Relationship of creative projects in anatomy to medical student professionalism, test performance and stress: an exploratory study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The anatomy course offers important opportunities to develop professionalism at an early stage in medical education. It is an academically significant course that also engenders stress in some students.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Over a three-year period, 115 of 297 students completed creative projects. Thirty-four project completers and 47 non-completers consented to participate in the study. Projects were analyzed for professionalism themes using grounded theory. A subset of project completers and non-completers were interviewed to determine their views about the stress of anatomy and medical school, as well as the value of the creative projects. We also compared test performance of project completers and non-completers.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Projects completed early in the course often expressed ambivalence about anatomy, whereas later projects showed more gratitude and sense of awe. Project completers tended to report greater stress than noncompleters, but stated that doing projects reduced stress and caused them to develop a richer appreciation for anatomy and medicine. Project completers performed significantly lower than non-completers on the first written exam (pre-project). Differences between groups on individual exams after both the first and second creative project were nonsignificant.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>For some students, creative projects may offer a useful way of reflecting on various aspects of professionalism while helping them to manage stress.</p

The individual environment, not the family is the most important influence on preferences for common non-alcoholic beverages in adolescence

Beverage preferences are an important driver of consumption, and strong liking for beverages high in energy (e.g. sugar-sweetened beverages [SSBs]) and dislike for beverages low in energy (e.g. non-nutritive sweetened beverages [NNSBs]) are potentially modifiable risk factors contributing to variation in intake. Twin studies have established that both genes and environment play important roles in shaping food preferences; but the aetiology of variation in non-alcoholic beverage preferences is unknown. 2865 adolescent twins (18–19-years old) from the Twins Early Development Study were used to quantify genetic and environmental influence on variation in liking for seven non-alcoholic beverages: SSBs; NNSBs; fruit cordials, orange juice, milk, coffee, and tea. Maximum Likelihood Structural Equation Modelling established that beverage preferences have a moderate to low genetic basis; from 18% (95% CI: 10%, 25%) for orange juice to 42% (36%, 43%) for fruit cordials. Aspects of the environment that are not shared by twin pairs explained all remaining variance in drink preferences. The sizeable unique environmental influence on beverage preferences highlights the potential for environmental modification. Policies and guidelines to change preferences for unhealthy beverages may therefore be best directed at the wider environment

Auditory Deficit as a Consequence Rather than Endophenotype of Specific Language Impairment: Electrophysiological Evidence

Are developmental language disorders caused by poor auditory discrimination? This is a popular theory, but behavioural evidence has been inconclusive. Here we studied children with specific language impairment, measuring the brain's electrophysiological response to sounds in a passive paradigm. We focused on the T-complex, an event-related peak that has different origins and developmental course from the well-known vertex response.We analysed auditory event-related potentials to tones and syllables from 16 children and 16 adolescents with specific language impairment who were compared with 32 typically-developing controls, matched for gender, IQ and age.We replicated prior findings of significant reduction in Ta amplitude for both children and adolescents with specific language impairment, which was particularly marked for syllables. The topography of the T-complex to syllables indicated a less focal response in those with language impairments. To distinguish causal models, we considered correlations between size of the Ta response and measures of language and literacy in parents as well as children. The best-fitting model was one in which auditory deficit was a consequence rather than a cause of difficulties in phonological processing.The T-complex to syllables has abnormal size and topography in children with specific language impairment, but this is more likely to be a consequence rather than a cause of difficulties in phonological processing

The stability of educational achievement across school years is largely explained by genetic factors.

Little is known about the etiology of developmental change and continuity in educational achievement. Here, we study achievement from primary school to the end of compulsory education for 6000 twin pairs in the UK-representative Twins Early Development Study sample. Results showed that educational achievement is highly heritable across school years and across subjects studied at school (twin heritability ~60%; SNP heritability ~30%); achievement is highly stable (phenotypic correlations ~0.70 from ages 7 to 16). Twin analyses, applying simplex and common pathway models, showed that genetic factors accounted for most of this stability (70%), even after controlling for intelligence (60%). Shared environmental factors also contributed to the stability, while change was mostly accounted for by individual-specific environmental factors. Polygenic scores, derived from a genome-wide association analysis of adult years of education, also showed stable effects on school achievement. We conclude that the remarkable stability of achievement is largely driven genetically even after accounting for intelligence

Genetics affects choice of academic subjects as well as achievement.

We have previously shown that individual differences in educational achievement are highly heritable throughout compulsory education. After completing compulsory education at age 16, students in England can choose to continue to study for two years (A-levels) in preparation for applying to university and they can freely choose which subjects to study. Here, for the first time, we show that choosing to do A-levels and the choice of subjects show substantial genetic influence, as does performance after two years studying the chosen subjects. Using a UK-representative sample of 6584 twin pairs, heritability estimates were 44% for choosing to do A-levels and 52–80% for choice of subject. Achievement after two years was also highly heritable (35–76%). The findings that DNA differences substantially affect differences in appetites as well as aptitudes suggest a genetic way of thinking about education in which individuals actively create their own educational experiences in part based on their genetic propensities

Genetic and Environmental Causes of Variation in Trait Resilience in Young People

The aim of this multi-informant twin study was to determine the relative role of genetic and environmental factors in explaining variation in trait resilience in adolescents. Participants were consenting families (N = 2,638 twins in 1,394 families), from seven national cohorts (age 12–18 years, both sexes) of monozygotic and dizygotic twins reared together. Questionnaire data on the adolescents’ Ego-resilience (ER89) was collected from mothers, fathers and twins, and analysed by means of multivariate genetic modelling. Variance in trait resilience was best represented in an ADE common pathways model with sex limitation. Variance in the latent psychometric resilience factor was largely explained by additive genetic factors (77% in boys, 70% in girls), with the remaining variance (23 and 30%) attributable to non-shared environmental factors. Additive genetic sources explained more than 50% of the informant specific variation in mothers and fathers scores. In twins, additive and non-additive genetic factors together explained 40% and non-shared environmental factor the remaining 60% of variation. In the mothers’ scores, the additive genetic effect was larger for boys than for girls. The non-additive genetic factor found in the twins’ self ratings was larger in boys than in girls. The remaining sex differences in the specific factors were small. Trait resilience is largely genetically determined. Estimates based on several informants rather than single informants approaches are recommended

Recurrent, Robust and Scalable Patterns Underlie Human Approach and Avoidance

BACKGROUND. Approach and avoidance behavior provide a means for assessing the rewarding or aversive value of stimuli, and can be quantified by a keypress procedure whereby subjects work to increase (approach), decrease (avoid), or do nothing about time of exposure to a rewarding/aversive stimulus. To investigate whether approach/avoidance behavior might be governed by quantitative principles that meet engineering criteria for lawfulness and that encode known features of reward/aversion function, we evaluated whether keypress responses toward pictures with potential motivational value produced any regular patterns, such as a trade-off between approach and avoidance, or recurrent lawful patterns as observed with prospect theory. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS. Three sets of experiments employed this task with beautiful face images, a standardized set of affective photographs, and pictures of food during controlled states of hunger and satiety. An iterative modeling approach to data identified multiple law-like patterns, based on variables grounded in the individual. These patterns were consistent across stimulus types, robust to noise, describable by a simple power law, and scalable between individuals and groups. Patterns included: (i) a preference trade-off counterbalancing approach and avoidance, (ii) a value function linking preference intensity to uncertainty about preference, and (iii) a saturation function linking preference intensity to its standard deviation, thereby setting limits to both. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE. These law-like patterns were compatible with critical features of prospect theory, the matching law, and alliesthesia. Furthermore, they appeared consistent with both mean-variance and expected utility approaches to the assessment of risk. Ordering of responses across categories of stimuli demonstrated three properties thought to be relevant for preference-based choice, suggesting these patterns might be grouped together as a relative preference theory. Since variables in these patterns have been associated with reward circuitry structure and function, they may provide a method for quantitative phenotyping of normative and pathological function (e.g., psychiatric illness).National Institute on Drug Abuse (14118, 026002, 026104, DABK39-03-0098, DABK39-03-C-0098); The MGH Phenotype Genotype Project in Addiction and Mood Disorder from the Office of National Drug Control Policy - Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center; MGH Department of Radiology; the National Center for Research Resources (P41RR14075); National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (34189, 05236

Does diet affect breast cancer risk?

The role of specific dietary factors in breast cancer causation is not completely resolved. Results from prospective studies do not support the concept that fat intake in middle life has a major relation to breast cancer risk. However, weight gain in middle life contributes substantially to breast cancer risk. Alcohol is the best established dietary risk factor, probably by increasing endogenous estrogen levels. Hypotheses relating diet during youth to risk decades later will be difficult to test. Nevertheless, available evidence is strong that breast cancer risk can be reduced by avoiding weight gain during adult years, and by limiting alcohol consumption