Research findings from the Memories of Nursing oral history project.

Capturing the stories of nurses who practised in the past offers the opportunity to reflect on the changes in practice over time to determine lessons for the future. This article shares some of the memories of a group of 16 nurses who were interviewed in Bournemouth, UK, between 2009 and 2016. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts identified a number of themes, three of which are presented: defining moments, hygiene and hierarchy. The similarities and differences between their experiences and contemporary nursing practice are discussed to highlight how it may be timely to think back in order to take practice forward positively in the future

Cognitive and Tactile Factors Affecting Human Haptic Performance in Later Life

Background: Vision and haptics are the key modalities by which humans perceive objects and interact with their environment in a target-oriented manner. Both modalities share higher-order neural resources and the mechanisms required for object exploration. Compared to vision, the understanding of haptic information processing is still rudimentary. Although it is known that haptic performance, similar to many other skills, decreases in old age, the underlying mechanisms are not clear. It is yet to be determined to what extent this decrease is related to the age-related loss of tactile acuity or cognitive capacity. Methodology/Principal Findings: We investigated the haptic performance of 81 older adults by means of a cross-modal object recognition test. Additionally, we assessed the subjects ’ tactile acuity with an apparatus-based two-point discrimination paradigm, and their cognitive performance by means of the non-verbal Raven-Standard-Progressive matrices test. As expected, there was a significant age-related decline in performance on all 3 tests. With the exception of tactile acuity, this decline was found to be more distinct in female subjects. Correlation analyses revealed a strong relationship between haptic and cognitive performance for all subjects. Tactile performance, on the contrary, was only significantly correlated with male subjects ’ haptic performance. Conclusions: Haptic object recognition is a demanding task in old age, especially when it comes to the exploration o

Altered Neurocircuitry in the Dopamine Transporter Knockout Mouse Brain

The plasma membrane transporters for the monoamine neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine modulate the dynamics of these monoamine neurotransmitters. Thus, activity of these transporters has significant consequences for monoamine activity throughout the brain and for a number of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Gene knockout (KO) mice that reduce or eliminate expression of each of these monoamine transporters have provided a wealth of new information about the function of these proteins at molecular, physiological and behavioral levels. In the present work we use the unique properties of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to probe the effects of altered dopaminergic dynamics on meso-scale neuronal circuitry and overall brain morphology, since changes at these levels of organization might help to account for some of the extensive pharmacological and behavioral differences observed in dopamine transporter (DAT) KO mice. Despite the smaller size of these animals, voxel-wise statistical comparison of high resolution structural MR images indicated little morphological change as a consequence of DAT KO. Likewise, proton magnetic resonance spectra recorded in the striatum indicated no significant changes in detectable metabolite concentrations between DAT KO and wild-type (WT) mice. In contrast, alterations in the circuitry from the prefrontal cortex to the mesocortical limbic system, an important brain component intimately tied to function of mesolimbic/mesocortical dopamine reward pathways, were revealed by manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI). Analysis of co-registered MEMRI images taken over the 26 hours after introduction of Mn^(2+) into the prefrontal cortex indicated that DAT KO mice have a truncated Mn^(2+) distribution within this circuitry with little accumulation beyond the thalamus or contralateral to the injection site. By contrast, WT littermates exhibit Mn^(2+) transport into more posterior midbrain nuclei and contralateral mesolimbic structures at 26 hr post-injection. Thus, DAT KO mice appear, at this level of anatomic resolution, to have preserved cortico-striatal-thalamic connectivity but diminished robustness of reward-modulating circuitry distal to the thalamus. This is in contradistinction to the state of this circuitry in serotonin transporter KO mice where we observed more robust connectivity in more posterior brain regions using methods identical to those employed here

Aging Affects the Mental Rotation of Left and Right Hands

BACKGROUND:Normal aging significantly influences motor and cognitive performance. Little is known about age-related changes in action simulation. Here, we investigated the influence of aging on implicit motor imagery. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:Twenty young (mean age: 23.9+/-2.8 years) and nineteen elderly (mean age: 78.3+/-4.5 years) subjects, all right-handed, were required to determine the laterality of hands presented in various positions. To do so, they mentally rotated their hands to match them with the hand-stimuli. We showed that: (1) elderly subjects were affected in their ability to implicitly simulate movements of the upper limbs, especially those requiring the largest amplitude of displacement and/or with strong biomechanical constraints; (2) this decline was greater for movements of the non-dominant arm than of the dominant arm. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:These results extend recent findings showing age-related alterations of the explicit side of motor imagery. They suggest that a general decline in action simulation occurs with normal aging, in particular for the non-dominant side of the body

Are Women Happier When Their Spouse is Teleworker?

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. This study explores the household production allocation and happiness of women when their spouse is teleworker using data from the British Household Panel Survey over the years 1991–2009. The study aims to answer whether the women spend additional time on housework and are happier when they or their partner is teleworker. Also, we explore whether are happier when they share the household–domestic production with their partners. Fixed effects estimates take place, and we consider a Bayesian Network framework and a directed acyclic graph for causal inference. The results show that women are more likely to state that the household allocation, such as cooking, cleaning, ironing and childcare is shared when their partner teleworks. Shopping is an exception which can be regarded as an outdoor activity while one partner may be mainly responsible for this chore. In addition, women are happier when they or their spouse is teleworker, and they report higher levels of happiness when the household production allocation is a shared process. This may indicate men teleworkers may contribute extra to the household production releasing a burden for the partners and improving their well-being

Loss of cholinergic innervation differentially affects eNOS-mediated blood flow, drainage of Aβ and cerebral amyloid angiopathy in the cortex and hippocampus of adult mice

Vascular dysregulation and cholinergic basal forebrain degeneration are both early pathological events in the development of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Acetylcholine contributes to localised arterial dilatation and increased cerebral blood flow (CBF) during neurovascular coupling via activation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS). Decreased vascular reactivity is suggested to contribute to impaired clearance of β-amyloid (Aβ) along intramural periarterial drainage (IPAD) pathways of the brain, leading to the development of cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA). However, the possible relationship between loss of cholinergic innervation, impaired vasoreactivity and reduced clearance of Aβ from the brain has not been previously investigated. In the present study, intracerebroventricular administration of mu-saporin resulted in significant death of cholinergic neurons and fibres in the medial septum, cortex and hippocampus of C57BL/6 mice. Arterial spin labelling MRI revealed a loss of CBF response to stimulation of eNOS by the Rho-kinase inhibitor fasudil hydrochloride in the cortex of denervated mice. By contrast, the hippocampus remained responsive to drug treatment, in association with altered eNOS expression. Fasudil hydrochloride significantly increased IPAD in the hippocampus of both control and saporin-treated mice, while increased clearance from the cortex was only observed in control animals. Administration of mu-saporin in the TetOAPPSweInd mouse model of AD was associated with a significant and selective increase in Aβ40-positive CAA. These findings support the importance of the interrelationship between cholinergic innervation and vascular function in the aetiology and/or progression of CAA and suggest that combined eNOS/cholinergic therapies may improve the efficiency of Aβ removal from the brain and reduce its deposition as CAA