Culture

ROCKVILLE, MD - A trio of papers co-authored by four National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) scientists has been published this week in highly-cited and respected journals. Each acknowledges NFCR support as having helped make the works possible.

Rakesh K. Jain, Ph.D., and colleagues detail new knowledge on the interaction of brain cancers, blood vessels and tumor microenvironments, specifically a mechanism by which gliomas resist anti-angiogenesis drugs. The discoveries offer additional insight into why glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the deadliest form of brain cancer, has to-date remained so notoriously difficult to treat, while too potentially paving the way for future therapeutic approaches that account for these findings.

"I had presented some exciting data on vessel cooption in glioblastoma multiforme at the NFCR scientific symposium in August 2017," stated Jain, an NFCR fellow. "Our paper based on that work--supported by the Foundation--has now been published in Cancer Cell."

The article appears in the journal's issue dated May 14th--Monday.

Another paper specific to gliomas, both of whose corresponding authors, Webster K. Cavenee, Ph.D., and Paul B. Fisher, M.P.H., Ph.D., are closely associated with NFCR, too was published on Monday. Availed online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it identifies a connection between various cellular mechanisms associated with cancer and MDA-9/Syntenin, a gene previously discovered by Dr. Fisher, an NFCR fellow.

These findings are explicitly pertinent to better understanding and combating GBM, a cancer on which Dr. Cavenee, NFCR's scientific advisory board chairman, is an authority.

"We have effectively identified a potential Achilles' heel of glioblastoma multiforme that may allow exploitation to uncover enhanced therapies with improved prognosis," summarized Fisher. "In these contexts, MDA-9/Syntenin may provide a viable and effective therapeutic strategy for GBM."

Lastly, Paul Schimmel, Ph.D., co-authored a paper published online today in Nature which advances understanding of mistranslation--errors in the interpretation of genetic information. Dr. Schimmel, an NFCR fellow, is one of the world's leading experts in the field. The mouse model findings outlined in the article, while pertinent well beyond only cancer research, offer new insight into somatic mutations. These, according to the National Cancer Institute's dictionary of cancer terms, are described as such:

an alteration in DNA that occurs after conception. Somatic mutations can occur in any of the cells of the body except the germ cells (sperm and egg) and therefore are not passed on to children. These alterations can (but do not always) cause cancer or other diseases.

"Although a cancer investigation was not pursued in this paper," noted Schimmel, speaking of the Nature piece, "I believe mistranslation can be a course of somatic mutations that lead to cancers."

Data about marriages in Iran points to the declining number of formal (arranged) marriages in recent decades despite strong cultural and religious traditions favoring such marriages. Some social researchers have linked these declining trends to the economic constraints caused by a lack of well-paid jobs and a high cost of housing for the younger population. This review compiles the previous research findings and focuses on attitudinal changes and the possibility of the increase in temporary marriages as complementary explanations for the declining number of formal marriages in Iranian society.

Bochum-based philosopher Dr Beate Krickel has used psychoanalysis to investigate why people are often not aware of their prejudices. In her accounts, she has been elaborating how prejudices can become unconscious. As researcher at the Institute of Philosophy II at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, she outlines her theory in the journal Philosophical Psychology from May 15, 2018.

Tolerant and yet full of bias

A hypothetical example: a white professor describes himself as having a liberal, tolerant worldview. He confirms that it is nonsense and scientifically insupportable to assume that people with different ethnic background have different levels of intelligence. However, the convictions he professes are ostensibly contradicted by his behaviour: he acts, for example, surprised, when a person of colour asks an intelligent question in his seminar. Moreover, his intuitive impression is that his white students look smarter.

Researchers refer to cases when the professed convictions deviate from intuitive behaviour as implicit bias. This kind of bias can be identified using certain psychological tests.

Unconscious or not?

"There's a fierce debate going on in the fields of social psychology and philosophy on whether the prejudices measured with such tests are unconscious or not," says the researcher. The fact that people voice liberal and tolerant convictions in spite of their implicit bias points to "unconscious". However, empirical studies in the past had shown that test participants have the ability to notice their implicit bias under specific conditions. "Interestingly enough, the participants are generally surprised or even shocked once they realise their own implicit bias," says Krickel.

In order to explain these data, the researcher used psychoanalysis. More specifically: she argues that a philosophically informed notion of Freudian repression constitutes a feasible explanation of the apparently contradictory data.

Does not fit the self-image

According to Krickel's analysis, the professor in the hypothetical example represses the emotions that are triggered by his negative associations, because they do not match his self-image. Consequently, he is not aware of his implicit bias. He does, however, have the ability to detect these emotions if the circumstances are right. "The function of philosophy is, first and foremost, to provide an in-depth analysis of what repression actually is," says Krickel. "Based on philosophical theories of consciousness, a feasible model emerges when repression is understood to be an attentional shift that becomes habituated over the years."

About 22 million Americans are substance dependent (illicit drugs and alcohol), which interferes with routine life and requires treatment. Yet, only 2.5 million of these Americans participate in treatment services. The severe gap between the number of people who need treatment and the number of people who seek it poses a serious public health concern.

Why some individuals are more engaged in their substance use treatment while others are not is not well understood. Even among the population of people who do seek help; questions remain as to why some are more likely to engage in treatment than others.

Gaining a better understanding of the role that treatment readiness, or the characteristics that are likely to promote engagement in treatment, is essential for designing and implementing effective intervention programs as well as increasing individual motivation.

Using data from the 2012 Global Appraisal of Individual Needs-Intake (GAIN-I), which consists of 5,443 records of adult substance use treatment clients, researchers from Florida Atlantic University and collaborators examined the relative importance of treatment readiness as a predictor of treatment engagement. The data included measures of client characteristics, treatment participation indicators, and treatment outcomes.

The study, published in the Journal of Drug Education: Substance Abuse Research and Prevention, sought to identify the factors that are associated with substance use treatment engagement with a specific focus on treatment readiness as a predictor of engagement. The researchers hypothesized that treatment readiness would increase the odds of engaging in substance use treatment net of controls for demographic, diagnostic, and family/clinical factors.

Results from this study, which are contrary to their hypothesis, found that treatment readiness did not significantly predict treatment engagement or participation in more than two treatment sessions in a month after commencing treatment, although the effect of treatment readiness was positive.

White and black race, being male, lower levels of education, and being married or divorced (relative to never married) were all negatively related to substance-use treatment engagement.

In the logistic regression model predicting treatment engagement, the researchers found that:

The odds of engaging in substance use treatment were 21 percent less for whites and 30 percent less for blacks relative to other races/ethnicities;

The odds of engaging in substance use treatment were 22 percent less for males relative to females;

The odds of engaging in substance use treatment were 15 percent less for those who did not graduate high school relative to those who did graduate high school;

The odds of engaging in substance use treatment were 23 percent less for those individuals who were married or living as married, and 26 percent less for those individuals who were separated, widowed, or divorced relative to those individuals who report never being married.

One diagnostic factor, substance use frequency, was significantly associated with engaging in substance use treatment.

Beyond treatment readiness, substance use frequency during the 90 days prior to baseline assessment and greater health problems were positively associated with treatment engagement in the current study sample.

Interestingly, all of the covariates included in the current analyses accounted for only 3.3 percent of the variance in treatment engagement. Although not directly tested in the current study, this finding suggests that individual-level risk factors (across a variety of domains) may not be the most important predictors of engagement.

"Findings from our study that show that males and individuals with lower levels of education are less likely to engage in substance use treatment indicates that these client populations may represent priority targets for motivational enhancement strategies," said Lincoln B. Sloas, Ph.D., lead author of the study and an assistant professor in FAU's School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within the College for Design and Social Inquiry. "Our findings also suggest that marital status may represent a barrier to treatment engagement. While we need more research to better understand this finding, improving treatment responsivity to the unique needs of these clients may be worthwhile."

The researchers emphasize that while treatment readiness was not strongly related to engagement in the current study sample, the study findings do indicate that increasing treatment readiness may contribute to improved treatment engagement.

The study focused on data collected from clients who were at least 18 years old at the time of their treatment experience and examined several levels of care, including outpatient, intensive outpatient, short-term and moderate-/long-term residential, corrections-based treatment, and post-treatment continuing care. Nearly 40 percent were involved in some way with the criminal justice system.

Researchers have uncovered important genomic data from the remains of an ancient giant ground sloth, or Mylodon darwinii, the emblematic creature named after Charles Darwin, whose discovery of fossilized remains in South America is considered to be one of his significant scientific achievements.

Using a bone fragment which dates back nearly 13,000 years, scientists teased out and reconstructed DNA fragments to obtain a high-quality mitochondrial genome and nuclear genomic information. The analysis, they say, proves for the first time that the giant ground sloth--which went extinct approximately 10,000 years ago--is a close relative of the modern two-fingered sloth, believed to be one of the world's slowest mammals.

The research, published online in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests the two species diverged from one another approximately 22 million years ago. The much smaller, modern sloth evolved over time to inhabit trees, where it spends virtually its entire life suspended upside down.

"Our study confirms the convergent evolution of the two, tree dwelling modern sloths from two distinct lineages of extinct giant ground sloths," says Hendrik Poinar, a lead author of the study and director of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and principal investigator at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research. "This means tree-living evolved independently, twice, which is remarkable."

Scientists say the sample was exceptionally well-preserved. It was taken from the famous Mylodon Cave in Chile, which derives its name from the numerous remains of ground sloths found inside. The constant cold and dry conditions of the cave have preserved a scientific treasure trove including bones, claws, feces and even large pieces of mummified skin still covered with blond fur.

"The incredible conservation of the bone sample we used in this study offers promising prospects for sequencing the full genome of this extinct species because of the high percentage of DNA that it contains," says Frédéric Delsuc, co-author of the paper and Director of Research at the Centre National de Recherche, France.

"This will certainly generate more insights and information into their unique features and ultimate extinction," he says.

These remains found within the exceptional site of Mylodon Cave, in Patagonia, Chile, were the first non-human samples used by scientists in early genetic tests which yielded genuine ancient DNA.

Advances in sequencing technology have led to a deeper understanding of ancient and extinct species, including the Columbian and woolly mammoths, giant lemurs and steppe bison.

A global expert on infrastructure says that China's plan to crisscross half of the Earth with massive transportation and energy projects is environmentally the riskiest venture ever undertaken.

"China has enormous ambitions," said Distinguished Professor William Laurance from James Cook University in Australia. "But with that comes enormous responsibilities."

Writing in the Nature Sustainability journal, Professor Laurance joined an international team urging China to undertake rigorous strategic planning before embarking on its 'Belt and Road Initiative', which will ultimately span at least 64 nations across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Pacific region.

By mid-century, the Belt and Road could involve 7,000 infrastructure projects and US $8 trillion in investment, the researchers said.

According to the WWF, the initiative could impact over 1,700 critical biodiversity areas and hundreds of threatened species.

"China claims its Belt and Road will be a blueprint for responsible development, but that's going to require it to fundamentally change the way it does business internationally," said Professor Laurance.

"Too many Chinese firms and financiers operating overseas are poorly controlled by their government--in large part because they are so profitable," he said.

"In the last two decades I've seen countless examples of aggressive and even predatory exploitation by Chinese firms, especially in developing nations with weak environmental controls."

The authors say China has a unique opportunity to change its model of development and become a world-leader in sustainability.

"China is doing a much better job of improving environmental safeguards inside China than internationally," said Professor Laurance.

"It's produced a mountain of green documents and promises about the Belt and Road, but a leopard doesn't just change its spots overnight."

"China has a unique opportunity, but if it's 'business as usual' then I think the costs for the environment and economic risks for investors could be flat-out scary."

Large swaths of U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought, forest fires and disease. Many local impacts of forest loss are well known: drier soils, stronger winds, increased erosion, loss of shade and habitat. But if a whole forest disappears, new research shows, this has ricocheting effects in the atmosphere that can affect vegetation on the other side of the country.

A University of Washington-led study published May 16 in Environmental Research Letters shows that forest die-offs in specific regions of the United States can influence plant growth in other parts of the country. The largest impacts seen were from losing forest cover in California, a region that is currently experiencing dramatic tree mortality.

"These smaller areas of forest can have continental-scale impacts, and we really need to be considering this when we're thinking about ecological changes," said first author Abigail Swann, a UW assistant professor of atmospheric sciences and of biology.
Such far-off effects are accepted in the atmospheric sciences community, Swann said, but the idea is only beginning to be accepted by ecologists.

A 2016 study from the same UW group looked at what removing trees from larger areas, like western North America or the entire Amazon rainforest, would mean for worldwide plant growth. This study took the same approach on a regional scale.

The project divided the mainland U.S. into the 18 regions used in the National Ecological Observatory Network. Researchers then ran a climate model to look at what removing the existing forest cover from the 13 most-heavily-treed regions would mean for growing conditions across the country.

Of all the regions, the Pacific Southwest region, which covers most of California, has the smallest total area of tree cover. But removing those trees had the biggest influence on growing conditions nationally, by reducing vegetation in the Eastern U.S.

The precise mechanisms would require further study, Swann said, but in this case it seemed to make Eastern summers slightly warmer, which was harmful to plant growth.

"Forest loss is disrupting or changing the flow patterns in the atmosphere that is leading to a slightly different summertime climate in the eastern part of the country," Swann said. "It's very analogous to El Niño or 'the blob,' something that's occurring that causes the atmosphere to move around, which causes these warmer or cooler conditions, or wetter and drier conditions, somewhere else."

Compared to an El Niño cycle, Swann said, "the changes we made here were smaller and over land, but it's very analogous."

The results also showed other Western regions, such as the Northern Rockies and the Great Basin region, as having negative effects on plant growth in the eastern half of the country. These regions are currently losing tree cover: California forests have lost more than 130 million trees since 2010, largely due to the combined effects of drought, warm temperatures, insects and disease.

"In some case trees may be killed by drought, but in many cases they're being weakened by the drought and then being finished off by the beetles or other stresses," Swann said.

The study suggests that current forest loss in Western regions is big enough to trigger changes in plant growth, though it might not be possible to detect these small changes over large areas of the country.

"There's some pretty extensive, widespread forest loss going on," Swann said. "The changes we made in the model are bigger, but they're starting to converge with things that we're actually seeing.

"These results show that we need to start thinking about how altering vegetation in one place can affect plants elsewhere, especially in the context of climate change."

New research published in Experimental Physiology has suggested a 6-week CrossFit™ exercise programme can lead to improved control of blood sugar levels and decreased risk of heart disease in people with Type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes is a lifelong condition that causes a person's blood sugar level to become too high. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form, which is where the body doesn't produce enough of the hormone that controls sugar levels, called insulin. People with Type 2 diabetes are at significantly higher risk of heart disease. A primary focus for managing diabetes is exercise, as it has been shown to improve the body's ability to control sugar levels by making the body more sensitive to the insulin produced.

However, adherence to exercise advice is particularly low amongst those with Type 2 diabetes, who are mostly overweight or obese, with lack of time being cited as one of the greatest barriers to regular exercise. This new research suggests that a high intensity exercise programme such as CrossFit improves the ability of the body to control blood sugar levels by reducing the amount of insulin required. Importantly, these improvements appear to be similar to the sort of change we would expect from more traditional exercise interventions, despite participants spending considerably less time exercising than health guidelines recommend. CrossFit therefore offers a time-effective exercise approach for people with Type 2 diabetes who struggle to maintain daily exercise.

CrossFit™ is a high intensity training intervention incorporating both endurance and strength training. Sessions range from 8-20 minutes in duration and represent a far more time-effective form of exercise than traditional exercise interventions. CrossFit™ has been growing in popularity over the past decade, although until now it was not clear whether such forms of exercise would improve the ability of individuals with Type 2 diabetes to control their sugar levels.

For this research, thirteen overweight/obese patients with Type 2 diabetes were recruited to participate in a 6-week CrossFit™ exercise programme. Participants' blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity (an individual's ability to reduce high blood sugar levels effectively) were assessed both before and after the exercise programme, in addition to their blood chemistries and blood pressure, which were tested to predict heart disease risk. The post-exercise intervention test results showed significant improvements in insulin sensitivity and heart disease risk factors. Importantly, these improvements appeared to be similar to the sort of changes expected from more traditional exercise interventions, despite participants spending considerably less time exercising than such guidelines recommend.

The limitations of this study are that it tested a relatively small number of patients, the duration of the exercise intervention was short, and the subject population was relatively young. As such, caution should be applied when extending these results, especially to more elderly patients with Type 2 diabetes. However, the results pave the way for larger studies to assess the efficacy, feasibility and durability of this study's approach. Such studies might need to take more definitive measures of insulin resistance, which would require sophisticated clinical approaches that include infusion of glucose and insulin.

Professor John Kirwan, co-author of the paper, shared a story about one participant's involvement in the intervention which had particularly surprised him:

"One lady started the intervention clearly motivated, and ended it quite exhilarated by the experience. The intervention had a surprisingly large effect on her fasting blood sugar, which fell from 250 mg/dL to around 90 mg/dL (normal range) - effectively remission of her diabetes! She has since continued with CrossFit™, and we hope it will serve her well into the future. Whilst an outlier, such an example provides promise to those who may be pessimistic about the possibilities of these types of interventions."

The first European-wide genomic survey of gonorrhoea has mapped antibiotic resistance in this sexually transmitted disease throughout the continent. Researchers at The Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance (CGPS), the Wellcome Sanger Institute, European Centre for Disease Control, and their collaborators also showed that using DNA sequencing data they could accurately determine antibiotic resistance and identify incorrect laboratory test results. This genomic approach could one day help doctors prescribe the most effective antibiotics for each region.

Reported in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, the study has also established an open genomic database of gonorrhoea. The new resource will support real-time ongoing surveillance of gonorrhoea worldwide, which public health officials could use to monitor which strains of gonorrhoea are present globally and where new antibiotic resistance is emerging.

Gonorrhoea is the second most prevalent bacterial sexually transmitted infection (STI) globally and is caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The WHO estimates that gonorrhoea infects 88 million people globally each year. Amongst other complications, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility if left untreated, and in some cases leads to life-threatening complications such as meningitis. Transmitted during unprotected sex, many strains of gonorrhoea are now difficult to treat due to the rise in antibiotic resistance.

To understand the extent of multidrug resistant strains and determine the best method for surveillance, the researchers studied 1054 samples of N. gonorrhoeae collected from 20 countries across Europe in 2013*. Each sample was tested locally for type and antibiotic sensitivity, and was sent to a central laboratory for DNA extraction. The DNA was then sequenced and the data analysed at the Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance and made accessible via their online platform, creating the first European-wide database of gonorrhoea.

The scientists discovered that using genomic data allowed them to identify clinically important, antibiotic resistant strains much more accurately than existing typing techniques, and to identify incorrect laboratory antibiotic resistance results.

Prof David Aanensen, a corresponding author on the paper and Director of The Centre for Genomic Pathogen Surveillance, Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "Ours is the most comprehensive, structured genomic study of gonorrhoea to date, and data are available to healthcare workers worldwide to compare and view emerging strains of gonorrhoea. This combination of a new method with an accessible database and interpretation tools provides a genomic baseline of gonorrhoea strains and antibiotic resistance across Europe, which will strengthen real-time, surveillance of gonorrhoea.

Dr Simon Harris, first author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "Our study shows that current methods for typing strains of gonorrhoea are not very effective for surveillance. We show that whole genome sequencing gives a true picture of where sensitive and resistant strains are circulating, which will allow doctors to quickly spot the emergence of new, antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea strains. A follow up study starting this year will show how the picture changes with time."

The web application is openly available online, and healthcare officials from around the world can use it and add their own genomic data. This will enable them to monitor the strains and antibiotic resistance emerging in each geographic area. Ongoing surveillance would allow clinics to offer the most appropriate antibiotics and help to delay the onset of further antibiotic resistance.

Dr Gianfranco Spiteri, an author on the paper from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control which co-ordinates the European Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (Euro-GASP), said: "Drug-resistant bacteria are becoming a huge public health threat. To control them, we badly need new tools to identify and track new infections and antibiotic resistant strains. This new approach will allow European-wide genomic surveillance of gonorrhoea which directly influences infection control on a national level and helps to prevent gonorrhoea. This approach can also be expanded to other infections."

Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) appear to keep tidier sleeping arrangements than humans do. That's one finding of a recent study that evaluated the microbes and arthropods found in the treetop beds that chimpanzees make each night.

"We know that human homes are effectively their own ecosystems, and human beds often contain a subset of the taxa - or types - of organisms found in the home," says Megan Thoemmes, lead author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. "For example, about 35 percent of bacteria in human beds stem from our own bodies, including fecal, oral and skin bacteria.

"We wanted to know how this compares with some of our closest evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, which make their own beds daily," Thoemmes says.

To that end, researchers in Tanzania collected swabs of 41 chimpanzee beds, or nests. The swabs were used to test for microbial biodiversity. At 15 of the nests, researchers also used vacuums to sample the diversity of arthropods, such as insects and arachnids.

Not surprisingly, chimpanzee beds had vastly different biodiversity from human ones. Chimpanzee beds had a greater diversity of microbes, and the types of microbial life reflected the arboreal environments where the nests were found.

Notably, however, chimpanzee beds were much less likely to harbor fecal, oral or skin bacteria.

"We found almost none of those microbes in the chimpanzee nests, which was a little surprising," Thoemmes says.

"We also expected to see a significant number of arthropod parasites, but we didn't," Thoemmes says. "There were only four ectoparasites found, across all the nests we looked at. And that's four individual specimens, not four different species.

"This work really highlights the role that man-made structures play in shaping the ecosystems of our immediate environment," Thoemmes says. "In some ways, our attempts to create a clean environment for ourselves may actually make our surroundings less ideal."

Whites consider biracial people to be less trustworthy if they change their racial presentation depending on circumstances, Rutgers University-New Brunswick researchers find.

The study appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Rutgers social psychologists Analia Albuja and Diana Sanchez studied how white people perceive biracial people who identify as biracial but who sometimes "present" themselves as one race or the other in different situations.

In the 2010 U.S. Census, nine million people identified themselves as "multiracial" (chose more than one race), and 30 percent said they had, at some point, presented themselves as members of one race or another.

In a series of five studies, the researchers asked hundreds of white people to review blog posts purportedly written by people who identified as black and white or Asian and white. Some of the "bloggers" indicated that when applying for jobs or college admission or when filling out government forms, they sometimes presented themselves as biracial and sometimes as one race or the other.

The researchers coined a term for presenting oneself as a member of one race in some contexts and of another race in another context: contextual racial presentation, or CRP.

Sanchez and Albuja, the lead author and a psychology graduate student in the School of Graduate Studies, recruited several hundred white subjects to take part in the studies online. The researchers asked their subjects to fill out online questionnaires designed to elicit their impressions of the bloggers. How trustworthy were they? How likeable were they? Was their behavior - whether or not they presented themselves contextually - right or wrong?

The results showed that across the board - regardless of whether the "bloggers" presented themselves as white or members of a minority or whether they could benefit from their choice - white people perceived them as less trustworthy and likeable than biracial people who didn't present contextually. The white people were more likely than not to object to such presentation on moral grounds. However, when the bloggers didn't have a choice in the matter (some forms didn't have a category for bi-racial people), white people were more lenient.

Sanchez said she and Albuja chose white participants exclusively for the studies because they have a position of privilege in U.S. society and have more ability to set rules and norms for how people of different races are perceived.

Largest study to date shows that disrupted body clock rhythms are associated with increased susceptibility to depression, bipolar disorder, and adverse wellbeing

Disruption to normal daily circadian rhythms is associated with a greater susceptibility to mood disorders such as severe depression and bipolar disorder over the life course, according to the largest observational study of its kind involving over 91,000 people, published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

These disturbances to the body's internal clock, characterised by increased activity during rest periods and/or inactivity during the day, are also associated with mood instability, more subjective loneliness, lower happiness and health satisfaction, and worse cognitive function.

The results held true even after adjusting for a wide range of influential factors including age, sex, lifestyle, education, body mass index, and childhood trauma.

This study is the first to objectively measure patterns of rest and activity (using accelerometers), and to have sufficient sample size to assess the effect of circadian disruption on various mental health disorders.

"Our findings indicate an association between altered daily circadian rhythms and mood disorders and wellbeing", says author Dr Laura Lyall from the University of Glasgow, UK. "However, these are observational associations and cannot tell us whether mood disorders and reduced wellbeing cause disturbed rest-activity patterns, or whether disturbed circadian rhythmicity makes people vulnerable to mood disorders and poorer wellbeing."[1]

"To look at this in more detail, it will be useful for future studies to track participants' rest-activity patterns over time to see whether disturbed rhythms can predict whether someone is more likely to go on to develop a mood disorder"[1]

Daily circadian rhythms govern fundamental physiological and behavioural functions from body temperature to eating habits in almost all organisms. The brain's internal time-keeping system anticipates environmental changes and adapts itself to the appropriate time of day. Disruption of these rhythms has been shown to profoundly affect human health. Greater disease risks arising from circadian disruption have been identified in the brain, pancreas, and stress systems.

Previous research has identified associations between circadian disruption and poor mental health, but these were typically based on self reports of activity and sleeping patterns, had small sample sizes, or adjusted for few potential confounders.

To address these methodological issues, the researchers analysed activity data in 91,105 participants (aged 37-73) from the UK Biobank general population cohort to obtain an objective measure of patterns of rest and activity rhythms, known as relative amplitude. [2] All participants wore accelerometers for 7 days between 2013 and 2015 to record their activity. This information was linked to mental health questionnaires to assess symptoms of mental disorders and subjective wellbeing and cognitive function.

Mathematical modelling was used to investigate associations between low relative amplitude (reflecting greater activity during rest periods and/or daytime inactivity) and lifetime risk of mood disorder as well as wellbeing and cognitive function.

The researchers found that lower relative amplitude was associated with a greater odds of reporting lifetime history of major depression or bipolar disorder (adjusted odds ratio 1.06 and 1.11; table 2). Lower relative amplitude was also found to be reliably associated with greater mood instability, higher neuroticism scores, more subjective loneliness, lower happiness and health satisfaction, and slower reaction time (an indirect measure of cognitive function).

"While our findings can't tell us about the direction of causality, they reinforce the idea that mood disorders are associated with disturbed circadian rhythms, and we provide evidence that altered rest-activity rhythms are also linked to worse subjective wellbeing and cognitive ability", says Dr Lyall."[1]

The authors acknowledge that their findings show observational associations rather than cause and effect. This limitation is compounded by the time difference between the recording of demographic and lifestyle data (2006-10), accelerometry data (2013-14) and information from the mental health questionnaire (2016-17). The authors also note that rest-activity rhythms differ between younger and older adults, so the associations between circadian rhythmicity and mental health and wellbeing may differ in younger age groups.

The authors conclude: "Relative amplitude is relatively cheaply and easily measured and could be used to identify people at greater risk of major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder, or those who might benefit from treatments that directly target the circadian clock. Given that most mental health disorders begin during adolescence, more longitudinal studies in younger populations might improve our understanding of causal mechanisms, and help find new ways to predict mood disorders and fine-tune treatments."[1]

Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Aiden Doherty from the University of Oxford in the UK agrees: "Although the UK Biobank is one of the most important medical resources worldwide, the study population (median age at baseline of 62 years, IQR 54-68 years) is not ideal to examine the causes of mental health, given that 75% of disorders start before the age of 24 years. As the authors note, the circadian system undergoes developmental changes during adolescence, which is also a common time for the onset of mood disorders. It might be that the UK Biobank provides the template and impetus for a resource of a similar scale in adolescents and younger adults to help transform our understanding of the causes and consequences, prevention, and treatment of mental health disorders."

The popular meme proclaiming that all dogs are puppies assumes that humans' adoration of canines is not conditional on their age. But a new study led by Clive Wynne, professor of psychology and director of Arizona State University's Canine Science Collaboratory, suggests otherwise.

In a paper published this month in Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of the Interactions of People and Animals, Wynne and colleagues describe the study, which found dogs' attractiveness to humans peaks at roughly eight weeks, the same point in time at which their mother weans them and leaves them to fend for themselves.

While spending time in the Bahamas, Wynne was able to observe the many street dogs there. According to him, there are around a billion dogs in the world, 80 percent of whom are feral. For those dogs, human intervention is crucial to their survival. Wynne wondered if there was a connection between pups' weaning age -- when they are at their most vulnerable -- and their level of attractiveness to humans. So he designed an experiment to test his query.

"It came out exactly as I'd hoped it would -- that there is indeed an optimal age of maximum cuteness, and that age does line up pretty closely with the age at which mothers wean their pups," Wynne said.

"This could be a signal coming through to us of how dogs have evolved to rely on human care. This could be dogs showing us how the bond between human and dog is not just something that we find immensely satisfying in our lives. ... But for them, it's the absolute bedrock of their existence. That being able to connect with us, to find an emotional hook with us is what actually makes their lives possible."

The study was carried out using a series of photographs of puppies at different ages, from the first weeks of life through young adulthood. Fifty-one participants were asked to rank the puppies' level of attractiveness in each photo. Three distinctive-looking breeds were ranked: Jack Russell terriers, cane corsos and white shepherds.

Results showed that the pups' attractiveness was lowest at birth and increased to a maximum before 10 weeks of age before declining and then leveling off.

Cane corsos showed a maximum attractiveness at 6.3 weeks of age; Jack Russell terriers showed a maximum attractiveness at 7.7 weeks of age; and white shepherds showed a maximum attractiveness at 8.3 weeks of age.

"Around seven or eight weeks of age, just as their mother is getting sick of them and is going to kick them out of the den and they're going to have to make their own way in life, at that age, that is exactly when they are most attractive to human beings," Wynne said.

The findings provide insight into the depth and origin of the relationship between humans and dogs, the oldest and most enduring of any human-animal relationship. And while some theories attribute the survival of the canine species to their intelligence, Wynne dissents.

"I think that the intelligence of dogs is not the fundamental issue," he said. "It's this tremendous capacity to form intimate, strong, affectionate bonds. And that starts at maybe eight weeks of life, when they're so compelling to us."

Though humans and other animals, such as cats and birds, have the capacity to form strong bonds, dogs in particular are especially suited to the task because of their gregarious nature. Even in hand-reared wolves, the species from which all dogs are descended, the willingness to engage humans does not match that of the domestic dog.

"It does seem to me that the dog has something rather special," Wynne said. "Dogs have a very open-ended social program. That they are ready and willing to make friends with anybody."

Wynne has thought of a couple of interesting ways to follow up on the cuteness study. One way is to show participants video of puppies at different ages, instead of still photos, to determine if perhaps there is something in the pups' movement that attracts people. Another is to determine what the pups' mother thinks about their level of attractiveness at different ages, though that is obviously easier said than done.

The takeaway from the study for Wynne is that extra piece of the puzzle that makes up the human-dog connection.

"[The study] doesn't mean to say that we stop loving our dogs past [eight weeks]," he said. "The eight-week point is just the point where the hook is biggest, the ability of the animal to grab our interest is strongest. But, having grabbed our interest, we continue to love them all their lives."

A Ph.D. candidate, Ryota Kondo, and Professor Michiteru Kitazaki at Toyohashi University of Technology, in cooperation with Professor Masahiko Inami at the University of Tokyo, Associate Professor Maki Sugimoto, and Associate Professor Kouta Minamizawa at Keio University have found that the visual-motor synchronicity of only the hands and feet can induce a sense of illusory ownership over an invisible body interpolated between virtual hands and feet. It can provide the illusory ownership over the invisible body at a distance, or enable the operation of one's own transparentized body in a virtual environment.

Illusory body ownership can be induced by visual-tactile synchronicity such as the rubber hand illusion (passive method) and by visual-motor synchronicity such as the full-body illusion (active method). These methods enable us to communicate in cyberspace as well as in real environments. Virtual reality technology enables us to experience the illusory ownership of bodies of different shapes, sizes, genders, ages, etc. The illusory ownership of an invisible body in a first-person perspective has been realized with the passive method, and it reduces social anxiety to an audience (Guterstam, Abdulkarim & Ehrsson, Sci. Rep. 2015).

However, it is not clear whether the ownership of an invisible and dynamic body can be obtained at a distance.

Currently, researchers at Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology, in collaboration with the researchers at the University of Tokyo and Keio University, have developed a new method to induce a sense of illusory ownership over an invisible body by focusing on the body action.

They presented only the gloves and socks two meters in front of and away from the participants using a head-mounted display (Figure 1, left). Twenty naïve volunteers answered a questionnaire after a five-minute observation with free body actions. The motion of the gloves and socks were synchronized or asynchronized with the participant's action. The illusory body ownership was rated higher when the virtual gloves and socks moved synchronously with their own movements than the asynchronous condition. They felt as if their own had become increasingly transparent when the motion was synchronized as compared to when the motion was asynchronized.

The experiments showed that the illusory ownership of the invisible body was not significantly different from the visible whole body (Figure 1, right), and that the proprioceptive self-location drifted toward the invisible body that was at a distance in front of the participants.

Ryota Kondo, a graduate student of the Program of Leading Graduate School at Toyohashi University of Technology said, "I want to create experiences of illusory ownership of various bodies. A person may have a negative feeling with his/her body, and he/she may want to have a different body from his/her current body. Virtual reality technology offers us the opportunities to have the different bodies that we desire." Professor Michiteru Kitazaki, a perceptual psychologist and the leader of the research at Toyohashi University of Technology explained, "Human behaviors and mind would change when they have the illusory ownership of different bodies. Thus, we must investigate how our communication would differ in the future society if our body ownership and appearance could be significantly modified during the course of our daily lives."

These findings suggest that we can own a distant invisible body only from our hands and feet. It is useful to show complex body skills to another person and in turn he/she can imitate them for learning because the invisible/transparentized body scarcely occludes the scene, and the body ownership may facilitate skill learning.

Human communication is affected by body gestures and appearance. This study proposes the idea that our communication would change and might become body-appearance free in the future if we could have different bodies daily in cyberspace.

Research by Dr. Freda Miller and her team at the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto has determined how brain stem cells and the environment they live within collaborate to build brain circuits during development, discoveries that have led to a better understanding of neurodevelopmental disorders in children. The Miller lab and her basic research collaborators work closely with their clinical colleagues to harness this information and develop new approaches for treating brain injury. These results were presented at the 2018 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting, in Vancouver, May 15th, 2018.

During development, the mammalian brain starts life as nothing more than a collection of stem cells that then must generate the neurons and glial cells that form the complex network of connections required for proper brain functioning and cognition. One cause of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder is thought to be the failure of stem cells to correctly build the brain. Dr. Miller's team investigates how stem cells accomplish this task, and to understand how this process goes wrong in neurodevelopmental disorders. Since these same brain stem cells also persist into adulthood, this has led to the idea that it might be possible to manipulate these brain-resident stem cells to behave as they did during development, and in so doing to promote brain repair. Importantly, recent work from Dr. Miller and her collaborators suggests that this may indeed be the case, thereby identifying a new approach for treating the damaged or degenerating human brain.

"Neural stem cells are like "parent" cells that generate their children, the neurons and glia that build brain circuits, in a precisely controlled fashion in response to signals from their environment. These signals ensure that there are enough stem cells to build the brain, to make the correct amounts of neurons and glial cells at the right time and place in the developing brain, and that some stem cells persist into adulthood where they can participate in brain repair. If we can understand what these signals are, and how stem cells respond under normal circumstances, then that information will not only allow us to understand what happens in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder but will also provide us with the information we need to activate stem cells in the mature brain to promote repair" says Freda Miller.

To understand brain stem cells and their environment, Dr. Miller is using approaches that range from stem cell biology to transcriptomics and proteomics that identify the proteins and RNA molecules that enable stem cells to build the brain and computational modeling, with the idea that understanding brain development and repair requires an interdisciplinary and highly collaborative approach.

"The key to doing the best science is to ask big questions such as "how do you built functional brain circuits during development" or "how can you repair an injured brain" and then to seek out collaborators who are willing to work with you to answer those questions in an integrative and interdisciplinary fashion. This type of high-level collaboration is equally important when your discovery research unveils a potentially novel therapeutic strategy. This collaborative approach has been the key to all of our major discoveries" says Freda Miller.