Interventions to promote cycling: systematic review

Objectives To determine what interventions are effective in promoting cycling, the size of the effects of interventions, and evidence of any associated benefits on overall physical activity or anthropometric measures

Using an observation tool (PIIOS) to assess parent-infant interaction in the first two weeks of life: A feasibility study

Background Emotional maltreatment (EM) has profound effects on the developing brain but is hardest to identify in infancy. Early observations of parent–infant interactions may provide opportunities to identify babies at risk of neglect and EM. This prospective study tests, in the first fortnight of life, the feasibility of using an observation tool previously validated for use at 2 to 7 months of age. Methods Women awaiting induction of labour were recruited in South Wales in July 2016. Women consented to being contacted postnatally and video recordings of mother‐infant interaction at two home visits between 7 and 10 days (T1) and 8–12 weeks old (T2). Demographic details, information on the pregnancy, delivery, and infant condition were obtained at T1. A questionnaire was completed at T2 to capture any significant events affecting the parent–infant relationship. The Parent‐Infant Interaction Observation Scale (PIIOS) was used to score the videos. Exclusion criteria included admission to neonatal unit. Results Recruitment of suitable participants and full research data completion were feasible. Of 60 women who consented to be contacted post‐delivery, 30 women (31 infants) participated at T1 and T2. Three babies were excluded. Women accepted being observed in their homes with their babies, with no attrition between T1 and T2. Using the PIIOS 10 of the 13 items could be scored with an awake infant under 2 weeks. Conclusion These encouraging findings can inform exploration of an observation tool to identify high‐risk dyads for targeted support. A trial and test of a modified scoring system (based on the PIIOS) should be developed for a future study using a larger sample size. Further research should assess if this approach reliably produces a consistent valid screening tool to assess parental sensitive responsiveness and resilience promoting behaviours at this early stage of life

Validation of a maternal questionnaire on correlates of physical activity in preschool children.

BACKGROUND: Valid measures of physical activity correlates in preschool children are lacking. This study aimed to assess the validity, factor structure and internal consistency of a maternal questionnaire on potential correlates of four-year-old children's physical activity. METHODS: The questionnaire was designed to measure the following constructs: child personal factors; parental support and self-efficacy for providing support; parental rules and restrictions; maternal attitudes and perceptions; maternal behaviour; barriers to physical activity; and the home and local environments. Two separate studies were conducted. Study I included 24 mothers of four-year-old children who completed the questionnaire then participated in a telephone interview covering similar items to the questionnaire. To assess validity, the agreement between interview and questionnaire responses was assessed using Cohen's kappa and percentage agreement. Study II involved 398 mothers of four-year-old children participating in the Southampton Women's Survey. In this study, principal components analysis was used to explore the factor structure of the questionnaire to aid future analyses with these data. The internal consistency of the factors identified was assessed using Cronbach's alpha. RESULTS: Kappa scores showed 30% of items to have moderate agreement or above, 23% to have fair agreement and 47% to have slight or poor agreement. However, 89% of items had fair agreement as assessed by percentage agreement (>/= 66%). Limited variation in responses to variables is likely to have contributed to some of the low kappa values. Six questions had a low kappa and low percentage agreement (defined as poor validity); these included questions from the child personal factors, maternal self-efficacy, rules and restrictions, and local environment domains. The principal components analysis identified eleven factors and found several variables to stand alone. Eight of the composite factors identified had acceptable internal consistency (alpha >/= 0.60) and three fell just short of achieving this (0.60 > alpha > 0.50). CONCLUSION: Overall, this maternal questionnaire had reasonable validity and internal consistency for assessing potential correlates of physical activity in young children. With minor revision, this could be a useful tool for future research in this area. This, in turn, will aid the development of interventions to promote physical activity in this age group.RIGHTS : This article is licensed under the BioMed Central licence at http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/license which is similar to the 'Creative Commons Attribution Licence'. In brief you may : copy, distribute, and display the work; make derivative works; or make commercial use of the work - under the following conditions: the original author must be given credit; for any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are

Factors predicting drop out from, and retention in, specialist drug treatment services: A case control study in the North West of England

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background:</p> <p>In the United Kingdom (UK), the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) considers retention to be the best available measure of drug treatment effectiveness. Accordingly, the NTA has set local treatment systems the annual target of retaining 75% of clients for 12 weeks or more, yet little assessment of this target or factors that improve retention has occurred. This study aims to quantify the proportion of people retained in treatment for 12 weeks in the North West of England and to identify factors associated with premature drop out.</p> <p>Methods:</p> <p>The North West National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) was used to identify treatment durations for everyone beginning a treatment episode between 1^stApril 2005 and 31^stMarch 2006 (N = 16626). Odds ratios, chi-square and logistic regression analyses compared clients retained for 12 weeks to clients whose discharge record showed they had prematurely dropped out before 12 weeks. Individuals with other outcomes were excluded from analyses.</p> <p>Results:</p> <p>75% of clients (N = 12230) were retained for 12 weeks and 10% (N = 1649) dropped out prematurely. Multivariate analysis showed drop out was more likely among Asian drug users (adjusted odds ratio 1.52, 95% CI 1.12 to 2.08) than their white equivalents. Drop out was more likely among residents of Cumbria and Lancashire (adjusted odds ratio 1.80, 95% CI 1.51 to 2.15) and Greater Manchester (adjusted odds ratio 2.00, 95% CI 1.74 to 2.29) than Cheshire and Merseyside and less likely among alcohol users (adjusted odds ratio 0.73, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.91). A significant interaction between age and deprivation was observed. For those aged 18 to 24 years and 25 to 34 years, drop out was significantly more likely among those living in affluent areas. For those in the older age groups the converse effect was observed.</p> <p>Conclusion:</p> <p>In combination, the drug treatment systems of the North West achieved the Government's retention target in 2005/06. A number of factors associated with drop out were identified; these should be considered in strategies that aim to improve retention. Drop out and retention are measures that capture the joint effect of many factors. Further work is required to evaluate the effect of deprivation.</p

Effects of a peer-led Walking In ScHools intervention (the WISH study) on physical activity levels of adolescent girls: a cluster randomised pilot study.

School-based interventions may be effective at increasing levels of physical activity (PA) among adolescents; however, there is a paucity of evidence on whether walking can be successfully promoted to increase PA in this age group. This pilot study aimed to assess the effects of a 12-week school-based peer-led brisk walking programme on levels of school-time PA post intervention

Perceptual and conceptual processing of visual objects across the adult lifespan

Abstract: Making sense of the external world is vital for multiple domains of cognition, and so it is crucial that object recognition is maintained across the lifespan. We investigated age differences in perceptual and conceptual processing of visual objects in a population-derived sample of 85 healthy adults (24–87 years old) by relating measures of object processing to cognition across the lifespan. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) was recorded during a picture naming task to provide a direct measure of neural activity, that is not confounded by age-related vascular changes. Multiple linear regression was used to estimate neural responsivity for each individual, namely the capacity to represent visual or semantic information relating to the pictures. We find that the capacity to represent semantic information is linked to higher naming accuracy, a measure of task-specific performance. In mature adults, the capacity to represent semantic information also correlated with higher levels of fluid intelligence, reflecting domain-general performance. In contrast, the latency of visual processing did not relate to measures of cognition. These results indicate that neural responsivity measures relate to naming accuracy and fluid intelligence. We propose that maintaining neural responsivity in older age confers benefits in task-related and domain-general cognitive processes, supporting the brain maintenance view of healthy cognitive ageing

Distinct components of cardiovascular health are linked with age-related differences in cognitive abilities

Cardiovascular ageing contributes to cognitive impairment. However, the unique and synergistic contributions of multiple cardiovascular factors to cognitive function remain unclear because they are often condensed into a single composite score or examined in isolation. We hypothesized that vascular risk factors, electrocardiographic features and blood pressure indices reveal multiple latent vascular factors, with independent contributions to cognition. In a population-based deep-phenotyping study (n = 708, age 18–88), path analysis revealed three latent vascular factors dissociating the autonomic nervous system response from two components of blood pressure. These three factors made unique and additive contributions to the variability in crystallized and fluid intelligence. The discrepancy in fluid relative to crystallized intelligence, indicative of cognitive decline, was associated with a latent vascular factor predominantly expressing pulse pressure. This suggests that higher pulse pressure is associated with cognitive decline from expected performance. The effect was stronger in older adults. Controlling pulse pressure may help to preserve cognition, particularly in older adults. Our findings highlight the need to better understand the multifactorial nature of vascular aging

Poorer White Matter Microstructure Predicts Slower and More Variable Reaction Time Performance: Evidence for a Neural Noise Hypothesis in a Large Lifespan Cohort

Most prior research has focused on characterizing averages in cognition, brain characteristics, or behavior, and attempting to predict differences in these averages among individuals. However, this overwhelming focus on mean levels may leave us with an incomplete picture of what drives individual differences in behavioral phenotypes by ignoring the variability of behavior around an individual's mean. In particular, enhanced white matter (WM) structural microstructure has been hypothesized to support consistent behavioral performance by decreasing Gaussian noise in signal transfer. Conversely, lower indices of WM microstructure are associated with greater within-subject variance in the ability to deploy performance-related resources, especially in clinical populations. We tested a mechanistic account of the “neural noise” hypothesis in a large adult lifespan cohort (Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience) with over 2500 adults (ages 18-102; 1508 female; 1173 male; 2681 behavioral sessions; 708 MRI scans) using WM fractional anisotropy to predict mean levels and variability in reaction time performance on a simple behavioral task using a dynamic structural equation model. By modeling robust and reliable individual differences in within-person variability, we found support for a neural noise hypothesis (Kail, 1997), with lower fractional anisotropy predicted individual differences in separable components of behavioral performance estimated using dynamic structural equation model, including slower mean responses and increased variability. These effects remained when including age, suggesting consistent effects of WM microstructure across the adult lifespan unique from concurrent effects of aging. Crucially, we show that variability can be reliably separated from mean performance using advanced modeling tools, enabling tests of distinct hypotheses for each component of performance

Ageing increases reliance on sensorimotor prediction through structural and functional differences in frontostriatal circuits

This is the author accepted manuscript. It is currently under an indefinite embargo pending publication by Nature Publishing Group.The control of voluntary movement changes markedly with age. A critical component of motor control is the integration of sensory information with predictions of the consequences of action, arising from internal models of movement. This leads to sensorimotor attenuation – a reduction in the perceived intensity of sensations from self-generated compared to external actions. Here we show that sensorimotor attenuation occurs in 98% of adults in a population-based cohort (n=325; 18-88 years; the Cambridge Centre for Ageing and Neuroscience). Importantly, attenuation increases with age, in proportion to reduced sensory sensitivity. This effect is associated with differences in the structure and functional connectivity of the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), assessed with magnetic resonance imaging. The results suggest that ageing alters the balance between the sensorium and predictive models, mediated by the pre-SMA and its connectivity in frontostriatal circuits. This shift may contribute to the motor and cognitive changes observed with age.Cam-CAN research was supported by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/H008217/1). JBR and NW were supported by the James S. McDonnell Foundation 21st Century Science Initiative, Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition. JBR was also supported by Wellcome Trust [103838] and the Medical Research Council [MC-A060-5PQ30]. DMW was supported by the Wellcome Trust [097803], Human Frontier Science Program and the Royal Society Noreen Murray Professorship in Neurobiology. RNH was supported by the Medical Research Council [MC-A060-5PR10]. RAK was supported by a Sir Henry Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship [107392]. LG was funded by a Rubicon grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

Evaluating the Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Mutation D614G on Transmissibility and Pathogenicity.

Global dispersal and increasing frequency of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein variant D614G are suggestive of a selective advantage but may also be due to a random founder effect. We investigate the hypothesis for positive selection of spike D614G in the United Kingdom using more than 25,000 whole genome SARS-CoV-2 sequences. Despite the availability of a large dataset, well represented by both spike 614 variants, not all approaches showed a conclusive signal of positive selection. Population genetic analysis indicates that 614G increases in frequency relative to 614D in a manner consistent with a selective advantage. We do not find any indication that patients infected with the spike 614G variant have higher COVID-19 mortality or clinical severity, but 614G is associated with higher viral load and younger age of patients. Significant differences in growth and size of 614G phylogenetic clusters indicate a need for continued study of this variant