Molecular profiling of resident and infiltrating mononuclear phagocytes during rapid adult retinal degeneration using single-cell RNA sequencing.

Neuroinflammation commonly accompanies neurodegeneration, but the specific roles of resident and infiltrating immune cells during degeneration remains controversial. Much of the difficulty in assessing myeloid cell-specific functions during disease progression arises from the inability to clearly distinguish between activated microglia and bone marrow-derived monocytes and macrophages in various stages of differentiation and activation within the central nervous system. Using an inducible model of photoreceptor cell death, we investigated the prevalence of infiltrating monocytes and macrophage subpopulations after the initiation of degeneration in the mouse retina. In vivo retinal imaging revealed infiltration of CCR2+ leukocytes across retinal vessels and into the parenchyma within 48 hours of photoreceptor degeneration. Immunohistochemistry and flow cytometry confirmed and characterized these leukocytes as CD11b+CD45+ cells. Single-cell mRNA sequencing of the entire CD11b+CD45+ population revealed the presence of resting microglia, activated microglia, monocytes, and macrophages as well as 12 distinct subpopulations within these four major cell classes. Our results demonstrate a previously immeasurable degree of molecular heterogeneity in the innate immune response to cell-autonomous degeneration within the central nervous system and highlight the necessity of unbiased high-throughput and high-dimensional molecular techniques like scRNAseq to understand the complex and changing landscape of immune responders during disease progression

The Effect of Changing Government Subsidy Programs: An Analysis of Revenue at the Farm level

Producer revenue is simultaneously simulated for several hundred county-specific representative farms. The effects of current and alternative commodity programs are analyzed. In particular, two variations of revenue-triggered programs similar to plans proposed by the National Corn Growers Association are evaluated.Risk, commodity policy, simulation, Agricultural and Food Policy, Risk and Uncertainty, Q180,

Site-Specific Effects of Swimming on Bone Density in Female Collegiate Swimmers

International Journal of Exercise Science 13(1): 249-259, 2020. While swimming provides numerous cardiovascular and overall health benefits, past research suggests it provides no constructive benefits to bone strength and density at dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measured hip and lumbar spine sites when compared to sedentary individuals. However, little research has focused on skeletal sites stressed by muscle forces during swimming such as the humerus, hip, and radius. The purpose of this study was to investigatesite-specific bone strength adaptations among female collegiate swimmers compared to sedentary controls. Bone geometry and strength were assessed by DXA and peripheral quantitative computed tomography (pQCT) in ten female collegiate swimmers and ten sedentary controls (\u3c150 minutes/week of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity) ages 18-23 years. There were no significant differences between groups in the DXA-derived outcomes. Among pQCT-measured sites, the control group had a 14.8% greater bone cortical area and 6.1% greater cortical volumetric density compared to swimmers (both p\u3c0.05) at the proximal tibia (66%) site. Hip structural analysis was also performed to observe the strength and loading power at the narrowest part of the proximal femur, but no significant differences were found between groups. With no significant bone density or strength differences between groups at the humerus, radius, or distal tibia sites, this research suggests that swimming may not have osteogenic benefits, even at site-specific locations commonly stressed during the sport. For overall health, these results suggest that swimming should be supplemented with weight-bearing and resistance exercises to preserve bone strength and prevent deterioration of bone as one ages

Seasonal Variation in Nymphal Blacklegged Tick Abundance in Southern New England Forests

In the northeastern United States, risk of human exposure to tick transmitted disease is primarily a function of the abundance of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say. We assessed seasonal variability in the abundance of nymphal stage I. scapularis over 13 yr, collected from several forested areas throughout Rhode Island. Specifically, we examined intraseasonal differences by using two temporally distinct tick collections made during the peak nymphal tick season. Intraseasonal factors significantly impacted tick abundance, with the June tick rate (mean = 40.42, SD = 14.79) significantly more abundant than the July tick rate (mean = 27.64, SD = 15.47). The greater variability in July (coefficient of variation: June, 36.61%; July, 55.95%) lead us to conclude June tick rates are relatively stable from year to year, whereas July tick rates contribute more to intraseasonal and yearly variation

Quantitative sensory testing in children with sickle cell disease: additional insights and future possibilities.

Quantitative sensory testing (QST) is used in a variety of pain disorders to characterize pain and predict prognosis and response to specific therapies. In this study, we aimed to confirm results in the literature documenting altered QST thresholds in sickle cell disease (SCD) and assess the test-retest reliability of results over time. Fifty-seven SCD and 60 control subjects aged 8-20 years underwent heat and cold detection and pain threshold testing using a Medoc TSAII. Participants were tested at baseline and 3 months; SCD subjects were additionally tested at 6 months. An important facet of our study was the development and use of a novel QST modelling approach, allowing us to model all data together across modalities. We have not demonstrated significant differences in thermal thresholds between subjects with SCD and controls. Thermal thresholds were consistent over a 3- to 6-month period. Subjects on whom hydroxycarbamide (HC) was initiated shortly before or after baseline testing (new HC users) exhibited progressive decreases in thermal sensitivity from baseline to 6 months, suggesting that thermal testing may be sensitive to effective therapy to prevent vasoocclusive pain. These findings inform the use of QST as an endpoint in the evaluation of preventative pain therapies

The Information Content of Pore Fluid δ^(18)O and [CI^-]

Paleoceanographic proxies indicate that the ocean state during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) differed from the modern ocean state. Depth profiles of ocean sediment pore fluid δ^(18)O and [Cl^−] have been used to reconstruct the δ^(18)O and salinity at the LGM. Here, it is investigated whether pore fluid profiles can constrain ocean δ^(18)O and salinity at other times and, simultaneously, their ability to constrain the LGM δ^(18)O and salinity. An inverse framework is developed that relies on Bayesian parameter estimation, thus allowing formal separation of prior assumptions from the information in observations. Synthetic problems are used to explore the information about past ocean tracers that can be recovered from pore fluid profiles. It is concluded that prior knowledge of deep ocean mixing time scales is essential to an accurate inverse estimate of LGM ocean salinity and δ^(18)O from modern pore fluid profiles. The most recent 10 000 years of ocean salinity and δ^(18)O and the error in their estimates are better constrained by the pore fluid profiles than are the LGM values. The inverse estimate of salinity and δ^(18)O is strongly correlated with the estimate of diffusivity of oxygen isotopes and [Cl^−] in sediment pore fluids. Uncertainty on the diffusivity of oxygen isotopes and chloride in sediments is reduced through inversion of the pore fluid profiles, but simultaneous estimation of δ^(18)O or salinity and diffusivity increases the total uncertainty. The error reported in previous work may underestimate the true uncertainty of LGM deep ocean salinity and δ^(18)O

Neural Correlates of Suspiciousness and Interactions with Anxiety During Emotional and Neutral Word Processing

Suspiciousness is usually classified as a symptom of psychosis, but it also occurs in depression and anxiety disorders. Though how suspiciousness overlaps with depression is not obvious, suspiciousness does seem to overlap with anxious apprehension and anxious arousal (e.g., verbal iterative processes and vigilance about environmental threat). However, suspiciousness also has unique characteristics (e.g., concern about harm from others and vigilance about social threat). Given that both anxiety and suspiciousness have been associated with abnormalities in emotion processing, it is unclear whether it is the unique characteristics of suspiciousness or the overlap with anxiety that drive abnormalities in emotion processing. Event-related brain potentials were obtained during an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that suspiciousness interacts with anxious apprehension to modulate initial stimulus perception processes. Suspiciousness is associated with attention to all stimuli regardless of emotion content. In contrast, anxious arousal is associated with a later response to emotion stimuli only. These results suggest that suspiciousness and anxious apprehension share overlapping processes, but suspiciousness alone is associated with a hyperactive early vigilance response. Depression did not interact with suspiciousness to predict response to emotion stimuli. These findings suggest that it may be informative to assess suspiciousness in conjunction with anxiety in order to better understand how these symptoms interact and contribute to dysfunctional emotion processing