Stress and coping in a sample of medical students in Brazil

Background Medical training is a stressing situation, making medical students vulnerable to psychiatric disorders, such as depression and anxiety. Objective The study aimed to assess the prevalence of stress and coping in students of a public medical school in Brazil, comparing the groups from the first and sixth years of training. Methods Through a cross-sectional, observational study, a sample of 232 first and sixth-year regularly registered medical students has been evaluated. Students filled a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Lipp Inventory of Stress Symptoms (ISSL), and the Coping Strategies Inventory (CSI). Results From the total sample of 232 students, 110 were first-year students and 122 sixth-year students. Stress symptoms were significantly higher in first-year students (49.1%) than in the sixth-year group (33.6%; p = 0.018). Variables significantly associated with stress were: year of the training (1st year >; 6th year), income (lower >; higher income), satisfaction with the training (dissatisfied >; satisfied) and the use of escape/avoidance copying strategy (positive association). Discussion Considering the higher stress symptoms among first-year medical students and the positive association of the escape/avoidance copying strategy with stress, strategies must be developed to enable students starting medical school to be better at coping with this stressful situations

A multi-country test of brief reappraisal interventions on emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions globally. Left unchecked, these emotional changes might have a wide array of adverse impacts. To reduce negative emotions and increase positive emotions, we tested the effectiveness of reappraisal, an emotion-regulation strategy that modifies how one thinks about a situation. Participants from 87 countries and regions (n = 21,644) were randomly assigned to one of two brief reappraisal interventions (reconstrual or repurposing) or one of two control conditions (active or passive). Results revealed that both reappraisal interventions (vesus both control conditions) consistently reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions across different measures. Reconstrual and repurposing interventions had similar effects. Importantly, planned exploratory analyses indicated that reappraisal interventions did not reduce intentions to practice preventive health behaviours. The findings demonstrate the viability of creating scalable, low-cost interventions for use around the world

Les clefs moléculaires de la fertilité mâle

Article de présentation de projet

Proteomics of semen for fertility prediction in poultry

International audienc

Thermal manipulations to improve thermotolerance in avian species: conditions, effects and epigenetic mechanisms involved

International audienc

Chicken semen cryopreservation: importance of cryoprotectants

International audienceSperm cryopreservation is an important strategy to conserve animal genetic diversity and transmit superior genetic background, facilitated by a non-invasive sampling and collection of large amounts of sperm. In chickens, various freezing protocols and cryoprotectants (CPAs) have been developed to freeze sperm, but each lab still debates and competes to disclose the most suitable freezing conditions. Many key points, such as semen donor selection, collection tips, diluent compositions, CPA selection, pre-freezing manipulation, semen packaging type, freezing and thawing rates, are all impactful to the efficiency of chicken sperm cryopreservation. Whereas glycerol is believed as the most efficient and the less toxic CPA, it also presents an unwanted contraceptive effect after insemination. Thus, one of the major developed strategies to conquer this issue is removing glycerol before insemination, but current protocols remain not efficient to completely abolish glycerol contraceptive effect. Novel methodologies will bring us a better understanding of the cellular and molecular mechanisms involved in sperm cryobiology to decipher the challenges of chicken sperm cryopreservation

Extraction des ARNs spermatique dans les espèces aviaires

International audienc

Beneficial effect of low dose docosahexaenoic acid during IVM on oocyte developmental potential and impact on cumulus cell transcriptome in cattle

National audienc

FFAR4 is involved in docosahexaenoic acid effects on oocyte developmental potential during in vitro maturation

Besides affecting uterine environment, a direct effect of n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PU-FA) on the oocyte could enhance fertility. We previously showed that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6 n-3, Sigma), when provided during in vitro maturation (IVM), improved oocyte developmental competence through possible effects on cytoplasm but not nuclear maturation and without affecting lipid metabolism gene expression in cumulus cells (CC) (Oseikria et al Theriogenology 85:1625-1634. 2016). DHA could act through several mechanisms of action: i.e. via surface fatty acid receptors (free fatty acid receptor 1 or 4, FFAR1 and 4) or sensors involving PPAR or NFkB pathways; via changes in composition of cell membrane phospholi-pids; via production of eicosanoids… The aim of the present work was to investigate whether the FFAR4 was involved in the DHA effects previously reported on oocyte quality. We there-fore investigated the effect of a specific agonist of the FFAR4, TUG-891, on embryo deve-lopment after IVF. The response of surrounding CC to DHA or TUG treatment was also stu-died by gene expression analyses. Oocyte cumulus complexes were collected from slaughtered cows. The protein FFAR4 was first localized by immunohistochemistry, by using a cus-tomized antibody produced specifically against the bovine protein. FFAR4 is expressed in CC and localized close to the cellular membrane, as expected. After 22h IVM with or without DHA 1 µM or TUG 1 and 5 µM oocytes were subjected to in vitro fertilization (IVF) and in vitro development in modified synthetic oviduct fluid supplemented with 10% fetal calf serum for 7 days. At day 7, both blastocyst and expanded blastocyst rates were significantly increased with either DHA 1µM or TUG 1 or 5 µM (logistic regression, P < 0.05). In order to decipher the DHA mechanisms linked to oocyte developmental competence, we then investi-gated the common pathways of DHA and TUG actions. Microarray hybridization of CC after 4h IVM in the presence or absence of 1µM DHA was performed (n = 4 samples per condi-tion). A customized 60K bovine microarray (Agilent technology) including 97.4% of Ensembl Bos taurus transcripts was used (GEO accession: GPL21724). Only 14 differentially expres-sed genes varied more than two-fold and were enriched in gene ontologies related to regula-tion of translation, RNA splicing and spliceosome formation, oxidation/reduction, actin cy-toskeleton organization and vesicle-mediated transport. The kinetic of expression of these genes is currently characterized by qRT-PCR analysis on CC samples at 0, 4, 10 and 24h IVM with or without DHA 1 µM, TUG 1 or 5 µM. Altogether the IVF data suggest that DHA exert its effect partly through FFAR4 on oocyte developmental competence. Also, we are studying the common transcriptomic modulation between DHA and TUG to provide insights on its detailed mechanism of action