Cognitive ability as moderator of the association between social disadvantage and psychological distress: evidence from a population-based sample

Background: Social disadvantage consistently predicts both self-reported distress and clinically-diagnosed disorders such as depression. Yet, many individuals who are exposed to disadvantage do not report high levels of distress. This study extends our recent work showing that high cognitive ability may protect against the negative health consequences of exposure to disadvantaged backgrounds. We test whether this ‘buffer effect’ exists across clinically-relevant indices of mental health in a population-representative sample. Methods: 27,985 participants were drawn from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society). Clinical diagnoses of depression and clinically-relevant measures of psychological distress (i.e. Short Form-12 Mental Component, General Health Questionnaire) and trait neuroticism were assessed. Cognitive ability was derived from performance on word recall, verbal fluency and numerical ability tasks. Early-life disadvantage was gauged using family background measures assessing parental education and occupation at age 14. Results: Background disadvantage predicted increased levels of reported psychological distress and neuroticism. These associations were moderated by cognitive ability. Across all available mental health measures the negative association between early life disadvantage and poor adult mental health was strongest at low (-1SD) cognitive ability and was no longer evident at high (+1SD) levels of cognitive ability. Conclusions: The results provide support for a cognitive buffering hypothesis linking high cognitive ability to a decrease in the magnitude of the social gradient in mental health. Those disadvantaged by both low socioeconomic status and low cognitive ability may benefit from targeted prevention and treatment programs aiming to reduce socio-economic disparities in mental health

Effects of a multi-component exercise program and calcium–vitamin-D3-fortified milk on bone mineral density in older men : a randomised controlled trial

Summary We examined the independent and combined effects of a multi-component exercise program and calcium&ndash;vitamin-D3-fortified milk on bone mineral density (BMD) in older men. Exercise resulted in a 1.8% net gain in femoral neck BMD, but additional calcium&ndash;vitamin D3 did not enhance the response in this group of older well-nourished men.Introduction This 12-month randomised controlled trial assessed whether calcium&ndash;vitamin-D3-fortified milk could enhance the effects of a multi-component exercise program on BMD in older men.Methods Men (n&thinsp; =&thinsp;180) aged 50&ndash;79 years were randomised into: (1) exercise + fortified milk; (2) exercise; (3) fortified milk; or (4) controls. Exercise consisted of high intensity progressive resistance training with weight-bearing impact exercise. Men assigned to fortified milk consumed 400 mL/day of low fat milk providing an additional 1,000 mg/day calcium and 800 IU/day vitamin D3. Femoral neck (FN), total hip, lumbar spine and trochanter BMD and body composition (DXA), muscle strength 25-hydroxyvitamin D and parathyroid hormone (PTH) were assessed.Results There were no exercise-by-fortified milk interactions at any skeletal site. Exercise resulted in a 1.8% net gain in FN BMD relative to no-exercise (p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001); lean mass (0.6 kg, p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.05) and muscle strength (20&ndash;52%, p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.001) also increased in response to exercise. For lumbar spine BMD, there was a net 1.4&ndash;1.5% increase in all treatment groups relative to controls (all p&thinsp;&lt;&thinsp;0.01). There were no main effects of fortified milk at any skeletal site.Conclusion A multi-component community-based exercise program was effective for increasing FN BMD in older men, but additional calcium&ndash;vitamin D3 did not enhance the osteogenic response.<br /

A School-Based Exercise Intervention Program Increases Muscle Strength in Prepubertal Boys

This prospective controlled intervention study over 12 months evaluated the effect of exercise on muscular function, physical ability, and body composition in pre-pubertal boys. Sixty-eight boys aged 6–8 years, involved in a general school-based exercise program of 40 min per school day (200 min/week), were compared with 46 age-matched boys who participated in the general Swedish physical education curriculum of mean 60 min/week. Baseline and annual changes of body composition were measured by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), stature, and body mass by standard equipments, isokinetic peak torque (PT) of the knee extensors, and flexors at 60 and 180 deg/sec by computerized dynamometer (Biodex) and vertical jump height (VJH) by a computerized electronic mat. The annual gain in stature and body mass was similar between the groups whereas the increase in total body and regional lean mass (P < .001) and fat mass (P < .001) was greater in the exercise group. The one-year gain in body mass-adjusted knee extensor and flexor PT at 180 deg/sec was significantly greater in the intervention group compared with the control group (P < .01, adjusted for age at baseline and P < .001, adjusted for age and muscle strength at baseline, resp.). There was no group difference in VJH. In conclusion, the increase in school-based physical education from 60 to 200 minutes per week enhances the development of lean body mass and muscle strength in pre-pubertal boys

Neural and physiological data from participants listening to affective music

Music provides a means of communicating affective meaning. However, the neurological mechanisms by which music induces affect are not fully understood. Our project sought to investigate this through a series of experiments into how humans react to affective musical stimuli and how physiological and neurological signals recorded from those participants change in accordance with self-reported changes in affect. In this paper, the datasets recorded over the course of this project are presented, including details of the musical stimuli, participant reports of their felt changes in affective states as they listened to the music, and concomitant recordings of physiological and neurological activity. We also include non-identifying meta data on our participant populations for purposes of further exploratory analysis. This data provides a large and valuable novel resource for researchers investigating emotion, music, and how they affect our neural and physiological activity

A decision tool for radiographer-led abdominal image-guided stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy – Experience from a single institution

A decision tool for radiographer-led image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) using cone-beam CT (CBCT) for abdominal stereotactic radiotherapy was developed and successfully implemented in a single department. The confidence of 7 therapeutic radiographers when undertaking online CBCT review increased, and the pooled median online match time was reduced by 1 m 8 s. While this may be advantageous for abdominal SABR, further evaluation of this work in a larger cohort is required to validate these results

The impact of resource dependence of the mechanisms of life on the spatial population dynamics of an in silico microbial community

Biodiversity has a critical impact on ecosystem functionality and stability, and thus the current biodiversity crisis has motivated many studies of the mechanisms that sustain biodiversity, a notable example being non-transitive or cyclic competition. We therefore extend existing microscopic models of communities with cyclic competition by incorporating resource dependence in demographic processes, characteristics of natural systems often oversimplified or overlooked by modellers. The spatially explicit nature of our individual-based model of three interacting species results in the formation of stable spatial structures, which have significant effects on community functioning, in agreement with experimental observations of pattern formation in microbial communities. Published by AIP Publishing