Prioritise safety, optimise success! Return to rugby postpartum

Pregnancy and childbirth involve substantial physical, physiological and psychological changes. As such, postpartum rugby players should be supported and appropriately prepared to return to the demands of rugby alongside the additional demands of motherhood. This review aims to discuss specific perinatal considerations that inform a rugby player's readiness to return-to-sport postpartum and present an approach to rehabilitation. Before engaging in full rugby training and matchplay, postpartum players should have progressed through the initial phases of rehabilitation and graded sports-specific training to prepare them for the loads they will be exposed to. Additional rehabilitation considerations include minimising deconditioning during pregnancy; medical concerns; the abdominal wall; the pelvic floor; perinatal breast changes, breastfeeding and risk of contact breast injury; body mass; nutritional requirements; hormonal considerations; athlete identity and psychological considerations; joining team training; return to contact and tackle training; evaluating player load tolerance and future research, policy and surveillance needs. A whole-systems, biopsychosocial approach following an evidence informed return-to-sport framework is recommended when rehabilitating postpartum rugby players. Health and exercise professionals are encouraged to use the perinatal-specific recommendations in this review to guide the development of postpartum rehabilitation protocols and resources

A mycorrhizal revolution.

It has long been postulated that symbiotic fungi facilitated plant migrations onto land through enhancing the scavenging of mineral nutrients and exchanging these for photosynthetically fixed organic carbon. Today, land plant-fungal symbioses are both widespread and diverse. Recent discoveries show that a variety of potential fungal associates were likely available to the earliest land plants, and that these early partnerships were probably affected by changing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Here, we evaluate current hypotheses and knowledge gaps regarding early plant-fungal partnerships in the context of newly discovered fungal mutualists of early and more recently evolved land plants and the rapidly changing views on the roles of plant-fungal symbioses in the evolution and ecology of the terrestrial biosphere

Perceptions of Teachers’ Interpersonal Styles and Well-Being and Ill-Being in Secondary School Physical Education Students: The Role of Need Satisfaction and Need Frustration

This study examined the associations among physical education students’ perceptions of their teachers’ autonomy-supportive and controlling interpersonal styles, need satisfaction and need frustration, and indices of psychological well-being (subjective vitality) and ill-being (negative affect). The results from 591 Chinese secondary school students in Hong Kong indicated that the relationship between students’ perceptions of autonomy-supportive teaching behaviors and subjective vitality was primarily mediated by need satisfaction, whereas the relationship between perceived controlling teaching behaviors and negative affect was primarily mediated by need frustration. The results obtained from the multi-group structural equation model also suggested that these relationships were invariant across sex

Ultrastructural and functional fate of recycled vesicles in hippocampal synapses

Efficient recycling of synaptic vesicles is thought to be critical for sustained information transfer at central terminals. However, the specific contribution that retrieved vesicles make to future transmission events remains unclear. Here we exploit fluorescence and time-stamped electron microscopy to track the functional and positional fate of vesicles endocytosed after readily releasable pool (RRP) stimulation in rat hippocampal synapses. We show that most vesicles are recovered near the active zone but subsequently take up random positions in the cluster, without preferential bias for future use. These vesicles non-selectively queue, advancing towards the release site with further stimulation in an actin-dependent manner. Nonetheless, the small subset of vesicles retrieved recently in the stimulus train persist nearer the active zone and exhibit more privileged use in the next RRP. Our findings reveal heterogeneity in vesicle fate based on nanoscale position and timing rules, providing new insights into the origins of future pool constitution

The effect of attentional cues on mechanical efficiency and movement smoothness in running gait: An interdisciplinary investigation

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2024.2365060 - In the initial version of the article, Figure 1a was published with some error. Now this have been corrected in this correction and also corrected in the original article.)The aim was to examine the effect of focus of attention cues on foot angle for retraining movement purposes. Twenty (females: 8) rearfoot-striking recreational runners (mass: 72.5 ± 11.8 kg; height: 1.73 ± 0.09 m; age: 32.9 ± 11.3 years) were randomly assigned to an internal focus (IF) (n = 10) or external focus (EF) (n = 10) verbal cue group. Participants performed 5 × 6 minute blocks of treadmill running (control run, 3 × cued running, retention run) at a self-selected running velocity (9.4 ± 1.1 km∙h−1) during a single laboratory visit. Touchdown foot angle, mechanical efficiency, internal and external work were calculated and, centre of mass (COM) and foot movement smoothness was quantified. Linear-mixed effect models showed an interaction for foot angle (p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.35) and mechanical efficiency (p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.40) when comparing the control to the cued running. Only the IF group reduced foot angle and mechanical efficiency during cued running, but not during the retention run. The IF group produced less external work during the 1st cued run than the control run. COM and foot smoothness were unaffected by cueing. Only an IF produced desired technique changes but at the cost of reduced mechanical efficiency. Movement smoothness was unaffected by cue provision. Changes to foot angle can be achieved within 6 minutes of gait retraining.IM received funding from the British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences

Calcisponges have a ParaHox gene and dynamic expression of dispersed NK homeobox genes

This study was funded by the Sars Centre core budget to M. Adamska. Sequencing was performed at the Norwegian High Throughput Sequencing Centre funded by the Norwegian Research Council. O.M.R. and D.E.K.F. acknowledge support from the BBSRC and the School of Biology, University of St Andrews.Sponges are simple animals with few cell types, but their genomes paradoxically contain a wide variety of developmental transcription factors1,2,3,4, including homeobox genes belonging to the Antennapedia (ANTP) class5,6, which in bilaterians encompass Hox, ParaHox and NK genes. In the genome of the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica, no Hox or ParaHox genes are present, but NK genes are linked in a tight cluster similar to the NK clusters of bilaterians5. It has been proposed that Hox and ParaHox genes originated from NK cluster genes after divergence of sponges from the lineage leading to cnidarians and bilaterians5,7. On the other hand, synteny analysis lends support to the notion that the absence of Hox and ParaHox genes in Amphimedon is a result of secondary loss (the ghost locus hypothesis)8. Here we analysed complete suites of ANTP-class homeoboxes in two calcareous sponges, Sycon ciliatum and Leucosolenia complicata. Our phylogenetic analyses demonstrate that these calcisponges possess orthologues of bilaterian NK genes (Hex, Hmx and Msx), a varying number of additional NK genes and one ParaHox gene, Cdx. Despite the generation of scaffolds spanning multiple genes, we find no evidence of clustering of Sycon NK genes. All Sycon ANTP-class genes are developmentally expressed, with patterns suggesting their involvement in cell type specification in embryos and adults, metamorphosis and body plan patterning. These results demonstrate that ParaHox genes predate the origin of sponges, thus confirming the ghost locus hypothesis8, and highlight the need to analyse the genomes of multiple sponge lineages to obtain a complete picture of the ancestral composition of the first animal genome.PostprintPeer reviewe

Co-Targeting PIM Kinase and PI3K/mTOR in NSCLC

PIM kinases are constitutively active proto-oncogenic serine/threonine kinases that play a role in cell cycle progression, metabolism, inflammation and drug resistance. PIM kinases interact with and stabilize p53, c-Myc and parallel signaling pathway PI3K/Akt. This study evaluated PIM kinase expression in NSCLC and in response to PI3K/mTOR inhibition. It investigated a novel preclinical PI3K/mTOR/PIM inhibitor (IBL-301) in vitro and in patient-derived NSCLC tumor tissues. Western blot analysis confirmed PIM1, PIM2 and PIM3 are expressed in NSCLC cell lines and PIM1 is a marker of poor prognosis in patients with NSCLC. IBL-301 decreased PIM1, c-Myc, pBAD and p4EBP1 (Thr37/46) and peIF4B (S406) protein levels in-vitro and MAP kinase, PI3K-Akt and JAK/STAT pathways in tumor tissue explants. IBL-301 significantly decreased secreted pro-inflammatory cytokine MCP-1. Altered mRNA expression, including activated PIM kinase and c-Myc, was identified in Apitolisib resistant cells (H1975GR) by an IL-6/STAT3 pathway array and validated by Western blot. H1975GR cells were more sensitive to IBL-301 than parent cells. A miRNA array identified a dysregulated miRNA signature of PI3K/mTOR drug resistance consisting of regulators of PIM kinase and c-Myc (miR17-5p, miR19b-3p, miR20a-5p, miR15b-5p, miR203a, miR-206). Our data provides a rationale for co-targeting PIM kinase and PI3K-mTOR to improve therapeutic response in NSCLC

Brain Vital Signs in Elite Ice Hockey: Towards Characterizing Objective and Specific Neurophysiological Reference Values for Concussion Management.

Background: Prior concussion studies have shown that objective neurophysiological measures are sensitive to detecting concussive and subconcussive impairments in youth ice-hockey. These studies monitored brain vital signs at rink-side using a within-subjects design to demonstrate significant changes from pre-season baseline scans. However, practical clinical implementation must overcome inherent challenges related to any dependence on a baseline. This requires establishing the start of normative reference data sets. Methods: The current study collected specific reference data for N = 58 elite, youth, male ice-hockey players and compared these with a general reference dataset from N = 135 of males and females across the lifespan. The elite hockey players were recruited to a select training camp through CAA Hockey, a management agency for players drafted to leagues such as the National Hockey League (NHL). The statistical analysis included a test-retest comparison to establish reliability, and a multivariate analysis of covariance to evaluate differences in brain vital signs between groups with age as a covariate. Findings: Test-retest assessments for brain vital signs evoked potentials showed moderate-to-good reliability (Cronbach's Alpha > 0.7, Intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.5) in five out of six measures. The multivariate analysis of covariance showed no overall effect for group (p = 0.105), and a significant effect of age as a covariate was observed (p < 0.001). Adjusting for the effect of age, a significant difference was observed in the measure of N100 latency (p = 0.022) between elite hockey players and the heterogeneous control group. Interpretation: The findings support the concept that normative physiological data can be used in brain vital signs evaluation in athletes, and should additionally be stratified for age, skill level, and experience. These can be combined with general norms and/or individual baseline assessments where appropriate and/or possible. The current results allow for brain vital sign evaluation independent of baseline assessment, therefore enabling objective neurophysiological evaluation of concussion management and cognitive performance optimization in ice-hockey