Saturday, November 30, 2024

Social networked friendship quality can be means of combating loneliness

New research suggests social networked friendship quality contributes to self-esteem, and gains in self-esteem led to reductions in loneliness

University of Arkansas

image:
Brandon Bouchillon
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Credit: University Relations

Loneliness is on the rise in the U.S., with a third of Americans reporting they’ve experienced “serious loneliness” in recent years. Lonely people are twice as likely to become depressed, and loneliness is a key risk factor for self-harm and suicide, perhaps playing a role in the record number of suicides in the U.S. in 2023 — more than 50,000.

Many suspect the increase in loneliness is due to the collapse of interpersonal social contact and community engagement, as more and more of our time is spent online rather than connecting in person. Young Americans between the ages of 18-29 now spend more than five hours a day social networking, and heavy social media use has been linked to depression.

Spending too much time social networking appears to be a key driver in loneliness, but a new paper published in Telematics and Informatics suggests motivated uses of social networking sites for connecting with people and feeling companionship can also play a role in alleviating it. The paper was written by Brandon Bouchillon, an associate professor of journalism at the U of A.

The paper tested the influence of networked friendship quality on trait self-esteem and loneliness. Bouchillon distinguishes between trait self-esteem, as the more constant and enduring form of self-esteem, and state self-esteem, which is transitory, like the boost someone might feel from a social media post being liked.

Bouchillon conducted a web survey of 1,500 participants matched to U.S. Census percentages for sex, race, ethnicity, age and region of residence, and was able to follow up with more than half of them six weeks later. Respondents were given statements like, “I am a person of worth” and “I feel that I have a number of good qualities,” then asked to reply on a five-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”

Respondents were also asked whether in the past week they felt left out or isolated from others. Networked friendship quality questions asked if they joked with friends on social networking sites or felt a sense of camaraderie when using them.

Generally, Bouchillon found that younger respondents, from 18-29 and 30-39, reported much greater networked friendship quality than people 50 and over. That said, younger people from 18-39 also tended to report lower self-esteem and higher rates of loneliness. But those who felt closeness and camaraderie with other users of social networking reported increased self-esteem even six weeks later, and this association was significant for users up to the age of 61. Gains in self-esteem spilled over to reductions in loneliness for younger generations as well, with the indirect effect eventually becoming non-significant for users in their 60s and 70s.

People over 70 reported lower levels of self-esteem as they became close with other people on social networking sites, perhaps because they see digital friendship less as a supplement to real life connections and more as a crutch.

“I’m finding that changes to personal networks — feeling closeness and camaraderie with other users social networking — can lead to increased feelings of self-worth, and this relates to lower levels of perceived social isolation, even over time,” Bouchillon said.

“So despite the fact that how you feel about yourself is mostly stable through life,” he continued, “connecting with people and sensing camaraderie even remotely can lead to feeling better about yourself, and less lonely, which in theory relates to lower chances of self-harm and suicide.”

Bouchillon said he became interested in this topic because the Surgeon General issued a warning about the high level of suicides in America last year, and he encouraged researchers to look at the potential for networked modes of communication to connect people.

“It's really difficult to address suicidal ideation and self-harm directly through surveys,” Bouchillon explained. “These are socially undesirable things to ask about, and nobody wants to admit feeling this way. That said, they are more willing to talk about feeling socially isolated and lonely. So I’m attacking the suicide risk and suicidal ideation problem through the lens of loneliness with this study.”

Ultimately, Bouchillon thinks high school, college and adult education classes aimed at developing best practices for using social networking applications safely and effectively to establish connections with new and diverse others would be good places to start.

The question of how best to foster these friendships is not the focus of the paper, but in another forthcoming study for Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, Bouchillon finds that joining hobby groups and interest groups based on topics unrelated to politics could help.

Using shared interests to break the ice on social networking sites can help users overlook other differences at first. This allows personal networks to expand and could potentially contribute to a sense of companionship. Nonpolitical topics can range from being fans of the same sports team to enjoying the same hobbies, such as hiking, gardening or birdwatching. Connecting with people on the basis of shared interests could be used to encourage real world social engagement and more diverse social camaraderie.

Journal

Telematics and Informatics

DOI

10.1016/j.tele.2024.102212

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

How to fight loneliness: The importance of networked friendship quality and self-esteem differs with age

Article Publication Date

25-Nov-2024

WORD OF THE DAY

Preschool education: A key to supporting allophone children

University of Montreal

Learning French while also developing language skills in one’s mother tongue is no easy task. As a result, allophone children often face learning and communication difficulties in kindergarten, which can negatively impact their educational journey. However, solutions are emerging.

According to a study led by Sylvana Côté, preschool education services significantly help bridge the gap between children whose mother tongue is French and those for whom French is a second or even a third language.

Professor Côté, from the School of Public Health at the Université de Montréal (ESPUM), is the director of the Observatory for Children's Education and Health and a researcher at the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The study, with Ophélie A. Collet as the lead author, was recently published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

“Being exposed to other children and a team of educators better prepares children for school than growing up in a home where neither French nor English is spoken. The period from one to five years old is absolutely crucial for language acquisition. It takes a village to raise a child, and in this case, the village is preschool,” summarizes Professor Côté.

Learning to Communicate

The findings are clear. Allophone children who attended daycare (or pre-kindergarten at age four, though to a lesser extent) show better cognitive development, improved social and emotional skills, and greater communication abilities. These benefits are partly attributed to a sufficient level of general knowledge.

At the time of the survey, 6.1% of kindergarten children in Quebec came from allophone families, amounting to 4,360 children. Of these, nearly 14% stayed home before starting school, compared to only 6% of children whose mother tongue was French.

The survey relied on the Early Development Instrument, a Canadian tool used internationally to measure children's readiness for kindergarten. Teachers, who closely interact with the children, completed the questionnaires and provided information about whether the children had attended preschool services.

“It is crucial to ensure that children whose mother tongue is not French are not disadvantaged by the scarcity of spaces in preschool centers,” emphasizes Professor Côté. She adds that while bilingualism is an excellent mental exercise, the challenges of learning multiple languages are real. Children need support during this critical stage of development.

Academic Persistence

The best predictor of academic persistence is mastering social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills by kindergarten. Children who lack these skills are less likely to graduate from high school.

Among the 80,000 children surveyed, 11.2% were excluded due to insufficient information, leaving 71,589 participants. Of these, 48.8% were girls, and 25.6% were learning more than one language. This includes 13,981 bilingual children (English and French) and 4,360 allophone children, representing 6.1% of the total. Within this group, 26% spoke Arabic, 18% Spanish, and 7.3% African languages. Others spoke various languages, including Creole, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian, or Persian.

Addressing Social Inequalities

Previous studies have shown that quality daycare services benefit all children, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Introduced in 1997 in the province of Quebec (Canada), Quebec's subsidized Early Childhood Centers (CPEs) were designed to reduce social inequalities and facilitate work-life balance. While the latter goal has been achieved, much work remains to reduce inequalities. Only 30% of children have access to CPEs, and there are 2.5 times fewer centers in disadvantaged areas.

The researchers adjusted their findings to account for families’ financial situations. “The study demonstrates the impact of preschool education services beyond economic status,” explains Professor Côté, noting that the best services are often in affluent neighborhoods.

“This study is a strong call to enhance quality daycare services. It’s a preventive measure to ensure better integration for children,” concludes Côté. This is the first study to specifically examine the impact of preschool services on the readiness of allophone children entering kindergarten.

Professor Côté also directs the Research Group on Child Psychosocial Maladjustment. She plans to revisit the children when they reach fifth grade to determine whether the benefits of daycare persist.

About this study

In addition to Ophélie Collet, the study's investigators are Thuy Mai Luu, pediatrician at CHU Saint e-Justine; Pascale M. Domond and Tianna Loose, CHU Sainte-Justine Research Centre; Cédric Galéra, Université de Bordeaux; Alejandro Vasquez-Echeverria, University of the Republic of Uruguay; and Massimiliano Orri, Douglas Research Centre, McGill University.

“School Readiness and Early Childhood Education and Care Services Among Dual Language Learners”, by Ophélie Collet et al., was published in JAMA Pediatrics on November 11, 2024.

Journal

JAMA Pediatrics

DOI

10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.4489

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

School Readiness and Early Childhood Education and Care Services Among Dual Language Learners

Dopamine and serotonin work in opposition to shape learning

Stanford University

If you’ve heard of two of the brain’s chemical neurotransmitters, it’s probably dopamine and serotonin. Never mind that glutamate and GABA do most of the work — it’s the thrill of dopamine as the “pleasure chemical” and serotonin as tender mood-stabilizer that attract all the headlines.

Of course, the headlines mostly get it wrong. Dopamine’s role in shaping behavior goes way beyond simple concepts like “pleasure” or even “reward”. And the fact that it takes weeks or months for serotonin-boosting SSRI antidepressants to work suggests that it’s not actually the immediate jump in serotonin levels that drum out the doldrums of depression, but some still-mysterious shift in downstream brain circuits.

A new study from Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute reveals yet another new facet of these mood-managing molecules. The research, published on-line November 25, 2024 in Nature, demonstrates for the first time exactly how dopamine and serotonin work together — or more precisely, in opposition — to shape our behavior.

“In addition to their involvement in our everyday behavior, dopamine and serotonin are implicated in a wide variety of neurological and psychiatric disorders: addiction, autism, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s and more,” said study senior author Robert Malenka, the Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. “It’s critical for us to understand their interactions if we are to make progress treating these disorders.”

The theory: dopamine and serotonin are both important for shaping behavior — but how?

Research has long shown that dopamine and serotonin play crucial roles in learning and decision-making across species. However, the exact interplay between these neurotransmitters has remained unclear. While dopamine is associated with reward prediction and seeking, serotonin seems to moderate these impulses and promote long-term thinking.

Two main theories have emerged: the "synergy hypothesis," which suggests dopamine handles short-term rewards while serotonin manages long-term benefits, and the "opponency hypothesis," which proposes the two act as opposing forces balancing our decisions, with dopamine urging immediate action while serotonin counsels patience.

This new Stanford study, part of Wu Tsai Neuro’s NeuroChoice Initiative, provides the first direct experimental test of these competing hypotheses.

The experiment: dual control of dopamine and serotonin during associative learning

Led by graduate student Daniel Cardozo Pinto, the research team created specially engineered mice that allowed them to observe and control both dopamine and serotonin systems in the same animal.

This innovative approach helped them pinpoint where these two systems interact in the brain — specifically in a limbic region called the nucleus accumbens, which plays a key role in emotion, motivation, and reward processing.

“This was a very technically demanding project that required us to develop new strategies for recording and manipulating the activity of multiple neuromodulators simultaneously in awake, behaving animals,” Cardozo Pinto shared. However, he added, “I persevered because I strongly suspected that there would be fascinating interactions between the dopamine and serotonin systems that were being missed by other studies that focused on only one neuromodulator at a time, and it turned out that this was exactly the case.”

Cardozo Pinto and colleagues used their innovative new tools to observe how dopamine and serotonin signals changed in the nucleus accumbens as mice learned to connect a tone and flashing light with a sweet reward. They found that the dopamine and serotonin systems responded in opposite directions — dopamine signaling jumped up in response to the reward, while serotonin signaling fell.

The researchers then used optogenetic manipulation (a technique that uses light to control genetically modified neurons) to selectively blunt the normal signaling of each system — either alone or in combination — during reward learning.

Predictably, given the history of studies linking these signaling systems to reward learning, blocking both dopamine and serotonin signaling made it impossible for mice to link sound and light cues with sugary reward. More surprisingly, restoring either dopamine or serotonin signaling on its own was not enough to allow the animals to learn again. Only with both systems online could animals successfully use the cues to predict the arrival of a reward.

“The most surprising and memorable moment in the project came when I performed my first optogenetic experiment, where I tested whether mice preferred the experience of a dopamine boost, a serotonin dip, or both together,” Cardozo Pinto recalled. “We placed mice in a box and paired different parts of the box with each of those experiences, so mice could vote with their feet which experience they preferred. I will never forget the thrill of walking into the room at the end of the experiment to see all the mice on the side of the box representing both manipulations together. It’s very rare in science to get a result so striking that you can see it immediately, and it was our first direct piece of evidence to support the decades-old hypothesis of dopamine-serotonin opponency.”

On the horizon: choreographing dopamine and serotonin to improve psychiatric treatment

The findings suggest that dopamine and serotonin work together, but in opposite ways, to help the brain learn from rewards, the researchers say.

Based on their results, they propose that the two systems act a bit like the accelerator and the brakes on a car. Dopamine encourages reward-seeking behavior by signaling when things are better than expected, creating a 'go' signal. In contrast, serotonin seems to put the brakes on this process, creating a 'stop' or 'wait' signal, potentially helping us to be more patient and consider long-term consequences rather than just immediate rewards. Effective learning, the study suggests, requires both the 'go' signal from dopamine and the 'wait' signal from serotonin for an organism to properly evaluate and respond to rewarding opportunities.

The findings also have implications for disorders involving dopamine and serotonin dysfunction, such as addiction, where dopaminergic hypersensitivity and serotonergic deficits contribute to compulsive reward-seeking — and in mood disorders including depression and anxiety, where diminished serotonin signaling might impair behavioral flexibility and long-term planning.

“As dopamine’s role in reward learning has become increasingly clear, the dopamine system has become a natural place to start for studies investigating diseases that involve disrupted reward processing, like addiction and depression,” Cardozo Pinto said. “Our work showing that the dopamine and serotonin systems form a gas-brake system for reward suggests it will be fruitful for future work to focus on the relative balance between these two systems.”

For example, in addiction treatment, therapies might aim to dampen overactive dopamine signaling while boosting serotonin activity. In depression, the goal might be to enhance both systems to improve motivation and long-term planning.

Furthermore, the technical advances the team made to accomplish this study, may have long-standing applications for neuroscience research, Malenka added. “The novel methodologies we developed for this study can now be applied to a host of fascinating questions related to how the brain mediates adaptive behaviors and what goes wrong in these neuromodulatory systems during prevalent brain disorders such as addiction, depression, and autism spectrum disorders.”

Study authors: Daniel F. Cardozo Pinto, Matthew B. Pomrenze, Michaela Y. Guo, Gavin C. Touponse, Allen P.F. Chen, Neir Eshel, and Robert C. Malenka at Stanford and Brandon S. Bentzley at Magnus Medical in Burlingame, CA.

Research support: National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants (K99DA056573, K08MH123791), a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, an HHMI Gilliam Fellowship for Advanced Study, a Brain & Behavior Research Foundation Young Investigator Grant, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, a Simons Foundation Bridge to Independence Award, philanthropic funds donated to the Nancy Pritzker Laboratory at Stanford University, the Berg Scholars program at Stanford School of Medicine, and a Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute NeuroChoice Initiative Pilot Award.

Competing interests: Eshel is a consultant for Boehringer Ingelheim. Bentzley is a co-founder of Magnus Medical. Malenka is on the scientific advisory boards of MapLight Therapeutics, MindMed, and Aelis Farma.

Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-024-08412-x

Article Title

Opponent control of reinforcement by striatal dopamine and serotonin

Article Publication Date

25-Nov-2024

Project to document medical ableism experienced by people with disabilities

University of Kansas

LAWRENCE, KANSAS — From inaccessible facilities to inappropriate treatment plans or inaccurate assumptions, people with disabilities experience challenges in health care that may be rooted in prejudice, even by members of the medical community who are entrusted with providing care.

A new project at the Institute for Health and Disability Policy Studies (IHDPS) at the KU Life Span Institute aims to examine how these prejudices, known as medical ableism, affect people with disabilities.

The project, conducted in partnership with researchers at Washington State University, is supported through a $1.2 million, three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health. It is the first large-scale study to investigate the prevalence of medical ableism and its effects on health outcomes.

“The long-term goal of our research is to develop a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of medical ableism,” said Jean Hall, director of the IHDPS and one of the study’s lead investigators. “That understanding will ultimately allow us to develop targeted interventions to reduce the effects of ableism on the care and health of people with disabilities.”

The study will gather information directly from people with disabilities about their experiences using the long-running National Survey on Health and Disability, an IHDPS initiative that regularly collects responses from about 2,000 individuals with a variety of disabilities from across the nation on various topics. The ableism study will introduce new survey questions to identify disparities in care with the aim of improving health outcomes for the estimated 70 million disabled adults in the United States.

Hall noted that the research team also plans for the project to shed light on which groups are most affected by medical ableism. The team will explore how ableism intersects with other forms of discrimination — such as sexism and racism — that together contribute to worse outcomes for certain populations.

The National Survey on Health and Disability will be conducted in spring 2025.

Telehealth significantly boosts treatment success for hepatitis C in rural patients

OHSU-led study in rural Oregon finds 66% of hard-to-reach patients cleared the virus with peer-assisted telehealth

Oregon Health & Science University

New research reveals a dramatic improvement in diagnosing and curing people living with hepatitis C in rural communities using both telemedicine and support from peers with lived experience in drug use.

The study, published today in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, outlines the results of a randomized controlled trial led by Oregon Health & Science University in seven rural counties in Oregon. The study enlisted people with lived experience in substance use to meet individuals who use drugs, test them for hepatitis C, and then offer them treatment through telehealth or referral to a physical clinic.

The results were striking.

Researchers found that 85% of people successfully enrolled in treatment through a tablet or smartphone compared with only 12% of those who were referred to in-person care at a clinic. Further, the majority of the people who were offered care through telemedicine — 66% — cleared the virus within six months after the study began.

Each approach relied on engaging people through peers with experience in illicit drug use.

“Rural people who use drugs may be more likely to trust their peers, even when they don’t trust health care providers,” said lead author Andrew Seaman, M.D., an associate professor of medicine (general internal medicine and geriatrics) in the OHSU School of Medicine. “This study shows the importance of empowering trusted peers to support the health of people who use drugs, and the crucial role telemedicine can play to expand hepatitis C treatment to rural communities.”

Hepatitis C is the most common blood-borne virus in the United States, with an estimated 2.4 million people affected.

Corralling the spread of hepatitis C has become much more viable in recent years, with the availability of antiviral therapies that are more than 95% effective in eliminating the virus with few side effects. Yet getting people tested and treated remains a major hurdle in curbing the ongoing spread of the disease and its impact on public health.

“We have life-saving medications to treat hepatitis C,” Seaman said. “This study shows that finding unique ways to improve access to treatment — beyond traditional health care settings — is crucial for supporting people who use drugs.”

Improving treatment connections

The study randomized 203 individuals in rural areas who use drugs contacted by peers with lived experience in drug use from July 2020 to December 2022.

All participants were referred to care, either through a peer-assisted referral to local treatment resources in their community or through a peer-assisted telemedicine connection to health care professionals via tablet or smartphone.

Those who received care through telehealth were almost seven times more likely to be treated for hepatitis C and four times more likely to achieve viral clearance after six months, the study found.

The research team believes this is the first randomized study to validate telehealth in rural populations living with hepatitis C and the first to evaluate peer-assisted telemedicine. In contrast to other viral epidemics like HIV, hepatitis C prevalence is higher in rural areas and is especially prevalent among people who inject drugs.

Telehealth use generally has skyrocketed since the COVID-19 pandemic, but this study is the first to document its potential to be scaled nationwide in addressing hepatitis C, especially as the Biden administration is focused on a five-year initiative to eliminate the disease in the United States.

“This is one of those rare situations where spending money will actually save money,” said Seaman, who also serves as medical director of Hepatitis and HIV Services for Central City Concern, a Portland-area nonprofit that provides housing, health care and addiction treatment services. “Hepatitis C causes liver cancer, loss of productivity, diabetes and all kinds of complications that cost lives and money. And it’s transmissible, so every time a patient is cured, we also prevent multiple transmissions to other people.”

Seaman also heads substance use disorder programs with Better Life Partners, which provides low-barrier treatment within a harm reduction framework across New England.

Peers make an impact

In Oregon, to conduct this research, investigators leveraged an existing initiative known as Oregon HIV/Hepatitis and Opioid Prevention and Engagement, or Oregon HOPE, a collaboration among OHSU, the Oregon Health Authority, Comagine Health and community-based organizations.

The initiative relies on peers in recovery from addiction to engage their neighbors in substance use prevention and treatment services. The program, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health, collaborates with community organizations in Lane, Douglas, Josephine, Curry, Coos, Jackson and Umatilla counties.

“This study teaches us that local peers in rural communities can deliver care directly to people who often slip through the cracks of our health care system,” said co-author Todd Korthuis, M.D., M.P.H., head of addiction medicine at OHSU, professor of medicine (general internal medicine and geriatrics) in the OHSU School of Medicine, and principal investigator of Oregon HOPE. “It’s a deeply gratifying new way of doing business.”

This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health grant award UH3DA044831. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Journal

Clinical Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.1093/cid/ciae520

Method of Research

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Peer-assisted telemedicine for hepatitis C in people who use drugs: A randomized controlled trial

Article Publication Date

27-Nov-2024

Testing and masking policies and hospital-onset respiratory viral infections

JAMA Network Open

About The Study:

In this study, stopping universal masking and SARS-CoV-2 testing was associated with a significant increase in hospital-onset respiratory viral infections relative to community infections. Restarting the masking of health care workers was associated with a significant decrease.

Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Theodore R. Pak, MD, PhD, email tpak@mgh.harvard.edu.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.48063)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article This link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.48063?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=112724

Journal

JAMA Network Open

Disclaimer: AAAS and Eure

Inside the ‘swat team’ – how insects react to virtual reality gaming

Flinders University

Hoverfly Lab — image:
Dr Richard Leibbrandt, Professor Nordström and Flinders University colleagues Raymond Aoukar and Dr Yuri Ogawa demonstrate the new open access VR program.
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Credit: Flinders University

Humans get a real buzz from the virtual world of gaming and augmented reality but now scientists have trialled the use of these new-age technologies on small animals, to test the reactions of tiny hoverflies and even crabs.

In a bid to comprehend the aerodynamic powers of flying insects and other little-understood animal behaviours, the Flinders University-led study is gaining new perspectives on how invertebrates respond to, interact with and navigate virtual ‘worlds’ created by advanced entertainment technology.

Published in the journal of Methods of Ecology and Evolution, the new gaming software was developed by experts at Flinders University working with coauthor Professor Karin Nordström, who leads the Hoverfly Motion Vision Lab at Flinders University, and experts from Western Australia and Germany.

The novel study aims to augment ongoing research into new technologies, including aviation and other precision devices, and provides researchers around the world with access to the specially designed software platform.

The new research included biologists, neuroscientists and software experts, including Flinders University researchers Dr Yuri Ogawa, Dr Richard Leibbrandt and Raymond Aoukar, as well as Jake Manger and colleagues from The University of Western Australia.

“We developed computer programs that create a virtual reality experience for the animals to move through,” says Dr Ogawa, a Research Fellow in Neuroscience at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute.

“Using machine learning and computer vision algorithms, we were able to observe the animals and work out what they are doing, whether that is a hoverfly attempting to turn to the left in its flight, or a fiddler crab avoiding a virtual bird flying overhead.

“The software then adapts the visual scenery to match the movements that the animal has made.”

Study coauthor Dr Richard Leibbrandt, a lecturer at Flinders University's College of Science and Engineering, says the machine learning technologies used in the experiments are already revolutionising industries such as agriculture, for example in automatically monitoring crops and livestock, and in the development of agricultural robots.

“Virtual and augmented reality is also instrumental in industries ranging from healthcare to architecture and the transport industry,” says Dr Leibbrandt.

This new virtual world for invertebrates is starting to unlock new ways to study animal behaviour in greater detail than ever before,” adds Mr Aoukar, a Flinders University computer science graduate.

“The last two decades have seen very rapid advances in algorithms and computer technology, such as virtual reality, gaming, artificial intelligence, and high-speed calculation using specialised computer hardware in graphics cards,” says Mr Aoukar.

“These technologies are now mature and accessible enough to run on consumer computer equipment, which opens up the chance to study animal behaviour in an environment that is systematically controlled, but still more natural than a typical lab experiment.”

As part of the behavioural observations and quantification, the new technique allows for identification of visual triggers of behaviour.

Professor Nordström says other research groups are already taking an interest in using the new platform, which is described and can be downloaded from the new article.

“This has truly been a team effort where every author on the paper has been instrumental in making the VR work.

“We look forward to using the VR to investigate the mechanisms underlying decision-making in insects,” says Professor Nordström.

The user-friendly Unity Editor interface can simplify experimental design and data storage without the need for coding. CAVE is an open source project developed by the Hoverfly Motion Vision Lab designed to streamline the process of setting up a Tethered Flight Arena.

The article, ‘Combining Unity with machine vision to create low latency, flexible, and simple virtual realities’ (2024) by Yuri Ogawa, Raymond Aoukar, Richard Leibbrandt, Jake S Manger, Zahra M Bagheri, Luke Turnbull, Chris Johnston, Pavan K Kaushik (Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Konstanz, Germany), Jan M Hemmi and Karin Nordström has been published in Methods of Ecology and Evolution. DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.14449.

Captions: Dr Richard Leibbrandt, Professor Nordström and Flinders University colleagues Raymond Aoukar and Dr Yuri Ogawa demonstrate the new program.

Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR, FA9550-19-1-0294 and FA9550-23-1-0473), the Australian Research Council (ARC, DP180100491, FT180100289, DP200102642, DP210100740, and DP230100006) and the Flinders Foundation.

Y Ogawa, R Aoukar, R Leibbrandt, and J Manger contributed equally to the new study. Researchers thank the Biomedical Engineering team at SA Local Health Network (SALHN) and the South Australian Botanic Gardens for their help.

Journal

Methods in Ecology and Evolution

DOI

10.1111/2041-210X.14449

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Combining Unity with machine vision to create low latency, flexible, and simple virtual realities

Article Publication Date

26-Nov-2024

Bacteria ditch tags to dodge antibiotics

Modified ribosomes could be a new possible mechanism of antibiotic resistance

Center for Genomic Regulation

Bacteria modify their ribosomes when exposed to widely used antibiotics, according to research published today in Nature Communications. The subtle changes might be enough to alter the binding site of drug targets and constitute a possible new mechanism of antibiotic resistance.

Escherichia coli is a common bacterium which is often harmless but can cause serious infections. The researchers exposed E. coli to streptomycin and kasugamycin, two drugs which treat bacterial infections. Streptomycin has been a staple in treating tuberculosis and other infections since the 1940s, while kasugamycin is less known but crucial in agricultural settings to prevent bacterial diseases in crops.

Both antibiotics tamper with bacteria’s ability to make new proteins by specifically targeting their ribosomes. These molecular structures create proteins and are themselves made of proteins and ribosomal RNA. Ribosomal RNA is often modified with chemical tags that can alter the shape and function of the ribosome. Cells use these tags to fine tune protein production.

The study found that, in response to the antibiotics, E. coli begins to assemble new ribosomes that are slightly different from the ones produced under normal conditions. Depending on which antibiotic used, the new ribosomes lacked certain tags. The tags were specifically lost in the regions where antibiotics latch on to and halt protein production. The study found this made the bacteria more resistant to the drugs.

“We think the bacteria's ribosomes might be altering its structure just enough to prevent an antibiotic from binding effectively,” says Anna Delgado-Tejedor, first author of the study and PhD student at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona.

Bacteria are known to develop antibiotic resistance in different ways, including mutations in their DNA. Another common mechanism is their ability to actively pump and transport antibiotics out of the cell, reducing the concentration of the drug inside the cell to levels that are no longer harmful.

The study is evidence of an entirely new survival strategy. “E. coli is altering its molecular structures with remarkable precision and in real time. It’s a stealthy and subtle way of dodging drugs,” says Dr. Eva Novoa, corresponding author of the study and researcher at the CRG.

The researchers made the findings using advanced nanopore sequencing technology, which read RNA molecules directly. Previous techniques would process RNA molecules in such a way that it would remove the chemical modifications. “Our approach has allowed us to see the modifications as they are, in their natural context," says Dr. Novoa.

The study does not explore why or how the chemical modifications are lost in the first place. Further research could explore the underlying biology of the adaptive mechanism and uncover new ways to combat one of the biggest looming crises in global health. Global antimicrobial resistance has claimed at least one million lives each year since 1990 and is forecast to claim 39 million more lives between now and 2050.

“If we can delve deeper and understand why they are shedding these modifications, we can create new strategies that prevent bacteria from shedding them in the first place or make new drugs that more effectively bind to the altered ribosomes,” says Dr. Novoa.

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-54368-x

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Native RNA nanopore sequencing reveals antibiotic-induced loss of rRNA modifications in the A- and P-sites

Article Publication Date

29-Nov-2024