The genetic profile of elite youth soccer players and its association with power and speed depends on maturity status

We investigated the association of multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with athlete status and power/speed performance in elite male youth soccer players (ESP) and control participants (CON) at different stages of maturity. ESP (n = 535; aged 8–23 years) and CON (n = 151; aged 9–26 years) were genotyped for 10 SNPs and grouped according to years from predicted peak-height-velocity (PHV), i.e. pre- or post-PHV, to determine maturity status. Participants performed bilateral vertical countermovement jumps, bilateral horizontal-forward countermovement jumps, 20m sprints and modified 505-agility tests. Compared to CON, pre-PHV ESP demonstrated a higher ACTN3 (rs1815739) XX (‘endurance’) genotype frequency distribution, while post-PHV ESP revealed a higher frequency distribution of the PPARA (rs4253778) C-allele, AGT (rs699) GG genotype and NOS3 (rs2070744) T-allele (‘power’ genotypes/alleles). BDNF (rs6265) CC, COL5A1 (rs12722) CC and NOS3 TT homozygotes sprinted quicker than A-allele carriers, CT heterozygotes and CC homozygotes, respectively. COL2A1 (rs2070739) CC and AMPD1 (rs17602729) GG homozygotes sprinted faster than their respective minor allele carrier counterparts in CON and pre-PHV ESP, respectively. BDNF CC homozygotes jumped further than T-allele carriers, while ESP COL5A1 CC homozygotes jumped higher than TT homozygotes. To conclude, we have shown for the first time that pre- and post-PHV ESP have distinct genetic profiles, with pre-PHV ESP more suited for endurance, and post-PHV ESP for power and speed (the latter phenotypes being crucial attributes for post-PHV ESP). We have also demonstrated that power, acceleration and sprint performance were associated with five SNPs, both individually and in combination, possibly by influencing muscle size and neuromuscular activation

Association between regular participation in sports and leisure time behaviors in Brazilian adolescents: A cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The belief that adolescents engaged in sports increase their overall physical activity level while simultaneously decreasing physical inactivity has been the foundation of many intervention programs in developing countries. The aim of this study was to analyze the association between regular participation in sports and both active behaviors and TV viewing during leisure time.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 1752 Brazilian adolescents (812 = male and 940 = female) participated in this study. Regular participation in sports, as well as active behaviors (exemplified by walking or cycling) and TV viewing during leisure time were assessed by means of a questionnaire. The chi-square test analyzed the association between sports practice and leisure time behaviors, and the Poisson regression with robust variance indicated the magnitude of these associations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The prevalence of regular participation in sports was 14.8% (95% confidence interval 13.2% to 16.5%). After adjustment for all confounders, participation in sports was associated with, at the highest frequency, cycling (PR = 2.55 [1.80–3.60]) and walking (PR = 2.69 [1.98–3.64]) during leisure time. However, there was not an association between the participation in sports and frequency of TV viewing (PR = 1.28 [0.81–2.02]).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study presented data indicating that the regular participation in sports is positively associated with a higher frequency of physically active behaviors during leisure time. However, the results did not support the hypothesis that the engagement in sports necessarily decreases leisure time spent in TV viewing.</p

Aerobic Exercise during Pregnancy and Presence of Fetal-Maternal Heart Rate Synchronization

It has been shown that short-term direct interaction between maternal and fetal heart rates may take place and that this interaction is affected by the rate of maternal respiration. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of maternal aerobic exercise during pregnancy on the occurrence of fetal-maternal heart rate synchronization.In 40 pregnant women at the 36th week of gestation, 21 of whom exercised regularly, we acquired 18 min. RR interval time series obtained simultaneously in the mothers and their fetuses from magnetocardiographic recordings. The time series of the two groups were examined with respect to their heart rate variability, the maternal respiratory rate and the presence of synchronization epochs as determined on the basis of synchrograms. Surrogate data were used to assess whether the occurrence of synchronization was due to chance.In the original data, we found synchronization occurred less often in pregnancies in which the mothers had exercised regularly. These subjects also displayed higher combined fetal-maternal heart rate variability and lower maternal respiratory rates. Analysis of the surrogate data showed shorter epochs of synchronization and a lack of the phase coordination found between maternal and fetal beat timing in the original data.The results suggest that fetal-maternal heart rate coupling is present but generally weak. Maternal exercise has a damping effect on its occurrence, most likely due to an increase in beat-to-beat differences, higher vagal tone and slower breathing rates

Cardiorespiratory Phase-Coupling Is Reduced in Patients with Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Cardiac and respiratory rhythms reveal transient phases of phase-locking which were proposed to be an important aspect of cardiorespiratory interaction. The aim of this study was to quantify cardio-respiratory phase-locking in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). We investigated overnight polysomnography data of 248 subjects with suspected OSA. Cardiorespiratory phase-coupling was computed from the R-R intervals of body surface ECG and respiratory rate, calculated from abdominal and thoracic sensors, using Hilbert transform. A significant reduction in phase-coupling was observed in patients with severe OSA compared to patients with no or mild OSA. Cardiorespiratory phase-coupling was also associated with sleep stages and was significantly reduced during rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep compared to slow-wave (SW) sleep. There was, however, no effect of age and BMI on phase coupling. Our study suggests that the assessment of cardiorespiratory phase coupling may be used as an ECG based screening tool for determining the severity of OSA

Politeness and compassion differentially predict adherence to fairness norms and interventions to norm violations in economic games

Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (i.e., the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours

Factors associated with posttraumatic stress symptoms in a prospective cohort of patients after abdominal sepsis: a nomogram

Objective: To determine to what extent patients who have survived abdominal sepsis suffer from symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, and to identify potential risk factors for PTSD symptoms. Design and setting: PTSD and depression symptoms were measured using the Impact of Events Scale-Revised (IES-R), the Post-Traumatic Symptom Scale 10 (PTSS-10) and the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II). Patients and participants: A total of 135 peritonitis patients were eligible for this study, of whom 107 (80%) patients completed the questionnaire. The median APACHE-II score was 14 (range 12-16), and 89% were admitted to the ICU. Measurements and results: The proportion of patients with "moderate" PTSD symptom scores was 28% (95% CI 20-37), whilst 10% (95% CI 6-17) of patients had "high" PTSD symptom scores. Only 5% (95% CI 2-12) of the patients expressed severe depression symptoms. Factors associated with increased PTSD symptoms in a multivariate ordinal regression model were younger age (0.74 per 10 years older, p = 0.082), length of ICU stay (OR = 1.4 per doubling of duration, p = 0.003) and having some (OR = 4.9, p = 0.06) or many (OR = 55.5, p < 0.001) traumatic memories of the ICU or hospital stay. Conclusion: As many as 38% of patients after abdominal sepsis report elevated levels of PTSD symptoms on at least one of the questionnaires. Our nomogram may assist in identifying patients at increased risk for developing symptoms of PTSD

Genetic Association Study Identifies HSPB7 as a Risk Gene for Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a structural heart disease with strong genetic background. Monogenic forms of DCM are observed in families with mutations located mostly in genes encoding structural and sarcomeric proteins. However, strong evidence suggests that genetic factors also affect the susceptibility to idiopathic DCM. To identify risk alleles for non-familial forms of DCM, we carried out a case-control association study, genotyping 664 DCM cases and 1,874 population-based healthy controls from Germany using a 50K human cardiovascular disease bead chip covering more than 2,000 genes pre-selected for cardiovascular relevance. After quality control, 30,920 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) were tested for association with the disease by logistic regression adjusted for gender, and results were genomic-control corrected. The analysis revealed a significant association between a SNP in HSPB7 gene (rs1739843, minor allele frequency 39%) and idiopathic DCM (p = 1.06×10−6, OR = 0.67 [95% CI 0.57–0.79] for the minor allele T). Three more SNPs showed p < 2.21×10−5. De novo genotyping of these four SNPs was done in three independent case-control studies of idiopathic DCM. Association between SNP rs1739843 and DCM was significant in all replication samples: Germany (n = 564, n = 981 controls, p = 2.07×10−3, OR = 0.79 [95% CI 0.67–0.92]), France 1 (n = 433 cases, n = 395 controls, p = 3.73×10−3, OR = 0.74 [95% CI 0.60–0.91]), and France 2 (n = 249 cases, n = 380 controls, p = 2.26×10−4, OR = 0.63 [95% CI 0.50–0.81]). The combined analysis of all four studies including a total of n = 1,910 cases and n = 3,630 controls showed highly significant evidence for association between rs1739843 and idiopathic DCM (p = 5.28×10−13, OR = 0.72 [95% CI 0.65–0.78]). None of the other three SNPs showed significant results in the replication stage

VLPs and particle strategies for cancer vaccines

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Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency–Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research