Growth from birth to 6 months of infants with and without intrauterine preeclampsia exposure

Intrauterine preeclampsia exposure affects the lifelong cardiometabolic health of the child. Our study aimed to compare the growth (from birth to 6 months) of infants exposed to either a normotensive pregnancy or preeclampsia and explore the influence of being born small for gestational age (SGA). Participants were children of women participating in the Post-partum, Physiology, Psychology and Paediatric follow-up cohort study. Birth and 6-month weight and length z-scores were calculated for term and preterm (<37 weeks) babies, and change in weight z-score, rapid weight gain (≥0.67 increase in weight z-score) and conditional weight gain z-score were calculated. Compared with normotensive exposed infants (n = 298), preeclampsia exposed infants (n = 84) were more likely to be born SGA (7% versus 23%; P < 0.001), but weight gain from birth to 6 months, by any measure, did not differ between groups. Infants born SGA, irrespective of pregnancy exposure, were more likely to have rapid weight gain and had greater increases in weight z-score compared with those not born SGA. Preeclampsia exposed infants born SGA may benefit from interventions designed to prevent future cardiometabolic disease

Effects of Place of Articulation Changes on Auditory Neural Activity: A Magnetoencephalography Study

In casual speech, phonemic segments often assimilate such that they adopt features from adjacent segments, a typical feature being their place of articulation within the vocal tract (e.g., labial, coronal, velar). Place assimilation (e.g., from coronal /n/ to labial /m/: rainbow→*raimbow) alters the surface form of words. Listeners' ability to perceptually compensate for such changes seems to depend on the phonemic context, on whether the adjacent segment (e.g., the /b/ in “rainbow”) invites the particular change. Also, some assimilations occur frequently (e.g., /n/→/m/), others are rare (e.g., /m/→/n/). We investigated the effects of place assimilation, its contextual dependency, and its frequency on the strength of auditory evoked mismatch negativity (MMN) responses, using pseudowords. Results from magnetoencephalography (MEG) revealed that the MMN was modulated both by the frequency and contextual appropriateness of assimilations

Cell walls of the dimorphic fungal pathogens Sporothrix schenckii and Sporothrix brasiliensis exhibit bilaminate structures and sloughing of extensive and intact layers

This work was supported by the Fundação Carlos Chagas de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), grants E-26/202.974/2015 and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), grants 229755/2013-5, Brazil. LMLB is a senior research fellow of CNPq and Faperj. NG acknowledged support from the Wellcome Trust (Trust (097377, 101873, 200208) and MRC Centre for Medical Mycology (MR/N006364/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fungal iron availability during deep seated candidiasis is defined by a complex interplay involving systemic and local events

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Health system strengthening—Reflections on its meaning, assessment, and our state of knowledge

Sophie Witter - ORCID 0000-0002-7656-6188 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7656-6188Comprehensive reviews of health system strengthening (HSS) interventions are rare, partly because of lack of clarity on definitions of the term but also the potentially huge scale of the evidence. We reflect on the process of undertaking such an evidence review recently, drawing out suggestions on definitions of HSS and approaches to assessment, as well as summarising some key conclusions from the current evidence base. The key elements of a clear definition include, in our view, consideration of scope (with effects cutting across building blocks in practice, even if not in intervention design, and also tackling more than one disease), scale (having national reach and cutting across levels of the system), sustainability (effects being sustained over time and addressing systemic blockages), and effects (impacting on health outcomes, equity, financial risk protection, and responsiveness). We also argue that agreeing a framework for design and evaluation of HSS is urgent. Most HSS interventions have theories of change relating to specific system blocks, but more work is needed on capturing their spillover effects and their contribution to meeting overarching health system process goals. We make some initial suggestions about such goals, to reflect the features that characterise a “strong health system.” We highlight that current findings on “what works” are just indicative, given the limitations and biases in what has been studied and how, and argue that there is need to rethink evaluation methods for HSS beyond finite interventions and narrow outcomes. Clearer concepts, frameworks, and methods can support more coherent HSS investment.Department for International Development, Grant/Award Number: Supported by the ReBUILD and ReSYST RPCshttps://doi.org/10.1002/hpm.288234pubpub

Psychosocial factors and health as determinants of quality of life in community-dwelling older adults.

PURPOSE: It is important to understand the determinants of differences in quality of life in old age and to include a wide range of possible predictors. The present study investigated the determinants of quality of life in two groups of older adults for whom there was an unusually informative set of possible predictor variables. METHOD: Participants were members of the Lothian Birth Cohorts of 1921 (n = 550) or 1936 (n = 1,091). Four facets of quality of life (QoL) and general QoL were measured using the WHOQOL-BREF. Possible determinants included personality traits, measured with the International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) scales; childhood and old age general cognitive ability, measured with the Moray House Test; minor psychological symptoms, measured with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS); physical health, assessed by grip strength and cardiovascular disease history; and sociodemographic factors, assessed by interview. RESULTS: Linear regression analyses revealed that HADS depression had the greatest influence on quality of life. Personality traits, most notably Emotional Stability, also predicted quality of life to varying degrees, along with factors reflecting current life circumstances. There were differences between the two cohorts in the variables which predicted quality of life. There were different, conceptually relevant, contributions to the different QoL facets. CONCLUSIONS: Personality traits and minor depressive symptoms have an important influence on self-reported quality of life in old age. Quality of life may be influenced more by current than past circumstances, and this relationship may change with age

Measurement of pharyngeal sensory cortical processing: technique and physiologic implications

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Dysphagia is a major complication of different diseases affecting both the central and peripheral nervous system. Pharyngeal sensory impairment is one of the main features of neurogenic dysphagia. Therefore an objective technique to examine the cortical processing of pharyngeal sensory input would be a helpful diagnostic tool in this context. We developed a simple paradigm to perform pneumatic stimulation to both sides of the pharyngeal wall. Whole-head MEG was employed to study changes in cortical activation during this pharyngeal stimulation in nine healthy subjects. Data were analyzed by means of synthetic aperture magnetometry (SAM) and the group analysis of individual SAM data was performed using a permutation test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results revealed bilateral activation of the caudolateral primary somatosensory cortex following sensory pharyngeal stimulation with a slight lateralization to the side of stimulation.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The method introduced here is simple and easy to perform and might be applicable in the clinical setting. The results are in keeping with previous findings showing bihemispheric involvement in the complex task of sensory pharyngeal processing. They might also explain changes in deglutition after hemispheric strokes. The ipsilaterally lateralized processing is surprising and needs further investigation.</p

Male Choice in the Stream-Anadromous Stickleback Complex

Studies of mating preferences and pre-mating reproductive isolation have often focused on females, but the potential importance of male preferences is increasingly appreciated. We investigated male behavior in the context of reproductive isolation between divergent anadromous and stream-resident populations of threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, using size-manipulated females of both ecotypes. Specifically, we asked if male courtship preferences are present, and if they are based on relative body size, non-size aspects of ecotype, or other traits. Because male behaviors were correlated with each other, we conducted a principal components analysis on the correlations and ran subsequent analyses on the principal components. The two male ecotypes differed in overall behavioral frequencies, with stream-resident males exhibiting consistently more vigorous and positive courtship than anadromous males, and an otherwise aggressive behavior playing a more positive role in anadromous than stream-resident courtship. We observed more vigorous courtship toward smaller females by (relatively small) stream-resident males and the reverse pattern for (relatively large) anadromous males. Thus size-assortative male courtship preferences may contribute to reproductive isolation in this system, although preferences are far from absolute. We found little indication of males responding preferentially to females of their own ecotype independent of body size

A chicken bioreactor for efficient production of functional cytokines

The global market for protein drugs has the highest compound annual growth rate of any pharmaceutical class but their availability, especially outside of the US market, is compromised by the high cost of manufacture and validation compared to traditional chemical drugs. Improvements in transgenic technologies allow valuable proteins to be produced by genetically-modified animals; several therapeutic proteins from such animal bioreactors are already on the market after successful clinical trials and regulatory approval. Chickens have lagged behind mammals in bioreactor development, despite a number of potential advantages, due to the historic difficulty in producing transgenic birds, but the production of therapeutic proteins in egg white of transgenic chickens would substantially lower costs across the entire production cycle compared to traditional cell culture-based production systems. This could lead to more affordable treatments and wider markets, including in developing countries and for animal health applications. Here we report the efficient generation of new transgenic chicken lines to optimize protein production in eggs. As proof-of-concept, we describe the expression, purification and functional characterization of three pharmaceutical proteins, the human cytokine interferon α2a and two species-specific Fc fusions of the cytokine CSF1. Our work optimizes and validates a transgenic chicken system for the cost-effective production of pure, high quality, biologically active protein for therapeutics and other applications

Associations between level and change in physical function and brain volumes

Higher levels of fitness or physical function are positively associated with cognitive outcomes but the potential underlying mechanisms via brain structure are still to be elucidated in detail. We examined associations between brain structure and physical function (contemporaneous and change over the previous three years) in community-dwelling older adults.Participants from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936 (N=694) underwent brain MRI at age 73 years to assess intracranial volume, and the volumes of total brain tissue, ventricles, grey matter, normal-appearing white matter, and white matter lesions. At ages 70 and 73, physical function was assessed by 6-meter walk, grip strength, and forced expiratory volume. A summary 'physical function factor' was derived from the individual measures using principal components analysis. Performance on each individual physical function measure declined across the three year interval (p<0.001). Higher level of physical function at ages 70 and 73 was associated with larger total brain tissue and white matter volumes, and smaller ventricular and white matter lesion volumes (standardized β ranged in magnitude from 0.07 to 0.17, p<0.001 to 0.034). Decline in physical function from age 70 to 73 was associated with smaller white matter volume (0.08, p<0.01, though not after correction for multiple testing), but not with any other brain volumetric measurements.Physical function was related to brain volumes in community-dwelling older adults: declining physical function was associated with less white matter tissue. Further study is required to explore the detailed mechanisms through which physical function might influence brain structure, and vice versa