People's beliefs and expectations about how cognitive skills change with age: evidence from a U.K.-wide aging survey

YesObjective: We conducted a U.K.-wide survey to collect information on people's beliefs, fears, perceptions, and attitudes to cognitive aging. Methods: This community-based aging survey included 3,146 adults aged 40 years and over. Results: Respondents believed memory might be the earliest cognitive skill to decline (mean: 59.4 years), followed by speed of thinking (mean: 64.9). Those in their 40s were more pessimistic, because they estimated cognitive changes would start up to 15 years earlier than respondents aged over 70. Having a purpose in life, healthy eating, challenging the mind, sleep, and physical activity ranked higher in terms of perceived importance for maintaining or improving cognitive skills. However, less than 50% engaged in any of these activities. Although 91% believed there are things people can do to maintain or improve their cognitive skills, more than 40% were unsure or did not know how to do so. Respondents who strongly agreed that changes in cognitive skills might be a sign of something more serious were significantly more likely to do various activities to benefit their cognitive skills. Conclusion: Results suggest that people are less aware of the potential cognitive benefits of certain activities, such as exercise and diet. It is important to build awareness about the benefits of lifestyles and activities for cognitive health.Velux Stiftung (Project No. 1034)

A systematic literature review and meta-analysis of real-world interventions for cognitive ageing in healthy older adults

YesActivities running in community-based-settings offer a method of delivering multimodal interventions to older adults beyond cognitive training programmes. This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the impact of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of ‘real-world’ interventions on the cognitive abilities of healthy older adults. Database searches were performed between October 2016 and September 2018. Forty-three RCTs were eligible for inclusion with 2826 intervention participants and 2234 controls. Interventions to enhance cognitive ability consisted of participation in activities that were physical (25 studies), cognitive (9 studies), or mixed (i.e., physical and cognitive; 7 studies), and two studies used other interventions that included older adults assisting schoolchildren and engagement via social network sites. Meta-analysis revealed that Trail Making Test (TMT) A, p =  0.05, M = 0.43, 95% CI [-0.00, 0.86], digit symbol substitution, p =  0.05, M = 0.30, 95% CI [0.00, 0.59], and verbal fluency, p =  0.04, M = 0.31, 95% CI [0.02, 0.61], improved after specific types of interventions versus the control groups (which were either active, wait-list or passive controls). When comparing physical activity interventions against all control groups, TMT A, p =  0.04, M = 0.25, 95% CI [0.01, 0.48], and digit span forward, p =  0.05, M = 0.91, 95% CI [-0.00, 1.82], significantly improved. Results remained non-significant for all outcomes when comparing cognitive activity interventions against all control groups. Results therefore suggest that healthy older adults are more likely to see cognitive improvements when involved in physical activity interventions. In addition, TMT A was the only measure that consistently showed significant improvements following physical activity interventions. Visuospatial abilities (as measured by TMT A) may be more susceptible to improvement following physical activity-based interventions, and TMT A may be a useful tool for detecting differences in that domain.Velux Stiftung, Switzerland, (Project No. 1034

Childhood cognitive ability accounts for associations between cognitive ability and brain cortical thickness in old age

Associations between brain cortical tissue volume and cognitive function in old age are frequently interpreted as suggesting that preservation of cortical tissue is the foundation of successful cognitive aging. However, this association could also, in part, reflect a lifelong association between cognitive ability and cortical tissue. We analyzed data on 588 subjects from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 who had intelligence quotient (IQ) scores from the same cognitive test available at both 11 and 70 years of age as well as high-resolution brain magnetic resonance imaging data obtained at approximately 73 years of age. Cortical thickness was estimated at 81 924 sampling points across the cortex for each subject using an automated pipeline. Multiple regression was used to assess associations between cortical thickness and the IQ measures at 11 and 70 years. Childhood IQ accounted for more than two-third of the association between IQ at 70 years and cortical thickness measured at age 73 years. This warns against ascribing a causal interpretation to the association between cognitive ability and cortical tissue in old age based on assumptions about, and exclusive reference to, the aging process and any associated disease. Without early-life measures of cognitive ability, it would have been tempting to conclude that preservation of cortical thickness in old age is a foundation for successful cognitive aging when, instead, it is a lifelong association. This being said, results should not be construed as meaning that all studies on aging require direct measures of childhood IQ, but as suggesting that proxy measures of prior cognitive function can be useful to take into consideration

Methodologies for in vitro and in vivo evaluation of efficacy of antifungal and antibiofilm agents and surface coatings against fungal biofilms

KT acknowledges receipt of a mandate of Industrial Research Fund (IOFm/05/022). JB acknowledges funding from the European Research Council Advanced Award 3400867/RAPLODAPT and the Israel Science Foundation grant # 314/13 (www.isf.il). NG acknowledges the Wellcome Trust and MRC for funding. CD acknowledges funding from the Agence Nationale de Recherche (ANR-10-LABX-62-IBEID). CJN acknowledges funding from the National Institutes of Health R35GM124594 and R21AI125801. AW is supported by the Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (grant 097377), the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (grant MR/N006364/1) at the University of Aberdeen MaCA: outside this study MaCA has received personal speaker’s honoraria the past five years from Astellas, Basilea, Gilead, MSD, Pfizer, T2Candida, and Novartis. She has received research grants and contract work paid to the Statens Serum Institute from Astellas, Basilea, Gilead, MSD, NovaBiotics, Pfizer, T2Biosystems, F2G, Cidara, and Amplyx. CAM acknowledges the Wellcome Trust and the MRC MR/N006364/1. PVD, TC and KT acknowledge the FWO research community: Biology and ecology of bacterial and fungal biofilms in humans (FWO WO.009.16N). AAB acknowledges the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – CRC FungiNet.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

RESTRAINTS ON THIN SECTION ANALYSIS OF GRAIN GROWTH IN UNSTRAINED POLYCRYSTALLINE ICE

Des essais ont été réalisés à -1°C pour évaluer les effets de la surface libre et de l'épaisseur de lames minces sur la croissance des grains dans le cas d'échantillons très poreux et non déformés de glace polycristalline à petits grains. Les résultats montrent que la croissance des grains est négligeable quand la taille moyenne des grains est supérieure à 1,5 à 2 fois l'épaisseur de la lame. La croissance des grains pour des sections plus épaisses montre que la migration des joints de grains, conduisant à une augmentation de 3-4 fois la taille moyenne des grains, est virtuellement non affectée par la présence d'un grand nombre de bulles dans la glace. L'accumulation de bulles le long des joints de grains n'a pas non plus été mise en évidence. L'attaque en surface aux joints de grains est un phénomène caractéristique se poursuivant pendant la croissance et mis en évidence par le déplacement des traces de joints de grains pendant toute la croissance. La longueur totale de ces traces décroît avec l'accroissement de taille des grains indiquant un mécanisme de résorption pendant le phénomène. Les mesures de croissance volumique du grain sur des échantillons s'accordent avec celles obtenues sur des lames minces dont l'épaisseur est 2 à 3 fois plus importantes que le diamètre moyen du grain.Tests were performed at -1°C to evaluate the effects of a free surface and the thickness dimensions of thin sections on the growth of grains in fine-grained, pore-rich, strain-free polycrystalline ice. Results show that negligible growth of grains occurs when the mean size of grains is more than 1.5 to 2 times the section thickness. Grain growth in thicker sections was significant for the fact that grain boundary migration, leading to 3-4 fold increases in average grain size, was virtually unaffected by the presence of large numbers of bubbles in the ice. Nor was there any evidence to indicate any concentrating of bubbles along migrating boundaries. Grain boundary grooving was a characteristic feature of most sections undergoing grain growth. This implies actual migration of grooves during grain growth. The fact that the total length of grooves decreased with increasing grain size also implies some process of groove consumption during grain growth. Three-dimensional grain growth measurements in bulk samples compared favorably with those obtained from sections two to three times thicker than the mean grain diameter

Metabolism impacts upon Candida immunogenicity and pathogenicity at multiple levels

Contains fulltext : 138919.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)Metabolism is integral to the pathogenicity of Candida albicans, a major fungal pathogen of humans. As well as providing the platform for nutrient assimilation and growth in diverse host niches, metabolic adaptation affects the susceptibility of C. albicans to host-imposed stresses and antifungal drugs, the expression of key virulence factors, and fungal vulnerability to innate immune defences. These effects, which are driven by complex regulatory networks linking metabolism, morphogenesis, stress adaptation, and cell wall remodelling, influence commensalism and infection. Therefore, current concepts of Candida-host interactions must be extended to include the impact of metabolic adaptation upon pathogenicity and immunogenicity

ANNEALING RECRYSTALLIZATION IN LABORATORY AND NATURALLY DEFORMED ICE

Des résultats concernant la recristallisation après recuit sont présentés ; ils concernent la glace naturelle et la glace artificielle déformée. Des lames minces ont été réalisées pour suivre la recristallisation qui, dans le cas de pastilles de glace fortement compressées et recuites à - 3°C montre que dès qu'un nouveau cristal est créé dans la matrice de glace déformée il conserve son orientation pendant toute la durée de la recristallisation. Des recuits à pression normale d'échantillons fortement déformés et texturés de glace profonde des glaciers d'Antarctique ont conduit à faire grossir de très gros cristaux possédant des orientations d'axe c très modifiées par rapport à la glace initiale. Les textures de la même glace recuite sous 200 bars de pression hydrostatique ressemblent à celles observées dans la glace lors de la recristallisation dynamique à 190-200 bars qui est la pression existant près de la base du manteau de glace. Cette pression est aussi celle qui, à cet endroit, correspond en Antarctique à la fusion.Results are presented of annealing recrystallization in both naturally and laboratory deformed ice. Thin section techniques were used to follow the progress of recrystallization which, in the case of highly compressed ice pellets annealed at -3°C, showed that as soon as any new crystal was nucleated in the deformed ice matrix its retained its lattice orientation over the duration of the recrystallization. Laboratory annealing at ambient pressures of highly deformed, strongly oriented crystal ice from cores deep in the Antarctic Ice Sheet resulted in growth of very large crystals exhibiting c-axis orientations very much degraded with respect to the original ice. Textures and fabrics of the same ice annealed at 200 bars confining pressure closely resembled those observed in ice undergoing dynamic (annealing) recrystallization at 190 - 200 bars overburden pressure near the base of the ice sheet, which at this location in Antarctica was at pressure melting