Assessment of culture and environment in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study: Rationale, description of measures, and early data.

Neurodevelopmental maturation takes place in a social environment in addition to a neurobiological one. Characterization of social environmental factors that influence this process is therefore an essential component in developing an accurate model of adolescent brain and neurocognitive development, as well as susceptibility to change with the use of marijuana and other drugs. The creation of the Culture and Environment (CE) measurement component of the ABCD protocol was guided by this understanding. Three areas were identified by the CE Work Group as central to this process: influences relating to CE Group membership, influences created by the proximal social environment, influences stemming from social interactions. Eleven measures assess these influences, and by time of publication, will have been administered to well over 7,000 9-10 year-old children and one of their parents. Our report presents baseline data on psychometric characteristics (mean, standard deviation, range, skewness, coefficient alpha) of all measures within the battery. Effectiveness of the battery in differentiating 9-10 year olds who were classified as at higher and lower risk for marijuana use in adolescence was also evaluated. Psychometric characteristics on all measures were good to excellent; higher vs. lower risk contrasts were significant in areas where risk differentiation would be anticipated

Behavioral Deficits and Axonal Injury Persistence after Rotational Head Injury Are Direction Dependent

Pigs continue to grow in importance as a tool in neuroscience. However, behavioral tests that have been validated in the rodent model do not translate well to pigs because of their very different responses to behavioral stimuli. We refined metrics for assessing porcine open field behavior to detect a wide spectrum of clinically relevant behaviors in the piglet post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). Female neonatal piglets underwent a rapid non-impact head rotation in the sagittal plane (n=8 evaluable) or were instrumented shams (n=7 evaluable). Open field testing was conducted 1 day prior to injury (day −1) in order to establish an individual baseline for analysis, and at days +1 and +4 after injury. Animals were then killed on day +6 after injury for neuropathological assessment of axonal injury. Injured piglets were less interested in interacting with environmental stimuli and had a lower activity level than did shams. These data were compared with previously published data for axial rotational injuries in neonatal piglets. Acute behavioral outcomes post-TBI showed a dependence on the rotational plane of the brain injury, with animals with sagittal injuries demonstrating a greater level of inactivity and less random usage of the open field space than those with axial injuries. The persistence of axonal injury is also dependent on the rotational plane, with sagittal rotations causing more prolonged injuries than axial rotations. These results are consistent with animal studies, finite element models, and studies of concussions in football, which have all demonstrated differences in injury severity depending upon the direction of head impact rotation

Interactions between visceral afferent signaling and stimulus processing

Visceral afferent signals to the brain influence thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Here we highlight the findings of a set of empirical investigations in humans concerning body-mind interaction that focus on how feedback from states of autonomic arousal shapes cognition and emotion. There is a longstanding debate regarding the contribution of the body, to mental processes. Recent theoretical models broadly acknowledge the role of (autonomically mediated) physiological arousal to emotional, social and motivational behaviours, yet the underlying mechanisms are only partially characterized. Neuroimaging is overcoming this shortfall; first, by demonstrating correlations between autonomic change and discrete patterns of evoked, and task- independent, neural activity; second, by mapping the central consequences of clinical perturbations in autonomic response and; third, by probing how dynamic fluctuations in peripheral autonomic state are integrated with perceptual, cognitive and emotional processes. Building on the notion that an important source of the brain’s representation of physiological arousal is derived from afferent information from arterial baroreceptors, we have exploited the phasic nature of these signals to show their differential contribution to the processing of emotionally-salient stimuli. This recent work highlights the facilitation at neural and behavioral levels of fear and threat processing that contrasts with the more established observations of the inhibition of central pain processing during baroreceptors activation. The implications of this body-brain-mind axis are discussed

A Beautiful Thing: A Service Learning Partnership Develops

This roundtable presents multiple perspectives on a multi-year partnership between an urban school and its university neighbor. Building and nurturing a thriving mutually beneficial partnership between an urban Pre-K-8 school and its neighboring university is, as the principal of Cesar Batalla School often says, “a beautiful thing.” Cesar Batalla, serving 800 students and families from a multilingual, multiethnic community in a low-income neighborhood, is located a stone’s throw from a mid-sized suburban, private university that attracts undergraduate and graduate students with little personal firsthand experience with racial, ethnic and linguistic diversity, or of poverty and its challenges. “Geographical neighbors, yet worlds apart” would aptly describe the university school juxtaposition before we embarked upon our partnership. Transforming a coincidental proximity into a deep partnership has been a journey of many discoveries

Population pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin in neonates and young infants less than 3 months age

Ciprofloxacin is used in neonates with suspected or documented Gram-negative serious infections. Currently, its use is off-label partly because of lack of pharmacokinetic studies. Within the FP7 EU project TINN (Treat Infection in NeoNates), our aim was to evaluate the population pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin in neonates and young infants \u3c3 months of age and define the appropriate dose in order to optimize ciprofloxacin treatment in this vulnerable population. Blood samples were collected from neonates treated with ciprofloxacin and concentrations were quantified by high-pressure liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Population pharmacokinetic analysis was performed using NONMEM software. The data from 60 newborn infants (postmenstrual age [PMA] range, 24.9 to 47.9 weeks) were available for population pharmacokinetic analysis. A two-compartment model with first-order elimination showed the best fit with the data. A covariate analysis identified that gestational age, postnatal age, current weight, serum creatinine concentration, and use of inotropes had a significant impact on ciprofloxacin pharmacokinetics. Monte Carlo simulation demonstrated that 90% of hypothetical newborns with a PMA of \u3c34 weeks treated with 7.5 mg/kg twice daily and 84% of newborns with a PMA ≥34 weeks and young infants receiving 12.5 mg/kg twice daily would reach the AUC/MIC target of 125, using the standard EUCAST MIC susceptibility breakpoint of 0.5 mg/liter. The associated risks of overdose for the proposed dosing regimen were \u3c8%. The population pharmacokinetics of ciprofloxacin was evaluated in neonates and young infants \u3c3 months old, and a dosing regimen was established based on simulation

Trawl fishing impacts on the status of seabed fauna in diverse regions of the globe

Bottom trawl fishing is a controversial activity. It yields about a quarter of the world's wild seafood, but also has impacts on the marine environment. Recent advances have quantified and improved understanding of large-scale impacts of trawling on the seabed. However, such information needs to be coupled with distributions of benthic invertebrates (benthos) to assess whether these populations are being sustained under current trawling regimes. This study collated data from 13 diverse regions of the globe spanning four continents. Within each region, we combined trawl intensity distributions and predicted abundance distributions of benthos groups with impact and recovery parameters for taxonomic classes in a risk assessment model to estimate benthos status. The exposure of 220 predicted benthos-group distributions to trawling intensity (as swept area ratio) ranged between 0% and 210% (mean = 37%) of abundance. However, benthos status, an indicator of the depleted abundance under chronic trawling pressure as a proportion of untrawled state, ranged between 0.86 and 1 (mean = 0.99), with 78% of benthos groups > 0.95. Mean benthos status was lowest in regions of Europe and Africa, and for taxonomic classes Bivalvia and Gastropoda. Our results demonstrate that while spatial overlap studies can help infer general patterns of potential risk, actual risks cannot be evaluated without using an assessment model that incorporates trawl impact and recovery metrics. These quantitative outputs are essential for sustainability assessments, and together with reference points and thresholds, can help managers ensure use of the marine environment is sustainable under the ecosystem approach to management

Procalcitonin and Other Common Biomarkers Do Not Reliably Identify Patients at Risk for Bacterial Infection After Congenital Heart Surgery

Objectives: Following surgery, it is difficult to distinguish a postoperative inflammatory reaction from infection. This study examined the predictive value of the biomarkers; procalcitonin, C-reactive protein, lactate, neutrophils, lymphocytes, platelets, and the biphasic activated partial thromboplastin time waveform in diagnosing bacterial infection following cardiac surgery. Design: Prospective, observational study. Setting: A regional, PICU in the United Kingdom. Patients: Three-hundred sixty-eight children under the age of 16 admitted to the PICU for elective cardiac surgery were enrolled in the study. Interventions: All biomarker measurements were determined daily until postoperative day 7. Children were assessed for postoperative infection until day 28 and divided into four groups: bacterial infection, culture-negative sepsis, viral infection, and no infection. We used the Kruskal-Wallis test, chi-square test, analysis of variance, and area under the curve in our analysis. Measurements and Main Results: In total, 71 of 368 children (19%) developed bacterial infection postoperatively, the majority being surgical site infections. In those with bacterial infection, procalcitonin was elevated on postoperative days 1–3 and the last measurement prior to event compared with those without bacterial infection. The most significant difference was the last measurement prior to event; 0.72 ng/mL in the bacterial infection group versus 0.13 ng/mL in the no infection group (for all groups; p and#60; 0.001). Longitudinal profiles of all biomarkers were indistinct in the bacterial infection and nonbacterial infection groups except in those with culture-negative infections who had distinct procalcitonin kinetics on postoperative days 1–4. Children with culture-negative sepsis required longer ventilatory support and PICU stay and were more likely to develop complications than the other groups. Conclusions: None of the biomarkers studied within 3 days of infection distinguished between infection and postoperative inflammatory reaction. However, procalcitonin kinetics peaked on postoperative day 2 and fell more sharply than C-reactive protein kinetics, which peaked at postoperative day 3. The monitoring of procalcitonin kinetics following cardiac surgery may help guide rational antimicrobial use

Online writing about positive life experiences reduces depression and perceived stress reactivity in socially inhibited individuals

Therapeutic writing can enhance psychological and physical health. Recent studies have suggested that these kinds of interventions can be effective when delivered online. The present study investigated whether positive emotional writing online can influence psychological and physical health in individuals reporting high levels of negative affectivity, who are most likely to benefit from psychological intervention (N = 72, Mage = 28.5, SDage = 8.7), and further, to investigate the potential moderating role of social inhibition. Participants completed self-report measures of physical symptoms, perceived stress, perceived stress reactivity, depression and generalised anxiety, before completing either i) positive emotional writing, or ii) a non-emotive control writing task on an online portal, for 20 minutes per day over three consecutive days. State anxiety was measured immediately after each writing session, and self-report questionnaires were again administered four weeks post-writing. Socially inhibited individuals exhibited significant reductions in depression and perceived stress reactivity four weeks following positive emotional writing, relative to writing about a neutral topic. The present study supports the efficacy of online therapeutic writing in individuals who, due to their socially inhibited nature, are most likely to benefit from online interventions which avoid interaction with a therapist or other clients