Mindfulness meditation use in Britain during the COVID-19 pandemic

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine the prevalence and associations of mindfulness meditation use and also its perceived mental health effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Using repeated cross-sectional data from broad online samples weighted to be representative of the adult population in Britain, we estimated the prevalence of mindfulness meditation use and employed logistic regression models to investigate sociodemographic and political associations of mindfulness meditation use and also its perceived mental health effects during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: The findings suggest that 16 percent of adults in Britain had learnt to practice mindfulness in 2021. In covariate-adjusted regression models, having learnt to practice mindfulness was more common among young and middle-aged adults, residents in London, and respondents who voted for the Liberal Democrats. Among mindfulness meditation users who reported having practiced mindfulness during the COVID-19 pandemic, 60 percent reported that it positively affected their mental health and 24 percent reported that it negatively affected their mental health. Notably, 41 percent of respondents with children under 18 (versus 13 percent of those without minors) reported negative mental health effects. In covariate-adjusted regression models, negative mental health effects from mindfulness practice during the COVID-19 pandemic were not concentrated in any particular groups, except for respondents with children under 18. Conclusions: Mindfulness meditation has become widespread in Britain, but the results in this study suggest that mindfulness meditation use may be concentrated in certain sociodemographic and political groups. The results also suggest that practicing mindfulness during the COVID-19 pandemic had positive mental health effects for a majority of users, but approximately one-quarter of users reported negative mental health effects. It is therefore important for future research to continue monitoring the prevalence of mindfulness meditation use in society and to investigate under what circumstances, for whom, and in what ways mindfulness-based practices may have negative effects on mental health

Lessons Learned: Effective Reading Practices For The Struggling Reader

This study investigated schools who received Reading First (RF) monies to determine if student reading achievement in kindergarten through second grade was a function of the funding earmarked for implementation of the RF practices. The researchers also examined a seven-year reading progress trend to observe changes in Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI) composite means of 37 participating campuses by grade level and by assessment measure from 2006 to 2012. Multiple linear regression and one-way repeated measures outputs were used for evaluating the evidence. A longitudinal progress trend was used over a seven-year period. Both a linear regression and a repeated measure analyses of variance produced significant results that supported the claim that the size of a reading budget had an impact on students’ reading achievement. The linear regression judged the size of budget statistically significant at the .01 alpha level. The repeated measure analyses found differences and significant results among the means of the five TPRI measurements tested in kindergarten through second grade. The five critical elements of reading measured by TPRI included: phonemic awareness, graphophonemics, listening comprehension, accuracy, and reading comprehension. The analyses showed that student achievement was at its highest during the implementation of the RF program years. The analyses also showed a steady decline in reading composite scores after the loss of the funding. The results of the long trend performance examination might infer that the practices that teachers used in kindergarten through second-grade during the RF years were more effective than those used before or thereafter

Development of a digital intervention for psychedelic preparation (DIPP)

Psychedelic substances induce profound alterations in consciousness. Careful preparation is therefore essential to limit adverse reactions, enhance therapeutic benefits, and maintain user safety. This paper describes the development of a self-directed, digital intervention for psychedelic preparation. Drawing on elements from the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for developing complex interventions, the design was informed by a four-factor model of psychedelic preparedness, using a person-centred approach. Our mixed-methods investigation consisted of two studies. The first involved interviews with 19 participants who had previously attended a 'high-dose' psilocybin retreat, systematically exploring their preparation behaviours and perspectives on the proposed intervention. The second study engaged 28 attendees of an ongoing psilocybin retreat in co-design workshops, refining the intervention protocol using insights from the initial interviews. The outcome is a co-produced 21-day digital course (Digital Intervention for Psychedelic Preparation (DIPP)), that is organised into four modules: Knowledge-Expectation, Psychophysical-Readiness, Safety-Planning, and Intention-Preparation. Fundamental components of the course include daily meditation practice, supplementary exercises tied to the weekly modules, and mood tracking. DIPP provides a comprehensive and scalable solution to enhance psychedelic preparedness, aligning with the broader shift towards digital mental health interventions

Lifetimes of excited states in P-, As- and Sb-

Radiative lifetimes of three elements of the nitrogen group have been experimentally investigated at the Double ElectroStatic Ion Ring Experiment (DESIREE) facility at Stockholm University. The experiments were performed through selective laser photodetachment of excited states of P$^-$, As$^-$ and Sb$^-$ ions stored in a cryogenic storage ring. The experimental results were compared with theoretically predicted lifetimes, yielding a mixture of very good agreements in some cases and large discrepancies in others. These results are part of our efforts to map out the lifetimes of all excited states in negative ions. This data can be used to benchmark atomic theories, in particularly with respect to the degree of electron correlation that is incorporated in various theoretical models

Assembling of G-strands into novel tetra-molecular parallel G4-DNA nanostructures using avidin–biotin recognition

We describe a method for the preparation of novel long (hundreds of nanometers), uniform, inter-molecular G4-DNA molecules composed of four parallel G-strands. The only long continuous G4-DNA reported so far are intra-molecular structures made of a single G-strand. To enable a tetra-molecular assembly of the G-strands we developed a novel approach based on avidin–biotin biological recognition. The steps of the G4-DNA production include: (i) Enzymatic synthesis of long poly(dG)-poly(dC) molecules with biotinylated poly(dG)-strand; (ii) Formation of a complex between avidin-tetramer and four biotinylated poly(dG)-poly(dC) molecules; (iii) Separation of the poly(dC) strands from the poly(dG)-strands, which are connected to the avidin; (iv) Assembly of the four G-strands attached to the avidin into tetra-molecular G4-DNA. The average contour length of the formed structures, as measured by AFM, is equal to that of the initial poly(dG)-poly(dC) molecules, suggesting a tetra-molecular mechanism of the G-strands assembly. The height of tetra-molecular G4-nanostructures is larger than that of mono-molecular G4-DNA molecules having similar contour length. The CD spectra of the tetra- and mono-molecular G4-DNA are markedly different, suggesting different structural organization of these two types of molecules. The tetra-molecular G4-DNA nanostructures showed clear electrical polarizability. This suggests that they may be useful for molecular electronics

Intramolecularly folded G-quadruplex and i-motif structures in the proximal promoter of the vascular endothelial growth factor gene

A polyguanine/polycytosine (polyG/polyC) tract in the proximal promoter of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene is essential for transcriptional activation. The guanine-rich (G-rich) and cytosine-rich (C-rich) strands on this tract are shown to form specific secondary structures, characterized as G-quadruplexes and i-motifs, respectively. Mutational analysis of the G-rich strand combined with dimethyl sulfate (DMS) footprinting, a polymerase stop assay, and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy revealed that the G-quadruplex containing a 1:4:1 double-chain reversal loop is the most thermodynamically stable conformation that this strand readily adopts. These studies provide strong evidence that the size of loop regions plays a critical role in determining the most favored folding pattern of a G-quadruplex. The secondary structure formed on the complementary C-rich strand was also determined by mutational analysis combined with Br2 footprinting and CD spectroscopy. Our results reveal that at a pH of 5.9 this strand is able to form an intramolecular i-motif structure that involves six C–C+ base pairs and a 2:3:2 loop configuration. Taken together, our results demonstrate that the G-quadruplex and i-motif structures are able to form on the G- and C-rich strands, respectively, of the polyG/polyC tract in the VEGF proximal promoter under conditions that favor the transition from B-DNA to non-B-DNA conformations

Evidence of the formation of G-quadruplex structures in the promoter region of the human vascular endothelial growth factor gene

The polypurine/polypyrimidine (pPu/pPy) tract of the human vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) gene is proposed to be structurally dynamic and to have potential to adopt non-B DNA structures. In the present study, we further provide evidence for the existence of the G-quadruplex structure within this tract both in vitro and in vivo using the dimethyl sulfate (DMS) footprinting technique and nucleolin as a structural probe specifically recognizing G-quadruplex structures. We observed that the overall reactivity of the guanine residues within this tract toward DMS was significantly reduced compared with other guanine residues of the flanking regions in both in vitro and in vivo footprinting experiments. We also demonstrated that nucleolin, which is known to bind to G-quadruplex structures, is able to bind specifically to the G-rich sequence of this region in negatively supercoiled DNA. Our chromatin immunoprecipitation analysis further revealed binding of nucleolin to the promoter region of the VEGF gene in vivo. Taken together, our results are in agreement with our hypothesis that secondary DNA structures, such as G-quadruplexes, can be formed in supercoiled duplex DNA and DNA in chromatin in vivo under physiological conditions similar to those formed in single-stranded DNA templates