The heterogeneity of attenuated and brief limited psychotic symptoms: association of contents with age, sex, country, religion, comorbidities, and functioning

Introduction: The Attenuated Psychosis Symptoms (APS) syndrome mostly represents the ultra-high-risk state of psychosis but, as does the Brief Intermittent Psychotic Symptoms (BIPS) syndrome, shows a large variance in conversion rates. This may be due to the heterogeneity of APS/BIPS that may be related to the effects of culture, sex, age, and other psychiatric morbidities. Thus, we investigated the different thematic contents of APS and their association with sex, age, country, religion, comorbidity, and functioning to gain a better understanding of the psychosis-risk syndrome.Method: A sample of 232 clinical high-risk subjects according to the ultra-high risk and basic symptom criteria was recruited as part of a European study conducted in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and Finland. Case vignettes, originally used for supervision of inclusion criteria, were investigated for APS/BIPS contents, which were compared for sex, age, country, religion, functioning, and comorbidities using chi-squared tests and regression analyses.Result: We extracted 109 different contents, mainly of APS (96.8%): 63 delusional, 29 hallucinatory, and 17 speech-disorganized contents. Only 20 contents (18.3%) were present in at least 5% of the sample, with paranoid and referential ideas being the most frequent. Thirty-one (28.5%) contents, in particular, bizarre ideas and perceptual abnormalities, demonstrated an association with age, country, comorbidity, or functioning, with regression models of country and obsessive-compulsive disorders explaining most of the variance: 55.8 and 38.3%, respectively. Contents did not differ between religious groups.Conclusion: Psychosis-risk patients report a wide range of different contents of APS/BIPS, underlining the psychopathological heterogeneity of this group but also revealing a potential core set of contents. Compared to earlier reports on North-American samples, our maximum prevalence rates of contents were considerably lower; this likely being related to a stricter rating of APS/BIPS and cultural influences, in particular, higher schizotypy reported in North-America. The various associations of some APS/BIPS contents with country, age, comorbidities, and functioning might moderate their clinical severity and, consequently, the related risk for psychosis and/or persistent functional disability.</p

Parp1 deletion rescues cerebellar hypotrophy in xrcc1 mutant zebrafish

Defects in DNA single-strand break repair are associated with neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. One such disorder is that resulting from mutations in XRCC1, a scaffold protein that plays a central role in DNA single-strand base repair. XRCC1 is recruited at sites of single-strand breaks by PARP1, a protein that detects and is activated by such breaks and is negatively regulated by XRCC1 to prevent excessive PARP binding and activity. Loss of XRCC1 leads to the toxic accumulation and activity of PARP1 at single-strand breaks leading to base excision repair defects, a mechanism that may underlie pathological changes in patients carrying deleterious XRCC1 mutations. Here, we demonstrate that xrcc1 knockdown impairs development of the cerebellar plate in zebrafish. In contrast, parp1 knockdown alone does not significantly affect neural development, and instead rescues the cerebellar defects observed in xrcc1 mutant larvae. These findings support the notion that PARP1 inhibition may be a viable therapeutic candidate in neurological disorders.</p

Effectiveness of psychological therapies for depression and anxiety in atypical dementia

INTRODUCTIONPeople with dementia may benefit from psychological therapies for depression or anxiety, but evidence of their effectiveness in atypical dementia is limited.METHODSUsing electronic health-care records of > 2 million people who attended psychological therapy services in England between 2012 and 2019, we examined pre–post therapy symptom changes and compared therapy outcomes among 523 people with atypical dementia, a matched cohort without dementia, and 1157 people with typical dementia.RESULTSPeople with atypical dementia experienced reductions in depression (Cohen d = −0.92 [−1.05 to −0.79]) and anxiety (d = −0.85 [−0.98 to −0.73]) symptoms. They had similar odds of improvement than people with typical dementia (odds ratio [OR] = 1.07, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.85 to 1.34), but lower odds than people living without dementia (OR = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.53 to 0.91). Reasons for discharge were similar between all groups.DISCUSSIONPeople with atypical dementia may benefit from primary care psychological therapies, but further research is needed to explore necessary adaptations.HighlightsTalking therapies for depression and anxiety may be beneficial for people with atypical dementia.Being younger and having a lower socioeconomic background are associated with poorer outcomes.Receiving more treatment sessions and shorter waiting times are associated with better outcomes.</p

Contract, social relations and the outsourcing of publicly funded health care

A prominent and consistent element of Chris Newdick’s work can be understood as a focus on the nature of relations in health care and health care law. Specifically, he has emphasised and defended the importance of social solidarity and community as core values against the dominant focus on and championing of an individual sense of autonomy in those areas. This article takes up the theme of relations in a different context, exploring the nature of the social relations underpinning the increasing role played by the private sector in delivering publicly funded health care. It does so by considering two instances of outsourcing – the Private Finance Initiative and the UK Government’s awarding of contracts as part of its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is argued that those examples disclose relations between the state, citizens, and what the sociologist Wolfgang Streeck calls the marktvolk (the people of the market) that cannot be comprehended via the notions of solidarity and community traditionally associated with a publicly funded health care system like the UK’s National Health Service. Indeed, the social relations involving the marktvolk – including, for instance, the importance of one’s status and duties of loyalty based on acquaintance – tend to have the effect of, in Newdick’s phrase, ‘corroding [the traditional form of] social solidarity’. Thus, while important, it is not only the stress on individual autonomy and rights that has this corrosive effect; other forms of social relations – including those involving elites and revolving around capital – have this impact too and demand exploration.</p

Improving Formalised Ethics Review: Field Sensitivity, Bundles of Usership and Devolution

This chapter illustrates how formalised requirements of research ethics and data management have affected social science research and anthropological research specifically. Examples of anthropological research of the experience of international and national science regulation in China show that, in practice, these requirements can lead to unnecessary complications in ‘the field’ and are apt to disregard the expectations and ethics of potential research participants. To counteract such inadequacies, this chapter suggests conceptual tools for the general improvement of requirements for research ethics and data management. It does so, first, by introducing notions of ‘field sensitivity’ and ‘bundles of usership’, which enable more appropriate ways of thinking about ethics in the field and the management of research materials; second, by explaining how the devolution of ethics review and its rooting in the educational curriculum could make ethics review more productive and more suitable to anthropological research specifically and social science in general; and, third, research is needed into the reasons for the great diversity in research ethics and data management requirements between and within countries in order to understand their impact in practice of fieldwork. Any changes will have to take the socio-cultural and political history of these institutions of governance into account.</p

The role of GPI-anchored membrane-bound alkaline phosphatase in the mode of action of Bt Cry1A toxins in the diamondback moth

The insecticidal Cry proteins produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) are extensively used for pest control in formulated sprays and in genetically modified crops, but resistance to Bt toxins threatens their sustainable use in agriculture. Understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in Bt pathogenesis is crucial for the development of effective resistance management strategies. Previously, we showed a strong correlation between Cry1Ac resistance in Plutella xylostella (L.) and down-regulation of the glycosylphosphatidylinositol (GPI)-anchored membrane-bound alkaline phosphatase (mALP) and aminopeptidase (APN) and members of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter subfamily C (ABCC), but we do not yet have a clear understanding of the relative contribution of each midgut receptor type. Here, a P. xylostella strain homozygous for the PxmALP gene knockout was generated using CRISPR/Cas9 and the results showed that this strain had a 294-fold resistance to Cry1Ac toxin and 394-fold cross-resistance to Cry1Ab. Moreover, a triple knockout strain lacking PxmALP, PxABCC2, and PxABCC3 exhibited 9,660-fold resistance to Cry1Ac and 5,662-fold cross-resistance to Cry1Ab. These resistance levels surpassed those observed in the previously described double PxABCC2 and PxABCC3 knockout mutant, revealing a functional redundancy between ABC transporters and PxmALP. In addition, the activity of Cry1A toxins against Sf9 cells expressing PxmALP, PxABCC2 or PxABCC3 confirmed that each of these can act as a functional receptor. Our findings are crucial for unraveling the relative role of multiple receptors and the molecular mechanisms underlying Bt resistance in insects.</p

Whole-genome phylogeography of the intertidal snail<i> </i><i>Littorina saxatilis</i>

Understanding the factors that have shaped the current distributions and diversity of species is a central and longstanding aim of evolutionary biology. The recent inclusion of genomic data into phylogeographic studies has dramatically improved our understanding in organisms where evolutionary relationships have been challenging to infer. We used whole-genome sequences to study the phylogeography of the intertidal snail Littorina saxatilis, which has successfully colonized and diversified across a broad range of coastal environments in the Northern Hemisphere amid repeated cycles of glaciation. Building on past studies based on short DNA sequences, we used genome-wide data to provide a clearer picture of the relationships among samples spanning most of the species natural range. Our results confirm the trans-Atlantic colonization of North America from Europe, and have allowed us to identify rough locations of glacial refugia and to infer likely routes of colonization within Europe. We also investigated the signals in different datasets to account for the effects of genomic architecture and non-neutral evolution, which provides new insights about diversification of four ecotypes of L. saxatilis (the crab, wave, barnacle, and brackish ecotypes) at different spatial scales. Overall, we provide a much clearer picture of the biogeography of L. saxatilis, providing a foundation for more detailed phylogenomic and demographic studies.</p

Novel avenues of tau research

INTRODUCTION: The pace of innovation has accelerated in virtually every area of tau research in just the past few years. METHODS: In February 2022, leading international tau experts convened to share selected highlights of this work during Tau 2022, the second international tau conference co-organized and co-sponsored by the Alzheimer's Association, CurePSP, and the Rainwater Charitable Foundation. RESULTS: Representing academia, industry, and the philanthropic sector, presenters joined more than 1700 registered attendees from 59 countries, spanning six continents, to share recent advances and exciting new directions in tau research. DISCUSSION: The virtual meeting provided an opportunity to foster cross-sector collaboration and partnerships as well as a forum for updating colleagues on research-advancing tools and programs that are steadily moving the field forward.</p

The most polyphagous insect herbivore? Host plant associations of the Meadow spittlebug, Philaenus spumarius (L.)

A comprehensive list of all known host plant species utilised by the Meadow Spittlebug (Philaenus spumarius (L.)) is presented, compiled from published and unpublished sources. P. spumarius feeds on 1311 host plants in 631 genera and 117 families. This appears, by a large margin, to be the greatest number of host species exploited by any herbivorous insect. The Asteraceae (222 species) and Rosaceae (110) together account for 25% of all host species. The Fabaceae (76) and Poaceae (73), are nearly tied for third and fourth place and these four families, combined with the Lamiaceae (62), Apiaceae (50), Brassicaceae (43) and Caprifoliaceae (34), comprise about half of all host species. Hosts are concentrated among herbaceous dicots but range from ferns and grasses to shrubs and trees. Philaenus spumarius is an “extreme polyphage”, which appears to have evolved from a monophage ancestor in the past 3.7 to 7.9 million years. It is also the primary European vector of the emerging plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa. Its vast host range suggests that it has the potential to spread X. fastidiosa among multiple hosts in any environment in which both the spittlebug and bacterium are present. Fully 47.9% of all known hosts were recorded in the Xylella-inspired BRIGIT citizen science P. spumarius host survey, including 358 hosts new to the documentary record, 27.3% of the 1311 total. This is a strong demonstration of the power of organized amateur observers to contribute to scientific knowledge.</p

Science Communication practices and Trust in information sources amongst Nigerian scientists and journalists

Relatively few studies have explored the communication practices of researchers and journalists working in African contexts. We set out to explore the communication activities undertaken by Nigerian health researchers and journalists, their motivations and the barriers they face in communicating about health topics with lay audiences, as well as their trust in a range of sources of scientific information. The study adopted a survey methodology, recruiting 69 participants at a communications training workshop for both health researchers and journalists. We found high levels of participation in research communication amongst health researchers compared with previous work. While many barriers are similar to those faced by researchers in other contexts, our respondents highlighted that lack of support from managers is a significant hurdle, which has not been highlighted in other studies. Both journalists and researchers primarily communicate science with the aim of educating, informing, entertaining or inspiring their audiences. Regarding trust, both researchers and journalists broadly trust sources linked to science, such as academic journals. However, trust in industry, NGOs and other media was higher amongst journalists than health researchers. Least trust was invested in social media sources, with the exception of material posted on accounts linked to universities.</p