Objective
Male youth who have been involved in the juvenile legal system have disproportionate rates of trauma and violence exposure. Many justice-involved youth have untreated mental illness, with ...an estimated 66% of young men who are incarcerated meeting criteria for at least one mental health disorder, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and substance abuse. While Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) approaches are considered among effective evidence-based treatments for addressing and treating behavioral and emotional difficulties, male youth with a history of incarceration and youth who are at risk for (re)incarceration, violence, emotion dysregulation, and trauma face significant barriers in accessing these services.
Methods
Roca, Inc. (Roca), an internationally recognized organization moving the needle on urban violence by working relentlessly with young people at the center of violence in Massachusetts and Maryland, employs a trauma-informed CBT-based skills curriculum and approach in their intervention model, to improve youths' educational, employment, parenting, and life skills opportunities, while decreasing risk for recidivism, addressing trauma and increasing skills for emotion regulation. The aim of this analysis was to assess the effectiveness of Roca's trauma-informed CBT skills curriculum on youths' emotional and behavioral outcomes. We analyzed data from over 300 participating emerging adult men from four sites in Massachusetts and one site in Baltimore, Maryland who had at least three series of data collection across multiple skills-based sessions.
Results
We found improvements in outcomes in overall mean scores related to decreased distress about employment and education, as are expected with standard intervention approaches for justice-involved youth. Participants who show improvement in emotion regulation across engagement (approximately half the cohort), were found to have significant improvements in distress related to relationship and family functioning and self-care, and decreased substance use, along with other outcomes compared to those participants with less improvement in emotion regulation. Furthermore, improvement in different aspects of emotion regulation were associated with improved relationships, life distress, substance use, and improved prosocial thinking.
Conclusions
Together, these data suggest that adding mental health support and skills training, such as with trauma-informed CBT models, to programs for justice-involved youth may lead to significant improvements in functioning, quality of life, and mental health outcomes.
Gravitropism is a process that allows plant organs to guide their growth relative to the gravity vector. It requires them to sense changes in their orientation and generate a biochemical signal that ...they transmit to the tissues that drive organ curvature. Trafficking between the plasma membrane and endosomal compartments is important for all of these phases of the gravitropic response. The sedimentation of starch-filled organelles called amyloplasts plays a key role in sensing reorientation, and vacuolar integrity is required for amyloplast sedimentation in shoots. Other proteins associated with the vesicle trafficking pathway contribute to early gravity signal transduction independently of amyloplast sedimentation in both roots and hypocotyls. Phosphatidylinositol signaling, which starts at the plasma membrane and later affects the localization of auxin efflux facilitators, is a likely second messenger in the signal transduction phase of gravitropism. Finally, membrane-localized auxin influx and efflux facilitators contribute to a differential auxin gradient across the gravistimulated organs, which directs root curvature.
Quantitative PCR (qPCR) targeting Dehalococcoides mccartyi ( Dhc) biomarker genes supports effective management at sites impacted with chlorinated ethenes. To establish correlations between Dhc ...biomarker gene abundances and ethene formation (i.e., detoxification), 859 groundwater samples representing 62 sites undergoing monitored natural attenuation or enhanced remediation were analyzed. Dhc 16S rRNA genes and the vinyl chloride (VC) reductive dehalogenase genes bvcA and vcrA were detected in 88% and 61% of samples, respectively, from wells with ethene. Dhc 16S rRNA, bvcA, vcrA, and tceA (implicated in cometabolic reductive VC dechlorination) gene abundances all positively correlated with ethene formation. Significantly greater ethene concentrations were observed when Dhc 16S rRNA gene and VC RDase gene abundances exceeded 10
and 10
copies L
, respectively, and when Dhc 16S rRNA- and bvcA + vcrA-to-total bacterial 16S rRNA gene ratios exceeded 0.1%. Dhc 16S rRNA gene-to- vcrA/ bvcA ratios near unity also indicated elevated ethene; however, no increased ethene was observed in 19 wells where vcrA and/or bvcA gene copy numbers exceeded Dhc cell numbers 10- to 10 000-fold. Approximately one-third of samples with detectable ethene lacked bvcA, vcrA, and tceA, suggesting that comprehensive understanding of VC detoxification biomarkers has not been achieved. Although the current biomarker suite is incomplete, the data analysis corroborates the value of the available Dhc DNA biomarkers for prognostic and diagnostic groundwater monitoring at sites impacted with chlorinated ethenes.
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed to manage anxiety in adults with an autism diagnosis. However, their effectiveness and adverse effect profile in the autistic ...population are not well known. This trial aims to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the SSRI sertraline in reducing symptoms of anxiety and improving quality of life in adults with a diagnosis of autism compared with placebo and to quantify any adverse effects.
STRATA is a two-parallel group, multi-centre, pragmatic, double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial with allocation at the level of the individual. It will be delivered through recruiting sites with autism services in 4 regional centres in the United Kingdom (UK) and 1 in Australia. Adults with an autism diagnosis and a Generalised Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7) score ≥ 10 at screening will be randomised 1:1 to either 25 mg sertraline or placebo, with subsequent flexible dose titration up to 200 mg. The primary outcome is GAD-7 scores at 16 weeks post-randomisation. Secondary outcomes include adverse effects, proportionate change in GAD-7 scores including 50% reduction, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, panic attacks, repetitive behaviours, meltdowns, depressive symptoms, composite depression and anxiety, functioning and disability and quality of life. Carer burden will be assessed in a linked carer sub-study. Outcome data will be collected using online/paper methods via video call, face-to-face or telephone according to participant preference at 16, 24 and 52 weeks post-randomisation, with brief safety checks and data collection at 1-2, 4, 8, 12 and 36 weeks. An economic evaluation to study the cost-effectiveness of sertraline vs placebo and a QuinteT Recruitment Intervention (QRI) to optimise recruitment and informed consent are embedded within the trial. Qualitative interviews at various times during the study will explore experiences of participating and taking the trial medication.
Results from this study should help autistic adults and their clinicians make evidence-based decisions on the use of sertraline for managing anxiety in this population.
ISRCTN, ISRCTN15984604 . Registered on 08 February 2021. EudraCT 2019-004312-66. ANZCTR ACTRN12621000801819. Registered on 07 April 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused immediate and far-reaching disruption to society, the economy, and health-care services. We synthesised evidence on the effect of the pandemic on mental health and mental ...health care in high-income European countries. We included 177 longitudinal and repeated cross-sectional studies comparing prevalence or incidence of mental health problems, mental health symptom severity in people with pre-existing mental health conditions, or mental health service use before versus during the pandemic, or between different timepoints of the pandemic. We found that epidemiological studies reported higher prevalence of some mental health problems during the pandemic compared with before it, but that in most cases this increase reduced over time. Conversely, studies of health records showed reduced incidence of new diagnoses at the start of the pandemic, which further declined during 2020. Mental health service use also declined at the onset of the pandemic but increased later in 2020 and through 2021, although rates of use did not return to pre-pandemic levels for some services. We found mixed patterns of effects of the pandemic on mental health and social outcome for adults already living with mental health conditions.
Sheep are known to express the hybrid co-receptor/pattern recognition receptor WC1 on their γδ T cells but details of the ovine WC1 multigenic array and gene expression were unknown. Annotation of ...the sheep genome assembly (Oar_rambouillet_v1.0) yielded 15 complete and 42 partial WC1 genes predicted to code for six different protein structures. RT-PCR amplification of the most distal scavenger receptor cysteine rich (SRCR) domain known as a1, which serves as the gene signature, from genomic and cDNA templates verified the majority of annotated genes. As for cattle and goats, sheep a1 domain sequences included WC1.1 and WC1.2 types. A unique ovine gene, WC1-16, had multiple SRCR a-pattern domains in tandem similar to one found in goats. Intracytoplasmic domains of WC1 transcripts had splice variants that may affect signal transduction. The larger number of WC1 genes in sheep and differences in structures and splice variants relative to cattle could have implications in expression patterns and engagement of γδ T cells by pathogens or vaccine constructs.
•15 complete WC1 genes were found on ovine chromosome 3.•42 partial WC1 genes were also found on ovine chromosome 3.•Transcripts for intracytoplasmic domains had multiple splice variants.•6 different WC1 gene structures were found.•5 subpopulations of γδ T cells were described.
The aim of this analysis was to describe the incidence and common types of medical chart-reviewed musculoskeletal injuries, among four distinct groups of Naval Special Warfare (NSW) personnel: Sea, ...Air, and Land (SEAL) Operators, SEAL Qualification Training (SQT) students, Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC) Operators, and Crewman Qualification Training (CQT) students.
Descriptive cross-sectional study.
Medical records were reviewed for 920 NSW personnel. MSI were described and classified by frequency and incidence; anatomic location; injury type and cause; activity during injury; and potential for prevention.
The frequency of MSI was 23.1, 46.5, 31.6, and 17.0 per 100 participants per year among SEAL, SQT, SWCC, and CQT, respectively. Upper extremity MSI were the most common in SEAL, lower extremity MSI were common in the other groups. The most frequent MSI anatomic sub-locations varied across groups (SEAL: shoulder, 21.6% of MSI; SQT: foot and toes, 17.0%; SWCC: lumbopelvic spine, 21.7%; and CQT: knee, 30.3%). Pain/spasm/ache were the most common MSI type in SEAL (29.7%) and SWCC (21.7%), tendonitis/tenosynovitis/tendinopathy was the most common MSI type in SQT (21.0%), and tendonitis/tenosynovitis/tendinopathy and fracture were the most common in CQT (15.2% each). A considerable proportion of MSI were classified as potentially preventable—SEAL: 35.1%, SQT: 53.0%, SWCC: 36.7%, and CQT: 21.2%.
MSI cause considerable morbidity among NSW Operators and students, with distinct patterns of distribution by anatomic location and injury type. Since many injuries may be preventable, targeted interventions may be able to mitigate MSI risk.
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