MicroRNA Dysregulation in the Spinal Cord following Traumatic Injury

Spinal cord injury (SCI) triggers a multitude of pathophysiological events that are tightly regulated by the expression levels of specific genes. Recent studies suggest that changes in gene expression following neural injury can result from the dysregulation of microRNAs, short non-coding RNA molecules that repress the translation of target mRNA. To understand the mechanisms underlying gene alterations following SCI, we analyzed the microRNA expression patterns at different time points following rat spinal cord injury

Signaling probabilities in ambiguity: who reacts to vague news?

Ambiguity affects decisions of people who exhibit a distaste of and require a premium for dealing with it. Do ambiguity-neutral subjects completely disregard ambiguity and respond to any vague news? We couple decision-making in ambiguity with a preliminary information processing stage, where news is used to test prior beliefs and, possibly but not necessarily, update them. All decision-makers, including ambiguity-neutral, recognize and account for ambiguity at this stage; higher confidence makes ambiguity-neutral subjects less susceptible to vague news. In a two-color Ellsberg experiment with imprecise signals about the unknown probability of success they are less likely to respond to signals; the difference between them and non-neutral to ambiguity subjects vanishes for high precision signals. Less than 60% subjects choose the ambiguous urn, even for high communicated probabilities of success, suggesting many participants, especially ambiguity-neutral, discard vague news at the information processing stage. JEL: C90, D01, D81, as well as seminar participants at ETH-Zürich, University of Essex, University of Glasgow and University of Hamburg, and participants of iCare conference at HSE in Perm and JE on Ambiguity and Strategic Interactions at the University of Grenoble for helpful comments, suggestions and encouragement. All remaining errors are ours

Understanding the Correlates Between Care-Recipient Age and Caregiver Burden, Work-Family Conflict, Job Satisfaction, and Turnover Intentions

Although the caregiver literature has explored a wide array of different variables, there is a gap in research on how demographics of the care recipient affect their caregiver. Using data from a diverse sample of 1007 unpaid caregivers, individuals were separated into four groups based on care recipient age; childcare, adultcare, eldercare, and those with care recipients from multiple age categories. Then, following previous literature, childcare was split into four groups based on the age of the youngest child cared for (0–2 years; 3–5 years; 6–12 years; and 13–17 years). Group differences were found in work-family conflict (time) and five types of caregiver burden. Specifically, time-dependence burden differed most between groups with caregivers of children (0–2 years) having the highest levels and caregivers of children (13–17) having the lowest levels. There were no differences found between groups for job satisfaction, turnover intentions, or family-work conflict. Additional differences were found when considering caregivers’ gender. This research is an exploratory step in understanding how age of care recipient relates to different outcomes for caregivers. Implications are discussed