It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, October 17, 2022
University of Tennessee dinosaur mummy provides new insight into soft tissue fossilization
In 2008, anEdmontosaurus“mummy” arrived at the North Dakota Geological Survey where lab technicians began the process of removing sediment and preparing the specimen for paleontologists to investigate. Nicknamed “Dakota,” the mummy revealed several unexpected features, such as extensive areas of fossilized skin and the presence of a broad fingernail on the end of dinosaur’s ‘mitten-like’ hand.
A paper published in PLOS reveals that these bite and potential claw marks in its beautifully preserved skin defied paleontological conventions on how such fossils formed.
“Conventional wisdom was telling us that ‘Dakota’ shouldn’t exist,” said Stephanie Drumheller, lead author and paleontologist at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “We needed to figure out how dinosaur skin, which had clearly been partially eaten, still managed to survive long enough to be buried and fossilized.”
Traditional understanding was that very rapid burial after death was necessary for soft tissue to end up in the fossil record. Burial is a great way to slow down many of the processes that break down remains, including predation and scavenging.
“Dinosaur mummies, however, never fit very well in this model,” Drumheller said. “They often appeared dried out, as if they had been baking under the sun for some time.”
In addition, long-term exposure would also leave the remains vulnerable to scavenging, which was thought to destroy any chance for the soft tissues to fossilize.
Fortunately, the field of forensic anthropology provided an alternate explanation. Modern research into patterns of decomposition suggests that partial scavenging of a carcass can, somewhat unintuitively, help dry and preserve skin over longer periods of time, even when the other soft tissues have decayed.
Researchers took digital images of the inside of “Dakota” that revealed the skeleton was preserved with the empty skin deflated around and appressed to the bones. All of the other internal organs were missing, which meant the dinosaur’s carcass could have laid on the landscape for weeks to months before burial – plenty of time for the organs and muscles to be eaten or decompose and for the skin to dry out and deflate before it was buried in sand.
“Not only has ‘Dakota’ taught us that durable soft tissues like skin can be preserved on partially scavenged carcasses, but these soft tissues can also provide a unique source of information about the other animals that interacted with a carcass after death, said Clint Boyd, Senior Paleontologist at the North Dakota Geological Survey.
IMAGE: THIS ILLUSTRATION SHOWS THE LUCY SPACECRAFT PASSING ONE OF THE TROJAN ASTEROIDS NEAR JUPITER.view more
CREDIT: CREDITS: SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE
On Oct. 16, at 7:04 a.m. EDT, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, the first mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, will skim the Earth’s atmosphere, passing a mere 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the surface. By sling-shotting past Earth on the first anniversary of its launch, Lucy will gain some of the orbital energy it needs to travel to this never-before-visited population of asteroids.
The Trojan asteroids are trapped in orbits around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter, either far ahead of or behind the giant planet. Lucy is currently one year into a twelve-year voyage. This gravity assist will place Lucy on a new trajectory for a two-year orbit, at which time it will return to Earth for a second gravity assist. This second assist will give Lucy the energy it needs to cross the main asteroid belt, where it will observe asteroid Donaldjohanson, and then travel into the leading Trojan asteroid swarm. There, Lucy will fly past six Trojan asteroids: Eurybates and its satellite Queta, Polymele and its yet unnamed satellite, Leucus, and Orus. Lucy will then return to Earth for a third gravity assist in 2030 to re-target the spacecraft for a rendezvous with the Patroclus-Menoetius binary asteroid pair in the trailing Trojan asteroid swarm.
For this first gravity assist, Lucy will appear to approach Earth from the direction of the Sun. While this means that observers on Earth will not be able to see Lucy in the days before the event, Lucy will be able to take images of the nearly full Earth and Moon. Mission scientists will use these images to calibrate the instruments.
Lucy’s trajectory will bring the spacecraft very close to Earth, lower even than the International Space Station, which means that Lucy will pass through a region full of earth-orbiting satellites and debris. To ensure the safety of the spacecraft, NASA developed procedures to anticipate any potential hazard and, if needed, to execute a small maneuver to avoid a collision.
“The Lucy team has prepared two different maneuvers,” says Coralie Adam, Lucy deputy navigation team chief from KinetX Aerospace in Simi Valley, California. “If the team detects that Lucy is at risk of colliding with a satellite or piece of debris, then--12 hours before the closest approach to Earth --the spacecraft will execute one of these, altering the time of closest approach by either two or four seconds. This is a small correction, but it is enough to avoid a potentially catastrophic collision.”
Lucy will be passing the Earth at such a low altitude that the team had to include the effect of atmospheric drag when designing this flyby. Lucy’s large solar arrays increase this effect.
“In the original plan, Lucy was actually going to pass about 30 miles closer to the Earth,” says Rich Burns, Lucy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “However, when it became clear that we might have to execute this flyby with one of the solar arrays unlatched, we chose to use a bit of our fuel reserves so that the spacecraft passes the Earth at a slightly higher altitude, reducing the disturbance from the atmospheric drag on the spacecraft’s solar arrays.”
At around 6:55 a.m. EDT, Lucy will first be visible to observers on the ground in Western Australia (6:55 p.m. for those observers). Lucy will quickly pass overhead, clearly visible to the naked eye for a few minutes before disappearing at 7:02 a.m. EDT as the spacecraft passes into the Earth’s shadow. Lucy will continue over the Pacific Ocean in darkness and emerge from the Earth’s shadow at 7:26 a.m. EDT. If the clouds cooperate, sky watchers in the western United States should be able to get a view of Lucy with the aid of binoculars.
“The last time we saw the spacecraft, it was being enclosed in the payload fairing in Florida,” said Hal Levison, Lucy principal investigator at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Boulder, Colorado office. “It is exciting that we will be able to stand here in Colorado and see the spacecraft again. And this time Lucy will be in the sky.”
Lucy will then rapidly recede from the Earth’s vicinity, passing by the Moon and taking a few more calibration images before continuing out into interplanetary space.
“I’m especially excited by the final few images that Lucy will take of the Moon,” said John Spencer, acting deputy project scientist at SwRI. “Counting craters to understand the collisional history of the Trojan asteroids is key to the science that Lucy will carry out, and this will be the first opportunity to calibrate Lucy’s ability to detect craters by comparing it to previous observations of the Moon by other space missions.”
The public is invited to join the #WaveToLucy social media campaign by posting images of themselves waving towards the spacecraft and tagging the @NASASolarSystem account. Additionally, if you are in an area where Lucy will be visible, take a photograph of Lucy and post it to social media with the #SpotTheSpacecraft hashtag. Instructions for observing Lucy from your location are available here.
Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), in the Boulder Colorado office is the principal investigator. SwRI, headquartered in San Antonio, also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. NASA Goddard provides overall mission management, systems engineering and the safety and mission assurance for Lucy. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado built the spacecraft, principally designed the orbital trajectory and is providing flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
For more information about the Lucy mission, visit:
IMAGE: NASA'S LUCY MISSION PASSES AN ASTEROID. ARTIST RENDITIONview more
CREDIT: NASA/SWRI
Mission engineers will track NASA’s Lucy spacecraft nonstop as it prepares to swoop near Earth on Oct. 16 to use this planet’s gravity to set itself on a course toward the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
But they also will be closely tracking something else: more than 47,000 satellites, debris, and other objects circling our planet. A greater than 1-10,000 chance that Lucy will collide with one of these objects will require mission engineers to slightly adjust the spacecraft’s trajectory.
The International Space Station, for instance, has maneuvered out of the way of space debris 31 times since 1999, including three times since 2020.
“Low-Earth orbit is getting more crowded, so that has to be part of the consideration nowadays, especially for missions that fly low, like Lucy,” said Dr. Dolan Highsmith, chief engineer for the Conjunction Assessment Risk Analysis group at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The group determines the probabilities of collisions between NASA’s robotic spacecraft and Earth-orbiting objects. NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston does the same for crewed spacecraft, such as the space station.
Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, Lucy is on a 12-year-journey to study multiple Trojan asteroids up close. It’ll be the first spacecraft to visit these remnants from the early solar system, helping scientists hone their theories on how the planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they ended up in their current configuration.
But Lucy has a long way to go before it arrives at the Trojans in 2027. The upcoming gravity assist is one of three the spacecraft will rely on to catapult itself to its deep-space targets.
When Lucy comes nearest to Earth for its first gravity assist it will cruise 220 miles (350 km) above the surface. That’s lower than the altitude of the space station and low enough that the spacecraft will be visible with the naked eye from western Australia for a few minutes starting at 6:55 p.m. local time (10:55 UTC). On its way down, Lucy will fly through the most crowded layer of Earth’s orbit, which is monitored by the U.S. Space Force’s 18th Space Control Squadron. The squadron helps NASA identify close approaches.
Engineers began collision analysis for Lucy a week before the spacecraft’s Earth approach. Starting the process any earlier would render collision predictions futile, Highsmith said: “The further you're predicting into the future, the more uncertain you are about where an object is going to be.”
Determining the positions of spacecraft, plus orbiting satellites and debris, is challenging, particularly when trying to anticipate the future. Largely that’s because the Sun plays a major role in pulling or pushing objects around, and future solar activity is hard to predict. For example, the Sun’s activity — how much plasma and radiation it shoots out — affects atmosphere density, and thus how much friction will tug on a spacecraft and slow it down.
So the closer the collision assessment is to the Earth flyby time, the better. NASA sends Lucy’s whereabouts to the Space Force squadron daily. If the squadron determines that Lucy could intersect with something, Highsmith’s group will calculate the probability of a collision and work with the mission team to move the spacecraft, if necessary.
With such a high value mission, you really need to make sure that you have the capability, in case it's a bad day, to get out of the way,” Highsmith said.
Lucy navigation engineers have two maneuver options ready in case the spacecraft needs to avoid an object. Both maneuvers require engine burns to speed up the spacecraft, which is traveling about 8 miles (12 km) per second. Each maneuver can move Lucy’s closest approach to Earth up by 2 seconds or 4 seconds, respectively.
“That's enough to avoid any one thing that could be in the way,” said Kevin E. Berry, Lucy’s flight dynamics team lead from NASA Goddard.
EU
Hospital emergency departments lack policy and strategies for spotting child neglect or abuse
Berlin, Germany: In a survey of emergency department staff from across Europe, only around half said their hospital has a policy in place to help staff identify children who are being neglected or abused.
The research, presented at the European Emergency Medicine Congress [1], also shows that hospitals with such a policy are more likely to use strategies that are known to be effective in identifying children who are maltreated, including screening tools and staff training.
The study was presented by Féline Hoedeman, a PhD and medical student at the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. She said: “Abuse and neglect have devastating effects on children, families and society, but they can be very difficult to spot. Children who sustain injuries due to abuse are likely to present at an emergency department and previous research shows that staff can play an important part in identifying these children, especially if they have the right training, tools and resources.”
In collaboration with the Dutch Augeo Foundation, the European Society for Emergency Medicine (EUSEM), Research in European Paediatric Emergency Medicine (REPEM) network and the European Society of Emergency Nursing (EuSEN), the researchers from the Erasmus MC Sophia Children’s Hospital conducted a survey of healthcare professionals working in European emergency departments. The responses came from staff at 148 hospitals in 29 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Only 51% of respondents said their hospital had a standardised child maltreatment policy. Twenty-four percent said they did not have such a policy. The remaining 25% either did not know or did not say whether they had a policy.
Those who said there was a policy were also more likely to report that their hospital had a child maltreatment screening tool (52% compared to 2% in hospitals without a policy), training on identifying maltreated children (63% compared with 30%), a child abuse team (73% compared with 27%) and a child maltreatment policy officer (51% compared to 20%). However, only 28% with a policy said that their hospital used all four of these strategies.
The researchers caution that the responses came from individual professionals and so are not representative of all hospital staff.
Ms Hoedeman said: “Our study suggests that there are some hospitals where the right action is being taken to protect children. However, it also suggests that there are far too many hospitals where policy on child abuse and neglect is not in place or staff do not know the policy is there. Where that’s the case, staff are less likely to have the tools and knowledge they need and may be missing opportunities to help vulnerable children.”
The researchers plan to develop a toolkit, consisting of a hospital policy, training and a screening tool, to help identify children being neglected or abused. They have just completed a follow-up survey to investigate any factors that could help or hinder implementation of the toolkit.
Professor Youri Yordanov from the St Antoine Hospital emergency department, APHP Paris, France, is Chair of the EUSEM 2022 abstract committee and was not involved in the research. He says: “We know that having protocols and structured processes in hospitals can reduce medical errors and benefit patients. This study affirms that having a policy can support emergency department staff to spot children who are at risk.
“Although regulations and legal systems differ between European countries, the core components of a child maltreatment hospital policy should always be in place and can be adapted to different hospitals. We are starting to recognise that there is a lot of variability between hospitals when it comes to recognising child abuse and neglect and that’s something we need to urgently address.”
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Survey
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Not applicable
Marijuana-dependent patients at higher risk for infection after knee or shoulder arthroscopy procedures
Although more research is needed, physicians should discuss the potential risk of marijuana dependence with candidates for arthroscopy procedures
IMAGE: MARIJUANA-DEPENDENT PATIENTS AT HIGHER RISK FOR INFECTION AFTER KNEE OR SHOULDER ARTHROSCOPYview more
CREDIT: AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS
Key takeaways
A higher infection rate found by new research should raise a “red flag” for patients and providers and should be discussed along with other risk factors before an arthroscopic procedure.
Higher rates of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) were also found among these patients, but the study’s analysis determined they were not statistically significant.
The study has identified the need for additional research to better understand the relationship between marijuana dependence and potential postoperative complications.
SAN DIEGO: Patients who are dependent on marijuana may face higher infection rates following knee and shoulder arthroscopy—a minimally invasive surgery in which a small camera is inserted to diagnose and sometimes treat injury—according to a study presented at the Scientific Forum of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2022.
Using PearlDiver, a national insurance claims database, researchers from the University of Chicago performed a retrospective study of patients with marijuana dependence who underwent knee or shoulder arthroscopy for the postoperative complications of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), pulmonary embolism (PE), and infection.
“Marijuana has been gaining so much popularity, but it’s a risk factor we aren’t really catching,” said lead study author Sarah Bhattacharjee, MD, who conducted the research while she was a medical student at the University of Chicago. Dr. Bhattacharjee is now a surgical resident in orthopaedic and sports medicine at the University of Washington. “The higher infection rate found by this new study should raise a ‘red flag’ for patients and providers and should be discussed along with other risk factors before an arthroscopic procedure.”
Although the effect of marijuana use has been studied in pain management and cardiovascular health, few studies have looked at the potential effects of marijuana use by patients who are undergoing surgery. More states are legalizing marijuana, and the size of the cannabis market is predicted to reach $91.5 billion by 2028.1 Given that trend, the team of researchers from the University of Chicago set out to determine if marijuana-dependent users face an increased risk of complications following knee or shoulder arthroscopy.
“There’s so much information out there on smoking, alcohol, and other substances, but not on marijuana use,” said study coauthor Jason Strelzow, MD, assistant professor of orthopaedic surgery, University of Chicago. “As providers and surgeons, we should be discussing marijuana use with our patients, something that we have traditionally shied away from.”
Study details
All patients undergoing knee or shoulder arthroscopy were identified retrospectively in PearlDiver. Next, patients who had a diagnostic code for marijuana dependence were also identified within each surgery category; this is a rigid definition requiring patients to three or more criteria, such as using marijuana longer than intended, difficulty in cutting down use, spending a lot of time in obtaining or recovering from marijuana, and high tolerance.
The rates of DVT, PE, and infection within 90 days were assessed for all patients. Univariate analyses of marijuana dependence on all outcomes were performed, followed by a multivariate logistic regression analysis controlling for known patient comorbidities (other medical conditions).
The researchers identified 1,113,944 knee and 747,938 shoulder arthroscopy patients. Out of those 1,861,892 patients, 21,823 patients had a diagnostic code for marijuana dependence.
Within both subgroups, the marijuana dependence cohort experienced increased rates of infection and DVT, while the PE rate stayed the same. For the shoulder arthroscopy group, the rates of infection increased from 0.7% to 1.7%, the DVT rate from 0.2% to 0.4%, while PE stayed at 0.2%. In the knee arthroscopy group, the rates of infection increased from 1.1% to 2.6%, the DVT rate rose from 0.2 to 0.3%, and PE stayed at 0.3%.
In the multivariate analyses controlling for a variety of patient risk factors, including tobacco use or a history of diabetes, marijuana dependence was identified as an independent risk factor for infection within both cohorts. In this study, a statistical measure called a p-value (‘p’ stands for probability) was used to determine if the detected relationship was due to chance (p-values of 0.001 or below) or did, in fact, exist (p-values above 0.001). For the knee group, the p-value was 1.85, and for the shoulder group it was 1.65.
(Note: The presenting author reported on updated data from the podium during the conference reflecting stable PE rates.)
Dr. Strelzow hopes surgeons will use the study results to help inform marijuana-dependent patients about risks, benefits, and available alternatives, such as reducing or eliminating marijuana use six months prior to an arthroscopic procedure.
Although the study focused on minimally invasive surgery, Dr. Strelzow said that “we would expect similar or larger effects with more open or invasive procedures.”
Future research opportunities
The study has identified the need for additional research to better understand the relationship between marijuana dependence and postoperative complications. In addition, given that the study used very rigid criteria for marijuana dependence, there are opportunities for future clinical studies to investigate how various levels of marijuana use impact postoperative complications. Dr. Strelzow said he plans to study the impact of marijuana dependence on fracture healing.
There are no author disclosures to report.
Citation: Bhattacharjee S, et al. Marijuana and Joints: Outcomes Following Shoulder and Knee Arthroscopy, Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2022.
The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 84,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. “FACS” designates a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
Nicotine dose in a single cigarette blocks estrogen production in women’s brains
IMAGE: AROMATASE (ESTROGEN SYNTHETASE) DETECTED IN THE THALAMUS (RED SPOT)view more
CREDIT: JANA IMMENSCHUH
A dose of nicotine, equivalent to that found in a single cigarette blocks estrogen production in women’s brains. This may explain several behavioural differences in women who smoke, including why they are more resistant than men to quitting smoking. This work is presented for the first time at the ECNP Congress in Vienna.
Lead researcher, Associate Professor Erika Comasco (Uppsala University, Sweden) said:
“For the first time, we can see that nicotine works to shuts down the estrogen production mechanism in the brain of women. We were surprised to see that this effect could be seen even with a single dose of nicotine, equivalent to just one cigarette, showing how powerful the effects of smoking are on a woman’s brain. This is a newly-discovered effect, and it’s still preliminary work. We’re still not sure what the behavioural or cognitive outcomes are; only that nicotine acts on this area of the brain, however we note that the affected brain system is a target for addictive drugs, such as nicotine”.
The effect has been shown in the thalamus, which is part of the limbic system in the brain. This system is involved in behavioural and emotional responses.
The researchers, from Uppsala University in Sweden, worked with a group of ten healthy female volunteers. The women were given a commercially available nicotine dose intranasally, and at the same time were injected with a radioactive tracer attached to a molecule which binds to the enzyme aromatase: aromatase, also known as estrogen synthase, is the enzyme responsible for the production of estrogen. MRI and PET brain scans enabled the researchers to visualise both the quantity of aromatase, and where it was located in the brain. The researchers found that a single dose moderately reduced the amount of aromatase in the brain.
It has been known for some time that women and men respond differently to nicotine, with women being more resistant to nicotine replacement therapy, and showing a greater tendency than men to relapse when trying to quit smoking. However, the biological basis for these differences is not understood. This is the first time that this inhibitory effect on aromatase production has been shown in humans. The effect on men was not studied.
Professor Comasco continued “This discovery leads us to believe that nicotine’s effect on estrogen production has a significant impact on the brain, but perhaps also on other functions, such as the reproductive system – we don’t know that yet. There are significant differences in the way men and women react to smoking. Women seem to be more resistant to nicotine replacement therapy, they experience more relapses, show greater vulnerability for heritability of smoking, and are at greater risk of developing primary smoking-related illnesses, such as lung cancer and heart attacks. We need now to understand if this action of nicotine on the hormonal system is involved in any of these reactions.
Of course this is a comparatively small group of women, we need a larger sample to confirm these findings. Nevertheless, the message is that nicotine has various effects on the brain, including on the production of sex hormones such as estrogen”.
Commenting, Professor Wim van den Brink, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam said:
“This is indeed an important first finding. Smoking has many adverse effects in men and in women, but this particular effect of nicotine on the reduction of estrogen production in woman was not known before. It should be noted, however, that tobacco addiction is a complex disorder with many contributing factors. It’s unlikely that this specific effect of nicotine on the thalamus (and the production of estrogen) explains all the observed differences in the development, treatment and outcomes between male and female smokers. It is still a long way from a nicotine induced reduction in estrogen production to a reduced risk of nicotine addiction and negative effects of treatment and relapse in female cigarette smokers, but this work merits further investigation”.
Professor van den Brink was not involved in this work, it is an independent comment.
This work is presented at the 35th European College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual conference, which takes place in Vienna and online from 15-18 October, see https://www.ecnp.eu/Congress2022/ECNPcongress. Up to 5000 delegates are expected to attend. The ECNP is Europe’s main organisation working in applied neuroscience.
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
The U-curve: children born to younger or older parents have an increased risk of bipolar disorder
EUROPEAN COLLEGE OF NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
Parental age and risk of bipolar disorder in children. This graph is adapted from the published original. Y-axis indicates odds ratio. view more Credit: Giovanna Fico
Children of either younger or older parents carry an increased risk of bipolar disorder. This risk is greater if you were born to a mother or father younger than 20 years old, if your mother was older than 35, or your father was older than 45. This tendency gives a ‘U-Shaped Curve’, showing increased risks for younger and older parents. This work is presented at the ECNP Congress in Vienna, after recent publication in the peer-reviewed journal European Neuropsychopharmacology.
Bipolar disorder, where sufferers can swing from moods of elation to moods of extreme depression, is one of the most common serious mental illnesses, affecting around 2% of people, and carries a high risk of suicide and premature death. It is known to have high heritability; if one parent has bipolar disorder there’s a 15% to 30% chance that this will be passed on to their children.
Study leader Dr Giovanna Fico, of the University of Barcelona, said:
“Parental age is a factor which affects many conditions, such as fertility and some neuropsychiatric disorders. What we have found is slightly unusual because both younger and older parents carry an increased risk of having a child with bipolar disorder. The increased risk is moderate, but real. We can speculate that younger parents may be affected by environmental factors, such as socio-economic problems, lack of support, but also stress or immunological factors, and that older parents may have genetic factors coming into play, but the truth is we don’t really know”.
The researchers, from Spain, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands, undertook a systematic review of studies from various countries which relate bipolar disorder to age. In total the studies included 13,424,760 participants, of whom 217,089 had bipolar disorder. They found that older men were more at risk than other groups of having a child with bipolar disorder. These men had 29% higher odds of having a baby with bipolar disorder than fathers aged 25 to 29 while older women had 20% higher odds than mothers aged 25 to 29. In parents younger than 20 years the increased odds were 23% (for mothers) to 29% (for fathers). All analyses were corrected for biasing factors, like familial history for bipolar disorders and the age of the other parent.
Giovanna Fico said “Again, we must stress that this risk is moderate, and it must be kept in perspective. However, for those already at risk, age is another factor that should be taken into consideration, and so it may be that doctors need to counsel both younger and older couples if they have a risk of bipolar disorder. We also see this U-shaped curve in some other conditions, such as autism and some cardiovascular diseases”.
She continued:
“We are planning to study several environmental factors which might be related to the risk of bipolar disorder, but also to its course of illness. For example, we would like to explore how the exposure to pollution, climate changes, urbanization might affect the risk of some psychiatric disorders, and we want to try to understand if these factors help or worsen the course of the disorder”.
Commenting, Professor Maj Vinberg (University of Copenhagen) said:
“This interesting systematic review article shows that children of young parents (up to 20 years) have a greater risk of developing bipolar affective disorder. The same pattern is seen in older parents, defined as fathers over 45 and mothers over 35.
The study raises several exciting research questions, including the possibility of early prevention and intervention. For example, in the daily clinical settings, it is crucial to be aware that young individuals with BD in their manic phases have more risky sexual behavior, which can associate with an increased pregnancy risk”.
This is an independent comment, Professor Vinberg was not involved in this research.
This work is presented at the 35th European College of Neuropsychopharmacology annual conference, which takes place in Vienna and online from 15-18 October, see https://www.ecnp.eu/Congress2022/ECNPcongress. Up to 5000 delegates are expected to attend. The ECNP is Europe’s main organisation working in applied neuroscience.
The published paper, “The U-shaped relationship between parental age and the risk of bipolar disorder in the offspring: A systematic review and meta-analysis”, Fico et al. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 2022 Jul;60:55-75. doi: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2022.05.004, can be accessed at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35635997/
None of the comments in this press release are in the published paper. A copy of the paper is available to journalists on request to the press officer.
A more open approach to adoption is needed so that adopted people do not lose relationships with people who have been important to them in their life, according to new research by the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Findings from two studies, published during National Adoption Week by UEA’s Centre for Research on Children and Families, also suggest this helps adopted people to have a better sense of their own identity.
The theme for this year’s National Adoption Week is about maintaining adopted children's relationships and identities.
Prof Elsbeth Neil, of UEA’s School of Social Work and one of the study authors, said: “Adoption has often been seen as ‘a fresh start’ with a ‘clean break’ from the child’s birth seen as necessary. But now new research with adopted adults demonstrates the problems this approach causes throughout the lifespan.
“Without information about their background and family of origin adopted people struggle with questions of identity, and many feel a sense of loss at losing significant relationships, or simply not having the chance to get to know parents, brothers, sisters or others in their birth family.
“Tens of thousands of adopted adults and their birth relatives have been affected by the lack of openness in adoption, but services to help them deal with the consequences of this need more priority.”
Prof Neil added: “Adoptees need quicker and easier ways of accessing their adoption records and they need access to affordable support services to help them work through the emotional impact of adoption and to support them in the process of finding their birth family where this is desired.
“This research also has messages for children being adopted today, in particular that the system needs to do more to actually maintain children’s relationships where they are safe and supportive, so they do not end up with these identity questions as adults.”
The first study looks at how adoption agencies respond to requests from intermediary agencies to support reunions between adopted adults and their birth families.
Intermediary services support adopted adults to contact their birth family, and vice versa they can support birth parents to make contact with their child who was adopted.
Before intermediary services can put people in touch with each other, they must ask the agency holding the adoption records to check the file for contact details, background information and to make sure that the adopted person has not placed a veto on being contacted by birth relatives.
This new research, carried out with adoption intermediary service Joanna North Associates, explores how quickly adoption agencies respond to these requests, and factors that may prevent a timely response. One of the key recommendations is that the needs of adopted adults and birth relatives should be given more strategic consideration at national and agency level.
Dr Joanna North said: “Our work in connecting adopted people to their lost family of origin has shown us the cost of human suffering when people cannot connect with their birth relatives in a timely fashion. These searches are time sensitive. On too many occasions the system has been so slow to respond to our requests for records that the subject of a search may have died before we reach them.
“The research we carried out with UEA shows the large variations in how long it can take agencies to check files, as well as the lack of resources and guidance to enable searches to be carried out quickly.
“The government needs to ensure a consistent process from Local Authorities so that there is a minimum standard for helping adopted people access their records, reducing the suffering that this is causing.”
The second study, conducted in collaboration with adoption support agency PAC-UK, analyses survey data from more than 200 adopted adults exploring their priorities around the topic of maintaining birth family relationships.
It found widespread support for the prioritisation of birth-family relationships, the need for more support for adopted adults and more open discussion about birth family links. The findings will be presented today during an online event organised by PAC-UK and led by adopted adults.
PAC-UK National Strategic Lead Mike Hancock said: “We are at an exciting time of potential change in adoption where questions are being asked about whether the severing of ties with birth family and the consequent secrecy around identity is beneficial to adopted children. The message we are getting for many adopted adults is that it is not.”
During a webinar on Thursday (October 20) Prof Neil will discuss ongoing work around the ‘theory of change’, focusing on the adoption system and highlighting key problems related to the lack of openness in adoption, and the issues this causes for adopted people, birth parents and adoptive parents.
The webinar will be run in collaboration with CoramBAAF, an independent organisation for professionals, foster carers and adopters, and anyone else working with or looking after children in or from care, or adults who have been affected by adoption.
Over the last few months researchers have been drawing on existing research and talking to a wide range of people with lived and professional experience. The event will include contributions from a range of people with lived experience including adopted adults, a birth parent, and adoptive parent. There will be a focus on what could be done differently to improve the adoption system.
IMAGE: BEE DRINKING FROM ARTIFICIAL FLOWERview more
CREDIT: YONGHE ZHOU
Bumblebees don’t seem to keep memories for how sweet a flower was, but instead only remember if it was sweeter than another flower, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London, along with an international team of scientists.
In new research in the journal eLife, bumblebees were first trained on two flowers, learning that one flower was sweeter than a second flower. Later, they learned that a third flower was sweeter than a fourth flower. Then bumblebees were given the choice between two of the flowers they hadn’t seen together before, for example the second and third or the first and third.
Over a series of experiments, bumblebees’ preferences during the tests indicated that they could only retain very basic ranking memories for the flowers for very long. The bumblebees could only remember that a flower had been better or worse during training phase. Bees couldn’t seem to remember for more than a few minutes how sweet or rewarding the flowers were on their own or even how much sweeter they were compared to other flowers.
Previous research shows that we humans actually keep memories for both absolute information (e.g. how sweet something is) and comparisons [Palminteri and Lebreton, 2021]. Starlings, a bird native to Europe, and the only other animal for which this question has been examined, similarly use a combination of absolute and comparative information when remembering options [Pompilio and Kacelnik, 2010].
Ms Yonghe Zhou, co-lead author on the paper and currently a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London, says: “Our results reveal an intriguing divergent mechanism for how bumblebees retain and use information about options, compared to humans and birds.”
Prof Fei Peng, senior author currently at Southern Medical University, China, states “It may be that the different strategies used by bumblebees and humans may have evolved because of their different diets. Maybe because bumblebees evolved to mostly only eat flower nectar, they never needed to remember the details and could survive and thrive simply using simple comparisons.”
Ms Yonghe adds: “Despite what may seem to be a poor memory strategy, bumblebees do very well in finding the most profitable flowers. It’s fascinating to consider how different animals, in their own ecological niche, can be similarly successful using such different strategies.”
Bumblebees retrieve only the ordinal ranking of foraging options when comparing memories obtained in distinct settings
Livers have the potential to function for more than 100 years
Research findings about a unique group of transplanted livers could help raise the age of potential donors, thus expanding the donor pool in the future
IMAGE: LIVERS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO FUNCTION FOR MORE THAN 100 YEARSview more
CREDIT: AMERICAN COLLEGE OF SURGEONS
Key takeaways
Understanding the characteristics of livers that live to 100 could potentially expand the donor pool by using older liver donors more often.
New surgical techniques and advances in immunosuppression lead to better outcomes for patients receiving a liver from an older donor.
Optimizing both donor and recipient factors allow for much greater longevity for certain livers.
SAN DIEGO: There is a small, but growing, subset of livers that have been transplanted and have a cumulative age of more than 100 years, according to researchers from University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, and TransMedics, Andover, Massachusetts. They studied these livers to identify characteristics to determine why these organs are so resilient, paving the way for considering the potential expanded use of older liver donors. The research team presented their findings at the Scientific Forum of the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Clinical Congress 2022.
The researchers used the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) STARfile to identify livers that had a cumulative age (total initial age at transplant plus post-transplant survival) of at least 100 years. Of 253,406 livers transplanted between 1990-2022, 25 livers met the criteria of being centurion livers—those with a cumulative age over 100 years.
“We looked at pre-transplant survival—essentially, the donor’s age—as well as how long the liver went on to survive in the recipient,” said lead study author Yash Kadakia, a medical student at UT Southwestern Medical School. “We stratified out these remarkable livers with over 100-year survival and identified donor factors, recipient factors, and transplant factors involved in creating this unique combination where the liver was able to live to 100 years.”
Centurion livers came from older donors
For these centurion livers, the average donor age was significantly higher, 84.7 years compared with 38.5 years for non-centurion liver transplants. The researchers noted that for a liver to make it to 100, they expected to find an older average donor age as well as healthier donors. Notably, the donors from the centurion group had lower incidence of diabetes and fewer donor infections.
“We previously tended to shy away from using livers from older donors,” said study coauthor Christine S. Hwang, MD, FACS, associate professor of surgery, UT Southwestern Medical Center. “If we can sort out what is special amongst these donors, we could potentially get more available livers to be transplanted and have good outcomes.”
There are 11,113 patients on liver transplant waiting list as of September 22, 2022.* As Dr. Hwang noted, using older liver donors more often could potentially expand the liver donor pool.
Further study details
Centurion liver donors had lower transaminases, which are enzymes that play a key role in the liver. Elevated transaminases can cause problems in liver transplantation. Additionally, the recipients of centurion livers had significantly lower MELD scores (17 for the centurion group, 22 for the non-centurion group). A higher MELD score indicates that a patient is more urgently in need of a transplant.
“The donors were optimized, the recipients were optimized, and it takes that unique intersection of factors to result in a really good outcome,” Mr. Kadakia said.
The researchers found that no grafts in the centurion group were lost to primary nonfunction or vascular or biliary complications. There was notably no significant difference in rates of rejection at 12 months between the centurion group and the non-centurion group. Further, outcomes for the centurion group had significantly better allograft and patient survival.
“The existence of allografts over 100 years old is revealing of the dramatic resilience of the liver to senescent events,” the study authors concluded.
“Livers are incredibly resilient organs,” said Mr. Kadakia. “We’re using older donors, we have better surgical techniques, we have advances in immunosuppression, and we have better matching of donor and recipient factors. All these things allow us to have better outcomes.”
Study coauthors are Malcolm MacConmara, MBBCh, FACS; Madhukar S. Patel, MD; Jigesh A. Shah, DO; Steven I. Hanish, MD, FACS; and Parsia A. Vagefi, MD, FACS.
Citation: Kadakia Y, et al. Centurion Livers — Making It to 100 with A Transplant, Scientific Forum, American College of Surgeons Clinical Congress 2022.
The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 84,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. "FACS" designates that a surgeon is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons.
