Quality of life and illness perception in working and sick-listed chronic RSI patients

OBJECTIVE: To study differences between working and sick-listed chronic repetitive strain injury (RSI) patients in the Netherlands with respect to indices of quality of life and illness perception. METHODS: In a cross-sectional design, one questionnaire was sent to all 3,250 members of the national RSI patient association. For descriptive purposes, demographics, work status and complaint-related variables such as severity, type, duration, and extent of complaints were asked for. Indices of quality of life were assessed through seven SF-36 subscales (physical (role) functioning, emotional role functioning, social functioning, pain, mental health and vitality). A work-ability estimate and VAS scales were used to assess complaint-related decrease in quality of life. Illness perception was assessed through the brief illness perception questionnaire (IPQ-B). Working patients and sick-listed patients were identified. Tests between the two independent groups were performed and P-values < 0.01 were considered significant. RESULTS: Data from 1,121 questionnaires were used. Two-thirds of the respondents worked and one-third were sick-listed. Average duration of complaints was over 5 years in both groups. The sick-listed patients reported significantly more severe and extensive complaints than did the working patients. In addition, sick-listed patients reported significantly poorer mental health, physical (role) functioning, emotional role functioning, pain, vitality, and work-ability. With respect to illness perception, both groups showed the same concerns about their complaints, but sick-listed patients had significantly more distorted perceptions in their emotional response, identity, treatment control, personal control, timeline, and life consequences. Complaint-related decrease in quality of life was 31% in the working patients and 49% in the sick-listed patients. CONCLUSION: The study found a greater number and severe complaints among sick-listed chronic RSI patients and a considerably decreased quality of life because of their complaints. These findings may allow for a better treatment focus in the futur

Dimensionality and dynamics in the behavior of C. elegans

A major challenge in analyzing animal behavior is to discover some underlying simplicity in complex motor actions. Here we show that the space of shapes adopted by the nematode C. elegans is surprisingly low dimensional, with just four dimensions accounting for 95% of the shape variance, and we partially reconstruct "equations of motion" for the dynamics in this space. These dynamics have multiple attractors, and we find that the worm visits these in a rapid and almost completely deterministic response to weak thermal stimuli. Stimulus-dependent correlations among the different modes suggest that one can generate more reliable behaviors by synchronizing stimuli to the state of the worm in shape space. We confirm this prediction, effectively "steering" the worm in real time.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, minor correction

The transport and fate of microplastic fibres in the Antarctic: The role of multiple global processes

This is the final version. Available from Frontiers Media via the DOI in this record. Understanding the transport and accumulation of microplastics is useful to determine the relative risk they pose to global biodiversity. The exact contribution of microplastic sources is hard to elucidate; therefore, investigating the Antarctic Weddell Sea, an area known for its remoteness and little human presence (i.e. limited pollution sources), will help us to better understand microplastic transportation. Here, we investigate the presence of microplastics in a range of Antarctic sample media including air, seawater, and sediment. We hypothesised that multiple transportation processes including atmospheric and oceanic vectors determine the presence of microplastics in the Antarctic. Using techniques including Polarised Light Microscopy and Raman Spectrometry, we identified mostly fibres and categorised them based on their optical and chemical properties. A total of 47 individual microplastic categories (45 of which were fibres) were identified in the air, seawater, and sediment samples. The majority of categories did not overlap multiple media (42/47); however, four fibre categories were present in both air and water samples, and another fibre category was found in all three media (category 27). We suggest that the large variety of fibres identified and the overlap of fibre categories among media indicates that the pollution may result from multiple diffuse sources and transportation pathways. Additionally, our Air Mass Back Trajectory analyses demonstrates that microplastic fibres are being transported by air masses or wind, and strongly suggests that they are transported to the Antarctic from southern South America. We also propose that fibres may be transported into the Antarctic in subsurface waters, and as pollution was identified in our sediment and additional sea ice samples, we suggest that the coastal and Antarctic deep sea may be a sink for microplastic fibres. The results shown here from a remote, near-pristine system, further highlight the need for a global response to the plastic pollution crisis.Flotilla FoundationFlotilla FoundationSouth African National Research FoundationUniversity of Cape TownUniversity Research CouncilAfrican Academy of Sciences/Royal SocietyNekton Foundatio

Prior Mating Experience Modulates the Dispersal of Drosophila in Males More Than in Females

Cues from both an animal’s internal physiological state and its local environment may influence its decision to disperse. However, identifying and quantifying the causative factors underlying the initiation of dispersal is difficult in uncontrolled natural settings. In this study, we automatically monitored the movement of fruit flies and examined the influence of food availability, sex, and reproductive status on their dispersal between laboratory environments. In general, flies with mating experience behave as if they are hungrier than virgin flies, leaving at a greater rate when food is unavailable and staying longer when it is available. Males dispersed at a higher rate and were more active than females when food was unavailable, but tended to stay longer in environments containing food than did females. We found no significant relationship between weight and activity, suggesting the behavioral differences between males and females are caused by an intrinsic factor relating to the sex of a fly and not simply its body size. Finally, we observed a significant difference between the dispersal of the natural isolate used throughout this study and the widely-used laboratory strain, Canton-S, and show that the difference cannot be explained by allelic differences in the foraging gene

Representation of Time-Varying Stimuli by a Network Exhibiting Oscillations on a Faster Time Scale

Sensory processing is associated with gamma frequency oscillations (30–80 Hz) in sensory cortices. This raises the question whether gamma oscillations can be directly involved in the representation of time-varying stimuli, including stimuli whose time scale is longer than a gamma cycle. We are interested in the ability of the system to reliably distinguish different stimuli while being robust to stimulus variations such as uniform time-warp. We address this issue with a dynamical model of spiking neurons and study the response to an asymmetric sawtooth input current over a range of shape parameters. These parameters describe how fast the input current rises and falls in time. Our network consists of inhibitory and excitatory populations that are sufficient for generating oscillations in the gamma range. The oscillations period is about one-third of the stimulus duration. Embedded in this network is a subpopulation of excitatory cells that respond to the sawtooth stimulus and a subpopulation of cells that respond to an onset cue. The intrinsic gamma oscillations generate a temporally sparse code for the external stimuli. In this code, an excitatory cell may fire a single spike during a gamma cycle, depending on its tuning properties and on the temporal structure of the specific input; the identity of the stimulus is coded by the list of excitatory cells that fire during each cycle. We quantify the properties of this representation in a series of simulations and show that the sparseness of the code makes it robust to uniform warping of the time scale. We find that resetting of the oscillation phase at stimulus onset is important for a reliable representation of the stimulus and that there is a tradeoff between the resolution of the neural representation of the stimulus and robustness to time-warp. Author Summary Sensory processing of time-varying stimuli, such as speech, is associated with high-frequency oscillatory cortical activity, the functional significance of which is still unknown. One possibility is that the oscillations are part of a stimulus-encoding mechanism. Here, we investigate a computational model of such a mechanism, a spiking neuronal network whose intrinsic oscillations interact with external input (waveforms simulating short speech segments in a single acoustic frequency band) to encode stimuli that extend over a time interval longer than the oscillation's period. The network implements a temporally sparse encoding, whose robustness to time warping and neuronal noise we quantify. To our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate that a biophysically plausible model of oscillations occurring in the processing of auditory input may generate a representation of signals that span multiple oscillation cycles.National Science Foundation (DMS-0211505); Burroughs Wellcome Fund; U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Researc

Outcome of ATP-based tumor chemosensitivity assay directed chemotherapy in heavily pre-treated recurrent ovarian carcinoma

BACKGROUND: We wished to evaluate the clinical response following ATP-Tumor Chemosensitivity Assay (ATP-TCA) directed salvage chemotherapy in a series of UK patients with advanced ovarian cancer. The results are compared with that of a similar assay used in a different country in terms of evaluability and clinical endpoints. METHODS: From November 1998 to November 2001, 46 patients with pre-treated, advanced ovarian cancer were given a total of 56 courses of chemotherapy based on in-vitro ATP-TCA responses obtained from fresh tumor samples or ascites. Forty-four patients were evaluable for results. Of these, 18 patients had clinically platinum resistant disease (relapse < 6 months after first course of chemotherapy). There was evidence of cisplatin resistance in 31 patients from their first ATP-TCA. Response to treatment was assessed by radiology, clinical assessment and tumor marker level (CA 125). RESULTS: The overall response rate was 59% (33/56) per course of chemotherapy, including 12 complete responses, 21 partial responses, 6 with stable disease, and 15 with progressive disease. Two patients were not evaluable for response having received just one cycle of chemotherapy: if these were excluded the response rate is 61%. Fifteen patients are still alive. Median progression free survival (PFS) was 6.6 months per course of chemotherapy; median overall survival (OAS) for each patient following the start of TCA-directed therapy was 10.4 months (95% confidence interval 7.9-12.8 months). CONCLUSION: The results show similar response rates to previous studies using ATP-TCA directed therapy in recurrent ovarian cancer. The assay shows high evaluability and this study adds weight to the reproducibility of results from different centre

Comparing counselling alone versus counselling supplemented with guided use of a well-being app for university students experiencing anxiety or depression (CASELOAD): protocol for a feasibility trial.

BACKGROUND: University counselling services face a unique challenge to offer short-term therapeutic support to students presenting with complex mental health needs and in a setting which suits the academic timetable. The recent availability of mobile phone applications (apps) offers an opportunity to supplement face-to-face therapy and has the potential to reach a wider audience, maintain engagement between therapy sessions, and enhance therapeutic outcomes. The present study, entitled Counselling plus Apps for Students Experiencing Levels of Anxiety or Depression (CASELOAD), aims to explore the feasibility of supplementing counselling with guided use of a well-being app. METHODS/DESIGN: Forty help-seeking university students (aged 18 years and over) with symptoms of moderate anxiety or depression will be recruited from a University Counselling Service (UCS) in the United Kingdom (UK). Participants will be recruited via counsellors who provide the initial clinical assessment and who determine treatment allocation to one of two treatments on the basis of client-treatment fit. The two conditions comprise (1) counselling alone (treatment as usual/TAU) or (2) counselling supplemented with guided use of a well-being app (enhanced intervention). Trained counsellors will deliver up to six counselling sessions in each treatment arm across a 6-month period, and the session frequency will be decided by client-counsellor discussion. Assessments will occur at baseline, every counselling session, post-intervention (3 months after consent) and follow-up (6 months after consent). Assessments will include clinical measures of anxiety, depression, psychological functioning, specific mental health concerns (e.g. academic distress and substance misuse), resilience and therapeutic alliance. The usage, acceptability, feasibility and potential implications of combining counselling with guided use of the well-being app will be assessed through audio recordings of counselling sessions, telephone interviews with participants, focus groups with counsellors and counsellor notes. DISCUSSION: This study will inform the design of a randomised pilot trial and a definitive trial which aim to improve therapy engagement, reduce dropout and enhance clinical outcomes of student counselling. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN55102899