The Temporal Relationship between Stress and Spasticity, a Comparison between Subjects with and without Intact Thyroid Function

Purpose/Hypothesis: Stress has been studied as a credible trigger of spasticity, but evidence is limited concerning temporal relationships. Case studies of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and fibromyalgia (FM) have established a ten-day delay between psychogenic stress and episodic pain flares. This is explained by a stress induced release of thyroxine (T4) from the thyroid gland via the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis, which reaches its peak effect by day 10. Models suggest that T4 may increase peripheral nerve excitability, which could increase sensitivity in 1A fibers from muscle spindles, leading to hyper-excitability in motor neuron pools. The purpose of our study is to explore the temporal relationship between stress & spasticity, to see if subjects experience latent increases in spasticity due to stress. Subjects: Subjects ranged from 48-84 years old, including one male with CVA history & one female with CVA history s/p thyroidectomy. Materials/Methods: Every day for 12 weeks, participants completed stress and spasticity inventories. Stress was measured with a visual analog stress scale (VASS) and spasticity with a visual analog functional scale (VAFS) assessing the degree of difficulty to execute a standard daily task due to spasticity severity. Quantitative criteria were established defining days of peak stress and days of peak spasticity. Final temporal relationship results between stress and spasticity were analyzed with serial lag correlations for 0-12 day lags. Results: After 12 weeks of data collection, the male manifested a significant correlation to spasticity related function ten days after criterion peak stress days. Serial lag analysis on peak stress days for this person revealed a 70% correlation supporting a 10-day impact on peak spasticity. The female subject revealed one event in spasticity-related function 10 days after peak stress event, which yields an insignificant 10-day lag correlation of 9.1%. This subject, with history of thyroidectomy, reports taking daily administration of levothyroxine. Consequently, her results are not surprising, since her HTP pathway cannot be influenced by stress. Conclusions: Based on results, evidence supports an increase in CVA-related spasticity ten days after high stress episodes. This relationship was not observed in our female subject s/p thyroidectomy, lending inverse support to the hypothesis that latent ten-day effects may be due to the HPT axis. Clinical Relevance: Patients and therapists frequently are at a loss to explain episodic elevations in spasticity severity. If a consistent temporal relationship between stress and spasticity is confirmed, it would give caregivers, patients, and therapists insight into understanding and predicting episodes of decreased function following high stress days

XO-2b: a hot Jupiter with a variable host star that potentially affects its measured transit depth

The transiting hot Jupiter XO-2b is an ideal target for multi-object photometry and spectroscopy as it has a relatively bright ($V$-mag = 11.25) K0V host star (XO-2N) and a large planet-to-star contrast ratio (R$_{p}$/R$_{s}\approx0.015$). It also has a nearby (31.21") binary stellar companion (XO-2S) of nearly the same brightness ($V$-mag = 11.20) and spectral type (G9V), allowing for the characterization and removal of shared systematic errors (e.g., airmass brightness variations). We have therefore conducted a multiyear (2012--2015) study of XO-2b with the University of Arizona's 61" (1.55~m) Kuiper Telescope and Mont4k CCD in the Bessel U and Harris B photometric passbands to measure its Rayleigh scattering slope to place upper limits on the pressure-dependent radius at, e.g., 10~bar. Such measurements are needed to constrain its derived molecular abundances from primary transit observations. We have also been monitoring XO-2N since the 2013--2014 winter season with Tennessee State University's Celestron-14 (0.36~m) automated imaging telescope to investigate stellar variability, which could affect XO-2b's transit depth. Our observations indicate that XO-2N is variable, potentially due to {cool star} spots, {with a peak-to-peak amplitude of $0.0049 \pm 0.0007$~R-mag and a period of $29.89 \pm 0.16$~days for the 2013--2014 observing season and a peak-to-peak amplitude of $0.0035 \pm 0.0007$~R-mag and $27.34 \pm 0.21$~day period for the 2014--2015 observing season. Because of} the likely influence of XO-2N's variability on the derivation of XO-2b's transit depth, we cannot bin multiple nights of data to decrease our uncertainties, preventing us from constraining its gas abundances. This study demonstrates that long-term monitoring programs of exoplanet host stars are crucial for understanding host star variability.Comment: published in ApJ, 9 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables; updated figures with more ground-based monitoring, added more citations to previous work

A survey to evaluate the association of COVID-19 restrictions on perceived mood and coping in Australian community level athletes

Australian community level athletes faced unprecedented changes to their training andcompetition options as the global COVID-19 pandemic took a stronghold. This disruptionwas predicted to have a negative impact on emotional well-being as communitiesbraced through periods of social isolation and physical distancing requirements. Thisstudy provides an Australian perspective on the emotional well-being of communitylevel athletes and the extent to which they coped during the COVID-19 pandemic.Emotional well-being and coping were measured using the Brief Emotional ExperienceScale and the 28-item Brief Cope Scale. Both instruments were administered alongwith other questions pertaining to participant demographics and training status via anonline survey between April and June 2020. The survey was disseminated to communityathletes through word-of-mouth and social media platforms. No significant differencesin emotional well-being were observed between athlete groups as a result of COVID-19and its associated restrictions. Coping scores also appeared to be preserved in Australiancommunity athletes, which contrasts the impact expected asa result of the COVID-19pandemic. While tentative, the observed preservation in coping may have bufferedpotential declines in emotional well-being, which has beendocumented in professionaland semi-professional athletes and the general population. These unexpected findingsand tentative suppositions warrant further investigationand highlight the importance ofconducting a country- or region-specific approach to examining the impact of COVID-19on community athletes, as responses to COVID-19 are undoubtedly not consistentthroughout the world

Correction: Whole-blood expression of inflammasome- and glucocorticoid-related mRNAs correctly separates treatment-resistant depressed patients from drug-free and responsive patients in the BIODEP study

We have corrected this Article post-publication, because Dr. Cattaneo’s affiliation details were originally incorrect (she was affiliated with three institutions but is in fact only linked to one: Biological Psychiatry Unit, IRCCS Istituto Centro San Giovanni di Dio Fatebenefratelli, Brescia). These changes reflect in both the PDF and HTML versions of this Article

Natural Variation in Decision-Making Behavior in Drosophila melanogaster

There has been considerable recent interest in using Drosophila melanogaster to investigate the molecular basis of decision-making behavior. Deciding where to place eggs is likely one of the most important decisions for a female fly, as eggs are vulnerable and larvae have limited motility. Here, we show that many natural genotypes of D. melanogaster prefer to lay eggs near nutritious substrate, rather than in nutritious substrate. These preferences are highly polymorphic in both degree and direction, with considerable heritability (0.488) and evolvability

Fabrication of sub-5 nm uniform zirconium oxide films on corrugated copper substrates by a scalable polymer brush assisted deposition method

We demonstrate a polymer brush assisted approach for the fabrication of continuous zirconium oxide (ZrO2) films over large areas with high uniformity (pin-hole free) on copper (Cu) substrates. This approach involves the use of a thiol-terminated polymethyl methacrylate brush (PMMA-SH) as the template layer for the selective infiltration of zirconium oxynitrate (ZrN2O7). The preparation of a highly uniform covalently grafted polymer monolayer on the Cu substrate is the critical factor in fabricating a metal oxide film of uniform thickness across the surface. Infiltration is reliant on the chemical interactions between the polymer functional group and the metal precursor. A following reductive H2 plasma treatment process results in ZrO2 film formation whilst the surface Cu2O passive oxide layer was reduced to a Cu/Cu2O interface. Fundamental analysis of the infiltration process and the resulting ZrO2 film was determined by XPS, and GA-FTIR. Results derived from these techniques confirm the inclusion of the ZrN2O7 into the polymer films. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray mapping analysis corroborate the formation of ZrO2 layer at Cu substrate. We believe that this quick and facile methodology to prepare ZrO2 films is potentially scalable to other high-κ dielectric materials of high interest in microelectronic applications

mRNA vaccine boosting enhances antibody responses against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in individuals with antibody deficiency syndromes

Individuals with primary antibody deficiency (PAD) syndromes have poor humoral immune responses requiring immunoglobulin replacement therapy. We followed individuals with PAD after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccination by evaluating their immunoglobulin replacement products and serum for anti-spike binding, Fcγ receptor (FcγR) binding, and neutralizing activities. The immunoglobulin replacement products tested have low anti-spike and receptor-binding domain (RBD) titers and neutralizing activity. In coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-naive individuals with PAD, anti-spike and RBD titers increase after mRNA vaccination but wane by 90 days. Those vaccinated after SARS-CoV-2 infection develop higher and more sustained responses comparable with healthy donors. Most vaccinated individuals with PAD have serum-neutralizing antibody titers above an estimated correlate of protection against ancestral SARS-CoV-2 and Delta virus but not against Omicron virus, although this is improved by boosting. Thus, some immunoglobulin replacement products likely have limited protective activity, and immunization and boosting of individuals with PAD with mRNA vaccines should confer at least short-term immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron

SARS-CoV-2 booster vaccination rescues attenuated IgG1 memory B cell response in primary antibody deficiency patients

BACKGROUND: Although SARS-CoV-2 vaccines have proven effective in eliciting a protective immune response in healthy individuals, their ability to induce a durable immune response in immunocompromised individuals remains poorly understood. Primary antibody deficiency (PAD) syndromes are among the most common primary immunodeficiency disorders in adults and are characterized by hypogammaglobulinemia and impaired ability to mount robust antibody responses following infection or vaccination. METHODS: Here, we present an analysis of both the B and T cell response in a prospective cohort of 30 individuals with PAD up to 150 days following initial COVID-19 vaccination and 150 days post mRNA booster vaccination. RESULTS: After the primary vaccination series, many of the individuals with PAD syndromes mounted SARS-CoV-2 specific memory B and CD4 CONCLUSION: Together, these data indicate that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines elicit memory B and T cells in most PAD patients and highlights the importance of booster vaccination in immunodeficient individuals

Lysozyme transgenic goats’ milk positively impacts intestinal cytokine expression and morphology

In addition to its well-recognized antimicrobial properties, lysozyme can also modulate the inflammatory response. This ability may be particularly important in the gastrointestinal tract where inappropriate inflammatory reactions can damage the intestinal epithelium, leading to significant health problems. The consumption of milk from transgenic goats producing human lysozyme (hLZ) in their milk therefore has the potential to positively impact intestinal health. In order to investigate the effect of hLZ-containing milk on the inflammatory response, young pigs were fed pasteurized milk from hLZ or non-transgenic control goats and quantitative real-time PCR was performed to assess local expression of TNF-α, IL-8, and TGF-β1 in the small intestine. Histological changes were also investigated, specifically looking at villi width, length, crypt depth, and lamina propria thickness along with cell counts for intraepithelial lymphocytes and goblet cells. Significantly higher expression of anti-inflammatory cytokine TGF-β1 was seen in the ileum of pigs fed pasteurized milk containing hLZ (P = 0.0478), along with an increase in intraepithelial lymphocytes (P = 0.0255), and decrease in lamina propria thickness in the duodenum (P = 0.0001). Based on these results we conclude that consuming pasteurized milk containing hLZ does not induce an inflammatory response and improves the health of the small intestine in pigs