TRANSPHOBIA KILLS

Pediatric endocrinologists concerned for safety amid divisive political climate

Peer-Reviewed Publication

THE ENDOCRINE SOCIETY

WASHINGTON—Pediatric endocrinologists are concerned for their safety and their ability to provide evidenced-based care to transgender and gender-diverse adolescents amid political divides over gender-affirming care, according to a new paper published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society.

Pediatric endocrinologists specialize in the care of children and adolescents with disorders related to hormones and the glands that produce them, such as diabetes and disorders of growth, thyroid or puberty. Some pediatric endocrinologists also provide gender-affirming care as part of their medical practice.

Among youth ages 13 to 17 in the United States, 1.4% identify as transgender, and many of these individuals are seeking gender-affirming care. The Endocrine Society’s Clinical Practice Guideline recommends mental health treatment as the first course of action and the use of puberty-delaying medications and gender-affirming hormone therapy, when appropriate, in adolescents who are transgender or gender diverse.

Gender-affirming care is considered the standard of care by all major medical organizations and has been shown to improve mental health outcomes and lower the risk of suicide in transgender youth. Despite these benefits, legislation aiming to ban gender-affirming care has been proposed in 28 states and passed in 20.

In addition to politicizing medical care, efforts to ban gender-affirming care have led to widespread misinformation, online harassment, and even bomb threats targeting hospitals and physicians, according to a Human Rights Campaign report. Last year, the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Children’s Hospital Association called on the Department of Justice to investigate rising threats of violence against gender-affirming care providers.

“Our study shows pediatric endocrinologists in states with transgender health bans are most concerned about threats to their personal safety and the impact of these laws on their medical practice,” said study author Stephanie A. Roberts, M.D., of Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass. “The increasing number of bans on gender-affirming care in the U.S. and the negative impact on pediatric endocrinologists may lead to areas in the country without access to pediatric endocrine care. This includes for access to treatment of other disorders we have expertise in besides gender-affirming care such as type 1 diabetes or adrenal insufficiency, both of which can be life-threatening conditions.”

The researchers surveyed 223 pediatric endocrinologists to assess how transgender health bans are affecting their practices and identify their top concerns. Of the pediatric endocrinologists surveyed, 56% were currently providing gender-affirming care, and 46% practiced in a state where anti-trans legislation had been proposed or passed between January 2021 and June 2022.

Providers practicing in states with transgender health bans reported concerns about pressures within their hospitals and medical centers that would limit their ability to provide care, threats to their personal safety and the safety of their patients, concerns about legal action being taken against them, and concerns about their career. The major themes were safety concerns and the impact of laws on medical practice.

“Our work reinforces why efforts to limit access to medically necessary care for transgender youth need to be opposed,” Roberts said.

The other authors of this study are Pranav Gupta of Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga.; Ellis Barrera of Boston Children’s Hospital; Elizabeth R. Boskey of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.; and Jessica Kremen of Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

The study received funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The manuscript, “Exploring the Impact of Legislation Aiming to Ban Gender-Affirming Care on Pediatric Endocrine Providers,” was published online.

# # #

Endocrinologists are at the core of solving the most pressing health problems of our time, from diabetes and obesity to infertility, bone health, and hormone-related cancers. The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions.

The Society has more than 18,000 members, including scientists, physicians, educators, nurses and students in 122 countries. To learn more about the Society and the field of endocrinology, visit our site at www.endocrine.org. Follow us on Twitter at @TheEndoSociety and @EndoMedia.

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JOURNAL

Journal of the Endocrine Society

Early access to testosterone therapy in transgender and gender-diverse adults seeking masculinization

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial including 64 transgender and gender-diverse adults, immediate testosterone therapy compared with no treatment significantly reduced gender dysphoria, depression, and suicidality in transgender and gender-diverse individuals desiring testosterone therapy. 

Authors: Ada S. Cheung, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., of Austin Health in Heidelberg, Victoria, Australia, is the corresponding author. 

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

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.31919)

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

#  #  #

Embed this link to provide your readers free access to the full-text article 

 http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.31919?utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_term=090723

About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is an online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication. 

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JOURNAL

JAMA Network Open

 

The MIT Press announces the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, a paradigm shift in open access reference works

Book Announcement

THE MIT PRESS

 

IMAGE: THE OPEN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF COGNITIVE SCIENCE WILL PUBLISH ITS FIRST ARTICLES IN 2024. view more 

CREDIT: COURTESY OF THE MIT PRESS.

For over a generation, the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences has been an essential resource for researchers and students of cognitive science and neuroscience. Today, the MIT Press proudly announces its intellectual successor—the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (OECS), a dynamic and openly accessible web reference poised to guide the next generation of exploration. Thanks to generous funding from James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Allen Institute for AI, the first set of articles will be published in 2024.

In our contemporary intellectual landscape, questions about the nature of the mind, its growth, interactions, and variances — from the nuances of large language models to the complexities of political polarization — demand multifaceted exploration. The OECS will equip readers with essential tools to grapple with the profound implications of cognition and intelligence in today's society. 

For esteemed editors-in-chief Michael Frank of Stanford University and Asifa Majid of the University of Oxford, the OECS stands apart from other reference works because it will facilitate cross-disciplinary understanding: “Cognitive science is inherently interdisciplinary and requires shared referents including foundational philosophical concepts, approaches to the measurement of behavior from psychology, observations of human variation from anthropology, representations and formalisms from linguistics, mechanistic insights from neuroscience, and computational methods taken from computer science, statistics, and beyond. The OECS will connect these resources and ideas in a single, authoritative encyclopedia.”

OECS’s articles will not only establish a shared understanding of foundational concepts, but also showcase cutting-edge debates and introduce core subfields, central concepts, significant phenomena, and key methodologies.

Edited by a diverse and international editorial team, led by Frank and Majid, the OECS will be available on the PubPub open publishing platform in 2024 (date tbd). The digital-first format will facilitate new forms of content, enable editors to swiftly update entries in response to new discoveries, and ensure global accessibility without cost barriers.

Amy Brand, Director, and Publisher of the MIT Press, underscores the significance of this project, stating, “Reference works are essential to understand emerging and evolving fields, but they must keep pace with the relentless pace of discovery in our interconnected world. With OECS, we have a unique opportunity to reimagine how core reference works in hybridized STEM and social science disciplines leverage publishing infrastructures, like PubPub, to transform scholarship. We extend our deepest gratitude to the James S. McDonnell Foundation and the Allen Institute for AI for their generous support, enabling this exploration.”

For further information and updates on the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science, please visit oecs.mit.edu.

 FOR PROFIT MEDICINE

How to keep POOR people out of the emergency room

Help for immigrants in arranging primary care visits leads to substantial drop in ER visits and costs, a new study shows

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Encouraging immigrants to visit primary care doctors creates a striking decline in costly emergency room use, according to a new study co-authored by an MIT economist. 

The findings are from a New York City program that helped arrange medical appointments for undocumented immigrants with limited incomes, from May 2016 to June 2017. Those who received assistance in scheduling visits with primary care physicians experienced a 21 percent drop in emergency department use. For individuals with high-risk medical profiles who received the same help, emergency department use dropped by 42 percent. 

Program participants were also far more likely to have screenings for high blood pressure and diabetes, tests that play a significant role in helping to reduce cardiovascular illness. 

“This program is fairly low-touch and minimalist, yet it had a meaningful effect,” says MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, co-author of a new paper detailing the study’s results. 

He adds: “It had the biggest impact on those who were the most ill. Lowering the barriers to care for these in-need individuals really pays off in terms of keeping them out of the emergency room.”

The paper, “Reducing Frictions in Health Care Access: The ActionHealthNYC Experiment for Undocumented Immigrants,” appears in the September issue of the journal American Economic Review: Insights. The co-authors are Adrienne Sabety, an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy at Stanford University; Gruber, who is the Ford Professor of Economics and head of the Department of Economics at MIT; Jin Yung Bae, a visiting associate professor at New York University’s Global School of Public Health; and Rishi Sood, executive director of health care access and policy in the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

States and local jurisdictions in the U.S. have a variety of policy approaches regarding undocumented immigrants. A New York City government task force launched in 2014 recommended finding new ways to extend health care access for such residents. To conduct this study, the researchers worked with officials from the New York City Mayor’s Office and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to design a pilot program drawing on the city’s estimated population of 1.1 million undocumented immigrants.

The experiment had more than 2,400 participants, with 1,286 in a treatment group receiving help setting up a primary care appointment. Another 1,142 participants served as a control group, and did not receive the same help. Everyone in the program had a household income no greater than twice the federal poverty line. The program reached people by partnering with community-based groups, using mailings and social media, and buying television and print media ads.

The effect of the program was rapid. In its first three months, 57 percent of people in the treatment group visited a primary care physician, while just 16 percent of people in the control group did the same. Those in the treatment group saw a savings of just over $195 in emergency-visit costs (when not admitted), which rose to over $477 for the higher-risk patients. Federal law requires emergency departments to not turn away patients. 

Overall, there was a 33.8 percentage point increase in diabetes screenings and a 45.4 percentage point increase in blood pressure screenings for those in the treatment group — which, other research shows, leads to a 12 percent mortality reduction. The researchers used hospital data and surveys to measure these outcomes. 

The program did this without extending health insurance to anyone. Most visits had a $15 co-pay; many of New York City’s public health institutions scale costs to the patient’s ability to pay. The aim of the program was to see what difference it would make, insurance aside, to help nudge people to see a doctor in the first place. 

“I thought there was a decent chance this program wouldn’t have much of an impact,” Gruber says. “The fact we could find such a big effect … was surprising to me and I think it illustrates the nonfinancial barriers people are facing to get the care they need, and the role of management [in that].” 

Because New York City has an extensive public health network, the researchers note in the paper, the same type of program might not be possible in some other places. And the aggregate health of participants in any such future program might be different, meaning the size of the drop in emergency care use might vary.  

Separately, as the authors note in the paper, extending formal health insurance to undocumented immigrants “remains politically untenable” for the most part. On the other hand, jurisdictions might examine if other approaches increase care while, in this case, lowering emergency room traffic. 

“There’s this tendency with health care to think that if you give people health insurance, you’re done,” Gruber says. “This study is saying the right system combines insurance as financial protection with other kinds of [tools].” He adds: “There is just huge potential to use data and science to get people to where they need to be in terms of getting the most efficient care.”

The institutional review boards in New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the National Bureau of Economic Research approved the research protocol. The trial was publicly archived at clinicaltrials.gov. The pilot program was supported by the Robin Hood Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Altman Foundation. Sabety received research funding from the National Science Foundation.

###

Written by Peter Dizikes, MIT News

Paper: “Reducing Frictions in Health Care Access: The ActionHealthNYC Experiment for Undocumented Immigrants” 

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aeri.20220126

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JOURNAL

American Economic Review

ARTICLE TITLE

“Reducing Frictions in Health Care Access: The ActionHealthNYC Experiment for Undocumented Immigrants"

 

Self-regulation of pharma industry marketing is unsustainable and failing patients – new analysis

University of Bath Press Release

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BATH

Healthcare professionals and organisations need to respond more forcefully to unethical marketing from the pharmaceutical industry by holding offending companies to greater account and by supporting stronger regulation, according to the authors of a new British Medical Journal (BMJ) study.

Research by Dr Piotr Ozieranski of the University of Bath, and Dr Shai Mulinari of Lund University in Sweden, suggests that much more could be done to tighten rules about how medicines are marketed by their manufacturers. Such efforts would enhance patient health and safety, ensure value-for-money for the taxpayer, and increase trust in healthcare systems more broadly, they say.

In most European countries as well as Japan, Canada and Australia, the regulation of marketing practices relies heavily on industry self-regulation in which industry trade groups are trusted to set and police the rules of appropriate industry conduct. Among these, the Code of Practice of the Association of British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) is one of the best-known industry rule books.

The BMJ review argues that leaving self-regulation in the industry’s hands is not sustainable. The research cites the recent example of the Danish drug company Novo Nordisk, which in March 2023 was suspended from the ABPI for serious breaches of its Code of Practice following a widely publicised scandal involving the unethical marketing of its anti-obesity drug Saxenda.

The complaint that led to its suspension argued that Novo Nordisk had sponsored courses for health professionals on using the company’s drug for weight management without making clear the company’s involvement. The BMJ review highlights how the company ‘orchestrated a large-scale Saxenda promotional campaign… downplaying [the drug’s] side effects.’

“Novo Nordisk was suspended from the ABPI for two years and lost certain membership benefits, including information on and input into industry-wide policy developments and access to working groups and experts’ networks. However, the company is still bound by self-regulation and can sell its products in the UK,” Dr Ozieranski from Bath’s Centre for the Analysis of Social Policy (CASP) explained.

Novo Nordisk’s suspension followed the case of the Japanese company Astellas, suspended from ABPI for one year in 2016. In this case, the company was suspended for, among other things, promoting its prostate cancer drug Xtandi for use in a larger group of patients than had been approved at the time by the drug regulator, which could have seriously endangered patient safety.

Dr Mulinari from Lund University says: “We have been studying the influence of major drugs companies on healthcare systems around the world for over a decade. Both cases highlight the pressing need for healthcare professionals to distance themselves from offending companies and demand much stronger and tougher regulation.

“What both the Novo Nordisk and Astellas cases have in common is the tacit acceptance of a vast majority of healthcare professionals and organisations exposed to the companies’ unethical marketing.”

Dr Ozieranski added: “International research suggests that responses by healthcare professionals and organisations to industry misbehaviour vary. Some have acted proactively, opting to avoid industry funding and sponsorship, whilst others maintain ties.

“We argue that NHS organisations, universities and medical professionals’ organisations need to exercise much greater caution when collaborating with companies; at the very least reviewing and revising ties with companies which have been in breach of the ABPI Code. To enhance trust and transparency, the rationale for actions taken in relation to offending companies should be available to the public.

“In addition, healthcare professionals and organisations should harness their economic and professional power to better hold their corporate collaborators accountable for unethical behaviour. For example, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and General Practitioners have now ended their partnerships with Novo Nordisk, returning any outstanding grants and pausing any associated projects. Such decisive reactions to company misconduct serve as an important precedent in challenging unethical behaviour, particularly in a self-regulatory system that rely on appealing to companies’ reputations.”

The researchers say new training programmes need to be developed focusing on healthcare professionals’ ability to recognise and react to questionable marketing. They also call for stronger sector-wide policies on industry collaborations, such as those via NHS England and the Charity Commission.

Dr Mulinari suggests Sweden might serve as an illustration of the impact of stricter rules on industry. In 2014, Sweden’s industry trade group proactively banned drug companies from paying doctors’ travel and accommodation and participation at medical conferences - a practice that is still allowed in the UK.

“Replacing self-regulation with a new state-regulatory system is currently difficult to imagine. However, even within the existing system, policymakers could adopt a more probing and punitive strategy to tackling corporate wrongdoing, including investigating whether known misconduct indicates more extensive problems, and extending support for whistleblowing,” Dr Mulinari says.

“We urge healthcare professionals and those in charge of the NHS, medical societies, universities and research institutions to help put pressure on policymakers to send a clear message that corporate wrongdoing can no longer be tolerated,” he adds.

The researchers hope their analysis will feed into the upcoming UK government consultation into drug company self-regulation, including the transparency of their financial ties with healthcare professionals and organisations.

Their analysis 'Unethical pharmaceutical marketing: a common problem requiring collective responsibility' is published in the BMJ : bmj-2023-076173.

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JOURNAL

BMJ

DOI

10.1136/bmj-2023-076173 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Unethical pharmaceutical marketing: a common problem requiring collective responsibility

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

19-Sep-2023

 

How wind turbines react to turbulence

New stochastic method could help to mitigate sudden swings in power output

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF OLDENBURG

The power output of wind turbines can go up or down by 50 percent within seconds. Such fluctuations in the megawatt range put a strain on both power grids and the turbines themselves. A new study by researchers from the University of Oldenburg in Germany and the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran (Iran) presents a method that could help to prevent these power swings.

According to the study, it is the control systems of wind turbines that are mainly responsible for short-term fluctuations in electrical output. The research results also point to how these systems can be optimised to ensure that the turbines’ energy output is more consistent. The study was published in the science journal PRX Energy.

The research team led by lead author Dr Pyei Phyo Lin from the University of Oldenburg analysed data from several turbines in a wind farm. “Because wind turbines operate under turbulent wind conditions – similar to a plane landing in strong winds – all the measured data display multiple fluctuations and no clear signal can be detected. We refer to this as ‘noise’,” Lin explained. The physics engineer and his colleagues applied stochastic methods to analyse time series of the wind speed, the electrical output of the turbines and the rotational speed of the generator.

Noise as a source of information

Using this innovative mathematical approach, they were able to disentangle the noise in the data and separate it into two different components, one of which one is caused by the wind while the other results from the reactions of the turbine's control system. “Noise is often considered an unpleasant effect that interferes with measurements,” said Lin. “Now the noise provides us with new information about the system – that’s a new quality,” added co-author Dr Matthias Wächter, who heads the Stochastic Analysis research group at the University of Oldenburg.

As the team explains, the results of its study indicate that the reactions of wind turbine control systems to abrupt wind fluctuations are often suboptimal: these systems tend to switch control strategies, which can lead to the observed strong fluctuations in electrical output. The new findings pave the way for turbulent wind phenomena to be decoupled from the control systems’ reactions: “In this way, it will be possible to refine the control systems to ensure that wind turbines generate power more consistently,” said turbulence expert Professor Dr Joachim Peinke from the University of Oldenburg, who was also involved in the study. This would also boost the efficiency of wind turbines and extend their lifespans, he added.

Professor Dr Mohammad Reza Rahimi Tabar, who was a member of the research team that conducted the study, is currently a Fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst (Germany).

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JOURNAL

PRX Energy

DOI

10.1103/PRXEnergy.2.033009 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Discontinuous Jump Behavior of the Energy Conversion in Wind Energy Systems

 

Environmental assessments should factor in ecological connectivity, say Concordia researchers

Case studies of development projects in Canada and Europe reveal the benefits of thinking about biodiversity protection early in process

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: JOCHEN JAEGER AND CHARLA PATTERSON: “WE WANTED TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK AT THE DETAILS AND SUCCESS FACTORS IN THESE DIFFERENT CASE STUDIES TO SEE WHAT WE CAN LEARN FOR NEW PROJECTS, INCLUDING QUEBEC.” view more 

CREDIT: JOCHEN JAEGER

There is a growing call among researchers, funding bodies and developers to integrate considerations of ecological connectivity in environmental assessments (EAs) of proposed development projects. This refers to the degree to which a natural landscape remains unbroken by a development project, be it a road, mine, transmission line or hydro dam. These projects have the potential to impede wildlife movement across altered landscapes, with important consequences for migration, genetic diversity, population abundance, climate resilience, disease resistance and more.

In a series of papers published in a special issue of the journal Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal led by two Concordia researchers and Spanish researcher Aurora Torres from Alicante, the authors look at how ecological connectivity can become central to EAs. Their concluding paper looks at five case studies that demonstrate how, despite major differences in the characteristics of the projects, the issue of connectivity can be successfully included at the EA stage.

“We wanted to take a closer look at the details and success factors in these different case studies to see what we can learn for new projects, including Quebec,” says Jochen Jaeger, an associate professor in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment in the Faculty of Arts and Science and the paper’s supervising author. The case study method is helpful, he says, because there are few detailed guidelines practitioners can use to help them evaluate a specific project’s effects on connectivity.

For example, most roads in Quebec have been built without any consideration of their effects on ecological connectivity, such as Autoroutes 15 and 10. These major mistakes should be corrected by adding wildlife passages, and the Initiative québécoise Corridors écologiques, established by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, has pushed for the consideration of connectivity in land-use decisions for years. However, the Quebec Transport Ministry usually refuses to add any mitigation measures to existing roads. As a result, Quebec still does not have any wildlife overpasses even today. Therefore, it is very important that connectivity will be adequately considered in the EAs for new roads and for the widening of existing roads from two to four lanes, and that sufficient mitigation measures be installed at least in these cases.

Finding common features

The study looked at five projects in four countries: the 850-kilometre natural gas Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline project in northeast British Columbia; Parks Canada’s strategic EAs of its park management plans; the expansion of a third runway at Heathrow Airport in London, United Kingdom; the expansion of the Malmbanan railway in northern Sweden; and the upgrade of the A4 highway in southern Spain.

Despite the projects’ differences, the researchers found commonalities of challenges, lessons learnt and important future research directions.

The 15 challenges encountered touched on the limited awareness and understanding of the importance of connectivity among EA practitioners; technical problems such as a lack of quality data and difficulty in transferring knowledge between scientists and practitioners; and a need for better coordination between authorities across jurisdictions.

As for the 19 lessons learnt, the case studies show that connectivity assessments should be based on scientific knowledge such as ecological characteristics and the need to consider multiple scales of analysis. The researchers also note that thinking about connectivity early in the EA benefits the process and reveals potential threats. The case studies demonstrate that various pathways can lead to successful inclusion of connectivity, not just one.  

Guidance needed

The case studies all reveal the need for guidance on when, why and how to conduct connectivity analyses and which techniques or tools should be used. They also identify the need for monitoring to see if the projects’ restoration and conservation efforts attain their goals.

The researchers hope that the special issue will lead to legislation that requires connectivity considerations become mandatory in EAs, and that governments enact regulatory frameworks to maintain appropriate standards and enforcement measures.

“This was a passion project from the very beginning,” says lead author Charla Patterson, who recently completed her Master of Environmental Assessment at Concordia. 

“After presenting our research as part of an online workshop, the original core purpose of improving the consideration of ecological connectivity in EA became the foundation of a working group. From there, things evolved organically. It was truly humbling to work alongside so many talented and brilliant people over the course of this project. These are people from multiple countries, working across different sectors in EA who volunteered their time over the last couple of years because they believe in the importance of this work. It was not always easy, but it was definitely worth it.

“It was also very encouraging to see that professionals across different sectors recognized the importance of connectivity and agreed that it should be included in EA."  

The Center for Large Landscape Conservation (Montana) provided funding for this study.

Read the cited paper: “Pathways for improving the consideration of ecological connectivity in environmental assessment: lessons from five case studies.”

Read the editorial of the special issue about ecological connectivity: “Advancing the consideration of ecological connectivity in environmental assessment: Synthesis and next steps forward.” 

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JOURNAL

Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal

DOI

10.1080/14615517.2023.2246727 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Case study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Pathways for improving the consideration of ecological connectivity in environmental assessment: lessons from five case studies

COI STATEMENT

In accordance with Taylor & Francis policy and our ethical obligation as researchers, we are reporting that Mott MacDonald (M. Coroi, M. Hanson) was acting as environmental consultant to Heathrow Airports Limited, and C. Iglesias-Merchán participated as environmental technician in the A4 Highway environmental impact study and the construction project at AEPO Ingenieros Consultores (Acciona). The other authors declare no competing interests.

 

Dopamine regulates how quickly and accurately decisions are made

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

A recent study provides new insight into the relationship between the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine and decision-making processes. The scientists found that when dopamine is released, decisions are made faster, but tend to be more inaccurate. Researchers from the University of Cologne, the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, TUD Dresden University of Technology and the Integrated Psychiatry in Winterthur (Switzerland) contributed to the study. The study ‘Dopamine regulates decision thresholds in human reinforcement learning in males’ was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Dopamine is associated with a number of aspects of reward learning and action selection. The neurotransmitter also plays a role in various mental disorders and is important for one's own motivation. According to one theory, dopamine regulates how much effort is spent on actions, or how quickly they are performed.

Researchers investigated this in a new study using a learning task. They observed 31 male volunteers who learnt to associate abstract symbols with rewards. All participants performed different variants of the learning task under different drug conditions. In one condition, the release of dopamine was pharmacologically increased by L-dopa, a precursor of dopamine. In another condition, dopamine release was increased using a low dose of the medication Haloperidol. In the control condition, participants received a placebo.

Using novel computer models, the involved learning and decision-making processes were analysed based on the distributions of the participants' response times.

In addition to its well-known functions, dopamine also seems to regulate a speed-accuracy trade-off. This describes the complex relation between a person's willingness to react slowly and make relatively fewer mistakes, and their willingness to react quickly and make relatively more mistakes. The scientists were able to show that when dopamine release was elevated pharmacologically, the parameter that represents this speed-accuracy trade-off was reduced under both L-dopa and Haloperidol. This effect was stronger the faster the participants made decisions. The results therefore also show that computer models can provide improved insight into the function of certain neurotransmitter systems.

“These findings link two previously rather distinct theories on the role of dopamine,” said Professor Dr Jan Peters, Professor of Biological Psychology of the University of Cologne, who contributed to the study. “Dopamine controls motor response, but it can also regulate effort. Our data show a mechanism that could link these two aspects by shifting the speed-accuracy trade-off in favour of speed.”

However, it is still unclear to what extent this mechanism also plays a role in decisions that are not directly about rewards, and what role motor functions plays in this. This is to be investigated in further studies.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Dopamine regulates decision thresholds in human reinforcement learning in males

 

Hope springs amid water safety concerns

Grant and Award Announcement

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: NICHOLAS COPELAND, ANTHROPOLOGIST AND ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, IS LEADING A GRANT PROJECT THAT HELPS GUATEMALAN COMMUNITIES TEST WATER SUPPLIES. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO BY LESLIE KING FOR VIRGINIA TECH.

For the past five years, a history professor has been working with a community in Guatemala to ensure that its water supply is safe. Recently, he received a national grant to continue this work.

The Science and Technology Studies program of the National Science Foundation awarded Nick Copeland, an anthropologist in Virginia Tech’s history department, a $360,000 grant for the project “Participatory Water Science and Resistance to Extractivism.”

Collaborations began in 2018, when Copeland met with community organizations that were concerned that the Escobal silver mine was polluting the regional water system. The team discovered elevated arsenic levels in surface waters near the mine and although team members could not determine that these were caused by the mine, they did find that that a water treatment plant was not removing arsenic from the water.

Since then, Copeland and his team, along with other organizations in Guatemala, have conducted workshops to teach grassroot water defenders — community members seeking to protect waterways — basic water science and how to use field testing kits. They also have continued to conduct testing with rural and Indigenous Guatemalan communities whose residents fear their sugar cane and oil palm plantations, among other extractive industries, are contaminating waterways.

The grant will allow the team to continue monitoring and water defender training for the next three years. The team also plans to ethnographically explore — through interviews and observations — ways that Indigenous environmental justice movements are using water science to address industrial development and how participation in science shapes the “knowledge, ethics, and skills” of community members, said Copeland.

Why it matters

The project explores the role community science — specifically environmental monitoring — plays in environmental justice movements. It also examines how different kinds of participation shape the outcomes of community science collaborations.

Copeland said that while rural and Indigenous populations are often extremely concerned about the negative impact that industrial projects have on their health and the environment, they don’t have evidence considered sufficient to demand accountability or force states to act. By validating and promoting community led science, the project aims to produce knowledge that will be useful for Indigenous water defenders.

While Copeland knows data alone won’t lead to policy changes, he believes it can galvanize grassroot resistance movements.

Goals of the project

• Equip community scientists with tools and skills to harness data about their waterways
• Conduct science that, because it threatens powerful interests, is deliberately left undone
• Create spaces of dialogue where professional science and local knowledge coexist on equal footing, and enrich one another, despite differences
• Assess the ability of community science, through interviews and observations, to influence corporate behavior, increase community control over water and land, and shape discussions over development
• Understand the limitations and risks of participatory science for Indigenous environmental justice movements
• Bolster efforts to create a center for collaborative research at Virginia Tech, aligning social sciences, humanities, and STEM the needs of marginalized communities

Who’s involved

• Nick Copeland, anthropologist and associate professor of history, principal investigator
• Kang Xia, plant and environmental sciences professor, co-principal investigator
• Korine Kolivras, geography professor, co-principal investigator
• Leigh Anne Krometis, biological systems engineering associate professor, co-principal investigator

Virginia Tech voice

“This project follows the lead of Indigenous communities and asks how we, as academics and scientists, can put our knowledge, technology, and skills to work for communities who are discriminated against and structurally excluded,” Copeland said. “Ultimately, there’s hardly a single megadevelopment project in the global south that’s not resisted by communities. Mining operations are set to expand to build batteries for electric cars. I support an energy transition, but I also recognize the right to hyper-privatized automobility is far less important than the right of rural communities to have water or to grow food. Those are tradeoffs many people rarely think about."