Nevin Manimala

Arch Sex Behav. 2022 Sep 28. doi: 10.1007/s10508-022-02407-3. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Recently, with the increase in demand, multiple intervention proposals aimed at improving the sexual health of people with intellectual disabilities have emerged. Among them is the SALUDIVERSEX program, which takes a positive approach to sexuality. It has an extended version, consisting of 16 sessions and whose efficacy has already been proven, and a reduced version of 10 sessions. Thus, the present study aimed to test the differential efficacy of the two versions. A total of 208 participants (103 women and 105 men) aged between 19 and 67 years (M = 37.23, SD = 10.66) completed a battery of instruments before and after the intervention. Statistical analyses showed that users who participated in the reduced version of the program presented a significantly higher rate of improvement in their sexual behaviors compared to those who participated in the extended version (Sexual response: β₁₀ = – 0.46 ± 0.19, p = .034; Sex practices: β₁₀ = – 0.52 ± 0.23, p = .037; Use condoms: β₁₀ = – 1.56 ± 0.59, p = .017), as well as a significantly higher decrease in the risk of suffering sexual abuse (β₁₀ = 3.95 ± 0.64, p < .001). However, no statistically significant differences in sexuality knowledge were obtained with respect to the improvement between the two versions (β₁₀ = – 0.09 ± 1.21, p = .94). Meanwhile, the professionals who applied the program found that those who participated in the reduced version, although they presented a significantly greater increase in their knowledge about privacy (β₁₀ = – 0.48 ± 0.08, p < .001), did not improve their concerns about their inappropriate sexual behaviors as much as the users of the extended version (β₁₀ = – 1.35 ± 0.21, p < .001). Thus, although both versions were effective, the reduced version seems to do so to a greater extent and in a shorter time, which makes it the more recommendable option.

PMID:36169777 | DOI:10.1007/s10508-022-02407-3

AIDS Care. 2022 Sep 28:1-10. doi: 10.1080/09540121.2022.2125159. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Psychosocial support (PSS) to caregivers of HIV-infected infants on antiretroviral treatment (ART) is crucial to ensure ART adherence and sustained long-term viral suppression in children. A specific approach including tools to monitor and understand adherence behavior and risk factors that prevent optimal treatment compliance are urgently needed. This qualitative exploratory study, conducted in southern Mozambique, monitored the infants’ viral response trajectories during 18 months follow-up, as a measure of adherence, reviewed the caregiver’s PSS session notes and the answers to a study questionnaire, to analyze whether the standard PSS checklist applied to infants’ caregivers can identify barriers influencing their adherence. Only 9 of 31 infants had sustained virologic response. Reported factors affecting adherence were: difficulties in drugs administration, shared responsibility to administer treatment; disclosure of child’s HIV status to family members but lack of engagement; mother’s ART interruption and poor viral response. In conclusion, we found that the standard PSS approach alone, applied to caregivers, was lacking focus on many relevant matters that were identified by the study questionnaire. A comprehensive patient-centered PSS package of care, including an adherence risk factor monitoring tool, tailored to caregivers and their children must be developed.

PMID:36169018 | DOI:10.1080/09540121.2022.2125159

Transfus Med. 2022 Sep 28. doi: 10.1111/tme.12920. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: This survey aims to assess the scope of transfusion e-learning courses in blood establishments and transfusion services internationally.

BACKGROUND: E-learning/online education is increasingly used in the education of medical professionals. There is limited published data on the use of e-learning for transfusion medicine.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: An International survey was designed and distributed to all members of the International Society of Blood Transfusion to assess utilisation of e-learning in their institutions. Descriptive statistics were used to summarise the results.

RESULTS: A total of 177 respondents participated, 68 of which had e-learning modules in their institutions. Approximately two-thirds of the courses were developed in-house (66%), and 63% are available to learners from outside the host institutions. In one-third of institutions, these courses were established during the COVID-19 pandemic, while 15% had used e-learning courses for more than 10 years. The courses target different audiences and topics ranging from blood donation to hemovigilance. The most common audiences were physicians (71%), laboratory scientists/technologists (69%) and transfusion practitioners (63%). Formal assessment of learning outcomes is used in 70% of the programs.

CONCLUSIONS: The survey demonstrates the widespread use of e-learning courses in transfusion education, with a substantial proportion being developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

PMID:36169016 | DOI:10.1111/tme.12920

Psychol Med. 2022 Sep 28:1-16. doi: 10.1017/S0033291722002896. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Given psychotic illnesses’ high heritability and associations with brain structure, numerous neuroimaging-genetics findings have been reported in the last two decades. However, few findings have been replicated. In the present independent sample we aimed to replicate any psychosis-implicated SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), which had previously shown at least two main effects on brain volume.

METHODS: A systematic review for SNPs showing a replicated effect on brain volume yielded 25 studies implicating seven SNPs in five genes. Their effect was then tested in 113 subjects with either schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, ‘at risk mental state’ or healthy state, for whole-brain and region-of-interest (ROI) associations with grey and white matter volume changes, using voxel-based morphometry.

RESULTS: We found FWER-corrected (Family-wise error rate) (i.e. statistically significant) associations of: (1) CACNA1C-rs769087-A with larger bilateral hippocampus and thalamus white matter, across the whole brain; and (2) CACNA1C-rs769087-A with larger superior frontal gyrus, as ROI. Higher replication concordance with existing literature was found, in decreasing order, for: (1) CACNA1C-rs769087-A, with larger dorsolateral-prefrontal/superior frontal gyrus and hippocampi (both with anatomical and directional concordance); (2) ZNF804A-rs11681373-A, with smaller angular gyrus grey matter and rectus gyri white matter (both with anatomical and directional concordance); and (3) BDNF-rs6265-T with superior frontal and middle cingulate gyri volume change (with anatomical and allelic concordance).

CONCLUSIONS: Most literature findings were not herein replicated. Nevertheless, high degree/likelihood of replication was found for two genome-wide association studies- and one candidate-implicated SNPs, supporting their involvement in psychosis and brain structure.

PMID:36168994 | DOI:10.1017/S0033291722002896

Mol Ecol. 2022 Sep 28. doi: 10.1111/mec.16708. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The endosymbiosis between most corals and their photosynthetic dinoflagellate partners begins early in the host life history, when corals are larvae or juvenile polyps. The capacity of coral larvae to buffer climate-induced stress while in the process of symbiont acquisition could come with physiological trade-offs that alter behavior, development, settlement and survivorship. Here we examined the joint effects of thermal stress and symbiosis onset on colonization dynamics, survival, metamorphosis and host gene expression of Acropora digitifera larvae. We found that thermal stress decreased symbiont colonization of hosts by 50% and symbiont density by 98.5% over two weeks. Temperature and colonization also influenced larval survival and metamorphosis in an additive manner, where colonized larvae fared worse or prematurely metamorphosed more often than non-colonized larvae under thermal stress. Transcriptomic responses to colonization and thermal stress treatments were largely independent, while the interaction of these treatments revealed contrasting expression profiles of genes that function in the stress response, immunity, inflammation and cell cycle regulation. The combined treatment either canceled or lowered the magnitude of expression of heat-stress responsive genes in the presence of symbionts, revealing a physiological cost to acquiring symbionts at the larval stage with elevated temperatures. In addition, host immune suppression, a hallmark of symbiosis onset under ambient temperature, turned to immune activation under heat stress. Thus, by integrating the physical environment and biotic pressures that mediate pre-settlement event in corals, our results suggest that colonization may hinder larval survival and recruitment under projected climate scenarios.

PMID:36168983 | DOI:10.1111/mec.16708

Orthop Surg. 2022 Sep 28. doi: 10.1111/os.13496. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Articular cartilage and subchondral bone changes during the pathological progress of knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a key event marking the development of the disease. The age varying alteration patterns within entire osteochondral unit remains poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to find a reasonable age range of the Dunkin-Hartley guinea pig model for the studying of KOA pathological process, and to investigate Intraosseous pressure (IOP) in the process during different degeneration stages of KOA.

METHODS: Male Dunkin-Hartley guinea pigs were selected and divided into groups of 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 months old by age, 10 in each group. All knees underwent imaging examination including X-ray, Micro-CT and MRI. Observed the imaging findings with the use of Kellgren-Lawrence (K-L) classification and knee osteoarthritis MRI scores. Measured the IOP of distal femur (DF) and proximal tibia (PT) in each group, and observed the differences of bilateral tibiofemoral articular cartilage in histological and immunohistochemistry, staining results were evaluated by using Mankin’s score. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-tests were used to compare the differences indicators between groups.

RESULTS: With the increase of age, changes in X-ray, Micro-CT and MRI imaging findings and pathological staining results of articular cartilage in all stages were consistent with the changing of degenerative KOA process. The IOP of DF and PT increased gradually with age, and reached its peak in 12-month age group, and then gradually decreased, there was a statistically significant difference of IOP between each group. The IOP of DF was slightly higher than that of PT, but the difference was not statistically significant.

CONCLUSION: Dunkin-Hartley guinea pigs can be used as an animal model to study different pathological stages of KOA. There might be a correlation between the changes of IOP and the pathological progress of articular cartilage and subchondral bone in DF and PT.

PMID:36168980 | DOI:10.1111/os.13496

Glob Chang Biol. 2022 Sep 28. doi: 10.1111/gcb.16391. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Human populations near ecosystems are used as both a proxy for dependency on ecosystems, and conversely to estimate threats. Consequently, the number of people living near coral reefs is often used in regional coral reef management, evaluation of risk at regional and global scales, and even considerations of funding needs. Human populations and their statistics, are ever-changing and data relating to coral reefs have not been updated regularly. Here, we present an up-to-date analysis of the abundance, and density of people living within 5-100 km of coral reef ecosystems along with population proportion, using freely available data sets and replicable methods. We present trends of changes in human populations living near coral reefs over a 20-year time period (2000-2020), divided by region and country, along with socio-economic denominations such as country income category and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). We find that across 117 coral reef countries there are currently close to a billion people living within 100 km of a coral reef (~13% of the global population) compared with 762 million people in 2000. Population growth by coral reefs is higher than global averages. The Indian Ocean saw a 33% increase in populations within 100 km of a coral reef and 71% at 5 km. There are 60 countries with 100% of their population within 100 km of coral reefs. In SIDS, the proportion of the total population within 100 km of a coral reef is extremely high: 94% in 2020. Population density 5-10 km from coral reefs is 4× the global average. From 5 to 100 km, more people from lower-middle-income countries live by coral reefs than any other income category. Our findings provide the most up-to-date and extensive statistics on the regional and nation-level differences in population trends that play a large role in coral reef health and survival.

PMID:36168958 | DOI:10.1111/gcb.16391

Brain Behav. 2022 Sep 28:e2753. doi: 10.1002/brb3.2753. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: There is growing evidence that inflammation influences mental health. Blood interleukin levels, which regulate inflammation, have been linked to aggression and internalizing behaviors. We performed a hypothesis-driven genetic study to (1) evaluate the association of IL1B, IL2, and IL6 gene variants with aggression and internalizing behaviors and (2) explore gene-environment interactions with childhood adversity in a deeply phenotyped childhood-onset aggression sample including 255 cases and 226 controls of European ancestry.

METHODS: We evaluated the association of putative functional and tag SNPs within IL1B, IL2, and IL6 with aggression case status, parent-reported internalizing problems, self-reported anxiety symptoms, and self-reported depressive symptoms in our sample. We also performed exploratory GxE analyses within cases, testing for statistical interaction between interleukin SNP genotype and childhood adversity for depressive symptoms.

RESULTS: No significant association was observed between any of the interleukin SNPs and childhood-onset aggression. We observed association of IL6 variant rs2069827 with depressive symptoms (p = 7.15×10^-4 ), and trends for an interaction between severe childhood adversity and SNPs in IL1B and IL2 for depressive symptoms.

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provide preliminary evidence that common variation in IL6 may be associated with depressive symptoms in children and adolescents, and that common variation in interleukin genes may sensitize individuals to the depressogenic effects of traumatic life experiences. Replication in independent samples is needed.

PMID:36168941 | DOI:10.1002/brb3.2753

Brief Bioinform. 2022 Sep 27:bbac390. doi: 10.1093/bib/bbac390. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

More and more evidence indicates that the dysregulations of microRNAs (miRNAs) lead to diseases through various kinds of underlying mechanisms. Identifying the multiple types of disease-related miRNAs plays an important role in studying the molecular mechanism of miRNAs in diseases. Moreover, compared with traditional biological experiments, computational models are time-saving and cost-minimized. However, most tensor-based computational models still face three main challenges: (i) easy to fall into bad local minima; (ii) preservation of high-order relations; (iii) false-negative samples. To this end, we propose a novel tensor completion framework integrating self-paced learning, hypergraph regularization and adaptive weight tensor into nonnegative tensor factorization, called SPLDHyperAWNTF, for the discovery of potential multiple types of miRNA-disease associations. We first combine self-paced learning with nonnegative tensor factorization to effectively alleviate the model from falling into bad local minima. Then, hypergraphs for miRNAs and diseases are constructed, and hypergraph regularization is used to preserve the high-order complex relations of these hypergraphs. Finally, we innovatively introduce adaptive weight tensor, which can effectively alleviate the impact of false-negative samples on the prediction performance. The average results of 5-fold and 10-fold cross-validation on four datasets show that SPLDHyperAWNTF can achieve better prediction performance than baseline models in terms of Top-1 precision, Top-1 recall and Top-1 F1. Furthermore, we implement case studies to further evaluate the accuracy of SPLDHyperAWNTF. As a result, 98 (MDAv2.0) and 98 (MDAv2.0-2) of top-100 are confirmed by HMDDv3.2 dataset. Moreover, the results of enrichment analysis illustrate that unconfirmed potential associations have biological significance.

PMID:36168938 | DOI:10.1093/bib/bbac390

J Obstet Gynaecol. 2022 Sep 28:1-7. doi: 10.1080/01443615.2022.2125294. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Circular RNA_0072995 (Circ_0072995) is involved in the pathogenesis of cancers; however, no study has investigated its role in cervical cancer. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the function of circ_0072995 in cervical cancer. Normal human cervical epithelial cells (hCECs), HeLa cells, and forty female nude BALB/c mice were used. Immunohistochemistry, invasion assays, flow cytometric analysis, luciferase assays, and tumour volume measurements were performed to explore the potential mechanism. Circ_0072995 was significantly up-regulated in cancer tissues, and its level was markedly correlated with the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics system (FIGO) staging. In vitro studies revealed that circ_0072995 interacts with miR-29a to induce WD repeat domain 5 (WDR5) expression and promotes the proliferation and invasion of cells, but inhibits apoptosis of cells. Knockdown of circ_0072995 or WDR5, or overexpression of miR-29a significantly inhibited tumour growth in vivo. In conclusion, circ_0072995 promoted cervical cancer development by inducing miR-29a-mediated WDR5 expression.Impact statementWhat is already known on this subject? Global Cancer Statistics 2020 estimated that there were 1 021,494 new cases of cervical cancer and 439 201 deaths from cervical cancer. Circ_0072995 was first shown to promote breast cancer development in 2018. Subsequent studies have revealed that circ_0072995 is also involved in the development of other cancers, including epithelial ovarian cancer and hepatocellular carcinoma. However, no studies have explored the association between circ_0072995 and cervical cancer.What do the results of this study add? We hypothesized that circ_0072995 drives cervical cancer development by sponging miRNAs and inducing the expression of key factors involved in tumorigenesis. Based on this hypothesis, we investigated the role of circ_0072995 in cervical cancer and paracancerous tissues and explored the underlying mechanism in both in vitro and in vivo studies.What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? For the first time, our study revealed the key role of WDR5 in cervical cancer progression regulated by circ_0072995. We first reported the promoting effects of circ_0072995 in cervical cancer development by inducing miR-29a mediated WDR5 expression and also revealed the therapeutic potential of circ_0072995, miR-29a, and WDR5 in cervical cancer.

PMID:36168936 | DOI:10.1080/01443615.2022.2125294