That\u27s All One Mother Can Do

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/6418/thumbnail.jp

Tiger Rose

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp/6378/thumbnail.jp

Regular, brief mindfulness meditation practice improves electrophysiological markers of attentional control

Mindfulness-based meditation practices involve various attentional skills, including the ability to sustain and focus ones attention. During a simple mindful breathing practice, sustained attention is required to maintain focus on the breath while cognitive control is required to detect mind wandering. We thus hypothesized that regular, brief mindfulness training would result in improvements in the self-regulation of attention and foster changes in neuronal activity related to attentional control. A longitudinal randomized control group EEG study was conducted. At baseline (T1), 40 meditation naïve participants were randomized into a wait list group and a meditation group, who received three hours mindfulness meditation training. Twenty-eight participants remained in the final analysis. At T1, after eight weeks (T2) and after 16 weeks (T3), all participants performed a computerized Stroop task (a measure of attentional control) while the 64-channel EEG was recorded. Between T1 and T3 the meditators were requested to meditate daily for 10 min. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis highlighted two between group effects that developed over the course of the 16-week mindfulness training. An early effect at left and right posterior sites 160–240 ms post-stimulus indicated that meditation practice improved the focusing of attentional resources. A second effect at central posterior sites 310–380 ms post-stimulus reflects that meditation practice reduced the recruitment of resources during object recognition processes, especially for incongruent stimuli. Scalp topographies and source analyses (Variable Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography, VARETA) indicate relevant changes in neural sources, pertaining to left medial and lateral occipitotemporal areas for the early effect and right lateral occipitotemporal and inferior temporal areas for the later effect. The results suggest that mindfulness meditation may alter the efficiency of allocating cognitive resources, leading to improved self-regulation of attention

Wagon Wheels / music by Peter De Rose; words by Billy Hill

Cover: a photo of Everett Marshall; Publisher: Shapiro Bernstein and Co. (New York)https://egrove.olemiss.edu/sharris_e/1033/thumbnail.jp

Comparison of colorimetric analyses to determine cortisol in human sweat

Colorimetric analysis, which relies on a chemical reaction to facilitate a change in visible color, is a great strategy for detecting cortisol, which is necessary to diagnose and manage the wide variety of diseases related to the hormone, because it is simple in design, inexpensive, and reliable as a standard cortisol analysis technique. In this study, four different colorimetric cortisol analyses that use various chromogens, which include sulfuric acid, Porter−Silber reagent, Prussian blue, and blue tetrazolium, are studied. Modifications to the classic Porter−Silber method are made by increasing the carbon content of the alcohol and adding gold nanoparticles, which result in a twofold increase in reaction rate and a slight decrease in the limit of detection (LoD). After a comparison of the reaction rate, LoD, dynamic range, characteristic peaks, and color stability of all methods, blue tetrazolium demonstrates a low LoD (97 ng/mL), broad dynamic range (0.05−2 μg/mL), and quick reaction rate (color development as fast as 10 min), which are well within the requirements for human biofluids. Cortisol in artificial saliva and sweat and in human sweat was determined while confirming that no excipients or other biomarkers interfered with the reactions. Twenty-one human sweat samples were tested using blue tetrazolium and revealed a significant difference between male and female apocrine cortisol concentrations and showed a highly significant difference between apocrine and eccrine cortisol concentrations. Colorimetric methods of cortisol can compete with existing electrochemical sensors because of their similar accuracy and detection range in certain wearable biosensor applications. The simplicity of colorimetric methods advances potential applications in skin-interfaced bio-electronics and point-of-care devices

Can the Desiccation of Great Salt Lake be Stopped?

Great Salt Lake is a terminal lake, with its watershed in the Wasatch and Uinta Mountains of Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. Like all terminal lakes, the water inflows are balanced only by evaporative loss from its surface—when inflows decrease the lake shrinks until evaporation matches that inflow

A metabolomic, geographic, and seasonal analysis of the contribution of pollen-derived adenosine to allergic sensitization

Background Studies on ragweed and birch pollen extracts suggested that the adenosine content is an important factor in allergic sensitization. However, exposure levels from other pollens and considerations of geographic and seasonal factors have not been evaluated. Objective This study compared the metabolite profile of pollen species important for allergic disease, specifically measured the adenosine content, and evaluated exposure to pollen-derived adenosine. Methods An NMR metabolomics approach was used to measure metabolite concentrations in twenty-six pollen extracts. Pollen count data was analyzed from five cities to model exposure. Results A principal component analysis of the various metabolites identified by NMR showed that pollen extracts could be differentiated primarily by sugar content: glucose, fructose, sucrose, and myo-inositol. In extracts of 10 mg of pollen/ml, the adenosine was highest for grasses (45 μM) followed by trees (23 μM) and weeds (19 μM). Pollen count data showed that tree pollen was typically 5–10 times the amount of other pollens. At the daily peaks of tree, grass, and weed season the pollen-derived adenosine exposure per day is likely to only be 1.1, 0.11, and 0.12 μg, respectively. Seasonal models of pollen exposure and respiration suggest that it would be a rare event limited to tree pollen season for concentrations of pollen-derived adenosine to approach physiological levels. Conclusions Sugar content and other metabolites may be useful in classifying pollens. Unless other factors create localized exposures that are very different from these models, pollen-derived adenosine is unlikely to be a major factor in allergic sensitization

Sweat and saliva cortisol response to stress and nutrition factors

Cortisol is a biomarker for stress monitoring; however, the biomedical and clinical relevance is still controversial due to the complexity of cortisol secretion mechanisms and their circadian cycles as well as environmental factors that afect physiological cortisol level, which include individual mood and dietary intake. To further investigate this multifaceted relationship, a human pilot study examined cortisol concentration in sweat and saliva samples collected from 48 college-aged participants during aerobic exercise sessions along with mental distress and nutrition surveys. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays determined highly signifcant diferences between apocrine-dominant sweat (AP), saliva before exercise (SBE), and saliva after exercise (SAE) cortisol concentration (AP-SBE: p = 0.0017, AP-SAE: p = 0.0102). A signifcantly greater AP cortisol concentration was detected in males compared to females (p = 0.0559), and signifcant SAE cortisol concentration diferences were also recorded between recreational athletes and non-athletes (p= 0.044). However, Kessler 10 Psychological Distress Scale (K10) scores, an examination administered to deduce overall wellness, provided no signifcant diferences between males and females or athletes and non-athletes in distress levels, which statistically signifes a direct relationship to cortisol was not present. For further analysis, dietary intake from all participants was considered to investigate whether a multiplexed association was prevalent between nutrition, mood, and cortisol release. Signifcant positive correlations between AP cortisol, SAE cortisol, K10 scores, and fat intake among female participants and athletes were discovered. The various machine learning algorithms utilized the extensive connections between dietary intake, overall well-being, sex factors, athletic activity, and cortisol concentrations in various biofuids to predict K10 scores. Indeed, the understanding of physiochemical stress response and the associations between studied factors can advance algorithm developments for cortisol biosensing systems to mitigate stress-based illnesses and improve an individual’s quality of life