ecosystem health. To illustrate, an estimated 829,000 deaths worldwide are attributed each year to diarrhoea caused by the use of contaminated water for drinking or sanitation purposes.

In this study, the authors developed a new high-resolution global water quality model which can “help to fill-in-the-gaps in water quality knowledge, particularly in world regions where we lack observations”, says lead author Edward Jones. In addition to identifying hotspots of water quality issues, the model can help with attributing the source of pollution to particular sectors. “For instance, large-scale irrigation systems for agriculture drive salinity issues in Northern India, while industrial processes are more responsible in eastern China. Conversely, the domestic and livestock sectors drive organic and pathogen pollution worldwide”, Jones remarks.

The authors extended their focus beyond just past and current water quality. They applied their model to investigate how achieving the SDG target to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater entering the environment in 2030 would benefit global river water quality. “Our simulations show that, for a large part of the year, water quality in several regions would still exceed critical thresholds for human uses and ecosystem health. This is especially the case for developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia”, Jones explains. So, while the SDG target improves water quality, it is not always enough.

Difficult puzzle

Finding an optimum way to manage these problems is a difficult puzzle, however. “Even achieving the current SDG target will pose serious economic challenges, as expansion of wastewater treatment can be an expensive process”, Jones warns. “Yet the cost disadvantages of inadequate water quality for sectoral uses must also be considered. Ultimately, however, we also need to reduce our pollutant emissions and develop new approaches towards wastewater management”. Jones concludes “As such, with this paper we hope to underline the water quality problems we’re facing and firmly place these issues back on the political agenda."

Publication

Edward R. Jones, Marc F.P Bierkens, Niko Wanders, Edwin H. Sutanudjaja, Ludovicus P.H van Beek, Michelle T.H. van Vliet (2022), Current wastewater treatment targets are insufficient to protect surface water quality, Nature Communications Earth & Environment, https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-022-00554-y (available on 6 October)

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s43247-022-00554-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Current wastewater treatment targets are insufficient to protect surface water quality

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

6-Oct-2022

The poorest people live almost 4 years less than the wealthiest

A study of CIBERESP published in Scientific Reports has developed the first life tables in Spain based on socioeconomic levels

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CONSORCIO CENTRO DE INVESTIGACIÓN BIOMÉDICA EN RED MP

People with fewer financial resources live between 3 and 4 years less than richer people, according to the conclusions of a study carried out by several groups from the Epidemiology and Public Health Area (CIBERESP) of the Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBER-ISCIII). The paper has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Scientific Reports of the Nature Publishing Group, and has been funded by the Carlos III Health Institute (ISCIII) and the Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC).

The research teams from the National Centre of Epidemiology of the ISCIII, the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada, the University of Granada and the Andalusian School of Public Health have developed the first life tables in Spain based on socioeconomic levels, which will be very useful when studying the survival rates of different diseases such as cancer.

Analysing the relationship between levels and life expectancy, the authors have determined that women and men living in the most deprived areas live between 3.2 and 3.8 years less, respectively, than their counterparts in the least deprived areas. Furthermore, it has been calculated that on average women live 5.6 years more than men (82.9 years for women compared to 77.3 for men). Per province, it is observed that life expectancy is greater in the north of the peninsula, in both sexes, and in the provincial capitals compared to rural areas.

To carry out this study, all-cause mortalities were analysed from the 35,960 census tracts in Spain during the 2011-2013 period and mortality models were stratified according to sex, age group and socioeconomic levels.

The level of wealth or poverty of each area was measured using an index developed by the Spanish Society of Epidemiology, including information from six indicators mainly related to employment and education: percentage of manual workers (employed and unemployed), casual workers, percentage of population without secondary education and main residences without internet access.

According to Daniel Redondo, researcher from the CIBERESP at the Biosanitary Research Institute of Granada and the Andalusian School of Public Health, “Understanding the association between life expectancy and socioeconomic status could help in developing appropriate public health programmes. Furthermore, the life tables we produced are needed to estimate cancer specific survival measures by socioeconomic status”.

Introducing the health inequality perspective, key

Producing life tables based on socioeconomic levels for the first time in Spain will enable us from now on to study survival rates in cancer and other chronic illnesses by introducing the health inequality perspective, as other European countries such as the United Kingdom have been doing. This will contribute to a greater knowledge and understanding of the factors that influence in the prognosis of certain diseases in our country.

María José Sánchez, head of the group of the CIBERESP at the Andalusian School of Public Health states “Our life tables are essential to calculating life expectancy and estimating cancer survival, as inequalities in this disease persist and have a financial impact on health care costs.” For this purpose, tables are needed to estimate this survival rate based on cancer registries that record net survival, probability of death, and years of life lost due to the disease, among other factors.

The life tables generated are available to researchers in the repository of GitHub:

https://github.com/migariane/Spanish_LifeTablesByDeprivation

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-19859-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Association of socioeconomic deprivation with life expectancy and all-cause mortality in Spain, 2011–2013

Ketamine and depression: A mechanism of the antidepressant revealed

by Institut du Cerveau (Paris Brain Institute)

Mediation Results. Boxplots showing the IQRs for belief-updating biases 

(normalized by estimation error magnitude) and Montgomery-Åsberg

 Depression Rating Scale scores 24 h before and 1 wk after ketamine treatment. 

The black lines inside the boxplots show the median values, and the jitter 

elements left of each boxplot show the individual patients. EE indicates 

estimation error. 

Credit: JAMA Psychiatry (2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.2996

Researchers from Inserm, CNRS, Sorbonne University and clinicians from the AP-HP and at Paris Brain Institute identified one of the mechanisms explaining the ketamine effect as an antidepressant. Ketamine, usually used as an anesthetic, was administered to patients with severe resistant depression.

This treatment led patients to present an increased ability to overcome their negative beliefs about themselves and the world when researchers presented them positive information. These results, published in JAMA Psychiatry, open new therapeutic avenues for the management of antidepressant-resistant mood disorders.

Depression is the most common psychiatric disorder: it is estimated that 5 to 15% of the French population will experience a major depressive episode during their lifetime. All age groups and all social backgrounds are affected.

The disease is characterized by sadness and loss of hedonic feelings that positive events do not improve. Depressed patients progressively develop negative beliefs about themselves, the world, and the future, that may develop into suicidal thoughts. These negative beliefs remain even when the patient receives positive information.

About one-third of people with depression do not respond to the most prescribed antidepressants, leading to a diagnosis of treatment-resistant depression (TRD). For these people, finding new and effective therapies is a priority.

Ketamine, a commonly used anesthetic, has been shown to influence resistant depression. While conventional antidepressant treatments take time to be efficient (on average three weeks), ketamine has a rapid antidepressant effect, only a few hours after administration. The mechanisms associated with this fast-acting antidepressant effect are still unknown.

To identify these mechanisms, Dr. Hugo Bottemanne and the research team co-led at the Paris Brain Institute by Pr Philippe Fossati and Liane Schmidt, Inserm researcher, coordinated a clinical study involving 26 antidepressant-resistant patients (TRD) and 30 healthy controls.

During the protocol, patients and healthy subjects were first asked to estimate the probability of 40 "negative" events which could occur in their lives (e.g., have a car accident, get cancer, or lose their wallet).

After being informed of the actual occurrence risks in the general population, patients and healthy subjects were again asked to estimate the probability of these events occurring in their lives. The research team was interested in the updating of beliefs after getting information. Results showed that healthy subjects tended to update their initial beliefs more after receiving factual and positive information, which was not the case in the depressed patient population.

In the suite of the study, TRD patients received three administrations of ketamine at a subanesthetic dose (0.5 mg/kg over 40 minutes) in one week. Only four hours after the first administration, patients' ability to update their beliefs after receiving a positive information was increased. They became less sensitive to negative information and recovered an ability to update their knowledge com parable to that of control subjects.

Moreover, improvement in depressive symptoms after ketamine treatment was associated with these changes in belief updating, suggesting a link between clinical improvement and changes in this cognitive mechanism. "In other words, the more patients' belief updating ability was increased, the greater the improvement in symptoms was".

In conclusion, in this study, patients with antidepressant-resistant depression showed a significant decrease in symptoms and became more receptive to "positive" experiences after one week of ketamine treatment.

This work highlights for the first time a cognitive mechanism potentially involved in the early effect of ketamine. It paves the way to new research on antidepressant therapies modulating the mechanisms of belief updating.

Ketamine paired with looking at smiling faces holds promise for people with treatment-resistant depression😀😀😀

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More information: Hugo Bottemanne et al, Evaluation of Early Ketamine Effects on Belief-Updating Biases in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression, JAMA Psychiatry (2022). DOI: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2022.2996

Journal information: JAMA Psychiatry 

Provided by Institut du Cerveau (Paris Brain Institute)