Loneliness Rates among Undergraduates from 2008 to 2022, according to Data from the National College Health Assessment

Loneliness is a painful awareness that one’s social relationships are less numerous or meaningful than one desires (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). To feel lonely is to feel excluded from a group, unloved by those surrounding oneself, unable to share one’s private concerns, or alienated from others (Myers & Twenge, 2019). Since Fall 2008, the American College Health Association has collected data on loneliness from an average of 44,888 college students in its fall and spring administrations of the National College Health Assessment (NCHA). In this study, we report the rates of loneliness among undergraduates from Fall 2008 to Spring 2022. Prior to Fall 2019, the NCHA measured loneliness by asking students whether they had felt “very lonely” in the past 12 months. In Fall 2008, 61% reported feeling very lonely; by Spring 2019, 67.4% did so. Since Fall 2019, the NCHA has used three items (Hughes et al., 2004, ? = .72) from the revised 20-item UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell et al., 1980, ? = .94) to measure loneliness. The correlation between the 3-item scale and the 20-item scale is high (r = .82). The three items included: “How often do you feel that you lack companionship?”, “How often do you feel left out?”, and “How often do you feel isolated from others?” Responses included: 1(hardly ever), 2(some of the time), and 3 (often). Respondents’ scores for these three items were summed (min = 3, max = 9). A total score of 3 – 5 was classified as the absence of loneliness, whereas a total score of 6 – 9 was classified as the presence of loneliness. In Fall 2019, 50.3% of undergraduates were lonely. By Spring 2022, the rate rose to 53.6%. Regardless of whether undergraduates self-identify themselves as feeling very lonely or are classified as lonely based on a 3-item measure of loneliness, over half of undergraduates are lonely, and the rates have been creeping up. We will discuss the implications of these findings

Control of InGaAs facets using metal modulation epitaxy (MME)

Control of faceting during epitaxy is critical for nanoscale devices. This work identifies the origins of gaps and different facets during regrowth of InGaAs adjacent to patterned features. Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) near SiO2 or SiNx led to gaps, roughness, or polycrystalline growth, but metal modulated epitaxy (MME) produced smooth and gap-free "rising tide" (001) growth filling up to the mask. The resulting self-aligned FETs were dominated by FET channel resistance rather than source-drain access resistance. Higher As fluxes led first to conformal growth, then pronounced {111} facets sloping up away from the mask.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Directed evolution of CRISPR-Cas9 to increase its specificity

The use of CRISPR-Cas9 as a therapeutic reagent is hampered by its off-target effects. Although rationally designed S. pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9) variants that display higher specificities than the wild-type SpCas9 protein are available, these attenuated Cas9 variants are often poorly efficient in human cells. Here, we develop a directed evolution approach in E. coli to obtain Sniper-Cas9, which shows high specificities without killing on-target activities in human cells. Unlike other engineered Cas9 variants, Sniper-Cas9 shows WT-level on-target activities with extended or truncated sgRNAs with further reduced off-target activities and works well in a preassembled ribonucleoprotein (RNP) format to allow DNA-free genome editing.

The thalamic mGluR1-PLC??4 pathway is critical in sleep architecture

The transition from wakefulness to a nonrapid eye movement (NREM) sleep state at the onset of sleep involves a transition from low-voltage, high-frequency irregular electroencephalography (EEG) waveforms to large-amplitude, low-frequency EEG waveforms accompanying synchronized oscillatory activity in the thalamocortical circuit. The thalamocortical circuit consists of reciprocal connections between the thalamus and cortex. The cortex sends strong excitatory feedback to the thalamus, however the function of which is unclear. In this study, we investigated the role of the thalamic metabotropic glutamate receptor 1 (mGluR1)-phospholipase C ??4 (PLC??4) pathway in sleep control in PLC??4-deficient (PLC??4-/-) mice. The thalamic mGluR1-PLC??4 pathway contains synapses that receive corticothalamic inputs. In PLC??4-/- mice, the transition from wakefulness to the NREM sleep state was stimulated, and the NREM sleep state was stabilized, which resulted in increased NREM sleep. The power density of delta (??) waves increased in parallel with the increased NREM sleep. These sleep phenotypes in PLC??4-/- mice were consistent in TC-restricted PLC??4 knockdown mice. Moreover, in vitro intrathalamic oscillations were greatly enhanced in the PLC??4-/- slices. The results of our study showed that thalamic mGluR1-PLC??4 pathway was critical in controlling sleep architecture.ope

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong

Loneliness Among U.S. College Students During COVID-19: An Exploratory Analysis

The present study explored how loneliness rates among undergraduate students in the U.S. have changed before (Fall 2019), during (Spring 2021), and after (Spring 2023) lockdown by race and gender identity. Participants consisted of undergraduates who completed the National College Health Assessment III (NCHA III) from Fall 2019 to Spring 2023. The NCHA III assessed loneliness by having students complete the 3-item Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale (ULS-3). Results indicated a main effect of gender (F(3,123543) = 256.70, p\u3c .001) and race (F(7,122108) = 35.31, p\u3c .001) on loneliness but not an interaction effect. The trend of loneliness exhibited a consistent pattern across all gender and racial groups. Loneliness reached its peak in Spring 2021 and subsequently decreased by Spring 2023, although not returning to the same levels observed in Spring 2019. In summary, while loneliness levels varied among different racial and gender identities, all undergraduates, regardless of race and gender identity, showed similar fluctuations in loneliness during the COVID-19 period