New international study highlights impact of restrained sitting on movement behaviors in young children

Researchers explored how time spent restrained in devices such as car seats and strollers may influence children's ability to meet movement behavior recommendations

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

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Researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in collaboration with investigators from 32 countries participating in the SUNRISE International Study, have published new findings examining how restrained sitting contributes to daily movement patterns in early childhood.

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Credit: Sunrise Study

Researchers at LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in collaboration with investigators from 32 countries participating in the SUNRISE International Study, have published new findings examining how restrained sitting contributes to daily movement patterns in early childhood.

Led by postdoctoral researcher Dr. Katherine Spring, "Probability of meeting the restrained sitting guideline in early childhood: an international cross-sectional study," published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, explored how time spent restrained in devices such as car seats and strollers may influence children's ability to meet movement behavior recommendations during a critical stage of development.

The World Health Organization defines restrained sitting as time when a child is strapped into a seat or device and recommends that children aged 3-4 years not be restrained for more than 60 minutes at a time.

Findings showed that while most children (82%) met recommended guidelines for restrained sitting, important differences emerged based on daily routines and environments. Children living in urban areas and those who spent more time in motor vehicles each day were significantly less likely to meet the guideline.

Accumulating 60 minutes or more per day in a vehicle – a context where restraint is required – was associated with lower odds of meeting the recommendation. In contrast, higher levels of physical activity were associated with greater likelihood of meeting the recommended guideline.

"These findings highlight that restrained sitting is an important but often overlooked component of sedentary behavior in early childhood," Dr. Spring said. "While the use of restraints is critical for safety during transportation, prolonged uninterrupted periods may limit opportunities for movement during a key developmental stage."

The results underscore the importance of balancing safety with opportunities for movement, including breaking up long periods of restraint and encouraging daily physical activity.

Dr. Spring and co-authors encourage parents to consider frequent stops on road trips, limiting the time their child spends strapped into a stroller and eliminating time their child spends in a car seat outside of a vehicle. Policy makers and city planners should continue to explore ways to reduce daily commute time as a way to promote active movement and reduce prolonged sedentary time in children.

About the Pennington Biomedical Research Center

The Pennington Biomedical Research Center is at the forefront of medical discovery as it relates to understanding the triggers of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and dementia. Pennington Biomedical has the vision to lead the world in promoting nutrition and metabolic health and eliminating metabolic disease through scientific discoveries that create solutions from cells to society. The Center conducts basic, clinical and population research, and is a campus in the LSU System.

The research enterprise at Pennington Biomedical includes over 600 employees within a network of 44 clinics and research laboratories, and 16 highly specialized core service facilities. Its scientists and physician/scientists are supported by research trainees, lab technicians, nurses, dietitians and other support personnel. Pennington Biomedical is a globally recognized state-of-the-art research institution in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. For more information, see www.pbrc.edu.

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Journal

Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport

DOI

10.1016/j.jsams.2026.04.018 

Method of Research

Survey

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Probability of meeting the restrained sitting guideline in early childhood: an international cross-sectional study

 

What an illusion involving a fake hand can tell us about our mind-body connection

Having a less clear sense of self is associated with a more malleable sense of body, study finds

McGill University

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People who have a weaker sense of self are also more likely to have less bodily awareness, McGill researchers have found. The study supports the idea that people’s perceptions of themselves and how they experience their own bodies are deeply connected.

Beyond deepening psychologists’ understanding of “embodied cognition,” the connection between our minds and our fundamental bodily awareness, the findings could have concrete applications regarding the treatment of certain psychiatric conditions, the researchers said.

A more malleable self?

This study replicated and confirmed the results of a smaller study previously led by Sonia A. Krol, who is also a co-author of the current study. It involved 77 participants ages 18-40 from the McGill community, who were subjected to a commonly used device in psychological research called the “rubber hand illusion.”

One of a participant’s hands was hidden behind a screen, while a rubber hand was placed in view. Both the subject’s hand and the fake hand were wearing a glove to hide any differences in skin tone. Researchers then used a paintbrush to stroke the hand of the subject and the fake hand in two different ways: in synch and out of synch.

While it was expected that subjects would report feeling like the rubber hand was theirs when the hands were stroked simultaneously – and this was generally the case – some people also experienced confusion when the strokes were not simultaneous, said Jennifer Bartz, senior author of the study, Professor in the Department of Psychology, and Director of the McGill Laboratory of Attachment and Prosociality.

The participants who were more vulnerable to the illusion tended, in the accompanying questionnaire, to score lower on a scale measuring the clarity, coherence and stability of their sense of self.

“This really suggests that they maybe have a more malleable kind of bodily self, where they're more vulnerable to incorporating other things in the environment into their sense of self, even when most people wouldn't be vulnerable to that,” said Bartz.

How two understandings of the self go ‘hand in hand’

Embodied cognition makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint but has not often been researched in an empirical way, said Willis Klein, lead author of the study and PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology.

“To be able to take this beautiful theoretical framework and to say, here's experimental evidence for this quite intuitive perspective on what the mind is, it's just amazing,” he added.

The researchers said the results raise interesting questions for future research, such as how embodied cognition can play out in processes like empathy, or how clinicians can better help people presenting with a less stable sense of self, such as individuals living with borderline personality disorder.

About the study

“Self-Concept Clarity and Interoceptive Updating in the Rubber-Hand Illusion: A Double Replication Study,” by Willis Klein, Amy J. Gregory, Sonia A. Krol and Jennifer A. Bartz, was published in the Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology.

This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec – Société et Culture.

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Journal

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale

DOI

10.1037/cep0000387 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Self-concept clarity and interoceptive updating in the rubber-hand illusion: A double replication study

 

Taller structures produce more blaze-spreading embers, OSU research suggests

Oregon State University

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Researchers led by David Blunck of the OSU College of Engineering burn a shed as part of their ongoing research into the fire-starting potential of embers.

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Credit: Deepak Sharma, Oregon State

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Test burns involving wooden structures of varying heights suggest taller buildings tend to be more prolific producers of the wind-carried firebrands that are a leading cause of structure ignition in wildfires.

The findings by Oregon State University College of Engineering researchers are a step toward better predicting how fires in the wildland-urban interface will spread and also toward designing buildings that can help communities be more resilient to wildfire, the authors say.

Firebrands, also known as embers, can be responsible for up to 90% of the structure losses in community wildfires, the researchers note. Last year, wildfires in greater Los Angeles destroyed approximately 18,000 structures in a span of two days.

The testing led by research associate Deepak Sharma is part of ongoing firebrand research by the lab group of David Blunck, professor of mechanical engineering at OSU.

Sharma, Blunck and collaborators analyzed the firebrands generated by 21 wooden shed-like structures ranging in height from 1 to 3.6 meters. In addition to structure scale, the study looked at different types of roofing and siding. The buildings were burned outside in lightly breezy conditions, with winds of 2.25 to 4.5 mph.

“More research is needed, but it seems that structure scale and exterior building materials are factors in firebrand production because of how the scale affects fire intensity and wind-plume dynamics, and how exterior building materials affect the fragmentation and thermal state of firebrands during transport,” Sharma said.

For each combination of building height and building material, the researchers quantified the total firebrand yield – how many embers were produced – as well as mass-specific yield, a measure of how many embers were produced for every kilogram of combusted material.

Total yield ranged from about 2,000 to 24,000 firebrands, and yield per mass ranged from around 50 to around 135 firebrands per kilogram. The study was the first to measure firebrand yield from single structures and to determine yield relative to burned mass, say the researchers, who also quantified fuel-load specific yield, measured in firebrands per kilogram per square meter of floor space.

“Embers are wildfires’ most challenging mode of causing spread,” Blunck said. “By understanding how embers form and travel through the air, scientists can more accurately predict how fire will move from location to location.”

Unsurprisingly, test structures with comparatively flammable exterior materials, such as cedar siding, produced more embers overall and per kilogram than buildings whose roofing and siding materials were less prone to combustion.

“Basically, if the same mass burns in structures with and without highly flammable roofing and siding, the one with highly flammable roofing and siding will create more embers, and they’ll be more likely to keep burning after they land,” Sharma said. “Our findings will be useful input for future empirical models and physics-based fire spread simulations. Down the road we’d like to look at firebrand mass distributions and ignition potential and examine a broader set of building assemblies and wind conditions.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology provided funding for this research, which was published in Applications in Energy and Combustion Science, and the Albany (Oregon) Fire Department contributed logistical support. Jonathan Carter, an undergraduate student at Oregon State University, and Rohit Kumar Sharma, a doctoral student at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, also participated in the study.

Next up for the Blunck lab group are field tests designed to study how doors, windows and other forms of building ventilation influence the generation and spread of firebrands. The testing will occur May 30 and June 6 at a site approximately 15 miles from OSU’s Corvallis campus; journalists interested in viewing the testing are asked to email Sharma at sharmade@oregonstate.edu.

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Journal

Applications in Energy and Combustion Science

DOI

10.1016/j.jaecs.2026.100502 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Firebrands generated from structures in built environment

Article Publication Date

27-May-2026

 

Research Spotlight: High-value strategies for communities on the front lines of the opioid crisis

Mass General Brigham

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Jagpreet Chhatwal, PhD, and Mert Sahinkoc, PhD, of the Center for Health Technology Assessment (CHTA) within Mass General Brigham, are the co-lead authors of a paper published in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas, "Cost-effectiveness of community-based interventions for reducing opioid overdose and non-overdose deaths: simulation modeling of HEALing Communities Study." Amy Knudsen, PhD, also of the CHTA, is a co-senior author, along with Carolina Barbosa, PhD, of RTI International.

 

Q: What challenges or unmet needs make this study important?

The opioid overdose crisis remains a public health emergency in the United States. While treatments that use medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) such as buprenorphine, methadone and naloxone (the overdose-reversing medication) are lifesaving, communities have lacked clear evidence on which combinations of proven opioid interventions deliver the best health outcomes for the money invested.

Q: What central question(s) were you investigating?

We wanted to answer a straightforward but critical question for communities on the front lines of the opioid crisis: if you dedicate resources to getting more people into addiction treatment, keeping them in treatment longer and making naloxone more widely available, how do the benefits in lives saved compare to the investment required? We examined these strategies individually and in combination across 26 diverse communities in Massachusetts, New York and Ohio to understand what works best and where.

Q: What methods or approach did you use?

We built on data from the HEALing Communities Study (HCS), one of the largest and most ambitious research efforts ever undertaken to address the opioid crisis. The HCS was conducted across 67 communities in four states and collected detailed, multi-year, community-level data on how evidence-based practices are actually being used on the ground—an unparalleled resource for understanding what is happening in the real world.

Leveraging these data, we calibrated a validated computer simulation model—the Opioid Policy Simulation Model (OPSiM)—separately for 26 highly impacted communities (8 rural, 18 urban) in Massachusetts, New York and Ohio. The model tracked individuals with opioid use disorder from 2025 to 2030 under six different scenarios: maintaining current practice levels (the status quo), improving naloxone distribution alone, improving treatment initiation alone, improving treatment retention alone, combining better initiation and retention, and combining all three improvements together. We then compared the costs and health benefits of each strategy from both a healthcare and a broader societal perspective.

Q: What did you find?

The results were striking. A combined strategy of improving treatment initiation, treatment retention and naloxone distribution could reduce opioid overdose deaths by 15-40% and non-overdose opioid-related deaths by 7-24% across the 26 communities. This approach produced the largest gains in quality-adjusted life years (a measure of added years of life in good health) ranging from 1,006-38,292.

From a healthcare perspective, improving treatment initiation and retention was cost-effective in every single community we studied, costing between $12,000-91,000 for every quality-adjusted life year gained. These costs fall well below the $100,000 threshold commonly used in the United States for determining whether a health intervention provides reasonable value relative to other healthcare spending.

From a societal perspective, the picture was even more compelling: every strategy except maintaining the status quo was cost-saving, generating net savings of $121 million to $4.74 billion over six years when accounting for reduced productivity losses and criminal legal costs.

To put this in concrete terms, in one community, healthcare spending rose by $416 million to fund expanded treatment, but total societal costs fell by $2.39 billion—a return of nearly six dollars for every dollar invested.

Perhaps most importantly, we uncovered a finding that deserves far greater attention: non-overdose opioid-related deaths (roughly 240-3,000 per 100,000) substantially outnumbered overdose deaths (roughly 40-470 per 100,000) in nearly every community. This tells us that the true death toll of the opioid crisis is much larger than the overdose numbers alone suggest.

Q: What are the real-world implications, particularly for patients?

Expanding access to proven treatments and naloxone does not just save lives—it makes strong economic sense. Every community we studied benefited, regardless of whether it was rural or urban or how severe the local crisis was.

For policymakers and community leaders, this study provides a practical, evidence-based framework for deciding where to direct limited resources. Rather than a one-size-fits-all national approach, our community-level analysis shows which strategies deliver the greatest value in specific local contexts.

The findings also challenge us to think beyond overdose deaths. The substantially higher burden of non-overdose opioid-related mortality highlights the need for comprehensive strategies that address the full spectrum of harms associated with opioid use disorder. By investing in treatment and harm reduction, we can reduce not just overdoses, but the many other ways this crisis is cutting lives short.

 

Authorship: Additional study authors include Qiushi Chen, William Dowd, Jade Xiao, Gary A. Zarkin, Arnie Aldridge, Joshua A. Barocas, Magdalena Cerdá, Naleef Fareed, Lisa A. Frazier, Ayaz Hyder, Katherine M. Keyes, Charles E. Knott, Marc LaRochelle, Benjamin P. Linas, Emmanuel Oga, Sara M. Roberts, Jeffrey H. Samet, Bruce R. Schackman, Eric E. Seiber, Laura E. Starbird, Jennifer Villani, and Carolina Barbosa.

Paper cited: Chhatwal, J., et al. "Cost-effectiveness of community-based interventions for reducing opioid overdose and non-overdose deaths: simulation modeling of HEALing Communities Study." The Lancet Regional Health - Americas. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2026.101480

Funding: This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration through the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term®) Initiative under award numbers (UM1DA049394), (UM1DA049406), (UM1DA049412), (UM1DA049415) and (UM1DA049417).

Disclosures: Cerdá and Keyes have received personal fees for consulting in opioid litigations.

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Journal

The Lancet Regional Health - Americas

DOI

10.1016/j.lana.2026.101480 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Cost-effectiveness of community-based interventions for reducing opioid overdose and non-overdose deaths: simulation modeling of HEALing Communities Study

Article Publication Date

1-Jul-2026

 

Novel reactive ink prints as everlasting copper

New technique could enable next-gen electronics

University of Maryland

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Professor Shenqiang Ren holds a copper circuit chip printed on paper using a new technology he and colleagues developed.

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Credit: Maryland Engineering

A new invention from a team that includes a University of Maryland researcher halts the copper degradation cycle that turns statues, roofs, and even nickels green.

Researchers have developed a liquid reactive ink that can print copper onto nearly any surface without oxidation or corrosion. Shenqiang Ren, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, along with Professor Liangbing Hu from Yale University and Senior Scientist Haimei Zheng from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, led a collaborative effort that spanned over a decade of discovery. The results of this work were published May 14 in the journal Science as the cover article.

Copper is a hidden backbone of modern life, carrying electricity in AI systems, data centers, wireless networks, circuit boards, solar panels, and batteries. Given its applicability across industries, the reactive ink could broadly lower costs.

“These printed copper traces act as the ‘wiring’ inside next-generation electronics, produced faster, cheaper and with less waste,” said Ren.

Using a versatile blue ink, the team created a fast, relatively low-temperature method at 150 degrees Celsius to create copper that remains stable over time. This breakthrough addresses two long-standing challenges in the field: developing printable copper inks under ambient conditions and preventing it from corrosion and oxidation.

To demonstrate the technique’s versatility, the researchers printed copper conductor traces for solar cells, circuit boards, small-scale replicas of the Testudo statue, and even models of the Eiffel Tower. Additional testing showed the material’s ability to remain intact after six months of seawater submersion.

This new approach could replace conventional copper processing methods such as plating and chemical etching, reducing time, cost, and environmental impact.

“The newly developed ink has the potential to revolutionize the conductive ink industry by enabling the use of copper instead of more expensive metals, such as silver, across electronic, energy and environmental applications,” said Hu, who collaborated on this study while a UMD faculty member.

He and Ren have cofounded the startup NewCopper to commercialize the ink.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aed4488 

Article Title

A molecular pathway to corrosion-resistant printable copper