Older adults’ beliefs about forgetting and aging predict memory self-efficacy above and beyond actual memory performance and mental health

International audienc

Evaluating short-term and working memory in older adults : french normative data

Short-term and working memory (WM) capacities are subject to change with ageing, both in normal older adults and in patients with degenerative or non-degenerative neurological disease. Few normative data are available for comparisons of short-term and WM capacities in the verbal, spatial and visual domains. To provide researchers and clinicians with a set of standardised tasks that assess short-term and WM using verbal and visuospatial materials, and to present normative data for that set of tasks. The present study compiled normative French data for three short-term memory tasks (verbal, visual and spatial simple span tasks) and two WM tasks (verbal and spatial complex span tasks) obtained from 445 healthy older adults aged between 55 and 85 years. Our data reveal main effects of age, education level and gender on older adults’ short-term and WM performances. Equation-based normalisation can therefore be used to take these factors into account. The results provide a set of cut-off scores for five standardised tasks that can be used to determine the presence of short-term or WM impairment in older adults

The biocontrol strategy based on the hatching stimulation of Heterodera carotae is influenced by the soil microbiota selected by previous crops

International audienceCyst nematodes are major crop pests, causing severe economic losses for farmers. Among the pest management alternatives, the suicide hatching strategy, which aims to mislead the nematode by using host specific root exudates, has already proved its efficiency on several cyst nematodes including Heterodera carotae. However, previous studies have highlighted several constraints, one of which being the impact of soil microbial communities on suicide hatching efficiency. Indeed, plants secrete root exudates to recruit beneficial microorganisms which provide major ecological functions and help the plants to face biotic and abiotic stresses. Root exudates are thus a signal recognized by microorganisms in the soil but also by cyst nematodes to begin their parasitic cycle. In this study, we assessed the efficiency of the suicide hatching strategy depending on its positioning inthe agronomic system. Indeed, potential variations in efficiency are expected due to the specific composition of the soil microbiota selected by the different plant species likely to be cultivated in rotation with the carrot. To do so, we first grew for 3 cycles of 3 weeks, under controlled conditions, three plants (leek, turnip and barley) usually cultivated with the carrot, in 2 distinct soils (sandy and muddy soil). Bags containing 12 H. carotae cysts were added to these microbial-enriched soils before applying the biocontrol solution (carrot root exudate) at two doses and in the presence or absence of the corresponding plant to compare the hatching efficiency of an application of the product during or following the cultivation. At the end of the experiment, we calculated the hatching rate and analysed the soil microbiota composition and structure using a metabarcoding approach targeting bacteria and fungi. We clearly demonstrated a specialisation of the soil microbiota depending on the rotation plant at the end of the 3 cycles of growth. Moreover, in the sandy soil, we observed clear patterns with a greater hatching rate when the plant is present compared to the bare soil and the highest rate when the barley is cultivated. Further statistical analyses should enable us to attribute or not the hatching rate variations to the microbial communities and to identify favourable and/or unfavourable microorganisms specific to the barley or to the leek, respectively. Taken together, our results will allow us to propose the best positioning of the biocontrol product in the technical itinerary by considering the soil microbiota

Transient abdominal telangiectasia of the newborn

International audienc

Reverse Phenotyping in Patients with Skin Capillary Malformations and Mosaic GNAQ or GNA11 Mutations Defines a Clinical Spectrum with Genotype-Phenotype Correlation

International audienceNo abstract availabl

Environnement et santé : où en est la géographie ?

L’actualité nous rappelle l’importance du lien entre santé et environnement. L’épidémie d’ébola, qui s’est déclenchée en Afrique de l’ouest en 2013-14, est un exemple déterminant de ce lien entre environnement et santé. La géographie, discipline où l’interaction entre l’homme et le milieu naturel offre un angle de réflexion inédit sur cette question, permet de découvrir une vision globalisée des maladies et de l’accès aux soins au niveau d’une population et donc d’un territoire, du local à l’international, de l’infection à la pandémie. Les auteurs s’interrogent donc, dans cette ouvrage tout en couleur (richement illustré de photos et de cartes), sur le rôle de la géographie dans la compréhension de l’évolution des maladies, bactéries, virus, de leurs expansions. Ils essaient d’expliquer comment mettre en place des solutions sanitaires acceptables par les populations. Dans ce livre sont traités la crise ébola 2013-2014, les trypanosomiases ou maladies du sommeil, les diarrhées infectieuses, le paludisme… mais aussi les inégalités de soin, la vulnérabilité des populations face aux risques de santé en France, en Europe et dans les pays de la ceinture tropicale

A non-coding function of TYRP1 mRNA promotes melanoma growth

International audienceCompetition among RNAs to bind miRNA is proposed to influence biological systems. However, the role of this competition in disease onset is unclear. Here, we report that TYRP1 mRNA, in addition to encoding tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1), indirectly promotes cell proliferation by sequestering miR-16 on non-canonical miRNA response elements. Consequently, the sequestered miR-16 is no longer able to repress its mRNA targets, such as RAB17, which is involved in melanoma cell proliferation and tumour growth. Restoration of miR-16 tumour-suppressor function can be achieved in vitro by silencing TYRP1 or increasing miR-16 expression. Importantly, TYRP1-dependent miR-16 sequestration can also be overcome in vivo by using small oligonucleotides that mask miR-16-binding sites on TYRP1 mRNA. Together, our findings assign a pathogenic non-coding function to TYRP1 mRNA and highlight miRNA displacement as a promising targeted therapeutic approach for melanoma