Do You See What I See?: Exploring the Relationship Between OCD Symptomatology and Theory of Mind Ability

A great deal of research supports that Theory of Mind (ToM; the ability to make inferences about the emotions, beliefs, and intentions of others) is impaired in people with symptoms of schizophrenia, autism, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), to name a few. The present study focused on OCD, hypothesizing a negative correlation between the presence of OC symptomatology and ToM ability. Participants (N = 179) were undergraduate students from Butler University as well as participants recruited from mental health facilities, hospitals, and other organizations in the Indianapolis area. Participants completed several questionnaires, including measures of ToM (the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, the Hinting task) and OCD symptoms (the OCI-R). As hypothesized, higher OC levels correlate with lower levels of some aspects of ToM

Measuring Religious Demographic Group Threat Among Americans and Its Impacts on Their Political Beliefs

Identity is one of the key drivers of American political behavior. Among these identities, be it partisan, ethnic, class, etc., religious identity has been more or less assumed to be one of the more powerful identities. I set out to measure how the threat of Christianity’s decline in the United States impacts the salience of religious identity and feelings towards religion-adjacent policies. Building off of an experimental design from Major et al (2016), I hypothesized that when exposed to data showing the decline of religiosity in the United States, subjects would demonstrate both a stronger religious identity and more conservative positions on religion-adjacent policy. Utilizing survey data from the University of Mississippi undergraduate population, I found that exposure to the information that religiosity in America is declining created no statistically significant alteration in personal feelings towards the importance of religion in their life or on their opinions on American domestic policy that relates to religion. This is in comparison to the original experiment, which measured ethnic demographic threat. Their results showed that threat exposure increased ethnic salience and conservative political policy preferences. My experiment showed no statistically significant difference between the religious identification or policy preferences of those exposed to religious demographic threat. That said, I found multiple pieces of data which open paths to future research that will allow us to better understand the importance of religion as an identity in American political life. Primarily, I find that gender, being from a rural place, and identifying as a Southerner all have impacts on how you respond to religious threat. I find that although there is usually a correlation between religious identification and conservative policy beliefs, there are some exceptions that can be pursued in future experiments to further flesh out the unexpected results from my experiment

Assessing Healthcare Providers Perspective: Music Intervention for Open Heart Surgery Patients

Abstract Background: Benefits of music intervention after open heart surgery have been studied amongst several clinical settings, yet implementation is not frequently seen with patients in the cardiothoracic field. Open heart surgery is associated with postoperative pain that peaks the first few days after surgery. Multiple negative outcomes may result from ineffective pain management including, deep vein thrombosis, pneumonia, and poor wound healing leading to increased morbidity, mortality, and healthcare costs. Music intervention has been shown to relieve anxiety and pain, reduce stress, decrease S-cortisol levels and increase oxytocin levels. However, the literature is limited on the use or integration of music in this population. Objective: To assess the perception of healthcare providers towards the use of music intervention for patients who have undergone open heart surgery. Methods: 44 participants participated in an online survey assessing cardiothoracic health care providers’ knowledge, concerns, current use and/or their likelihood of implementation in regards to music intervention use for open heart surgery patients. Results: 21 (47.7%) participants had used music intervention, and 18 (85.7%) endorsed they believed music intervention had some to most significant influence on patient outcomes. Of those that had not used music (23, 52.3%), all 23 (100%) endorsed they were neutral to very likely on the idea of implementing music intervention if available. Conclusions. While # amount of participants had not used (or had used), we found the largest barriers to be related to potential unfamiliarity of the modality itself. Relevance to practice. Music intervention can be an integral part of the regimen administered to patients having undergone cardiovascular surgery with potential to decrease healthcare costs and increase patient outcomes and satisfaction. Perspective This article reflects key factors of influence on use of music intervention for pain, from users and non-users. When further evaluated, these survey results could assist in removing barriers between implementation of music intervention for postoperative open heart surgery patients, and others. Keywords: music intervention, music therapy, open heart surgery, cardiothoracic, alternative therapie

Study of the Role of the msaABCR operon in Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle Activity and persister cell formation in Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus is an important human pathogen that causes wide arrays of infections ranging from minor skin infections to lethal systemic conditions such as infective endocarditis, osteomyelitis, sepsis and pneumonia. These systemic diseases are often difficult to treat due to the presence of persister cells. Persister cells are a phenotypic variant of the bacterial population that exhibit extreme and transient antibiotic tolerance accompanied by a transient halt in growth. Upon cessation of antibiotic treatment, however, persisters resume growth which results in recurrence of infections. This characteristic of persister cells therefore displays high clinical significance. In this study, we show the involvement of the msaABCR operon in antibiotic tolerance in S. aureus under the clinically relevant bactericidal antibiotic gentamicin. In previous study, the msaABCR operon was found to involve in persister cells formation such that the deletion of the msaABCR operon showed decreased persister formation in the methicillin resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strain USA300 LAC (Sahukhal et al. 2017). The RNA transcriptome of the msaABCR deletion mutant showed differential expression of genes that are involved in various metabolic pathways including carbohydrate, amino acid pathways (Sahukhal et al 2017). Considering the importance of metabolism in antibiotic tolerance, first we examined the expression of tricarboxylic acid (TCA) genes to measure the TCA cycle activity. The qRT-PCR results showed that the msaABCR deletion mutant indeed has increased expression of TCA genes and higher ATP content (Sahukhal et al., 2017). Furthermore, we evaluated the antibiotic tolerance in TCA cycle mutants in S. aureus. The results showed that the transposon mutants of TCA cycle genes exhibit higher antibiotic tolerance as compared to the wild type USA300 LAC. Considering the importance of energy content in the antibiotic tolerance, we also measured the ATP content and membrane potential. Deletion of TCA genes leads to decreased cellular ATP content as well as reduced membrane potential. We also observed increased pigment production and biofilm production in the TCA mutants. Altogether, these results suggest that the reduced metabolic activity contributes to the antibiotic tolerance as well as virulence in S. aureus

Tissue specific Cish expression supports alveolar macrophage homeostatic function

Macrophages play critical roles in defense against microbes and clearance of dead cells, but also perform tissue specific functions in homeostasis. Distinct gene expression signatures in macrophages isolated from varying tissues are largely determined by environmental signals. Specifically, the lung is highly susceptible to environmental changes, such as O2 pressure and inhalation of particulate and microbes. Alveolar macrophages are shaped by the lung environment and have critical tissue-specific functions in initiating and resolving lung inflammation, and in maintaining lung structure via surfactant and lipid catabolism. While research speculates lung specific factors form alveolar macrophage phenotype and homeostatic function, the specific signals and regulators remain largely unknown. Therefore, we sought to explore lung specific cytokine signals and downstream signaling regulators that shape homeostatic functions of alveolar macrophages. We found Cytokine Inducible SH2 Containing Protein (Cish), a SOCS family member known to regulate the JAK-STAT5 pathway, is basally expressed in a tissue-specific manner in alveolar macrophages. Further, we found that the STAT5 activating cytokine GM-CSF regulates Cish expression in alveolar macrophages and observed reduced alveolar macrophage Cish expression with GM-CSF blockade in the lung. Cish knockout mice exhibit enlarged “foamy” alveolar macrophages, impaired surfactant metabolism, and dysregulated response to GM-CSF, all hallmarks of pulmonary alveolar proteinosis. Thus, we show alveolar macrophage Cish expression is directly linked to lung specific factors, namely GM-CSF, and influences surfactant homeostasis in the lung, a critical homeostatic function of alveolar macrophages. The lung is an especially critical site of protection as it is a barrier site that is constantly exposed to inhaled particulate and microbes and possesses a fragile structure. Alveolar macrophages act as sentinels in the lung, protecting this sensitive tissue from challenge while maintaining proper homeostasis and structure. From a public health perspective, continuing to elucidate the specific mechanisms by which alveolar macrophages mediate lung homeostasis is essential to providing cutting edge health care and to continuing to develop therapeutic treatments that can provide cures instead of simply mitigating symptoms of pulmonary disease. Here, we highlight one of many yet to be uncovered regulators of lung homeostasis

Neural Correlates of Comorbidity of Anxiety Disorders and Eating Disorders

The presence of eating disorder and anxiety disorder comorbidity has raised the question of whether or not there is a causal relationship between them. Previous studies have found that this comorbidity has been present in various patients with anxiety disorders and eating disorders, going further to try and determine which diagnosis came first (Swinbourne et al., 2012). By conducting a literature review, studies were examined to determine neurobiological regions impacted by both disorders. Prefrontal cortex abnormalities are consistent among both disorders, contributing to differences in behavior and reward systems. With the irregular structure and activation of the amygdala, emotion and fear regulation are disrupted in those with either illness. Hypothalamic dysfunction in regulating feeding and reward response is found to be an additional commonality. Deficiencies of gray brain matter indicate deterioration of neural connections in those with either disorder