British Ecological Society announces journal prize winners

Grant and Award Announcement

BRITISH ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: THE WINNERS OF THE BES JOURNAL AWARDS. TOP L-R PAULA PRIST, LUKE POTGIETER, AYA PERMIN, MICHELLE EVANS. BOTTOM ROW L-R: TANYA STRYDOM, ANGELA ILLUMINATI, PABLO AUGUSTA ANTIQUEIRA view more 

CREDIT: PLEASE CREDIT RESEARCHERS IN THE IMAGE.

Today the British Ecological Society (BES) has announced the winners of its journal prizes for research published in 2022. The prizes are awarded for the best paper by an early career researcher in seven of the BES journals: Journal of Applied Ecology, Ecological Solutions and Evidence, Functional Ecology, People and Nature, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Journal of Ecology and Journal of Animal Ecology.

The winning papers are selected by the Senior Editors of the journals and the awards will be presented to the winners at the BES Annual Meeting in Belfast at the end of the year.

The winners receive a prize of £250, membership of the BES, a year’s subscription to the respective journal, and free attendance to the BES Annual Meeting to present their work and receive their award from the President of the BES.

This year’s exceptional winning papers span topics as diverse as mapping mosquito borne diseases, the importance of under-threat mosses in tropical mountain cloud forests, and mapping the areas sensitive to plant invasions.

The journal prize winners are as follows:

The Southwood Prize: Paula Prist, EcoHealth Alliance

The Southwood Prize is awarded each year for the best paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology written by an early career author at the start of their research career.

Dr. Paula Prist from EcoHealth Alliance has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Roads and forest edges facilitate yellow fever virus dispersion

In their winning study, Paula and co-authors explored how landscape structure affects yellow fever virus dispersion through its vector, mosquitoes. Understanding this can aid better landscape planning and better organisation of vaccination campaigns.

Paula and co-authors found that yellow fever virus disperses on average 1.42 km every day and uses roads adjacent to forest areas and forest edges along agricultural areas to disperse. In contrast, core areas of forest regions were found to be important barriers for virus movement.

 

The Georgina Mace Prize: Luke Potgieter, University of Toronto Scarborough

The Georgina Mace Prize is awarded each year for the best paper in the journal Ecological Solutions and Evidence written by an early career author at the start of their research career.

Luke Potgieter from the University of Toronto Scarborough has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Prioritizing sites for terrestrial invasive alien plant management in urban ecosystems

Luke’s winning study combined aspects of social science, geography and ecology to pinpoint which areas across the Toronto region are most sensitive to plant invasions. The analysis revealed high priority sites as those of significant biodiversity conservation value, and that a large proportion of these priority areas are already heavily invaded.

Research like Luke’s is important as there is an urgent need to protect and manage areas impacted by biological invasions. What’s more, limited resources call for the strategic prioritisation of these areas.

 

The Haldane Prize: Aya Permin, University of Copenhagen

The Functional Ecology Haldane Early Career Researcher Award is given is given each year to the best paper in the journal from an early career author.

Aya Permin from the University of Copenhagen has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: High nitrogen-fixing rates associated with ground-covering mosses in a tropical mountain cloud forest will decrease drastically in a future climate

Aya’s research reveals the importance of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) as a nitrogen source in tropical mountain cloud forests. Nitrogen is a critical nutrient for plant productivity growth but its availability is often limited. This has led to the evolution of mutualistic partnerships between certain plants and nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Until now, the role of bryophytes in ecosystem nitrogen cycling has been largely overlooked.

Worryingly, the findings from Aya’s research suggest that predicted future declines in precipitation in tropical mountain cloud forests will reduce nitrogen inputs from bryophytes. Research in this area, like Aya’s, can help inform conservation efforts to preserve these critical ecosystems.

 

The Rachel Carson Prize: Michelle Evans, University of Georgia

This award is given each year for the best paper in the journal People and Nature written by an early career author at the start of their research career. The winner is selected by the Senior Editors of the journal.

Michelle Evans from the University of Georgia has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Socio-ecological dynamics in urban systems: An integrative approach to mosquito-borne disease in Bengaluru, India

Michelle’s research combined field sampling of mosquitoes with in depth-interviews of local people in Sarjapur, India, an area experiencing a high burden of mosquito borne diseases. The research showed that people’s everyday experiences of mosquitoes were influenced by how they moved around and used outdoor space.

The study’s combination of ecological and social approaches gives insight into how communities can manage mosquito-borne diseases. Michelle hopes that the study will demonstrate the benefits gained from integrative ecological work and will serve as the impetus for similar projects in the future.

 

 

The Robert May Prize: Tanya Strydom, University of Montreal

The Methods in Ecology and Evolution Robert May prize is awarded annually to the best paper submitted by an early career author at the start of their research career.

Tanya Strydom from the University of Montreal has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Food web reconstruction through phylogenetic transfer of low-rank network representation 

Tanya’s winning research utilised knowledge from one network of organisms to make predictions for what a network in a completely different location might look like. This is useful to ecologists as there is a shortage of interaction data, mostly because sampling interactions in the field is hard.

In the paper, Tanya and co-authors used the known interactions for European mammals and used this knowledge to construct a network of probabilities for Canadian terrestrial mammals. The hope is that the framework developed in this study will help ecologists to use the interaction data we do have, to create plausible networks for less well studied areas.

 

The Harper Prize: Angela Illuminati, University Rey Juan Carlos

The John L Harper Early Career Researcher Award is given each year to the best paper in the Journal of Ecology by an early career author at the start of their career.

Angela Illuminati from the University Rey Juan Carlos has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Coordination between water uptake depth and the leaf economic spectrum in a Mediterranean shrubland

Angela’s research provides a new perspective on the links between water and nutrient use in a semiarid Mediterranean plant community.

Understanding plant functional strategies related to water and nutrient use is especially relevant in dryland environments. The low availability of soil resources are a strong limiting factor for plant survival in these areas and is a main driver of species competition and coexistence.

 

The Elton Prize: Pablo Augusto Antiqueira, University of Campinas

The Elton Prize is awarded each year for the best paper in the Journal of Animal Ecology written by an early career author at the start of their research career.

Pablo Augusto Antiqueira from the University of Campinas has been awarded this year’s prize for their paper: Warming and top predator loss drive direct and indirect effects on multiple trophic groups within and across ecosystems

Little is known about how climate change and biodiversity loss will impact specific interactions within ecosystems. To increase our understanding of this, Pablo’s winning study looked at tank-bromeliads, a neotropical plant that supports a rich fauna of microorganisms, making them a natural microecosystem.

The study evaluated how an increase in temperature and top predator loss would impact different areas of the food web in this micro-ecosystem. Pablo and co-authors found impacts at each level of the food web. The results provide new evidence for how anthropogenic changes predicted for the following decades could affect different groups of organisms across ecosystems.

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Are the least social animals the most innovative?

Dromedaries and goats, the most skilled

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

 

IMAGE: ÁLVARO LÓPEZ CAICOYA, FIRST AUTHOR OF THE STUDY. view more 

CREDIT: BIBIANA ÁLVAREZ

Innovating, i.e. the ability to find solutions to new problems or innovative solutions to known problems, it provides crucial benefits for the adaptation and the survival of human beings as well as for animals. What are the characteristics that make specific species or animals to be innovative? A study by the University of Barcelona has analysed this cognitive skill in ungulates, a group of mammals such as dromedaries, horses and goats, characterized by walking on the tip of their toes or hooves. The results show that those individuals that are less integrated in the group and those that are more afraid of new objects were the best at solving a challenge posed by the researchers: opening a food container.  

 

“These findings are in line with recent scientific literature about wild and captive primates, and they show that less socially integrated individuals are less likely to obtain resources such as food, but they are more likely to overcome neophobia —aversion to new things—, to improve their situation. Also, this confirms that ungulates are a promising taxon to test evolutionary theories with a comparative approach”, says Álvaro López Caicoya, predoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Psychology and the Institute of Neurosciences (UBneuro) of the UB and first author of the article.

Regarding this issue, the researcher states that most comparative studies on the evolution of cognitive abilities have been conducted on birds and primates, but that evolutionary pressures to which these are subjected may be different from those of other species. Therefore, including other taxa —such as ungulates— in future studies is “essential for understanding the limits and the generalization of specific evolutionary hypotheses”.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, includes the participation of Montserrat Colell, lecturer at the Faculty of Psychology and researcher at UBneuro, together with other experts from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of Leipzig (Germany).

An experiment with a hundred animals in captivity

The experiment was carried out on 111 animals from 13 different species, among which there were goats, dromedaries, Przewalki horses, giraffes, llamas, sheep and deer, among other ungulates, which lived in captivity in the zoos of Barcelona, Barbent (France), Nuremberg and Leipzig (Germany). Each of these groups of animals had to deal with a test, consisting opening a type of container they did not know and which contained their favourite food.   

All the animals had previously been classified according to several aspects that could have an impact on their ability to solve problems, such as the fear of new objects, the diet and the social integration in the group. The aim was to identify the individual and socio-ecological characteristics of the animals that were most successful when working on the challenge the researchers had prepared.

Dromedaries and goats, the most skilled

The participation in the experiment varied between species: while 100% of the dromedaries approached the container, only 33% of the sheep did. But the species that showed the most interaction were the domesticated ones and those with a greater fission-fusion dynamic (those belonging to complex groups that go together or separate depending on the environment and the time). However, these characteristics were not indicators of a higher ability to solve the challenge they encountered. “The domestication process could have specifically selected specifically the traits and features that facilitate interactions with humans (and human artefacts), but not the cognitive skills that allow for a more efficient problem solving”, note the researchers. 

Finally, out of the hundred animals that participated in the experiment, only 36% could open the container and access the food at least once. “Species with a higher percentage of individuals that escaped were dromedaries and goats, with 86% and 69%, respectively”, highlights Álvaro López Caicoya.

 In successful cases, the researchers assessed the diversity of resources used to solve the challenge. “Most of them opened the containers using their nose, muzzle or lips; only nine out of these forty animals used more than one strategy to solve the challenge, such as lifting the cover gently with their lips or throwing the cup to the floor”.

A pioneering study

This paper is a pioneering study in the research on the ungulates’ cognition, since “there are barely a handful of similar studies” with these species. “Traditionally, they have been considered cattle and their behaviour or their understating have not been of interest. Thanks to this and other studies, we are starting to see these are animals with complex behaviours which that are worth studying”, stresses Álvaro López Caicoya. 

In this sense, the UB researcher highlights the need for more studies that include more species and individuals, both in captivity and wild ones, and more complex challenges, to generalize the findings. “The ungulates are an exceptional model for the comparative research and this study is only a first approach to the cognition of these species”, he concludes. 

  

Each group of animals had to open a container having their favourite food.

CREDIT

UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA

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JOURNAL

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2022.2384 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Innovation across 13 ungulate species: problem solvers are less integrated in the social group and less neophobic

El Niño–Southern Oscillation correlates well with following-summer cloud-to-ground lightning in China

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

 

IMAGE: DOUBLE-TERMINATION NEGATIVE CLOUD-TO-GROUND LIGHTNING CAPTURED BY HIGH-RESOLUTION CAMERA (BINZHOU, CHINA) view more 

CREDIT: KEY LABORATORY OF MIDDLE ATMOSPHERE AND GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT OBSERVATION (LAGEO), IAP, CAS, BEIJING, CHINA

Large-scale circulation anomalies are a key factor in the transportation of water vapor and changes in climate. For tropical and subtropical regions, an atmospheric circulation field not only determines the characteristics of the weather situation but also influences the atmospheric circulation in the middle and high latitudes, as well as the global climate, through the transport of energy and angular momentum. At the same time, whilst lightning can serve as a global tropical “thermometer” and an indicator of water vapor in the upper troposphere, the driving role of the circulation situation for it needs to be further analyzed.

In a paper recently published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, Prof. Xiushu Qie and Dr. Mingyi Xu from the Key Laboratory of Middle Atmosphere and Global Environment Observation, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, attempt to address this issue. They present new evidence for El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) correlating well with following-summer cloud-to-ground lightning in China.

Firstly, the time-lagged correlation between monthly cloud-to-ground lightning anomalies over China’s land areas (2010–20) and the Oceanic Niño Index (the main index for tracking the oceanic part of ENSO) was analyzed.

“Interestingly, the correlation coefficients, which were statistically significant at the 90% confidence level, revealed good correlation between ENSO and subsequent cloud-to-ground lightning in China. In addition, the ENSO phenomenon—especially La Niña events—correlate well with subsequent cloud-to-ground lightning flashes in land areas of China. When the sea surface temperature anomaly caused by ENSO is more obvious, the spatial distribution characteristics of cloud-to-ground lightning are also more obvious,” explains Prof. Xiushu Qie.

When the sea surface temperature of the East Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean warms abnormally and the sea surface temperature of the Northwest Pacific becomes abnormally cold, a cyclonic circulation is stimulated over the Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and tropical West Pacific region of China, thereby enhancing the easterly wind on the north side and the westerly wind on the south side, bringing water vapor from the Northwest Pacific to North China and Northeast China.

Affected by the abnormally high pressure, the corresponding cloud-to-ground lightning activities in North China and Northeast China are weak. However, the water vapor then moves southwards, where it converges with water vapor derived from the Bay of Bengal in South China, and ascending motion strengthens here, thus enhancing the cloud-to-ground lightning activity of this area. As the water vapor continues to move southwards, the water vapor divergence and descending motion in southern Guangdong give rise to weak cloud-to-ground lightning activities there.

“Therefore, the ENSO phenomenon might serve as a climatic driver of subsequent cloud-to-ground lightning activity occurring over the land areas of China,” adds Dr. Xu.

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JOURNAL

Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters

DOI

10.1016/j.aosl.2023.100338 

ARTICLE TITLE

Distribution of lightning spatial modes and climatic causes in China

New study looks at role of sleep disruption in dogs with dementia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NORTH CAROLINA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: WOOFUS, A PARTICIPANT IN THE SLEEP STUDY, GETS ELECTRODES PLACED. view more 

CREDIT: JOHN JOYNER, NC STATE UNIVERSITY

Dogs with dementia suffer the same sleep disruptions that humans with dementia do. In a new study, researchers from North Carolina State University performed electroencephalography, or EEGs, on elderly dogs to determine whether brain-wave readings during sleep correlated with signs of cognitive decline. They found that dogs with more advanced dementia suffered more sleep disruptions and slept less overall than dogs with normal cognitive function.

The study – part of an ongoing clinical trial on canine aging and cognition at NC State – looked at 28 elderly dogs: 17 females and 11 males. Prior to the sleep study, the dogs had received complete physicals, undergone cognitive testing, and their owners completed the Canine Dementia Scale (CADES) questionnaire, in order to determine the severity of their cognitive decline.

The researchers used non-invasive techniques to gather their data – the dogs weren’t sedated, and the electrodes were affixed to the skull with sticky gel. The dogs did two sleep sessions in the lab – the first one to acclimate them to the surroundings and electrode placement, and the second to record brain activity during a two hour sleep period.

“Past sleep studies in dogs often involved surgically implanted electrodes,” says Alejandra Mondino, postdoctoral researcher at NC State and lead author of the study. “Non-invasive studies are relatively new. We are one of a handful of groups doing this work.”

The EEG measured four stages of sleep: wakefulness, drowsiness, NREM and REM. NREM, or non-REM, is a deep sleep state prior to REM (which stands for rapid eye movement and is associated with dreaming).

“In NREM, the brain clears toxins, including the beta-amyloid proteins that are involved in diseases like Alzheimer’s,” Mondino says. “REM sleep is when dreams happen, and this stage is very important for memory consolidation.”

The researchers correlated the percentage of time spent in each sleep state with the dogs’ scores on cognitive testing and the CADES questionnaire. The higher the dog’s dementia score, the less time they spent in NREM and REM sleep.

“These dogs have dementia and sleep disruption is part of that,” Mondino says. “In addition to the shorter time spent sleeping, when we look at the EEG, we saw their brain activity during sleep was more akin to wakefulness.

“In other words, when they do manage to sleep, their brains aren’t really sleeping.”

The work is an important part of establishing baselines for identifying cognitive decline in dogs. The researchers hope that the work can lead to early diagnosis and intervention for elderly dogs with signs of cognitive decline.

“We now know that EEG signatures are useful indicators of canine cognitive dysfunction,” says Natasha Olby, the Dr. Kady M. Gjessing and Rahna M. Davidson Distinguished Chair in Gerontology at NC State and corresponding author of the study. “The work further establishes the dog as a model for Alzheimer’s disease. Hopefully therapeutic trials in dogs will help to direct our choices of treatment development for people.”

The work appears in Frontiers in Veterinary Science and was supported by the Kady M. Gjessing and Rahna M. Davidson Distinguished Chair in Gerontology, the Sleep Research Society Foundation (Grant 04-SRG-21) and the Company of Biologists (Grant DMMTF2205727).

-peake-

Note to editors: An abstract follows.

“Sleep and cognition in aging dogs. A polysomnographic study”

DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1151266

Authors: Alejandra Mondino, Michael Khan, Claire Ludwig, Margaret Elizabeth Gruen and Natasha J. Olby, North Carolina State University; Magaly Catanzariti, Instituto de Matemática Aplicada del Litoral Santa Fe, Argentina; Diego Martin Mateos, Instituto de Matemática Aplicada del Litoral Santa Fe, Argentina and Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos (UADER), Entre Ríos, Argentina; Anna Kis, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Budapest, Hungary
Published: Apr. 28, 2023 in Frontiers in Veterinary Science

Abstract:
Introduction: Sleep is fundamental for cognitive homeostasis, especially in senior populations since clearance of amyloid beta (key in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease) occurs during sleep. Some electroencephalographic characteristics of sleep and wakefulness have been considered a hallmark of dementia. Owners of dogs with canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (a canine analog to Alzheimer’s disease) report that their dogs suffer from difficulty sleeping. The aim of this study was to quantify age-related changes in the sleep-wakefulness cycle macrostructure and electroencephalographic features in senior dogs and to correlate them with their cognitive performance.
Methods: We performed polysomnographic recordings in 28 senior dogs during a 2 h afternoon nap. Percentage of time spent in wakefulness, drowsiness, NREM, and REM sleep, as well as latency to the three sleep states were calculated. Spectral power, coherence, and Lempel Ziv Complexity of the brain oscillations were estimated. Finally, cognitive performance was evaluated by means of the Canine Dementia Scale Questionnaire and a battery of cognitive tests. Correlations between age, cognitive performance and sleep-wakefulness cycle macrostructure and electroencephalographic features were calculated.
Results: Dogs with higher dementia scores and with worse performance in a problem-solving task spent less time in NREM and REM sleep. Additionally, quantitative electroencephalographic analyses showed differences in dogs associated with age or cognitive performance, some of them reflecting shallower sleep in more affected dogs.
Discussion: Polysomnographic recordings in dogs can detect sleep-wakefulness cycle changes associated with dementia. Further studies should evaluate its potential clinical use to monitor the progression of canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Veterinary Science

DOI

10.3389/fvets.2023.1151266 

ARTICLE TITLE

Sleep and cognition in aging dogs. A polysomnographic study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

Old dogs with dementia sleep less

deeply, just like people with Alzheimer’s

Dogs with higher dementia scores and worse performance in problem-solving task show changes in brain waves symptomatic of shallow sleep

FRONTIERS

In people with Alzheimer’s, the earliest symptoms are commonly disruptions in sleep rhythms. These include daytime sleepiness, showing agitation or confusion around dusk, staying awake longer, and waking up often at night. These changes are thought to result from damage to sleep-regulating areas in the brain. Alzheimer patients tend to spend less time in both REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, in which most dreaming occurs, and non-REM (NREM) sleep. But they show the greatest reduction in so-called slow-wave sleep (SWS) – a stage of non-dreaming deep sleep, characterized by slow ‘delta’ brain waves (0.1 to 3.5 Hz) – when day-time memories are consolidated.

Now, scientists have shown that the same reduction in sleep time and delta brain waves occurs in dogs with the canine equivalent of dementia, canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (CCDS). These dogs thus sleep less and less deeply. The results are published in Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

“Our study is the first to evaluate the association between cognitive impairment and sleep using polysomnography – the same technique as used in sleep studies in people – in aged dogs,” said senior author Dr Natasha Olby, a professor of veterinary neurology and neurosurgery at North Carolina State University.

Old dogs with or without dementia

Olby and colleagues studied 28 female and male senior mixed- and full-breed dogs between 10.4 and 16.2 years of age, which corresponds to between 81% and 106% of their average lifespan, depending on size. Their owners were asked to fill in a questionnaire about their canine companions, to rate the severity of symptoms of CCDS like disorientation, poor social interactions, and house soiling. The researchers also examined the dogs for possible orthopedic, neurological, biochemical, and physiological co-morbidities.

Based on the results, eight dogs (28.5%) were classified as normal, while another eight (28.5%), four (14.3%), and eight (28.5%) had mild, moderate, or severe CCDS, respectively.

The researchers then performed a series of cognitive tests on the dogs, to measure their attention, working memory, and executive control. For example, in the ‘detour task’, a dog had to retrieve a treat from a horizontal transparent cylinder by accessing it from either end – this task is then made more difficult by blocking off her or his preferred side so they have to show cognitive flexibility to detour to the other end of the cylinder.

Sleep clinic for dogs

Then, first author Dr Alejandra Mondino (a postdoctoral fellow in Olby’s research group) and colleagues performed a polysomnography studies in a quiet room with dim light and white noise in a ‘sleep clinic’. The dogs were allowed to spontaneously take an afternoon noon nap, while electrodes measured their brain waves, the electrical activity of the muscles and heart, and eye movements. These measurements lasted up to two hours, but were stopped if the dogs became anxious, attempted to leave the room, or removed the electrodes. 26 (93%) dogs entered drowsiness, 24 (86%) entered NREM sleep, while 15 (54%) entered REM sleep.

The results showed that dogs with higher dementia scores, and dogs who did worse on the detour task, took longer to fall asleep and spent less time sleeping, and this was true for both NREM and REM sleep.

Dogs with poorer memory scores showed changes, such as fewer slow oscillations in their electroencephalograms, during REM sleep, indicating that they slept less deeply during this phase.

“In people, slow brain oscillations are characteristic of SWS and linked to the activity of the so-called ‘glymphatic system, a transport system that removes protein waste products from the cerebrospinal fluid,” said Olby.

“The reduction in slow oscillations in people with Alzheimer’s, and the associated reduced removal of these toxins, has been implicated in their poorer memory consolidation during deep sleep.”

In contrast, dogs with poorer memory had more pronounced fast beta waves, between 15.75 and 19 Hz. Strong beta waves are typical of wakefulness in healthy people and dogs, so are not a normal phenomenon during sleep – again indicating that dogs with CCDS sleep less deeply.

Day sleeping versus night sleeping

Dogs which did worse at the ‘sustained gaze’ task, which measures attention span, showed tighter coupling in delta waves between the two brain hemispheres – a result that has also been found in people with dementia.

The authors concluded that the dogs with CCDS showed changes in the sleep-wakefulness cycle during the experiments that resemble those found in people with Alzheimer’s. But they caution that it’s still unknown if these changes also occur during when dogs sleep at night instead of in the afternoon.

“Our next step will be to follow dogs over time during their adult and senior years to determine if there are any early markers in their sleep-wakefulness patterns, or in the electrical activity of their brain during sleep, that could predict the future development of cognitive dysfunction,” said Olby.

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JOURNAL

Frontiers in Veterinary Science

DOI

10.3389/fvets.2023.1151266 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Sleep and cognition in aging dogs. A polysomnographic study

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

28-Apr-2023

Study shines light on impact of environment on neurocognitive outcomes

Scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital investigated neighborhood-level economic hardship and its effect on cognitive outcomes in children treated with radiation for brain tumors.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ST. JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

 

IMAGE: HEATHER CONKLIN, PHD, ST. JUDE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOBEHAVIORAL SCIENCES view more 

CREDIT: ST. JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL

To gain a clearer understanding of the differences between childhood cancer patients when it comes to the impact of radiation therapy on cognition, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital studied the effect of their environment. Their work showed that children with supportive environments fared better than children living in neighborhoods with economic hardship. Those in areas with greater economic hardship had worse baseline and long-term cognitive outcomes. The results imply that policies and resources providing support at a neighborhood level may help protect high-risk pediatric brain tumor patients from cognitive decline. The findings were published recently in Neuro-Oncology.

“At the simplest level, we found a patient’s environment matters,” said corresponding author Heather Conklin, Ph.D., St. Jude Department of Psychology and Biobehavioral Sciences. “It's not just the diagnosis or treatment the patient receives. It's also the family, neighborhood and support they can access that predicts cognitive outcomes.”

The study used a framework called the economic hardship index (EHI) to study how a patient’s neighborhood could correlate with cognitive outcomes. The researchers found that higher EHI score was associated with patients who entered treatment with lower cognitive abilities as well as those who had a greater cognitive decline, especially in math skills, after treatment.

“Economic hardship at the neighborhood level predicted how these patients performed cognitively at baseline, before radiation therapy, and then also based on what EHI quartile they were, how much they declined or stayed stable over time,” Conklin said.

This predictive power rivaled that of already known risk factors for cognitive decline in these patients.

“The gaps that were present prior to treatment widened over time and had more of a relative impact than the well-established clinical factors, such as age at radiation therapy,” Conklin said.

Assessing patients at the neighborhood level

While a preliminary analysis, using the EHI is a way to account for the environment surrounding patients. It includes information on six factors: unemployment, dependency, education, income, crowded housing and poverty. That information is collected and presented at the Census block level, groups of 250 and 550 housing units, including almost every neighborhood in the United States.

“This is the first time someone in the oncology space has used a neighborhood level variable rather than a family specific measure to predict cognitive outcomes in children treated for brain tumors,” Conklin said. “The reason that's important is that it gives us more nuanced information about the context in which the child is living. It also opens new areas where we can develop interventions to improve cognitive outcomes.”

The paper follows a growing body of research showing that lower socioeconomic status can predict worse cognitive outcomes in pediatric brain tumor patients treated with radiation. St. Jude patients in the study all received similar state-of-art care at no expense, therefore at least some of the differences in outcomes were likely due to non-treatment factors, such as living in a high poverty area. Within the overall EHI score components, the factor that most correlated with poor outcomes was neighborhood-level poverty.

“Even though St. Jude is at the forefront of pediatric brain tumor care, there are still challenges for our patients,” Conklin said. “St. Jude patients receive physical, occupational and speech therapy while they're here, but they still go back home to their neighborhoods that maybe are higher in crime or have poorer schools or are overcrowded. They may not have access to the same level of resources once their treatment concludes and they return to their community.”

This suggests environmental conditions in high poverty areas, not individual choice, has a strong effect on long-term outcomes. Therefore, patients are likely to benefit if physicians and policymakers come up with solutions to address these factors for current and future pediatric patients with brain tumors.

Changing practice to protect cognitive outcomes

While the research demonstrated that EHI can be used to predict poor cognitive outcomes beyond traditional treatment and clinical risk factors, it is not ready to be widely adopted into clinical practice. There is still more to learn about the drivers of cognitive differences. Therefore, clinicians need to be sensitive and resourceful when trying to help patient families from high EHI areas proactively protect their child’s cognitive health.

“I think in terms of how we practice, as a clinician I have to think about how I bring this to my families,” Conklin said. “Clinicians need to learn how to talk effectively to families about factors related to economic hardship. We should be thinking creatively about how to help families we know are in a riskier category.”

“For example, we can suggest enriching activities that may fit with caregiver’s schedule and resources to help prevent cognitive decline like going to parks, going to libraries and reading regularly at home,” Conklin explained. “We just need to take into account the family’s context – these activities need to be things families can do that are free, don't require them to take off from work and allow single parents of multiple kids to figure out how to work this into their lifestyle.”

One of the study’s bright spots is the finding that some of these social or policy interventions may help. Patients with a low EHI (those from neighborhoods of higher socioeconomic status) had better baseline and long-term cognitive outcomes. That fact gives some hope – by increasing access to the resources available to families from lower socioeconomic status, clinicians and policymakers may be able to be better protect against cognitive decline in pediatric patients treated with radiation for brain tumors.

Authors and funding

The study’s first author was Taylor Mule, The University of Memphis. The study’s other authors are Jason Hodges, Shengjie Wu, Yimei Li, Jason Ashford and Thomas Merchant, of St. Jude.

The study was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute (P30 CA21765) and ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization of St. Jude.

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer, sickle cell disease and other life-threatening disorders. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened more than 60 years ago. St. Jude shares the breakthroughs it makes to help doctors and researchers at local hospitals and cancer centers around the world improve the quality of treatment and care for even more children. To learn more, visit stjude.org, read St. Jude Progress blog, and follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch. 

JOURNAL

Neuro-Oncology

DOI

10.1093/neuonc/noad080 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Randomized controlled/clinical trial

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Social Determinants of Cognitive Outcomes in Survivors of Pediatric Brain Tumors Treated with Conformal Radiation Therapy

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

26-Apr-2023

Ohio University professor Nancy Stevens helps uncover ecosystem evolution in Africa in paper published in Science

Peer-Reviewed Publication

OHIO UNIVERSITY

Ohio University’s Nancy J. Stevens Ph.D., distinguished professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, is coauthor on a paper published in the journal Science and funded by the National Science Foundation that documents the evolution of grassland ecosystems on continental Africa.  

Collaborating with an extensive team of geologists and paleoanthropologists from universities around the world, led by researchers from Baylor University and the University of Minnesota, the team synthesized data from nine Early Miocene fossil localities in the East African Rift of Kenya and Uganda to determine that the expansion of grassy biomes dominated by grasses with the C4 photosynthetic pathway in Eastern Africa occurred more than 10 million years earlier.

According to the paper, previous reconstructions of early Miocene ecosystems, 15-20 million years ago, have suggested that equatorial Africa was covered by a semi-continuous forest, with open habitats dominated by warm-season, or C4, grasses that were uncommon until 8-10 million years ago. C4 refers to the different pathways that plants use to capture carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. C4 plants produce a four-carbon molecule and are more adapted to warm or hot season condition under moist or dry environments.

As the researchers gathered expertise about geological features, isotopes and fossils found at the sites, the paradigm of a continuous forest blanketing equatorial Africa during the early Miocene shifted to a more complex mosaic of habitats that already included open environments with C4 grasses.  

The result of this research pushes back the oldest evidence of C4 grass-dominated habitats in Africa – and globally – by more than 10 million years, with important implications for primate evolution and the origins of tropical C4 grasslands and savanna ecosystems across the African continent and around the world.  

“We suspected that we would find C4 plants at some sites, but we didn't expect to find them at as many sites as we did, and in such high abundance,” Daniel Peppe, lead author and associate professor at Baylor University, said.

A critical aspect of this work was that the team combined many different lines of evidence together: geology, fossil soils, isotopes and phytoliths (plant silica microfossils) to reach their conclusions.

“This research is a big win for collaborative science and documents the value of looking ever deeper in time, and more synthetically across disciplines, to better understand the ecological backdrop for faunal and floral evolution,” Stevens added. “It’s an exciting time to investigate environmental change, and projects like this one generate pivotal data for charting future decisions about resource use and wellbeing on our planet today.”

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abq2834 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Oldest evidence of abundant C4 grasses and habitat heterogeneity in eastern Africa