Associations between social isolation, loneliness, and objective physical activity in older men and women

BACKGROUND: The impact of social isolation and loneliness on health risk may be mediated by a combination of direct biological processes and lifestyle factors. This study tested the hypothesis that social isolation and loneliness are associated with less objective physical activity and more sedentary behavior in older adults. METHODS: Wrist-mounted accelerometers were worn over 7 days by 267 community-based men (n = 136) and women (n = 131) aged 50-81 years (mean 66.01), taking part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA; wave 6, 2012-13). Associations between social isolation or loneliness and objective activity were analyzed using linear regressions, with total activity counts and time spent in sedentary behavior and light and moderate/vigorous activity as the outcome variables. Social isolation and loneliness were assessed with standard questionnaires, and poor health, mobility limitations and depressive symptoms were included as covariates. RESULTS: Total 24 h activity counts were lower in isolated compared with non-isolated respondents independently of gender, age, socioeconomic status, marital status, smoking, alcohol consumption, self-rated health, limiting longstanding illness, mobility limitations, depressive symptoms, and loneliness (β = - 0.130, p = 0.028). Time spent in sedentary behavior over the day and evening was greater in isolated participants (β = 0.143, p = 0.013), while light (β = - 0.143, p = 0.015) and moderate/vigorous (β = - 0.112, p = 0.051) physical activity were less frequent. Physical activity was greater on weekdays than weekend days, but associations with social isolation were similar. Loneliness was not associated with physical activity or sedentary behavior in multivariable analysis. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that greater social isolation in older men and women is related to reduced everyday objective physical activity and greater sedentary time. Differences in physical activity may contribute to the increased risk of ill-health and poor wellbeing associated with isolation

Use of Text Messaging for Monitoring Sugar-sweetened Beverages, Physical Activity, and Screen Time in Children: A Pilot Study

To examine acceptability, attrition, adherence, and preliminary efficacy of mobile phone short message service (SMS; text messaging) for monitoring healthy behaviors in children

Spectral fingerprints or spectral tilt? Evidence for distinct oscillatory signatures of memory formation

Decreases in low-frequency power (2–30 Hz) alongside high-frequency power increases (>40 Hz) have been demonstrated to predict successful memory formation. Parsimoniously, this change in the frequency spectrum can be explained by one factor, a change in the tilt of the power spectrum (from steep to flat) indicating engaged brain regions. A competing view is that the change in the power spectrum contains several distinct brain oscillatory fingerprints, each serving different computations. Here, we contrast these two theories in a parallel magnetoencephalography (MEG)–intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) study in which healthy participants and epilepsy patients, respectively, studied either familiar verbal material or unfamiliar faces. We investigated whether modulations in specific frequency bands can be dissociated in time and space and by experimental manipulation. Both MEG and iEEG data show that decreases in alpha/beta power specifically predicted the encoding of words but not faces, whereas increases in gamma power and decreases in theta power predicted memory formation irrespective of material. Critically, these different oscillatory signatures of memory encoding were evident in different brain regions. Moreover, high-frequency gamma power increases occurred significantly earlier compared to low-frequency theta power decreases. These results show that simple “spectral tilt” cannot explain common oscillatory changes and demonstrate that brain oscillations in different frequency bands serve different functions for memory encoding

CBT4BN: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Online Chat and Face-to-Face Group Therapy for Bulimia Nervosa

Although cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) represents the first-line evidence-based psychotherapy for bulimia nervosa (BN), most individuals seeking treatment do not have access to this specialized intervention. We compared an Internet-based manualized version of CBT group therapy for BN conducted via a therapeutic chat group (CBT4BN) to the same treatment conducted via a traditional face-to-face group therapy (CBTF2F)

Pregnancy Exposure Registries for Assessing Antimalarial Drug Safety in Pregnancy in Malaria-Endemic Countries

Feiko ter Kuile and colleagues argue that there is an urgent need to develop targeted pharmacovigilance systems to assess the safety of antimalarials in early pregnancy

CBT4BN versus CBTF2F: Comparison of online versus face-to-face treatment for bulimia nervosa

Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is currently the “gold standard” for treatment of bulimia nervosa (BN), and is effective for approximately 40–60% of individuals receiving treatment; however, the majority of individuals in need of care do not have access to CBT. New strategies for service delivery of CBT and for maximizing maintenance of treatment benefits are critical for improving our ability to treat BN. This clinical trial is comparing an Internet-based version of CBT (CBT4BN) in which group intervention is conducted via therapeutic chat group with traditional group CBT (CBTF2F) for BN conducted via face-to-face therapy group. The purpose of the trial is to determine whether manualized CBT delivered via the Internet is not inferior to the gold standard of manualized group CBT. In this two-site randomized controlled trial, powered for non-inferiority analyses, 180 individuals with BN are being randomized to either CBT4BN or CBTF2F. We hypothesize that CBT4BN will not be inferior to CBTF2F and that participants will value the convenience of an online intervention. If not inferior, CBT4BN may be a cost-effective approach to service delivery for individuals requiring treatment for BN

Data-driven re-referencing of intracranial EEG based on independent component analysis (ICA)

Background: Intracranial recordings from patients implanted with depth electrodes are a valuable source of information in neuroscience. They allow for the unique opportunity to record brain activity with high spatial and temporal resolution. A common pre-processing choice in stereotactic EEG (S-EEG) is to re-reference the data with a bipolar montage. In this, each channel is subtracted from its neighbor, to reduce commonalities between channels and isolate activity that is spatially confined. New Method: We challenge the assumption that bipolar reference effectively performs this task. To extract local activity, the distribution of the signal source of interest, interfering distant signals, and noise need to be considered. Referencing schemes with fixed coefficients can decrease the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the data, they can lead to mislocalization of activity and consequently to misinterpretation of results. We propose to use Independent Component Analysis (ICA), to derive filter coefficients that reflect the statistical dependencies of the data at hand. Results: We describe and demonstrate this on human S-EEG recordings. In a simulation with real data, we quantitatively show that ICA outperforms the bipolar referencing operation in sensitivity and importantly in specificity when revealing local time series from the superposition of neighboring channels. Comparison with Existing Method: We argue that ICA already performs the same task that bipolar referencing pursues, namely undoing the linear superposition of activity and will identify activity that is local. Conclusions: When investigating local sources in human S-EEG, ICA should be preferred over re-referencing the data with a bipolar montage

Hippocampal neurons code individual episodic memories in humans

The hippocampus is an essential hub for episodic memory processing. However, how human hippocampal single neurons code multi-element associations remains unknown. In particular, it is debated whether each hippocampal neuron represents an invariant element within an episode or whether single neurons bind together all the elements of a discrete episodic memory. Here we provide evidence for the latter hypothesis. Using single-neuron recordings from a total of 30 participants, we show that individual neurons, which we term episode-specific neurons, code discrete episodic memories using either a rate code or a temporal firing code. These neurons were observed exclusively in the hippocampus. Importantly, these episode-specific neurons do not reflect the coding of a particular element in the episode (that is, concept or time). Instead, they code for the conjunction of the different elements that make up the episode

NURTURE: Development and pilot testing of a novel parenting intervention for mothers with histories of an eating disorder: Nurture Pilot Testing

To describe the treatment development and pilot testing of a group parenting intervention, NURTURE (Networking, Uniting, and Reaching out To Upgrade Relationships and Eating), for mothers with histories of eating disorders