Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric disorder characterized by altered body image, persistent food restriction and low body weight, and is associated with global endocrine dysregulation in both ...adolescent girls and women. Dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis includes hypogonadotropic hypogonadism with relative oestrogen and androgen deficiency, growth hormone resistance, hypercortisolaemia, non-thyroidal illness syndrome, hyponatraemia and hypooxytocinaemia. Serum levels of leptin, an anorexigenic adipokine, are suppressed and levels of ghrelin, an orexigenic gut peptide, are elevated in women with anorexia nervosa; however, levels of peptide YY, an anorexigenic gut peptide, are paradoxically elevated. Although most, but not all, of these endocrine disturbances are adaptive to the low energy state of chronic starvation and reverse with treatment of the eating disorder, many contribute to impaired skeletal integrity, as well as neuropsychiatric comorbidities, in individuals with anorexia nervosa. Although 5-15% of patients with anorexia nervosa are men, only limited data exist regarding the endocrine impact of the disease in adolescent boys and men. Further research is needed to understand the endocrine determinants of bone loss and neuropsychiatric comorbidities in anorexia nervosa in both women and men, as well as to formulate optimal treatment strategies.
Early research on the mental health of civilians displaced by armed conflict focused primarily on the direct effects of exposure to war-related violence and loss. Largely overlooked in this war ...exposure model were the powerful effects of ongoing stressors related to the experience of displacement itself. An ecological model of refugee distress is proposed, drawing on research demonstrating that mental health among refugees and asylum seekers stems not only from prior war exposure, but also from a host of ongoing stressors in their social ecology, or displacement-related stressors. Implications of this model for addressing the mental health and psychosocial needs of refugees and other displaced populations are considered.
As of August 2020, the United States is the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging data suggests that "essential" workers, who are disproportionately more likely to be racial/ethnic ...minorities and immigrants, bear a disproportionate degree of risk. We used publicly available data to build a series of spatial autoregressive models assessing county level associations between COVID-19 mortality and (1) percentage of individuals engaged in farm work, (2) percentage of households without a fluent, adult English-speaker, (3) percentage of uninsured individuals under the age of 65, and (4) percentage of individuals living at or below the federal poverty line. We further adjusted these models for total population, population density, and number of days since the first reported case in a given county. We found that across all counties that had reported a case of COVID-19 as of July 12, 2020 (n = 3024), a higher percentage of farmworkers, a higher percentage of residents living in poverty, higher density, higher population, and a higher percentage of residents over the age of 65 were all independently and significantly associated with a higher number of deaths in a county. In urban counties (n = 115), a higher percentage of farmworkers, higher density, and larger population were all associated with a higher number of deaths, while lower rates of insurance coverage in a county was independently associated with fewer deaths. In non-urban counties (n = 2909), these same patterns held true, with higher percentages of residents living in poverty and senior residents also significantly associated with more deaths. Taken together, our findings suggest that farm workers may face unique risks of contracting and dying from COVID-19, and that these risks are independent of poverty, insurance, or linguistic accessibility of COVID-19 health campaigns.
Working memory is thought to result from sustained neuron spiking. However, computational models suggest complex dynamics with discrete oscillatory bursts. We analyzed local field potential (LFP) and ...spiking from the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of monkeys performing a working memory task. There were brief bursts of narrow-band gamma oscillations (45–100 Hz), varied in time and frequency, accompanying encoding and re-activation of sensory information. They appeared at a minority of recording sites associated with spiking reflecting the to-be-remembered items. Beta oscillations (20–35 Hz) also occurred in brief, variable bursts but reflected a default state interrupted by encoding and decoding. Only activity of neurons reflecting encoding/decoding correlated with changes in gamma burst rate. Thus, gamma bursts could gate access to, and prevent sensory interference with, working memory. This supports the hypothesis that working memory is manifested by discrete oscillatory dynamics and spiking, not sustained activity.
•Working memory information in neuronal spiking is linked to brief gamma bursts•The narrow-band gamma bursts increase during encoding, decoding, and with WM load•Beta bursting reflects a default network state interrupted by gamma•Support for a model of WM is based on discrete dynamics and not sustained activity
Lundqvist et al. confirm predictions of a working memory model. There is a tight link between gamma oscillations and neural information. Neural events are discrete and thus do not support the modal model of WM based on sustained activity.
Do autocratic institutions matter for the welfare of average citizens? Despite the large literature comparing democracies and autocracies, we know little about how human development outcomes differ ...among autocratic types. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this article argues that contested autocratic elections promote human development by improving state accountability and capacity. Using an instrumental variables setup, I show that the presence and history of multiparty autocratic elections predict significantly better outcomes on health, education, gender equality, and basic freedoms relative to non-electoral autocracy. In fact, the effects on health and education are as strong as the effects of democracy. In contrast, legislatures and parties without multiparty elections produce slightly negative outcomes because these institutions chiefly concern elite cooptation. The results have major implications for the study of autocracy, the political economy of development, and the welfare effects of international election promotion.
A Comparison of Four Frailty Models Malmstrom, Theodore K.; Miller, Douglas K.; Morley, John E.
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (JAGS),
April 2014, Letnik:
62, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Objectives
To determine how well the interview‐based, clinic‐friendly International Academy of Nutrition and Aging (FRAIL) frailty scale predicts future disability and mortality in the African ...American Health (AAH) cohort compared with the clinic‐friendly Study of Osteoporotic Fractures (SOF) frailty scale, the phenotype‐based Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) frailty scale, and the comprehensive Frailty Index (FI).
Design
Longitudinal cohort study.
Setting
Metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri.
Participants
African American Health is a population‐based panel study of African Americans (baseline age 49–65) from St. Louis, Missouri. Participants completed in‐home assessments at baseline (N = 998) and 3‐ (n = 853) and 9‐ (n = 582) year follow‐up.
Measurements
Outcomes included activity of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL difficulties at 3 and 9 years and 9‐year mortality. Frailty measures included the FRAIL, SOF, and CHS scales and the FI.
Results
The FRAIL, SOF, CHS, and FI measures predicted new 3‐ and 9‐year disability, and the FRAIL and FI scales predicted 9‐year mortality. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) contrasts showed that the FRAIL scale performed as well as (9‐year disability and mortality) or better than (3‐year disability) the CHS and SOF scales and the FI better than the FRAIL, CHS, and SOF scales for all outcomes except the FRAIL and CHS scales for 9‐year ADL difficulties. The CHS and SOF scales were equivalent for all outcomes in ROC contrasts.
Conclusion
Overall the FI and the FRAIL scale exhibited the strongest predictive validity for disability and mortality in AAH. The best prediction tool to identify frail individuals at risk of disability and mortality may be one that includes a comorbidity measure. The FRAIL scale includes a comorbidity item and is a brief interview‐based measure that is easy to administer, score, and interpret. The FRAIL scale has demonstrated validity and may prove to be a valuable scale for use by clinicians.
The responsiveness of policy to election results is a central component of democracy. Do the outcomes of autocratic elections also affect policy choice? Even when the threat of turnover is low, I ...argue that autocratic elections influence policy by allowing citizens to signal dissatisfaction with the regime. Supplementing existing work, this study explains how this opposition is communicated credibly and then shows that ruling parties use this information to calibrate policy concessions. In the first cross-country analysis of autocratic election outcomes and policy choice, I find that negative electoral shocks to ruling parties predict increases in education and social welfare spending and decreases in military spending following elections. In contrast, there is no policy effect leading up to elections, in response to violent contestation, or in resource-rich regimes, illustrating a potential mechanism for the resource curse.
Researchers often turn to post hoc statistical techniques to identify common method variance (CMV) in same source data and one viable option is to use a marker variable. The choice of marker variable ...is important, yet these variables are difficult to find, primarily because they must be theoretically unrelated to study variables but measured in the same way (e.g., perceptual; on a Likert scale). This manuscript uses scale development best practices to create a marker variable—attitude toward the color blue—that can be applied in a wide variety of social science research. Scale reliability and validity are addressed, discriminant validity with other measures that detect CMV is tested, and the Confirmatory Factor Analysis Marker Technique is applied with this scale. An experiment designed to analyze the effect of the placement of the scale in surveys is reported. Recommendations to researchers for use of this new scale to detect CMV are provided.
Functional connectivity between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and striatum (STR) is thought critical for cognition and has been linked to conditions like autism and schizophrenia. We recorded from ...multiple electrodes in PFC and STR while monkeys acquired new categories. Category learning was accompanied by an increase in beta band synchronization of LFPs between, but not within, the PFC and STR. After learning, different pairs of PFC-STR electrodes showed stronger synchrony for one or the other category, suggesting category-specific functional circuits. This category-specific synchrony was also seen between PFC spikes and STR LFPs, but not the reverse, reflecting the direct monosynaptic connections from the PFC to STR. However, causal connectivity analyses suggested that the polysynaptic connections from STR to the PFC exerted a stronger overall influence. This supports models positing that the basal ganglia “train” the PFC. Category learning may depend on the formation of functional circuits between the PFC and STR.
•Beta synchrony between PFC and striatum increases with category learning•Category-selective synchrony from PFC to striatum emerges after category learning•No changes in synchrony within PFC or striatum•Striatum exerts stronger influence on PFC than PFC on striatum
Antzoulatos and Miller show that beta synchrony between prefrontal cortex and striatum increases as monkeys began to learn new categories. After the categories are learned, there are category-specific patterns of synchrony. Synchrony may form new networks during category learning.
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