Zimbabwe’s court raises age of consent for sex to 18 years

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court has ruled that the legal age of consent for sex should be raised to 18 from 16, a judgment welcomed by many in a country where rights groups say teen pregnancies are forcing hundreds of girls out of school.


In a ruling handed down by the country’s highest court this week, the court struck down as unconstitutional provisions in the Criminal Law that set the age of consent for sex at 16.

Following the court’s decision, the minister of justice and parliament have 12 months to “enact a law that protects all children from sexual exploitation in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution,” read the ruling.

The case was brought by two women who were married as children.

Many welcomed the ruling in hopes that criminalizing sex with underage girls could help slow cases of teen pregnancies and child marriages. Authorities and human rights groups say cases have spiked following the outbreak of COVID-19 that resulted in prolonged school closures and deepening poverty.

“It is vital that we protect children, especially girls. This ruling will not stop child abuse, but it will mitigate, it offers a deterrent,” Tendai Biti, a lawyer who argued the case, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

“This ruling guarantees protection of girls under 18. In the past we had old men taking advantage of girls. Pedophiles were getting away with abuse,” said Talent Jumo, director of Katswe Sistahood, a group that campaigns for girls’ rights. She described the ruling as “a landmark.”

The age of consent for sex has for long been controversial in this southern African country. Campaigners argued that the 16-year age for consent was too young and it allowed for the exploitation of young girls.

However, Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi argued in parliament late last year that “most children are mature, beyond their age nowadays and are already sexually active.” He claimed that raising the age of consent to 18 “means children below the age of 18 having sexual intercourse will be criminalized” and have “unwanted criminal records.”

The Constitutional Court in 2016 outlawed marriage before the age of 18 following a challenge to provisions of the marriage law that allowed child marriages.

In the latest case, Biti argued on behalf of the women that it was unconstitutional that children could not be married until they attain 18 “yet the law allowed them to be abused from the age of 16.” Biti is also a leading official of the opposition party the Citizens Coalition for Change.

“Men were now having their cake and eating it too, so in some instances a man could say ‘I slept with you, I want to marry you but the law says I can’t marry you but I can have sex with you’.” Zimbabwe’s constitution defines a child as someone below the age of 18.

However, even supporters of the latest ruling urged caution, noting that more needs to be done to eradicate entrenched religious, traditional and cultural norms and as well as deepening poverty which all promote teen pregnancies and child marriages.

“Religious and other groups that had made this a norm are a major threat and need to be stopped. Secondly, children should be protected from the negative consequences of early sexual debut by providing access to sexual reproductive and health rights information and also provide for a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ clause in the law to guard against criminalizing adolescent sexual activity,” said Jumo, of Katswe Sistahood.


The “Romeo and Juliet clause” in legal terms often seeks to protect from criminal prosecution underage children who engage in consensual sexual activity with each other.

Post published in: Featured

As the US supreme court creeps right, a broad view of the second amendment emerges

Trump’s presidency saw three new rightwing judges, each backed by the powerful gun lobby movement

The supreme court is set to hear arguments in a New York 

gun rights case that could have an effect on second amendment rights. 

Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP


Oliver Laughland
THE GUARDIAN

Sun 29 May 2022 

As the world looks on in horror following mass killings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, the US supreme court is set to issue its first major ruling on gun rights in over a decade.

And with a conservative super majority now installed on the bench, most onlookers expect a substantial broadening of second amendment rights in the country despite the widespread revulsion at the latest shootings in a supermarket and a school.


Although such a decision may seem incongruous with the outpouring of grief and anger after the murder of 19 Texan elementary school students and two teachers at the hand of an 18 year-old assault rifle wielding gunman earlier this week, it would also be in keeping with the creeping rightwing extremism on America’s highest court.


Washington’s shame: how previous bids to tighten gun laws have failed

A far reaching legacy of Donald Trump’s four years as president, which saw the installation of three rightwing judges, each backed wholesale by the powerful gun lobby movement.

“Before the Trump appointees were on the supreme court, the court had multiple opportunities to take cases that could expand second amendment protections, but it repeatedly turned those efforts aside,” said Adam Winkler, a supreme court and gun policy specialist at UCLA law school. “Now we see that the supreme court is taking big gun cases and seems prepared to issue a very expansive ruling. This is directly attributable to the 2016 election.”

Before the court comes New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, a case challenging a New York law limiting concealed handgun carry in public. The law, more than a century old, requires residents to obtain concealed carry licenses by demonstrating they face a “special or unique danger to life” requiring firearms possession in public.

A ruling is expected soon on a case challenging a New York law limiting concealed handgun carry in public.

 Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

Oral arguments were held in November 2021 with a ruling expected soon, and although observers expect a judgment striking the law down, just how expansive that ruling becomes is key to anticipating the seismic nature of the decision.

Around half a dozen states have similar concealed carry laws to New York that would likely be struck down by the ruling. But, said Jake Charles, a lecturer at the center for firearms law at Duke University, the argument behind the ruling itself could be critical to further expansion of gun ownership rights across the country.

“The court is going to make a decision about how lower courts should even consider the constitutionality of gun laws,” said Charles. “If it [the supreme court] adopts a test that says courts can only look to history, they can only look at the text of the constitution or to history to determine whether or not a gun law is constitutional … that is going to open up every other gun law that there is.”

It was 2008 when the supreme court last handed down a major second amendment ruling, in the District of Columbia vs Heller decision, which found it was constitutional for Americans to keep firearms at home for self-defense. But contained within that ruling, written by former justice Antonin Scalia, was wording that limited the scope of the judgment and, by extension, interpretation of the second amendment itself.

The decision noted gun ownership rights were “not unlimited” and does not translate to a “right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose”. The explicit wording has been used since by lower courts to uphold gun restrictions in the aftermath.

The supreme court ruling in the New York case is likely to pave the way for further decisions.

 Photograph: José Luis Magaña/AP

But the new rightwing extremism on the supreme court is now likely to threaten that legal status quo. And despite the NRA’s internal leadership crisis and ongoing legal jeopardy (at the hands of the New York attorney general) the pro-gun lobby is gearing up for a major victory after the installation of three NRA-backed justices on the nation’s highest court.

“In terms of constitutional law, the NRA has never been stronger,” said Winkler. “Those three justices on the supreme court are going to embrace the broad vision of the second amendment that the NRA has been promoting for the last half century.”

The ruling in Bruen is likely to pave the way for further decisions as other cases involving state gun restrictions make their way up to the legal ladder. Last year the NRA petitioned the supreme court to hear a case challenging a law in New Jersey that restricts firearms magazines to 10 rounds. While gun advocates in Hawaii have taken a case challenging the state’s restrictive open-carry laws to the supreme court as well.

It is, said Charles, extremely unlikely the events in Buffalo or Uvalde will have any bearing on the Bruen decision itself. “If it did have an effect, my guess would be that it affects when they’re going to issue the decision and less what the decision is.”

But, said Winkler, if the court rules the way it is expected, the decision will become another indication of the opinions of a minority of Americans determining the national legal landscape.

“The supreme court has historically been a voice for the protection of minorities. However, the court today is not protecting racial or political minorities. The court is protecting a very conservative agenda, a conservative constitutional vision that is really not shared by the public at large.

“I think the court will run some risks in terms of its public legitimacy if it insists on a series of rulings that don’t stay within the broad parameters of widely shared public opinion.”

Using ketamine to find an undiscovered pathway

Finding a new target for future antidepressant development

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: KETAMINE HAS A POWERFUL EFFECT ON EMOTIONS, MAKING IT POTENTIALLY USEFUL IN THE TREATMENT OF DEPRESSION. view more 

CREDIT: OSAKA METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY

For the 280 million people suffering from depression globally, relief cannot come fast enough. Monoaminergic antidepressants, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) take weeks to months to take effect and do not work for more than one in three patients. For patients diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression, or in immediate crisis, access to safe, effective, rapid-acting antidepressants can improve lives and decrease suicide.

One current possibility being investigated is ketamine, which can improve depression, even in treatment-resistant patients. Ketamine is an anesthetic used for over 50 years, but it has serious side-effects, including dependence, hallucinations, and delusions. So, while preclinical studies have shown that a single dose of ketamine can have beneficial long-term effects on mental health and is only used to treat depression as a last resort. There are good reasons to be cautious; in addition to the side-effects, the way ketamine alters brain chemistry is not fully understood. If the biological mechanisms in the brain that ketamine influences are discovered, new drugs could be developed to target the beneficial antidepressant effect specifically.

The study led by Professor Kondo demonstrated ketamine treatment led to an increase in insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), a known antidepressant brain molecule. However, they did not know if this was linked to previously discovered ketamine related antidepressant molecules like brain-derived neutrophic factor (BDNF). They confirmed IGF-1 produced an antidepressant effect then demonstrated that they could switch it off by blocking it with an IGF-1 neutralizing antibody.

After demonstrating they could switch off IGF-1, the researchers followed up with a separate experiment. Previous studies have shown that ketamine increases BDNF, a protein that promotes nerve growth, so the researchers wanted to check if IGF-1 and BDNF were working together or separately. They tested whether IGF-1 and BDNF neutralizing antibodies blocked the other proteins antidepressant effect, they did not, leading the researchers to conclude that IGF-1 and BDNF work through their own independent pathways.

This discovery indicates that ketamine uses a previously unknown pathway that produces an antidepressant effect. The researchers hypothesized that the single dose of ketamine increases the level of IGF-1 in the brain, persistently changing prefrontal cortex nerves and causing them to increase their number of stable connections. The link between ketamine and IGF-1 presents a brand-new direction for future studies investigating antidepressants that target IGF-1 directly.

The paper, “IGF-1 release in the medial prefrontal cortex mediates the rapid and sustained antidepressant-like actions of ketamine,” was printed in Translational Psychiatry (DOI 10.1038/s41398-022-01943-9) on May 17, 2022.

CAPTION

Ketamine induces IGF-1 release in the prefrontal cortex.

CREDIT

M. Kondo, OMU

CAPTION

IGF-1 in the prefrontal cortex is essential for the antidepressant actions of ketamine. Mice where IGF-1 is neutralized by the antibody are more immobile, a sign of depression.

CREDIT

M. Kondo, OMU

About OMU

Osaka Metropolitan University is a new public university established in April 2022, formed by merger between Osaka City University and Osaka Prefecture University. For more research news visit http://www.upc-osaka.ac.jp/new-univ/en-research/research/ or follow @OsakaMetUniv_en and #OMUScience.

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JOURNAL

Translational Psychiatry

DOI

10.1038/s41398-022-01943-9 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

IGF-1 release in the medial prefrontal cortex mediates the rapid and sustained antidepressant-like actions of ketamine

Startups near state lines gravitate toward side with lower property tax

Peer-Reviewed Publication

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS PETER ORAZEM AT ISU. view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTOPHER GANNON/IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

AMES, IA – Researchers at Iowa State University found significantly different state tax rates affect where new businesses set up shop near state lines. Their study published in the journal Small Business Economics shows the fourth greatest distortion in the U.S. is between Iowa and its northwest neighbor.

"The probability of starting up on one side of the border versus the other due to tax rates is 7.5% higher in South Dakota than Iowa, but it may not be for the reasons people think. Namely, property taxes seem to matter more than other types of taxes and providing certain incentives for some businesses in Iowa may hurt others,” said University Professor of Economics Peter Orazem who led the study.

Orazem explained he and his team focused on state borders because this approach helps control for unobservable local factors that would influence new businesses on both sides of the border, such as an atypically strong local economy, better local access to labor or venture capital, or an unusually supportive local business community.

To collect their data, the researchers looked at the individual and combined effects of four types of state taxes (i.e., property, sales, personal income, corporate income) and pulled information on new businesses less than a year old between 1999 and 2015 from the Statistics of U.S. Businesses under the U.S. Census Bureau.

“The reason we were particularly interested in business startups is that they may consider multiple locations to set up. They will be more sensitive to different tax rates compared to a well-established firm that would have to move all of its equipment and employees or find new workers if it jumped state lines,” said Orazem.

The researchers found a state with a one-point higher tax rate in each of the four types of taxes will have a “small but statistically significant” 3.2% lower probability of attracting a startup than its neighboring state. The greatest distortion in startups due to tax rates in the U.S. is Wyoming's 8.6% advantage over Idaho. Wyoming’s state revenue is largely subsidized by taxes and royalties from fossil fuel production in the state, which eases the pressure to tax other types of businesses.

Orazem and his team emphasized the probability of businesses starting up on one side of the border or the other drops off when two neighboring states have similar tax structures. For example, Rhode Island has the highest tax rate in the U.S., but its neighbor, Connecticut, has the third highest tax rate, essentially erasing what could otherwise be a disadvantage.

The study also found property taxes have the greatest adverse effect on the rate of new businesses. Orazem explained that’s because new businesses may pay property taxes even if they are not generating any revenue.

Gaining a competitive edge

As director of the Program for the Study of Midwest Markets and Entrepreneurship at ISU, Orazem said he and his colleagues are always trying to figure out what incentivizes and prevents businesses from setting up in Iowa and the region.

"Tax policies are one of the reasons why people have specified South Dakota as being a relatively faster growing state in the Midwest. So, even though the study isn’t focused on South Dakota, we were curious if we could see a difference, which we did.”

But Orazem emphasized many of the strategies implemented in Iowa to try to stay competitive with South Dakota are not necessarily the most efficient.

“What’s bizarre about Iowa is we tend to have high marginal tax rates, but then we give tax breaks to some businesses and not to others. For example, we have around 450 special exemptions for the sales tax,” said Orazem. "Maybe we should stop giving special deals in general but lower tax rates where they really matter, like property tax rather than income tax.”

Orazem said he hopes the study’s findings will open the discussion but recognizes state tax reform is challenging.

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JOURNAL

Small Business Economics

DOI

10.1007/s11187-022-00624-7 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

ARTICLE TITLE

How relative marginal tax rates affect establishment entry at state borders.

Why are male mice afraid of bananas?

Researchers from McGill University have identified a form of chemical signaling in mice to defend their offspring

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Researchers from McGill University have identified a form of chemical signaling in mice to defend their offspring. The researchers found that proximity to pregnant and lactating female mice increased stress hormones in males and even decreased their sensitivity to pain. “The findings have important implications for improving the reliability and reproducibility of experiments involving mice. This is yet another example of a previously unknown factor in the lab environment that can affect the results of scientific studies,” says Jeffrey Mogil, a Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies.

According to co-author Sarah Rosen, “what is likely happening is that female mice are signaling to males who might be considering attacking their babies that they will defend them vigorously. It’s the threat of the possible upcoming fight that causes the stress.”

“Mice have richer communication with one another than we think; it’s just that a lot of it’s through smell,” says Mogil. The researchers started looking for the olfactory chemical responsible. Several odorants were identified, but one, n-pentyl acetate, which is released in the urine of pregnant and lactating female mice, was especially effective at producing stress in male mice. “Curiously, n-pentyl acetate is also responsible for the unique smell of bananas. After a quick trip to the supermarket for some banana oil, we were able to confirm that the smell of banana extract stressed the male mice just as much as the pregnant females,” says co-author Lucas Lima.     

The finding represents a breakthrough in the science of mammalian social signaling. “There are a number of examples of male-to-female olfactory signaling in rodents, but far fewer examples of female-to-male signaling, especially outside of the realm of sexual behavior,” says Mogil.

"Olfactory exposure to late-pregnant and lactating mice causes stress-induced analgesia in male mice" by Sarah Rosen et al. was published in Science Advances.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abi9366 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Olfactory exposure to late-pregnant and lactating mice causes stress-induced analgesia in male mice

Using origami and kirigami to inspire reconfigurable yet structural materials

McGill University researchers developed metamaterials that can flat-fold and lock into positions that remain stiff

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: RECONFIGURABLE METAMATERIAL THAT CAN EITHER FOLD FLAT (AO2) IN A PATTERN OTHER THAN THE ORIGINAL (O3), OR DEPLOY INTO TWO DISTINCT CONFIGURATIONS (A2O AND A3) THAT ARE RIGID AND LOAD-BEARING view more 

CREDIT: DAMIANO PASINI ET AL.

Origami, the Japanese art of folding paper into decorative shapes and figures, has long served as inspiration for industrial design. The concept of folding has been used to build reconfigurable structures, which change their function by changing their shape. These structures are promising for applications such as nanorobots for drug delivery, foldable solar panels for aerospace, and morphable cladding and shading for architecture. However, most of these designs cannot bear heavy loads. Those that can are only able to do so in a certain direction, collapsing along the direction in which they fold. This limits their use as structural materials.

A study by a group of McGill University researchers may provide a solution to this limitation. By merging concepts from origami and kirigami, the practice of folding and cutting paper, researchers developed a class of cellular metamaterials that can flat-fold and lock into several positions that remain stiff across multiple directions.

“Their load-bearing capacity, flat-foldability, and reprogrammability can be harnessed for deployable structures including certain submarines, reconfigurable robots, and low-volume packaging,” said Damiano Pasini, Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and lead researcher on the study. "Our metamaterials remain stiff in several directions, yet rigidly flat-foldable metamaterials, attributes unprecedented in the current literature.”

"Rigidly flat-foldable class of lockable origami-inspired metamaterials with topological stiff states" by Damiano Pasini et al. was published in Nature Communications.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-29484-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Rigidly flat-foldable class of lockable origami-inspired metamaterials with topological stiff states

Center for BrainHealth and Warfighter Fitness

Business Announcement

CENTER FOR BRAINHEALTH

The National Guard Bureau has taken a bold step toward securing and enhancing Warfighter brain health, and ensuring cognitive combat readiness with the launch of a new initiative to measure, track and improve cognitive performance and psychological well-being. The Warfighter Brain Fitness program is a research protocol with almost 1,000 participants across the United States. In partnership with Applied Research Associates, Inc., the Center for BrainHealth® at The University of Texas at Dallas, Posit Science, and Cortical Metrics, the Warfighter Brain Fitness program will collect data to optimize the online delivery of scientifically validated cognitive training approaches to reserve and active-duty populations.The Warfighter Brain Fitness program leverages the BrainHealth dashboard and BrainHealth Index (BHI), both developed at the Center for BrainHealth for the purpose of conducting a similar large-scale study (The BrainHealth Project) in civilian populations. The BHI is a multi-dimensional measure of brain health and its upward potential. It is a composite metric derived from a series of best-in-class assessments that explore multiple aspects of an individual’s cognitive capacity, as well as their sense of well-being, quality of social interactions and complexity of daily routines. The result is a personalized, holistic score that becomes an individual’s baseline against which gains can be measured and analyzed.Participants in the Warfighter Brain Fitness program will also have access to the Brain Gauge, a small device similar to a computer mouse, that delivers vibrations to a user’s fingertips. The user answers simple questions about the vibrations, like “Which finger felt a vibration first?” and “Which finger felt the vibration for longer?” Over time, the vibrations become increasingly similar, making it increasingly difficult to answer these questions. Data on a user’s performance is analyzed using a machine learning model to provide a quantitative neurofunctional measure of brain health that has been validated in numerous DoD-funded studies.Most importantly, participants in Warfighter Brain Fitness will engage in two complementary approaches to brain training: SMART+ and BrainHQ. A proprietary protocol developed and tested by BrainHealth researchers over the past two decades, SMART+ teaches top-down cognitive strategies on how to process information more deeply and accurately, with an emphasis on improving complex cognitive functions, such as reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making and innovation. BrainHQ is a set of computer games that provide increasingly difficult challenges to bottom-up cognitive processes such as spatial processing speed and inhibition. BrainHQ increases the speed and accuracy with which the brain processes information. Both SMART+ and BrainHQ are extensively validated but have never been used together as they will be in Warfighter Brain Fitness.

“The National Guard has really taken a leadership role in the Department of Defense in terms of prioritizing brain health, both as a means of increasing combat readiness and as a way of reducing the risk of significant psychological health issues. Through this effort, we expect to demonstrate the feasibility of improving brain health through cognitive training, and we will use the data we collect to refine how we deliver this training to active and reserve duty military personnel.” – Dr. Leanne Young, Principal Investigator, ARA

Jennifer Zientz, deputy director of programs at Center for BrainHealth, added, “We are proud to partner with Applied Research Associates, the National Guard and Special Operators in this unique, science-driven program to tackle brain health with focus and urgency. Better brain health enables people of every age and occupation to thrive in a constantly changing world, and our warriors and protectors deserve the most leading-edge tools and techniques to drive peak brain performance.”About Center for BrainHealthThe Center for BrainHealth®, part of The University of Texas at Dallas, is a translational research institute committed to enhancing, preserving and restoring brain health across the lifespan. Major research areas include the use of functional and structural neuroimaging techniques to better understand the neurobiology supporting cognition and emotion in health and disease. This leading-edge scientific exploration is translated quickly into practical innovations to improve how people think, work and live, empowering people of all ages to unlock their brain potential. Translational innovations build on Strategic Memory Advanced Reasoning Tactics (SMART™), a proprietary methodology developed and tested by BrainHealth researchers and other teams over three decades.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

$8 million project aims to prevent TBI in military personnel

Project to study brain inflammation in service members exposed to blasts

Grant and Award Announcement

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA HEALTH SYSTEM

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

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

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

Understanding Brain Inflammation

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

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

Causes of Long-Term TBI Symptoms 

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

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

Veterans with Chronic TBI

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

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

A Potential Treatment Target for Brain Diseases

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

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

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Shedding light on spermatogenesis failure caused by testicular warming

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF NATURAL SCIENCES

 

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

CREDIT: NIBB

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

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

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

This study has been published in Communications Biology.

***

Paper Information

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

 

Contact:

Prof. Shosei Yoshida

National Institute for Basic Biology

E-mail: shosei@nibb.ac.jp

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JOURNAL

Communications Biology

DOI

10.1038/s42003-022-03449-y 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animal tissue samples

ARTICLE TITLE

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

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-May-2022

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

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

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

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

CREDIT: CLAYTON METZ/VIRGINIA TECH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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