Hyperfunctional complement C3 promotes C5-dependent atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome in mice

Atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome (aHUS) is frequently associated in humans with loss-of-function mutations in complement-regulating proteins or gain-of-function mutations in complement-activating proteins. Thus, aHUS provides an archetypal complement-mediated disease with which to model new therapeutic strategies and treatments. Herein, we show that, when transferred to mice, an aHUS-associated gain-of-function change (D1115N) to the complement-activation protein C3 results in aHUS. Homozygous C3 p.D1115N (C3KI) mice developed spontaneous chronic thrombotic microangiopathy together with hematuria, thrombocytopenia, elevated creatinine, and evidence of hemolysis. Mice with active disease had reduced plasma C3 with C3 fragment and C9 deposition within the kidney. Therapeutic blockade or genetic deletion of C5, a protein downstream of C3 in the complement cascade, protected homozygous C3KI mice from thrombotic microangiopathy and aHUS. Thus, our data provide in vivo modeling evidence that gain-of-function changes in complement C3 drive aHUS. They also show that long-term C5 deficiency is not accompanied by development of other renal complications (such as C3 glomerulopathy) despite sustained dysregulation of C3. Our results suggest that this preclinical model will allow testing of novel complement inhibitors with the aim of developing precisely targeted therapeutics that could have application in many complement-mediated diseases.</p

An experimental test of deviant modeling

Objectives: Test the effect of deviant peer modeling on theft as conditioned by verbal support for theft and number of deviant models. Methods: Two related randomized experiments in which participants were given a chance to steal a gift card (ostensibly worth $15) from the table in front of them. Each experiment had a control group, a verbal prompting group in which confederate(s) endorsed stealing, a behavioral modeling group in which confederate(s) committed theft, and a verbal prompting plus behavioral modeling group in which confederate(s) did both. The first experiment used one confederate; the second experiment used two. The pooled sample consisted of 335 undergraduate students. Results: Participants in the verbal prompting plus behavioral modeling group were most likely to steal followed by the behavioral modeling group. Interestingly, behavioral modeling was only influential when two confederates were present. There were no thefts in either the control or verbal prompting groups regardless of the number of confederates. Conclusions: Behavioral modeling appears to be the key mechanism, though verbal support can strengthen the effect of behavioral modeling.UW/SSHRC Seed Gran

The Role of Choice and Control in Women’s Childbirth Experiences

The current study seeks to understand the role of choice and control in both planning and giving birth. This study explores three research questions: 1) What are the key influences on women’s birth plan decisions? 2) How do changes to a woman’s initial birth plan impact her overall birth experience? 3) What is the role of choice and control in women’s childbirth experiences? Narrative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a convenience sample of 16 women who had given birth in Waterloo Region within the two years preceding data collection. The findings of this study cover five categories. The first category is the influences on women’s planning process (e.g. family, care provider, books, prenatal classes). The second category is the impact that changes to a woman’s initial birth plan have on her birth experience and this includes a discussion of transfers of care, pain management and medical intervention, and hospital stays. The third category is the role of choice and control in women’s childbirth experiences and in this section the topics discussed include pain management techniques and care provider support. Following this, there is a summary of women’s overall satisfaction with their experience. Finally, the fifth category of findings describes women’s experiences with breastfeeding support after the birth of their children. A conceptual framework of the role of choice and control in women’s birth experiences is proposed that contains three aspects: informed choice, flexibility and support

Nurses drawdown: A new nursing community for climate solutions

Join us for an inspiring webinar describing the newly launched Nurses Drawdown. Nurses have always known that the best way to prevent needless suffering and disease is through strong and effective public and population health. As recent events have shown, to help prevent future pandemics we need a healthy planet that supports healthy people. Nurses Drawdown is an evidenced based tool for nurses to engage in climate solutions and is a community of nurses from around the world who are working together to make our planet one that supports a healthier future for all. Learning Objectives: Describe the Nurses Drawdown five areas of action and their impacts on health. Discuss case studies of nurses using Nurses Drawdown in their own practice. Identify how nurses can share their climate activities with the Nurses Drawdown community

Why are social interactions found quickly in visual search tasks?

When asked to find a target dyad amongst non-interacting individuals, participants respond faster when the individuals in the target dyad are shown face-to-face (suggestive of a social interaction), than when they are presented back-to-back. Face-to-face dyads may be found faster because social interactions recruit specialized processing. However, human faces and bodies are salient directional cues that exert a strong influence on how observers distribute their attention. Here we report that a similar search advantage exists for ‘point-to-point’ and ‘point-to-face’ target arrangements constructed using arrows – a non-social directional cue. These findings indicate that the search advantage seen for face-to-face dyads is a product of the directional cues present within arrangements, not the fact that they are processed as social interactions, per se. One possibility is that, when arranged in the face-to-face or point-to-point configuration, pairs of directional cues (faces, bodies, arrows) create an attentional ‘hot-spot’ – a region of space in between the elements to which attention is directed by multiple cues. Due to the presence of this hot-spot, observers' attention may be drawn to the target location earlier in a serial visual search

Feeling Fat: Theorizing Intergenerational Body Narratives Through Affect

This study set out to understand the intergenerational movement and impact of obesity epidemic and anti-fat narratives that emerged after the 1950s in North America. Embedded in an Anglo-Western, neoliberal context, the current study sought to understand the impact of weight-based messaging on the embodied experiences of parents and their now-adult children. Working within a critical-transformative paradigm and drawing on post-humanism and new materialism, I conducted 19 narrative interviews with individuals born between 1955 and 1990, six of whom were mother-daughter dyads, as well as a body mapping workshop with five self-selecting participants over the course of three sessions. I combined qualitative approaches of thematic and visual analysis with the post-qualitative approaches of “plugging in” or “thinking with theory” as a way of putting participants’ accounts directly into conversation with post humanist and neomaterialist understandings to theorize key findings. I pulled together these disparate and entangled methodological approaches to account for both the discursive and affective realities of embodied fat experiences under biopedagogical forces that stipulate how (and how not) to have a body. Findings from this study highlight how affect is mobilized in the conveyance of biopedagogical messages about fatness intergenerationally. Lessons about fat bodies are situated within and bolstered by an assemblage of forces, both social and material, including structural racism and sexism, diet culture and its artifacts (diet books, healthy weight programs, magazines, etc.), medical weight bias, technologies of weight measurement and loss (Body Mass Index, weight cycling programs, weight loss surgeries, etc.), public education, and wider family dynamics. Through its integration of feminist affect theory alongside the novel use of arts-based body mapping with fat participants, the Feeling Fat study offers significant opportunities for the advancement of fat liberation