Tay-Sachs disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutations inactivating the metabolic enzyme HexA. The most common mutation is c.1278insTATC, a tandem 4-bp duplication disrupting expression by frameshift.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn recent years, there has been an increased interest in remote testing methods for quantifying individual differences in interoception, the perception of the body's internal state. Hampering the adoption of remote methods are concerns as to the quality of data obtained remotely. Using data from several studies, we sought to compare the performance of individuals who completed the Phase Adjustment Task-a new measure of cardiac interoceptive accuracy that can be administered via a smartphone application-supervised in a laboratory against those who completed the task remotely.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPrevious evidence suggests males and females differ with respect to interoception-the processing of internal bodily signals-with males typically outperforming females on tasks of interoceptive accuracy. However, interpretation of existing evidence in the cardiac domain is hindered by the limitations of existing tools. In this investigation, we pooled data from several samples to examine sex differences in cardiac interoceptive accuracy on the phase adjustment task, a new measure that overcomes several limitations of the existing tools.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Rapid Start ensures that persons with HIV initiate antiretroviral therapy in less than seven days after diagnosis. Benefits of Rapid Start include timely linkage to medical care, viral suppression in a shorter time and improved retention to medical care. Despite these benefits, there is a slow uptake of Rapid Start, in New Jersey.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEngagement of all students in an interprofessional learning activity is crucial to the overall success of the event. Due to limited diversity of healthcare disciplines, academic programs on regional medical campuses face particular challenges to create events where all students can have an active role in learning experiences. To meet the interprofessional education needs of all healthcare disciplines on a regional medical campus, a learning event was designed to purposefully involve each group of students to solve an escape room/scavenger hunt experience.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCaffeine is a natural compound that inhibits the major cellular signaling regulator target of rapamycin (TOR), leading to widespread effects including growth inhibition. Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast can adapt to tolerate high concentrations of caffeine in coffee and cacao fermentations and in experimental systems. While many factors affecting caffeine tolerance and TOR signaling have been identified, further characterization of their interactions and regulation remain to be studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBlack men and people belonging to sexual minority groups are disproportionately impacted by criminal legal involvement and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Traumatic experiences are often associated with later criminal legal involvement, depression symptoms, sexual risk behavior, and STIs. Research on the joint influence of trauma and incarceration on STI risk among racial and/or sexual minority people is limited.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCaffeine is a natural compound that inhibits the major cellular signaling regulator TOR, leading to widespread effects including growth inhibition. yeast can adapt to tolerate high concentrations of caffeine in coffee and cacao fermentations and in experimental systems. While many factors affecting caffeine tolerance and TOR signaling have been identified, further characterization of their interactions and regulation remain to be studied.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Black sexual minority men and Black transgender women (BSMM/BTW) experience disproportionate levels of HIV/STI-related risk factors as well as police harassment (PH). PH is linked to psychiatric risk and could play a role in substance use, sexual risk behavior, and HIV/STI risk.
Methods: We used data from the HIV Prevention Trials Network 061(HPTN 061) study to examine associations between PH and HIV/STI-related outcomes.
Background: The ability to recognize one's own emotions is associated with one's ability to recognize others' emotions. Beyond the domain of emotion, however, the relationship between recognition of one's own internal states (interoception) and others' interoceptive states has not been investigated, either in the typical population or clinical groups with interoceptive difficulties (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Offender Ther Comp Criminol
January 2024
A disproportionally large number of adolescents engage in cyber-deviance. However, it is unclear if distinct patterns of adolescent cyber-deviance are evident, and if so, whether and to what extent low self-control is associated with different patterns of cyber-deviance. The current study addressed this research gap by examining the relationship between self-control and distinct latent classes of adolescent cyber-deviance net of potential confounders among a cross-sectional sample of 1793 South Australian adolescents.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSelf-related processing is thought to be altered in autism, with several studies reporting that autistic individuals show a diminished neural response relative to neurotypicals for their own name and face. However, evidence remains scarce and is mostly based on event-related potential studies. Here, we used EEG to measure the neural activity of autistic adults (20 for faces, 27 for names) and neurotypical adults (24 for faces, 25 for names) while they were watching rapidly alternating faces and names, through a relatively new technique called Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Given the disproportionate rates of incarceration and lower life expectancy (LE) among Black sexual minority men (BSMM) and Black transgender women (BTW) with HIV, we modeled the impact of decarceration and screening for psychiatric conditions and substance use on LE of US BSMM/BTW with HIV.
Methods: We augmented a microsimulation model previously validated to predict LE and leading causes of death in the US with estimates from the HPTN 061 cohort and the Veteran's Aging Cohort Studies. We estimated independent associations among psychiatric and substance use disorders, to simulate the influence of treatment of one condition on improvement on others.
Background: Understanding the impact of incarceration on HIV transmission among Black men who have sex with men is important given their disproportionate representation among people experiencing incarceration and the potential impact of incarceration on social and sexual networks, employment, housing, and medical care. We developed an agent-based network model (ABNM) of 10,000 agents representing young Black men who have sex with men in the city of Chicago to examine the impact of varying degrees of post-incarceration care disruption and care engagement interventions following release from jail on HIV incidence.
Methods: Exponential random graph models were used to model network formation and dissolution dynamics, and network dynamics and HIV care continuum engagement were varied according to incarceration status.
Molecular markers of autoimmunity, such as antibodies to citrullinated protein antigens (ACPA), are detectable prior to inflammatory arthritis (IA) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and may define a state that is 'at-risk' for future RA. Here we present a cross-sectional comparative analysis among three groups that include ACPA positive individuals without IA (At-Risk), ACPA negative individuals and individuals with early, ACPA positive clinical RA (Early RA). Differential methylation analysis among the groups identifies non-specific dysregulation in peripheral B, memory and naïve T cells in At-Risk participants, with more specific immunological pathway abnormalities in Early RA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Stigma contributes to health disparities including increased HIV vulnerability among minority communities. Black transgender women experience multiple forms of stigma (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIncarceration can lead to different risk behaviors often due to increased distress and disruption of social networks. It is not well known, however, how these associations may differ by age. In this study, we measure age differences in longitudinal associations between incarceration and substance use, sex risk, and sexually transmitted infection (STI) among Black sexual minority men and Black transgender women (BSMM/BTW).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (ACPAs) are highly specific for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and have long been regarded as pathogenic. Despite substantial in vitro evidence supporting this claim, reports investigating the proinflammatory effects of ACPAs in animal models of arthritis are rare and include mixed results. Here, we sequenced the plasmablast antibody repertoire of a patient with RA and functionally characterized the encoded ACPAs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Evaluate associations between racialized and homophobia-based police harassment (RHBPH) and healthcare distrust and utilization among Black Sexual Minority Men (BSMM).
Methods: We utilized data from a longitudinal cohort study from HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) 061 with baseline, six and 12 month follow-up assessments. Using multivariable analysis, we evaluated associations between RHBPH and healthcare distrust and utilization reported at the 6 and 12 month visits.
Two parallel public health epidemics affecting the United States include the COVID-19 pandemic and a rise in substance use disorders (SUDs). Limited research has examined the potential relationship between these two epidemics. Our objective was therefore to perform an exploratory study in order to examine the association between public stigma toward people with a past history of opioid, methamphetamine, cocaine, and alcohol use disorder and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWith the rising usage of mobile phones by people with mild dementia, and the documented barriers to technology use that exist for people with dementia, there is an open opportunity to study the specifics of mobile phone use by people with dementia. In this work we provide a first step towards filling this gap through an interview study with fourteen people with mild to moderate dementia. Our analysis yields insights into mobile phone use by people with mild to moderate dementia, challenges they experience with mobile phone use, and their ideas to address these challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutistic people report that their emotional expressions are sometimes misunderstood by non-autistic people. One explanation for these misunderstandings could be that the two neurotypes have different internal representations of emotion: Perhaps they have different expectations about what a facial expression showing a particular emotion looks like. In three well-powered studies with non-autistic college students in the United States (total N = 632), we investigated this possibility.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol
July 2023
Background: Peripheral vascular disease remains a leading cause of vascular morbidity and mortality worldwide despite advances in medical and surgical therapy. Besides traditional approaches, which can only restore blood flow to native arteries, an alternative approach is to enhance the growth of new vessels, thereby facilitating the physiological response to ischemia.
Methods: The Actin/R26 Rainbow reporter mouse was used for unbiased in vivo survey of injury-responsive vasculogenic clonal formation.