Two Clinically Implementable Digital PCR Assessments of DNA Methylation for Diagnosing Heavy Alcohol Consumption.

Background: Heavy alcohol consumption (HAC) has a profound adverse effect on human health. Unfortunately, there is a relative lack of tools that are easily implementable in clinical settings and that can be used to supplement self-reporting in the diagnosis and management of HAC. In part, this paucity is due to limitations of currently available biological measures and a mismatch between available biological measures and the needs of clinicians managing HAC.

Recombinant venom proteins in insect seminal fluid reduce female lifespan.

The emergence of insecticide resistance has increased the need for alternative pest management tools. Numerous genetic biocontrol approaches, which involve the release of genetically modified organisms to control pest populations, are in various stages of development to provide highly targeted pest control. However, all current mating-based genetic biocontrol technologies function by releasing engineered males which skew sex-ratios or reduce offspring viability in subsequent generations which leaves mated females to continue to cause harm (e.

Effects of a responsive parenting intervention on Black mothers' depressive symptoms postpartum: Secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.

Objective: This study examined whether a responsive parenting (RP) intervention for first-time Black mothers had secondary benefits for their mental health by reducing their postpartum depressive symptoms.

Method: In total, 212 first-time Black mothers participated in the Sleep Strong African American Families randomized control trial. Mothers were randomized to the RP condition or a safety control condition at 1-week postpartum.

The brain's sensitivity to sensory error can be modulated by altering perceived variability.

When individuals make a movement that produces an unexpected outcome, they learn from the resulting error. This process, essential in both acquiring new motor skills and adapting to changing environments, critically relies on error sensitivity, which governs how much behavioral change results from a given error. Although behavioral and computational evidence suggests error sensitivity can change in response to task demands, neural evidence regarding the flexibility of error sensitivity in the human brain is lacking.

2024 ACLP Recommendations for Training Residents in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry.

Background: Despite rapid shifts in consultation-liaison psychiatry (CLP) training in residency, including increasing general residency training requirements from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, greater utilization of advanced practice providers, and effects of the coronavirus-2019 pandemic, the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry has not updated recommendations for residency training in CLP since 2014. A national survey of residency program directors in 2021 suggested many changes to the structure of CLP rotations at individual programs over the past decade.

Objective: These recommendations are intended to guide residency program directors toward optimizing CLP training for all residents, including those who will eventually pursue CLP fellowship.

Online peer-to-peer health communities for individuals affected by chronic kidney disease: a scoping review protocol.

Objective: The objective of this scoping review is to identify and describe research exploring online peer-to-peer health communities for individuals affected by chronic kidney disease.

Introduction: The proliferation of online peer-to-peer health communities has created new opportunities for individuals affected by chronic kidney disease to come together for mutual social, emotional, and informational support.

Inclusion Criteria: This scoping review will include qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, and evidence synthesis studies, as well as gray literature relating to online peer-to-peer health communities for individuals affected by chronic kidney disease.

Racial discrimination predicts subjective cognitive decline: Perceived relationship support buffers the association.

Objectives: Recent studies show that chronic exposure to racial discrimination increases the occurrence of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) among Black Americans. Little research, however, has examined potential for protective factors, such as perceived partner support, to buffer these effects.

Methods: This study utilized longitudinal data over a 10-year period from the Family and Community Health Study (FACHS) to examine the associations between experiences of racial discrimination, marital status, partner support, and SCD, measured by the Everyday Cognition (ECog) Scale, among 286 middle-aged Black American women.

Expanding the CRISPR base editing toolbox in Drosophila melanogaster.

CRISPR base editors can introduce point mutations into DNA precisely, and cytosine base editors (CBEs) catalyze C to T transitions. While CBEs have been thoroughly explored in cell culture and organisms such as mice, little is known about DNA base editing in insects. In this study, we evaluated germline editing rates of three different CBEs expressed under actin (ubiquitous) or nanos (germline) promoters utilizing Drosophila melanogaster.

Increased vowel contrast and intelligibility in connected speech induced by sensorimotor adaptation.

Alterations to sensory feedback can drive robust adaptive changes to the production of consonants and vowels, but these changes often have no behavioral relevance or benefit to communication (e.g., making "head" more like "had").

Diagnostic and demographic factors of pediatric and adult catatonia hospitalizations: A 2016-2020 National Inpatient Sample Study.

Objective: Catatonia is a neuropsychiatric disorder that can occur in patients of any age, but it is uncertain whether patient demographics or underlying diagnoses differ between pediatric and adult patients. This study investigates patients of all ages diagnosed with catatonia during acute care hospitalizations in the United States over a 5-year period.

Method: The National Inpatient Sample, an all-payors database of acute care hospital discharges, was queried for patients with a discharge diagnosis of catatonia between 2016 and 2020 with patients stratified by age as pediatric (≤18 years) or adult (>18 years).

Objective Assessments of Smoking and Drinking Outperform Clinical Phenotypes in Predicting Variance in Epigenetic Aging.

The reliability of the associations of the acceleration of epigenetic aging (EA) indices with clinical phenotypes other than for smoking and drinking is poorly understood. Furthermore, the majority of clinical phenotyping studies have been conducted using data from subjects of European ancestry. In order to address these limitations, we conducted clinical, physiologic, and epigenetic assessments of a cohort of 278 middle-aged African American adults and analyzed the associations with the recently described principal-components-trained version of GrimAge (i.

Exploring perceptions of online calculators for identifying community-dwelling older people at risk of dying: A qualitative study.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the acceptability, value, and perceived barriers of using electronic risk calculators for predicting and communicating the risk of death in community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: One focus group and eight interviews were conducted with 16 participants with experience caring for patients or family members at end of life. A prototype mortality risk tool was used to anchor discussions.

Simultaneous genetic transformation and genome editing of mixed lines in soybean () and maize ().

Unlabelled: Robust genome editing technologies are becoming part of the crop breeding toolbox. Currently, genome editing is usually conducted either at a single locus, or multiple loci, in a variety at one time. Massively parallel genomics platforms, multifaceted genome editing capabilities, and flexible transformation systems enable targeted variation at nearly any locus, across the spectrum of genotypes within a species.

Development and Validation of a Measure for Seeking Health Information in the Diabetes Online Community: Mixed Methods Study.

Background: Individuals with chronic diseases often search for health information online. The Diabetes Online Community (DOC) is an active community with members who exchange health information; however, few studies have examined health information brokering in the DOC.

Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and validate the Attitudes Toward Seeking Health Information Online (ATSHIO) scale in a sample of adults with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

Pars Opercularis Underlies Efferent Predictions and Successful Auditory Feedback Processing in Speech: Evidence From Left-Hemisphere Stroke.

Hearing one's own speech allows for acoustic self-monitoring in real time. Left-hemisphere motor planning regions are thought to give rise to efferent predictions that can be compared to true feedback in sensory cortices, resulting in neural suppression commensurate with the degree of overlap between predicted and actual sensations. Sensory prediction errors thus serve as a possible mechanism of detection of deviant speech sounds, which can then feed back into corrective action, allowing for online control of speech acoustics.

Racial Discrimination and Risk for Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms Among Black Youths.

Importance: Racial discrimination is a psychosocial stressor associated with youths' risk for psychiatric symptoms. Scarce data exist on the moderating role of amygdalar activation patterns among Black youths in the US.

Objective: To investigate the association between racial discrimination and risk for psychopathology moderated by neuroaffective processing.

Stress Accumulation, Depressive Symptoms, and Sleep Problems among Black Americans in the Rural South.

Centuries of systemic racism in the United States have led to Black Americans facing a disproportionate amount of life stressors. These stressors can have negative effects on mental and physical health, contributing to inequities throughout the lifespan. The current study used longitudinal data from 692 Black adults in the rural South to examine the ways in which neighborhood stress, financial strain, and interpersonal experiences of racial discrimination operate independently and in tandem to impact depressive symptoms and sleep problems over time.

Inhibitory modulation of speech trajectories: Evidence from a vowel-modified Stroop task.

How does cognitive inhibition influence speaking? The Stroop effect is a classic demonstration of the interference between reading and color naming. We used a novel variant of the Stroop task to measure whether this interference impacts not only the response speed, but also the acoustic properties of speech. Speakers named the color of words in three categories: congruent (e.

Moderating Effects of Informal Care on the Relationship Between ADL Limitations and Adverse Outcomes in Stroke Survivors.

Background: Stroke survivors with limitations in activities of daily living (ADL) have a greater risk of experiencing falls, hospitalizations, or physical function decline. We examined how informal caregiving received in hours per week by stroke survivors moderated the relationship between ADL limitations and adverse outcomes.

Methods: In this retrospective cohort, community-dwelling participants were extracted from the National Health and Aging Trends Study (2011-2020; n=277) and included if they had at least 1 formal or informal caregiver and reported an incident stroke in the prior year.

Racial discrimination during middle age predicts higher serum phosphorylated tau and neurofilament light chain levels a decade later: A study of aging black Americans.

Introduction: Recent evidence suggests that exposure to the stress of racism may increase the risk of dementia for Black Americans.

Methods: The present study used 17 years of data from a sample of 255 Black Americans to investigate the extent to which exposure to racial discrimination predicts subsequent changes in serum Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) biomarkers: serum phosphorylated tau181(p-tau181), neurofilament light (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). We hypothesized that racial discrimination assessed during middle age would predict increases in these serum biomarkers as the participants aged into their 60s.