Health Insurance Coverage of Young Adults: Issues and Broader Considerations

Compares the 19-to-26 age group to others in terms of insurance status by income level, health, and citizenship; access to insurance; and attitudes toward insurance. Discusses reasons for the high uninsured rate, and recommends policy options

The Health Status of New Medicaid Enrollees Under Health Reform

Examines the demographic and health data of those newly eligible for Medicaid coverage, whether younger and healthier or older and less healthy than current enrollees, and how they will affect costs depending on participation rates

A Decade of Coverage Losses: Implications for the Affordable Care Act

Examines 2000-10 trends in employer-sponsored health insurance and Medicaid/CHIP coverage by income group; contributing factors, including a growing low-income population; and projected coverage among low-income adults under the 2010 healthcare reform

Reversing downstream consequences of school hiatus on reading in disadvantaged, at-risk children

The spread of COVID-19 has led to the disruption of K-12 education for about 90% of the world's student population. The effects on children's academic development are unknown. We examined how disruption in schooling over three consecutive summers in disadvantaged minority children affects reading and whether an intensive intervention can ameliorate these effects. Our data were collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. We applied Latent Change Score models to examine developmental trends in a longitudinal study of reading in 111 economically disadvantaged children, assessed biannually from grades 1 to 4, including 3 summers (for a total of 6 months of school hiatus). The students fell behind the normative population in their ability to understand written texts, a decrease in their relative percentile of 0.25 of a standard deviation each summer, and an effect 3-4 times greater than prior studies suggested. Compared to children in a comparison group, children who received an evidence-based intervention during the school year were better able to maintain their reading scores. These findings provide evidence that disruptions in schooling, for example, those implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19, may have a significant detrimental effect on the reading abilities of disadvantaged children and that children who received a reading intervention were better able to maintain their reading scores during the hiatus. It is critical that policy makers prioritize the allocation of necessary resources to minimize the negative effects on reading this pandemic has wrought on these most disadvantaged children.Support for the work reported in this article was provided by: The Seedlings Foundation. EE was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain (ref. PID2019-107570GAI00 / AEI / doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033

Corticotropin Releasing Factor-Induced CREB Activation in Striatal Neurons Occurs via a Novel Gβγ Signaling Pathway

The peptide corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) was initially identified as a critical component of the stress response. CRF exerts its cellular effects by binding to one of two cognate G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), CRF receptor 1 (CRFR1) or 2 (CRFR2). While these GPCRs were originally characterized as being coupled to Gαs, leading to downstream activation of adenylyl cyclase (AC) and subsequent increases in cAMP, it has since become clear that CRFRs couple to and activate numerous other downstream signaling cascades. In addition, CRF signaling influences the activity of many diverse brain regions, affecting a variety of behaviors. One of these regions is the striatum, including the nucleus accumbens (NAc). CRF exerts profound effects on striatal-dependent behaviors such as drug addiction, pair-bonding, and natural reward. Recent data indicate that at least some of these behaviors regulated by CRF are mediated through CRF activation of the transcription factor CREB. Thus, we aimed to elucidate the signaling pathway by which CRF activates CREB in striatal neurons. Here we describe a novel neuronal signaling pathway whereby CRF leads to a rapid Gβγ- and MEK-dependent increase in CREB phosphorylation. These data are the first descriptions of CRF leading to activation of a Gβγ-dependent signaling pathway in neurons, as well as the first description of Gβγ activation leading to downstream CREB phosphorylation in any cellular system. Additionally, these data provide additional insight into the mechanisms by which CRF can regulate neuronal function

Mammal collections of the Western Hemisphere: A survey and directory of collections

As a periodic assessment of the mammal collection resource, the Systematic Collections Committee (SCC) of the American Society of Mammalogists undertakes decadal surveys of the collections held in the Western Hemisphere. The SCC surveyed 429 collections and compiled a directory of 395 active collections containing 5,275,155 catalogued specimens. Over the past decade, 43 collections have been lost or transferred and 38 new or unsurveyed collections were added. Growth in number of total specimens, expansion of genomic resource collections, and substantial gains in digitization and web accessibility were documented, as well as slight shifts in proportional representation of taxonomic groups owing to increasingly balanced geographic representation of collections relative to previous surveys. While we find the overall health of Western Hemisphere collections to be adequate in some areas, gaps in spatial and temporal coverage and clear threats to long-term growth and vitality of these resources have also been identified. Major expansion of the collective mammal collection resource along with a recommitment to appropriate levels of funding will be required to meet the challenges ahead for mammalogists and other users, and to ensure samples are broad and varied enough that unanticipated future needs can be powerfully addressed. © 2018 The Author(s)

Discovery of [11C]MK-6884: a positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agent for the study of M4 muscarinic receptor positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) in neurodegenerative diseases

The measurement of receptor occupancy (RO) using positron emission tomography (PET) has been instrumental in guiding discovery and development of CNS directed therapeutics. We and others have investigated muscarinic acetylcholine receptor 4 (M4) positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) for the treatment of symptoms associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. In this article, we describe the synthesis, in vitro, and in vivo characterization of a series of central pyridine-related M4 PAMs that can be conveniently radiolabeled with carbon-11 as PET tracers for the in vivo imaging of an allosteric binding site of the M4 receptor. We first demonstrated its feasibility by mapping the receptor distribution in mouse brain and confirming that a lead molecule 1 binds selectively to the receptor only in the presence of the orthosteric agonist carbachol. Through a competitive binding affinity assay and a number of physiochemical properties filters, several related compounds were identified as candidates for in vivo evaluation. These candidates were then radiolabeled with 11C and studied in vivo in rhesus monkeys. This research eventually led to the discovery of the clinical radiotracer candidate [11C]MK-6884