MATERNAL BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SYMPTOM PROFILES IN EARLY FAMILY LIFE: COMPLEXITY, SUPPORT, SERVICES USE, AND FUTURE RISK FOR DEPRESSION

Objectives: Depression affects up to 20% of U.S. mothers in the perinatal and early childhood periods, yet few studies of non-clinical populations have examined how symptoms characteristic of depression and other mental health and/or substance use problems (i.e., behavioral health problems) cluster within mothers’ experiences. This study aimed to characterize mothers’ behavioral health symptom profiles, and their correlates, early in the family life cycle. It also aimed to examine how these symptom patterns were related to development of depression and use of behavioral health care, in order to inform prevention efforts and to improve health trajectories for mothers, families, and their children. Methods: Data were from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, a national birth cohort of mostly unmarried mothers (N=4,205). Mothers reported 33 symptoms characteristic of four psychiatric disorders (probable major depressive episode, probable generalized anxiety disorder, probable alcohol dependence, and probable drug dependence) in their children’s 3rd year. Latent class analysis (LCA) identified subgroups of mothers based on those symptoms. The extent to which symptom profiles differentially predicted future major depressive episode (MDE) in their children’s 5th year and behavioral health care (BHC) use was investigated using logistic regression, adjusting for demographics, maternal reproductive health, functional limitations, and perinatal behavioral health. Moderation by social support and race/ethnicity was also explored. Results: LCA identified five profiles: “Depression only” (14.5% of sample), “Severe depression and anxiety” (5.3%), “Anxiety only” (2.2%), “Depression and substance use” (1.4%) and 5) “Currently symptom free” (76.6%). Perinatal behavioral health risk was associated with all four symptomatic profiles. Women with profiles characterized by depression and co-occurring anxiety or substance misuse were at greatest risk for future MDE and use of BHC. Social support slightly attenuated future MDE risk. Black and Hispanic women and pregnant women were less likely to use BHC. Conclusions: This study identified distinct behavioral health symptom profiles that cut across psychiatric disorders, had unique precursors, and differentially predicted MDE and BHC use. The disproportionately low levels of BHC use among pregnant women and women of color suggested missed opportunities for treatment and prevention of serious psychiatric disorders. Culturally acceptable, integrated BHC models, particularly in obstetrics and gynecology, should be prioritized

Interaction of threat expressions and eye gaze: an event-related potential study

he current study examined the interaction of fearful, angry, happy, and neutral expressions with left, straight, and right eye gaze directions. Human participants viewed faces consisting of various expression and eye gaze combinations while event-related potential (ERP) data were collected. The results showed that angry expressions modulated the mean amplitude of the P1, whereas fearful and happy expressions modulated the mean amplitude of the N170. No influence of eye gaze on mean amplitudes for the P1 and N170 emerged. Fearful, angry, and happy expressions began to interact with eye gaze to influence mean amplitudes in the time window of 200–400 ms. The results suggest early processing of expression influence ERPs independent of eye gaze, whereas expression and gaze interact to influence later ERPs

Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Transanal Irrigation for Managing Neurogenic Bowel Dysfunction in Japan.

BACKGROUND: Neurogenic bowel dysfunction (NBD) is a common sequela in Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) patients. Bowel dysfunction symptoms have a significant negative impact on quality of life (QOL) and are often socially disabling. Transanal irrigation (TAI) is a bowel management procedure that significantly mitigates NBD symptoms in patients refractory to standard bowel care (SBC) by reducing the incidence of fecal incontinence, ameliorating constipation, and improving QOL. TAI devices are used across many countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, and introduction of the devices is being considered in Japan. In this context, a cost-effectiveness analysis specific to Japanese settings is relevant. OBJECTIVES: To analyze the cost-effectiveness of TAI for bowel management of SCI patients with NBD in a Japanese clinical setting. Methods: A modified version of a previously developed and published Markov model was used to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of TAI. In the model, SCI patients using TAI due to NBD were compared with SCI patients not responding to TAI and continuing with SBC. Quality-adjusted Life Years (QALYs) were used as the primary effectiveness measure, and the analysis was conducted from the payer's perspective. RESULTS: The model predicts a lifetime incremental cost of TAI to be 3 198 687 yen compared with SBC. TAI provided an additional 0.8 QALY, which leads to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of TAI vs SBC of 4 016 287 yen/QALY. CONCLUSIONS: An ICER of 4 million yen falls within the range of reported willingness to pay (WTP) per QALY gain (5-6.7 million yen) in Japan, and TAI is therefore found to be a cost-effective treatment strategy compared to SBC. The result should be further corroborated in future Japanese trials of TAI

Reconstruction and Analysis of Central Metabolism in Microbes

Genome-scale metabolic models (GEMs) generated from automated reconstruction pipelines often lack accuracy due to the need for extensive gapfilling and the inference of periphery metabolic pathways based on lower-confidence annotations. The central carbon pathways and electron transport chains are among the most well-understood regions of microbial metabolism, and these pathways contribute significantly toward defining cellular behavior and growth conditions. Thus, it is often useful to construct a simplified core metabolic model (CMM) that is comprised of only the high-confidence central pathways. In this chapter, we discuss methods for producing core metabolic models (CMM) based on genome annotations. With its reduced scope compared to GEMs, CMM reconstruction focuses on accurate representation of the central metabolic pathways related to energy biosynthesis and accurate energy yield predictions. We demonstrate the reconstruction and analysis of CMMs using the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase). The complete workflow is available at http://kbase.us/core-models/

On the neural networks of empathy: A principal component analysis of an fMRI study

© 2008 Nomi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Testimony Regarding the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA)

My testimony today is delivered on behalf of twenty leading legal scholars who have joined me in providing an in depth analysis of the meaning and likely effects of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), were it to become law. We feel particularly compelled to provide testimony to this Committee because the first legislative finding set out in FADA declares that: “Leading legal scholars concur that conflicts between same-sex marriage and religious liberty are real and should be addressed through legislation.” As leading legal scholars we must correct this statement: we do not concur that conflicts between same-sex marriage and religious liberty are real, nor do we hold the view that any such conflict should be addressed through legislation. On the contrary, we maintain that religious liberty rights are already well protected in the U.S. Constitution and in existing federal and state legislation, rendering FADA both unnecessary and harmful

Order and structure in syntax I: Word order and syntactic structure

This book reconsiders the role of order and structure in syntax, focusing on fundamental issues such as word order and grammatical functions. The first group of papers in the collection asks what word order can tell us about syntactic structure, using evidence from V2, object shift, word order gaps and different kinds of movement. The second group of papers all address the issue of subjecthood in some way, and examine how certain subject properties vary across languages: expression of subjects, expletive subjects, quirky and locative subjects. All of the papers address in some way the tension between modelling what can vary across languages whilst improving our understanding of what might be universal to human language. This book is complemented by Order and structure in syntax II: Subjecthood and argument structure &nbsp

Order and structure in syntax I: Word order and syntactic structure

This book reconsiders the role of order and structure in syntax, focusing on fundamental issues such as word order and grammatical functions. The first group of papers in the collection asks what word order can tell us about syntactic structure, using evidence from V2, object shift, word order gaps and different kinds of movement. The second group of papers all address the issue of subjecthood in some way, and examine how certain subject properties vary across languages: expression of subjects, expletive subjects, quirky and locative subjects. All of the papers address in some way the tension between modelling what can vary across languages whilst improving our understanding of what might be universal to human language. This book is complemented by Order and structure in syntax II: Subjecthood and argument structure &nbsp