Why do spatial abilities predict mathematical performance?

Spatial ability predicts performance in mathematics and eventual expertise in science, technology and engineering. Spatial skills have also been shown to rely on neuronal networks partially shared with mathematics. Understanding the nature of this association can inform educational practices and intervention for mathematical underperformance. Using data on two aspects of spatial ability and three domains of mathematical ability from 4174 pairs of 12-year-old twins, we examined the relative genetic and environmental contributions to variation in spatial ability and to its relationship with different aspects of mathematics. Environmental effects explained most of the variation in spatial ability (~70%) and in mathematical ability (~60%) at this age, and the effects were the same for boys and girls. Genetic factors explained about 60% of the observed relationship between spatial ability and mathematics, with a substantial portion of the relationship explained by common environmental influences (26% and 14% by shared and non-shared environments respectively). These findings call for further research aimed at identifying specific environmental mediators of the spatial–mathematics relationship

Bisulfite-based epityping on pooled genomic DNA provides an accurate estimate of average group DNA methylation

BACKGROUND: DNA methylation plays a vital role in normal cellular function, with aberrant methylation signatures being implicated in a growing number of human pathologies and complex human traits. Methods based on the modification of genomic DNA with sodium bisulfite are considered the 'gold-standard' for DNA methylation profiling on genomic DNA; however, they require relatively large amounts of DNA and may be prohibitively expensive when used on the large sample sizes necessary to detect small effects. We propose that a high-throughput DNA pooling approach will facilitate the use of emerging methylomic profiling techniques in large samples. RESULTS: Compared with data generated from 89 individual samples, our analysis of 205 CpG sites spanning nine independent regions of the genome demonstrates that DNA pools can be used to provide an accurate and reliable quantitative estimate of average group DNA methylation. Comparison of data generated from the pooled DNA samples with results averaged across the individual samples comprising each pool revealed highly significant correlations for individual CpG sites across all nine regions, with an average overall correlation across all regions and pools of 0.95 (95% bootstrapped confidence intervals: 0.94 to 0.96). CONCLUSION: In this study we demonstrate the validity of using pooled DNA samples to accurately assess group DNA methylation averages. Such an approach can be readily applied to the assessment of disease phenotypes reducing the time, cost and amount of DNA starting material required for large-scale epigenetic analyses

Understanding the science-learning environment: a genetically sensitive approach.

Previous studies have shown that environmental influences on school science performance increase in importance from primary to secondary school. Here we assess for the first time the relationship between the science-learning environment and science performance using a genetically sensitive approach to investigate the aetiology of this link. 3000 pairs of 14-year-old twins from the UK Twins Early Development Study reported on their experiences of the science-learning environment and were assessed for their performance in science using a web-based test of scientific enquiry. Multivariate twin analyses were used to investigate the genetic and environmental links between environment and outcome. The most surprising result was that the science-learning environment was almost as heritable (43%) as performance on the science test (50%), and showed negligible shared environmental influence (3%). Genetic links explained most (56%) of the association between learning environment and science outcome, indicating gene–environment correlation

Exploring the genetic aetiology of trust in adolescents:Combined twin and DNA analyses

Behavioral traits generally show moderate to strong genetic influence, with heritability estimates of around 50%. Some recent research has suggested that trust may be an exception because it is more strongly influenced by social interactions. In a sample of over 7,000 adolescent twins from the United Kingdom’s Twins Early Development Study, we found broad sense heritability estimates of 57% for generalized trust and 51% for trust in friends. Genomic-relatedness-matrix restricted maximum likelihood (GREML) estimates in the same sample indicate that 21% of the narrow sense genetic variance can be explained by common single nucleotide polymorphisms for generalized trust and 43% for trust in friends. As expected, this implies a large amount of unexplained heritability, although power is low for estimating DNA-based heritability. The missing heritability may be accounted for by interactions between DNA and the social environment during development or via gene–environment correlations with rare variants. How these genes and environments correlate seem especially important for the development of trust

The mental health and well-being profile of young adults using social media

The relationship between mental health and social media has received significant research and policy attention. However, there is little population-representative data about who social media users are which limits understanding of confounding factors between mental health and social media. Here we profile users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children population cohort (N = 4083). We provide estimates of demographics and mental health and well-being outcomes by platform. We find that users of different platforms and frequencies are not homogeneous. User groups differ primarily by sex and YouTube users are the most likely to have poorer mental health outcomes. Instagram and Snapchat users tend to have higher well-being than the other social media sites considered. Relationships between use-frequency and well-being differ depending on the specific well-being construct measured. The reproducibility of future research may be improved by stratifying by sex and being specific about the well-being constructs used

Investigating the Relationship between Timing of Tweets and Mental Health, Well-being and Sleep Quality in a UK birth cohort

Introduction & Background Social media use has been proposed as a cause of worsening mental health and wellbeing over the last decade, but its role in mitigating some of the effects of social distancing during the pandemic showed that it also has the potential to improve these outcomes. Whilst existing research disagrees on the degree to which social media use harms or helps, there is growing consensus around the need to move from global measures of social media use to specific measures of types of social media use. These new measures can enable an exploration of proposed mechanisms and causal pathways linking social media use and mental health and wellbeing. A commonly proposed mechanism is nighttime social media use reducing sleep quality, and consequently harming mental health and wellbeing. Objectives & Approach We aimed to investigate the relationships between the time Twitter users post content and their mental health, wellbeing and sleep quality using direct measurements of Twitter use linked to standardised mental health measures in a well-characterized cohort. This study uses approximately 1.5 million Tweets harvested between January 2008 and March 2023 from 622 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). These Tweets have been linked to questionnaire data collected on six occasions spanning April 2019 to May 2021. These questionnaires included standard measures of depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, mental wellbeing and difficulty sleeping. We have taken two approaches to explore these relationships, using circular statistical methods novel to social media data analysis to account for day/night cycles. The first approach used mixed effect models to investigate the association between the time a Tweet was posted and the mental health, mental wellbeing and sleep quality of the poster. The second approach explored the relationships between the mean hour participants post Tweets in a given time period, and their mental health, mental wellbeing and sleep quality. Relevance to Digital Footprints This research is highly relevant to Digital Footprints, due to its use of data directly extracted from a social media site. The methodologies employed in analysing this alongside more traditional epidemiological survey data provides an example of how digital footprint data can complemented by high quality ground truths. Results There was evidence that the timing of Twitter activity was predictive of the mental wellbeing and sleep quality of participants, even after adjustment for demographic, educational and socio-economic covariates. However, the hour a Tweet was posted at explained very little of the variation in the mental wellbeing or sleep quality of the participant who posted it (0.1% and less than 0.1% respectively). There was weak to no evidence that the timing of Twitter activity was predictive of the depressive and anxiety symptoms of participants. Conclusions & Implications Whilst this study found evidence that the hour participants post on Twitter is predictive of their mental wellbeing and sleep quality, the amount of variation explained by these models suggests that this is not a clinically relevant risk factor. This study supports arguments in the literature that the use of social media has a very small and insignificant effect on mental health, wellbeing and sleep quality

Monocytes/macrophages express chemokine receptor CCR9 in rheumatoid arthritis and CCL25 stimulates their differentiation

Available Gold OAAbstract Introduction Monocytes/macrophages accumulate in the rheumatoid (RA) synovium where they play a central role in inflammation and joint destruction. Identification of molecules involved in their accumulation and differentiation is important to inform therapeutic strategies. This study investigated the expression and function of chemokine receptor CCR9 in the peripheral blood (PB) and synovium of RA, non-RA patients and healthy volunteers. Methods CCR9 expression on PB monocytes/macrophages was analysed by flow cytometry and in synovium by immunofluorescence. Chemokine receptor CCR9 mRNA expression was examined in RA and non-RA synovium, monocytes/macrophages from PB and synovial fluid (SF) of RA patients and PB of healthy donors using the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Monocyte differentiation and chemotaxis to chemokine ligand 25 (CCL25)/TECK were used to study CCR9 function. Results CCR9 was expressed by PB monocytes/macrophages in RA and healthy donors, and increased in RA. In RA and non-RA synovia, CCR9 co-localised with cluster of differentiation 14+ (CD14+) and cluster of differentiation 68+ (CD68+) macrophages, and was more abundant in RA synovium. CCR9 mRNA was detected in the synovia of all RA patients and in some non-RA controls, and monocytes/macrophages from PB and SF of RA and healthy controls. CCL25 was detected in RA and non-RA synovia where it co-localised with CD14+ and CD68+ cells. Tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNFα) increased CCR9 expression on human acute monocytic leukemia cell line THP-1 monocytic cells. CCL25 induced a stronger monocyte differentiation in RA compared to healthy donors. CCL25 induced significant chemotaxis of PB monocytes but not consistently among individuals. Conclusions CCR9 expression by monocytes is increased in RA. CCL25 may be involved in the differentiation of monocytes to macrophages particularly in RA.Peer Reviewe