Antibiotic Resistance in Manure- Amended Agricultural Soils

Manure application to agricultural land benefits soil health and agronomic yields. However, as antibiotic resistance becomes a more serious threat to public health, there is concern that antibiotic resistance originating from livestock manure could impact human health through contamination of the environment or food. This study sought to quantify this risk by monitoring concentrations of antibiotic resistance bacteria and genes in fallow soil during the period of October through April, representing fall manure application through spring planting. Resistance to three common antibiotics— tylosin, azithromycin and tetracycline— was monitored following application of fresh, stockpiled, or composted beef feedlot manure, or inorganic fertilizer. Overall, concentrations of all monitored resistant bacteria were below the detection limit for enumeration. Results indicate that while all the manure treatments increased at least one measure of antibiotic resistance during the sampling period, by the final sampling day antibiotic resistance prevalence and concentrations in manured plots were not significantly different from soil receiving no fertilizer treatments

Network Analysis of within-person temporal associations among physical activity, sleep, and wellbeing in situ

Physical activity, sleep, affect, and purpose in life are part of a system that reflects wellbeing in daily life. A holistic understanding of the naturalistic dynamics of the interactions within this system is key to promoting wellbeing. Using self-reported affect (happy, sad, angry, anxious) and physical activity periods collected twice per day via smartphone-based experience sampling over 28 days as young adult participants (n = 226 young adults; M = 20.2 years, SD = 1.7 years; 75% women) went about their daily lives, we examined the within-day associations between physical activity and affect that form a network of wellness behaviors and outcomes. Adding once per day reports of sleep duration, sleep quality, and purpose in life, we additionally examined day-to-day temporal dynamics among physical activity, sleep, affect, and purpose in life. Multilevel modeling showed that when individuals reported engaging in more than their usual level of physical activity, they reported increased happy and reduced anxious affect at the next prompt. At the daily level, multilevel vector autoregressive models that consider the network of wellness together showed that higher physical activity on a given day predicted an increase of happy affect the next day. In parallel, higher sleep quality on a given night predicted a decrease in negative affective states the next day. We found that purpose in life predicted decreased sad, anxious, and angry affect up to two days later. Collectively, these findings suggest that while the effects of sleep and physical activity on affective states and purpose in life may be shorter term (up to one day), a sense of purpose in life is a critical component of wellbeing that can have slightly longer effects, bleeding into the next few days

Profiles of daily positive emotion dynamics and associations with flourishing

The present study investigated between-person differences in daily positive emotion dynamics and their associations with flourishing across two studies (Study 1: n=244, Study 2: n=265). Three between-person indices of daily positive emotion dynamics were created: average intensity, variability, and inertia. Using latent profile analysis, a data-driven technique that identifies subgroups (referred to as profiles) within a population, four common ways in which these three emotion dynamics cluster at the person level were identified. Testing for associations between flourishing and the observed profiles of emotion dynamics revealed that people with high levels of positive emotion that were stable over time were highest in flourishing, followed by low-intensity but variable positive emotions, followed by individuals with low-intensity positive emotions. By considering how three key emotion dynamic indices cluster within individuals, we find that understanding both the average intensity and the extent of stability in daily positive emotion is necessary for understanding flourishing

Neural moderators of social influence susceptibility on drinking

Objectives: Conversations shape health behaviors. However, individuals vary in susceptibility to conversational influence and in their neural responses that track such influences. We examined whether activity in brain regions associated with social rewards and making sense of others’ minds was related to drinking following conversations about alcohol. We studied ten social groups of college students (total N = 104 students; 4760 total observations) across two University campuses. Methods: We collected whole-brain fMRI data while participants viewed photographs of the faces of peers with whom they tended to drink at varying frequencies (i.e., drinking vs. non-drinking peers). Next, using mobile diaries, we tracked alcohol-related conversations and alcohol use twice daily for 28 days. Results: On average, talking about alcohol was associated with a higher probability of drinking the following day. Controlling for baseline drinking, participants who responded more strongly to drinking peers—with whom they drank more frequently— in brain regions associated with social rewards and mentalizing showed higher susceptibility to conversational influence on drinking. Conversely, stronger neural responses to non-drinking peers—with whom they drank less frequently—decoupled the link between alcohol conversations and next-day drinking. Conclusions: These findings conceptually replicate prior findings linking peer conversations and drinking behavior in a longitudinal, ecologically valid setting, and provide new evidence that brain sensitivity to peers may exacerbate or buffer conversational susceptibility to drink

Frontoparietal functional connectivity moderates the link between time spent on social media and subsequent negative affect in daily life

Abstract Evidence on the harms and benefits of social media use is mixed, in part because the effects of social media on well-being depend on a variety of individual difference moderators. Here, we explored potential neural moderators of the link between time spent on social media and subsequent negative affect. We specifically focused on the strength of correlation among brain regions within the frontoparietal system, previously associated with the top-down cognitive control of attention and emotion. Participants (N = 54) underwent a resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. Participants then completed 28 days of ecological momentary assessment and answered questions about social media use and negative affect, twice a day. Participants who spent more than their typical amount of time on social media since the previous time point reported feeling more negative at the present moment. This within-person temporal association between social media use and negative affect was mainly driven by individuals with lower resting state functional connectivity within the frontoparietal system. By contrast, time spent on social media did not predict subsequent affect for individuals with higher frontoparietal functional connectivity. Our results highlight the moderating role of individual functional neural connectivity in the relationship between social media and affect

Psychological distance intervention reminders reduce alcohol consumption frequency in daily life

Abstract Modifying behaviors, such as alcohol consumption, is difficult. Creating psychological distance between unhealthy triggers and one’s present experience can encourage change. Using two multisite, randomized experiments, we examine whether theory-driven strategies to create psychological distance—mindfulness and perspective-taking—can change drinking behaviors among young adults without alcohol dependence via a 28-day smartphone intervention (Study 1, N = 108 participants, 5492 observations; Study 2, N = 218 participants, 9994 observations). Study 2 presents a close replication with a fully remote delivery during the COVID-19 pandemic. During weeks when they received twice-a-day intervention reminders, individuals in the distancing interventions reported drinking less frequently than on control weeks—directionally in Study 1, and significantly in Study 2. Intervention reminders reduced drinking frequency but did not impact amount. We find that smartphone-based mindfulness and perspective-taking interventions, aimed to create psychological distance, can change behavior. This approach requires repeated reminders, which can be delivered via smartphones