Expedition 306 summary

The overall aim of the North Atlantic paleoceanography study of Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 306 is to place late Neogene–Quaternary climate proxies in the North Atlantic into a chronology based on a combination of geomagnetic paleointensity, stable isotope, and detrital layer stratigraphies, and in so doing generate integrated North Atlantic millennial-scale stratigraphies for the last few million years. To reach this aim, complete sedimentary sections were drilled by multiple advanced piston coring directly south of the central Atlantic “ice-rafted debris belt” and on the southern Gardar Drift. In addition to the North Atlantic paleoceanography study, a borehole observatory was successfully installed in a new ~180 m deep hole close to Ocean Drilling Program Site 642, consisting of a circulation obviation retrofit kit to seal the borehole from the overlying ocean, a thermistor string, and a data logger to document and monitor bottom water temperature variations through time

Feasibility and acceptability of an acceptance and commitment therapy intervention for caregivers of adults with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias

Background: Caregivers of patients with Alzheimer's disease or a related dementia (ADRD) report high levels of distress, including symptoms of anxiety and depression, caregiving burden, and existential suffering; however, those with support and healthy coping strategies have less stress and burden. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) aims to foster greater acceptance of internal events while promoting actions aligned with personal values to increase psychological flexibility in the face of challenges. The objective of this single-arm pilot, Telephone Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Intervention for Caregivers (TACTICs), was to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effects of an ACT intervention on ADRD caregiver anxiety, depressive symptoms, burden, caregiver suffering, and psychological flexibility. Methods: ADRD caregivers ≥21 years of age with a Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7) score ≥ 10 indicative of moderate or higher symptoms of anxiety were enrolled (N = 15). Participants received a telephone-based ACT intervention delivered by a non-licensed, bachelor's-prepared trained interventionist over 6 weekly 1-h sessions that included engaging experiential exercises and metaphors designed to increase psychological flexibility. The following outcome measures were administered at baseline (T1), immediately post-intervention (T2), 3 months post-intervention (T3), and 6 months post-intervention (T4): anxiety symptoms (GAD-7; primary outcome); secondary outcomes of depressive symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-9), burden (Zarit Burden Interview), suffering (The Experience of Suffering measure), psychological flexibility/experiential avoidance (Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II), and coping skills (Brief COPE). Results: All 15 participants completed the study and 93.3% rated their overall satisfaction with their TACTICs experience as "completely satisfied." At T2, caregivers showed large reduction in anxiety symptoms (SRM 1.42, 95% CI [0.87, 1.97], p < 0.001) that were maintained at T3 and T4. At T4, psychological suffering (SRM 0.99, 95% CI [0.41, 1.56], p = 0.0027) and caregiver burden (SRM 0.79, 95% CI [0.21, 1.37], p = 0.0113) also decreased. Conclusions: Despite a small sample size, the 6-session manualized TACTICs program was effective in reducing anxiety, suggesting that non-clinically trained staff may be able to provide an effective therapeutic intervention by phone to maximize intervention scalability and reach

North Atlantic Paleoceanography: The Last Five Million Years

In the North Atlantic, cold, relatively salty water sinks in the icy Labrador and Greenland seas, forming North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW). This circulates through the global ocean, driving ocean overturning and global heat transport and, thus, impacting global climate. As one of the most climatically sensitive regions on Earth, the North Atlantic has experienced abrupt changes to its ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere system, triggered by fluctuations in meltwater delivery to source areas of NADW formation. For about the past 100 thousand years, these abrupt jumps in climate state have manifested as ‘Dansgaard/Oeschger’ (D/O) oscillations (millennial-scale warm-cold oscillations) and ‘Heinrich’ events in ice and marine sediment cores, respectively [e.g., Dansgaard et al.,1993; Bond and Lotti, 1995]. These Heinrich events are characterized as huge input of ice-rafted debris (IRD) and meltwater pulses, documenting episodes of sudden instability and collapse of the current Greenland ice sheets and the Laurentide ice sheet, the latter of which covered northern North America several times during the Pleistocene Epoch