Plant protein, fibre and physical activity solutions to address poor appetite and prevent undernutrition in older adults: study protocol for the APPETITE randomised controlled trial.

Reduced appetite with ageing is a key factor that may increase risk of undernutrition. The objective of this study is to determine the impact of innovative plant protein fibre (PPF) products within a personalised optimised diet (PD), a physical activity (PA) programme, and their combination on appetite, and other nutritional, functional and clinical outcomes in community-dwelling older adults in a multi-country randomised controlled intervention trial. One hundred and eighty community-dwelling adults (approximately sixty per trial centre in Germany, Ireland and Italy) aged 65 years and over will be recruited to participate in a 12-week, parallel-group, controlled trial.

Association of dietary flavan-3-ol intakes with plasma phenyl-γ-valerolactones: analysis from the TUDA cohort of healthy older adults.

Background: Dietary polyphenols, including flavan-3-ols (F3O), are associated with better health outcomes. The relationship of plasma phenyl-γ-valerolactones (PVLs), the products of colonic bacterial metabolism of F3O, with dietary intakes is unclear.

Objectives: To investigate whether plasma PVLs are associated with self-reported intakes of total F3O and procyanidins+(epi)catechins.

Data-driven segmentation of cortical calcium dynamics.

Demixing signals in transcranial videos of neuronal calcium flux across the cerebral hemispheres is a key step before mapping features of cortical organization. Here we demonstrate that independent component analysis can optimally recover neural signal content in widefield recordings of neuronal cortical calcium dynamics captured at a minimum sampling rate of 1.5×106 pixels per one-hundred millisecond frame for seventeen minutes with a magnification ratio of 1:1.

Peripheral Amino Acid Appearance Is Lower Following Plant Protein Fibre Products, Compared to Whey Protein and Fibre Ingestion, in Healthy Older Adults despite Optimised Amino Acid Profile.

Plant-based proteins are generally characterised by lower Indispensable Amino Acid (IAA) content, digestibility, and anabolic properties, compared to animal-based proteins. However, they are environmentally friendlier, and wider consumption is advocated. Older adults have higher dietary protein needs to prevent sarcopenia, a disease marked by an accelerated loss of muscle mass and function.

User experience with a voice-enabled smartphone app to collect patient-reported outcomes in rheumatoid arthritis.

Objectives: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic disease, requiring frequent patient-provider interaction and self-monitoring. We developed a novel mobile health smartphone app with a voice-enabled feature to help patients virtually track disease activity and ask general questions about RA.

Methods: With a user-centered design (UCD) approach, we developed a voice-enabled app (VEA) which was then tested in two focus groups of patients (n=8) and one with providers (n=4).

An analog of psychedelics restores functional neural circuits disrupted by unpredictable stress.

Psychological stress affects a wide spectrum of brain functions and poses risks for many mental disorders. However, effective therapeutics to alleviate or revert its deleterious effects are lacking. A recently synthesized psychedelic analog tabernanthalog (TBG) has demonstrated anti-addictive and antidepressant potential.

IGF-Binding Proteins, Adiponectin, and Survival in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer: Results From CALGB (Alliance)/SWOG 80405.

Background: Energy balance-related biomarkers are associated with risk and prognosis of various malignancies. Their relationship to survival in metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) requires further study.

Methods: Baseline plasma insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1, IGF-binding protein (IGFBP)-3, IGFBP-7, C-peptide, and adiponectin were measured at time of trial registration in a prospective cohort of patients with mCRC participating in a National Cancer Institute-sponsored trial of first-line systemic therapy.

Body Mass Index and Weight Loss in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer in CALGB (Alliance)/SWOG 80405.

Background: In nonmetastatic colorectal cancer, overweight and mild-to-moderately obese patients experience improved outcomes compared with other patients. Obesity's influence on advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is relatively unexplored.

Methods: We conducted a prospective body mass index (BMI) companion study in Cancer and Leukemia Group B (now Alliance)/SWOG 80405, a phase III metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) treatment trial.

Association of Coffee Intake With Survival in Patients With Advanced or Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

Importance: Several compounds found in coffee possess antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and insulin-sensitizing effects, which may contribute to anticancer activity. Epidemiological studies have identified associations between increased coffee consumption and decreased recurrence and mortality of colorectal cancer. The association between coffee consumption and survival in patients with advanced or metastatic colorectal cancer is unknown.

The Diet of Higher Insulinemic Potential Is Not Associated with Worse Survival in Patients with Stage III Colon Cancer (Alliance).

Background: Hyperinsulinemia is considered to be important in the development of colon cancer, but few studies have investigated the associations of hyperinsulinemia with colon cancer survival via dietary scores.

Methods: Empirical dietary index for hyperinsulinemia (EDIH) was derived to assess the insulinemic potential of daily diets reflecting the long-term insulin exposure, with higher (more positive) scores indicating higher insulinemic diets. We prospectively estimated the HRs and 95% confidence intervals (CI) to investigate the association of EDIH with disease-free, recurrence-free, and overall survival among patients with stage III colon cancer (1999-2009) enrolled in a randomized adjuvant chemotherapy trial (CALGB 89803).

Malformation of the Posterior Cerebellar Vermis Is a Common Neuroanatomical Phenotype of Genetically Engineered Mice on the C57BL/6 Background.

C57BL/6 mice exhibit spontaneous cerebellar malformations consisting of heterotopic neurons and glia in the molecular layer of the posterior vermis, indicative of neuronal migration defect during cerebellar development. Recognizing that many genetically engineered (GE) mouse lines are produced from C57BL/6 ES cells or backcrossed to this strain, we performed histological analyses and found that cerebellar heterotopia were a common feature present in the majority of GE lines on this background. Furthermore, we identify GE mouse lines that will be valuable in the study of cerebellar malformations including diverse driver, reporter, and optogenetic lines.

HIV-1 Nef-induced cardiotoxicity through dysregulation of autophagy.

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of co-morbidity in HIV-1 positive patients, even those in whom plasma virus levels are well-controlled. The pathogenic mechanism of HIV-1-associated cardiomyopathy is unknown, but has been presumed to be mediated indirectly, owing to the absence of productive HIV-1 replication in cardiomyocytes. We sought to investigate the effect of the HIV-1 auxiliary protein, Nef, which is suspected of extracellular release by infected CD4+ T cells on protein quality control and autophagy in cardiomyocytes.

A Complex Interaction Between Reduced Reelin Expression and Prenatal Organophosphate Exposure Alters Neuronal Cell Morphology.

Genetic and environmental factors are both likely to contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, and major depressive disorders. Prior studies from our laboratory and others have demonstrated that the combinatorial effect of two factors-reduced expression of reelin protein and prenatal exposure to the organophosphate pesticide chlorpyrifos oxon-gives rise to acute biochemical effects and to morphological and behavioral phenotypes in adolescent and young adult mice. In the current study, we examine the consequences of these factors on reelin protein expression and neuronal cell morphology in adult mice.

Effects of deep pressure stimulation on physiological arousal.

Deep pressure stimulation has been used in therapeutic practice because of the assumption that it changes physiological arousal. The purpose of this study was to test the effects of deep pressure stimulation, applied with a Vayu Vest (Therapeutic Systems), on both autonomic arousal and performance in a normative adult sample. A repeated-measures, repeated-baseline design was used with participants completing a performance test before and after deep pressure application.

Brain literate: making neuroscience accessible to a wider audience of undergraduates.

The ability to critically evaluate neuroscientific findings is a skill that is rapidly becoming important in non-science professions. As neuroscience research is increasingly being used in law, business, education, and politics, it becomes imperative to educate future leaders in all areas of society about the brain. Undergraduate general education courses are an ideal way to expose students to issues of critical importance, but non-science students may avoid taking a neuroscience course because of the perception that neuroscience is more challenging than other science courses.

Decreased reelin expression and organophosphate pesticide exposure alters mouse behaviour and brain morphology.

Genetic and environmental factors are both likely to contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders, including ASDs (autism spectrum disorders). In this study, we examined the combinatorial effect of two factors thought to be involved in autism--reduction in the expression of the extracellular matrix protein reelin and prenatal exposure to an organophosphate pesticide, CPO (chlorpyrifos oxon). Mice with reduced reelin expression or prenatal exposure to CPO exhibited subtle changes in ultrasound vocalization, open field behaviour, social interaction and repetitive behaviour.

Complexity and valence in ethnophaulisms and exclusion of ethnic out-groups: what puts the "hate" into hate speech?

Ethnophaulisms (A. A. Roback, 1944) are the words used as ethnic slurs to refer to out-groups in hate speech.

A new archival approach to the study of values and value--behavior relations: validation of the value lexicon.

The present effort employs a new archival approach to study values and value- behavior relations, which is likely to be particularly useful in applied settings. A value lexicon was developed on the basis of the Schwartz (1992) value theory to extract lexical indicators of values from texts. The convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity of this measure was established using American newspaper content from 1900 to 2000 vis-à-vis existing self-report measures of values and objective indicators of value-expressive behaviors.

Without mercy: the immediate impact of group size on lynch mob atrocity.

Two independent research traditions have focused on social contributions to lynching. The sociological power threat hypothesis has argued that lynching atrocity will increase as a function of the relative number of African Americans. The psychological self-attention theory has argued that lynching atrocity will increase as a function of the relative number of mob members.

A social psychological study of ethnonyms: cognitive representation of the in-group and intergroup hostility.

Ethnonyms (M. G. Levin & L.

Sufficiency and stability of evidence for public health interventions using cumulative meta-analysis.

We propose cumulative meta-analysis as the procedure of completing a new meta-analysis at each successive wave in a research database. Two facets of cumulative knowledge are considered: the first, sufficiency, refers to whether the meta-analytic database adequately demonstrates that a public health intervention works. The second, stability, refers to the shifts over time in the accruing evidence about whether a public health intervention works.

The efficacy of naps as a fatigue countermeasure: a meta-analytic integration.

Modern requirements for extended operations in aviation, transportation, the military, and industry have led to extensive research on countermeasures to mitigate the adverse effects of fatigue. The goals of this research were to (a) summarize and integrate existing research on naps as a fatigue countermeasure using meta-analysis, (b) identify the strength and significance of the effects of naps on performance and feelings of fatigue, and (c) identify factors that may moderate the effects of napping as a fatigue countermeasure. The results of these analyses can be used to predict nap efficacy as a function of length of the nap and the postnap interval.

Ethnophaulisms and exclusion: the behavioral consequences of cognitive representation of ethnic immigrant groups.

Ethnophaulisms are the words used as slurs to refer to ethnic immigrant outgroups. This article explores the effects of these cognitive representations of ethnic immigrant groups on exclusion behavior directed toward these immigrant groups. Using archival data spanning a 150-year period of American history, the results of these analyses provide a sobering picture of the effects of the cognitive representation of immigrants: a century and a half of thinking about ethnic immigrant groups in a simplistic and negative manner and a corresponding tendency to exclude those immigrant groups from the receiving society.