Serum microRNA profiles in athyroid patients on and off levothyroxine therapy

Background Levothyroxine replacement treatment in hypothyroidism is unable to restore physiological thyroxine and triiodothyronine concentrations in serum and tissues completely. Normal serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) concentrations reflect only pituitary euthyroidism and, therefore, novel biomarkers representing tissue-specific thyroid state are needed. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), small non-coding regulatory RNAs, exhibit tissue-specific expression patterns and can be detectable in serum. Previous studies have demonstrated differential expression of (precursors of) miRNAs in tissues under the influence of thyroid hormone. Objective To study if serum miRNA profiles are changed in different thyroid states. Design and methods We studied 13 athyroid patients (6 males) during TSH suppressive therapy and after 4 weeks of thyroid hormone withdrawal. A magnetic bead capture system was used to isolate 384 defined miRNAs from serum. Subsequently, the TaqMan Array Card 3.0 platform was used for profiling after individual target amplification. Results Mean age of the subjects was 44.0 years (range 20–61 years). Median TSH levels were 88.9 mU/l during levothyroxine withdrawal and 0.006 mU/l during LT4 treatment with a median dosage of 2.1 μg/kg. After normalization to allow inter-sample analysis, a paired analysis did not demonstrate a significant difference in expression of any of the 384 miRNAs analyzed on and off LT4 treatment

A qualitative investigation into the characteristics and effects of music accompanying exercise

The purpose of the present study was to identify the characteristics of music used to accompany physical exercise and investigate the effects of such music using a qualitative approach. This work underpins the further development of a theoretical structure that is still relatively new. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a sample of exercise participants (N = 13), seven males and six females, all with at least two years’ experience of exercising to music. An inductive content analysis of the interview data was undertaken and results contrasted with the conceptual model developed by Karageorghis et al. (1999) which describes the effects of musical and cultural factors with reference to psychophysical outcomes. The findings demonstrated the importance of musical (e.g. rhythm, lyrics, bass), contextual (e.g. time of day) and individual factors (e.g. background, personality) in determining both shortterm (e.g. mood, imagery) and long-term outcomes (e.g. heightened work-rate, endurance). The findings point towards a more expansive conceptual framework. In particular, facets of the response to music such as flow state, cognitive responses, rhythm response and anticipation are discussed. Music perceived to be motivating could lead to increases in exercise intensity and endurance during performance of self-regulated tasks. These findings have implications for the use of music in physical education settings

Playing with sound: the therapeutic use of music in direct work with children

Children rarely have the language or the cognitive development to process and convey their experiences solely through words, so spontaneously complement these with symbolic forms of expression and communication, such as play, metaphor and a variety of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic imagery. Consequently, social workers need to supplement verbal methods of assessment and intervention with more symbolic modes of communication and engagement when working directly with children. The play therapy literature has been a key source of guidance and the expressive arts therapies, such as art and drama therapy, are now well represented in the literature and training of social workers in 'direct work with children'. However, principles and practice from music therapy are under-represented. The writer, who is a social worker, psychotherapist and musician, shares her reflections on introducing techniques and theoretical approaches from music therapy into her own therapeutically orientated direct work. Suggestions are made as to how other practitioners (both musically trained and not) could develop the use of music as a further 'tool' in their direct work with children

Extinction vulnerability in marine populations

Human impacts on the world's oceans have been substantial, leading to concerns about the extinction of marine taxa. We have compiled 133 local, regional and global extinctions of marine populations. There is typically a 53-year lag between the last sighting of an organism and the reported date of the extinction at whatever scale this has occurred. Most disappearances (80%) were detected using indirect historical comparative methods, which suggests that marine extinctions may have been underestimated because of low-detection power. Exploitation caused most marine losses at various scales (55%), followed closely by habitat loss (37%), while the remainder were linked to invasive species, climate change, pollution and disease. Several perceptions concerning the vulnerability of marine organisms appear to be too general and insufficiently conservative. Marine species cannot be considered less vulnerable on the basis of biological attributes such as high fecundity or large-scale dispersal characteristics. For commercially exploited species, it is often argued that economic extinction of exploited populations will occur before biological extinction, but this is not the case for non-target species caught in multispecies fisheries or species with high commercial value, especially if this value increases as species become rare. The perceived high potential for recovery, high variability and low extinction vulnerability of fish populations have been invoked to avoid listing commercial species of fishes under international threat criteria. However, we need to learn more about recovery, which may be hampered by negative population growth at small population sizes (Allee effect or depensation) or ecosystem shifts, as well as about spatial dynamics and connectivity of subpopulations before we can truly understand the nature of responses to severe depletions. The evidence suggests that fish populations do not fluctuate more than those of mammals, birds and butterflies, and that fishes may exhibit vulnerability similar to mammals, birds and butterflies. There is an urgent need for improved methods of detecting marine extinctions at various spatial scales, and for predicting the vulnerability of species