Identifying Patients at Risk for Cardiometabolic and Chronic Diseases by Using the Exercise Vital Sign to Screen for Physical Inactivity.

Introduction: Physical inactivity is a major health risk factor for multiple chronic diseases and early death. Despite evidence supporting diet and physical activity behavioral counseling interventions, physical inactivity is rarely measured or managed in primary care. A need exists to fully explore and demonstrate the value of screening patients for physical inactivity.

The Feasibility of Personalized Endpoints in Assessing Treatment Outcomes in Rare Disease: A Pilot Study of Goal Attainment Scaling in SCN2A-Associated Developmental Epileptic Encephalopathy.

Objectives: For individuals living with rare neurodevelopmental disorders, especially those who are at the most severe end of the spectrum, standardized outcome measures may lack the sensitivity to capture small but meaningful changes. Personalized endpoints such as Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS) allow the assessment of treatment response across variable baseline states and disease manifestations and thus provide a highly sensitive measure of efficacy. The current study tested the feasibility of using GAS in rare SCN2A-associated developmental and epileptic encephalopathy (SCN2A-DEE).

Progesterone and allopregnanolone facilitate excitatory synaptic transmission in the infralimbic cortex via activation of membrane progesterone receptors.

Estrogens and progesterone can have rapid effects on neuronal function and can modify the use of spatial navigation strategies dependent upon the prefrontal cortex, striatum, and hippocampus. Here, we assessed the effects of 17β-estradiol (E2), progesterone, and its metabolite allopregnanolone, on evoked excitatory postsynaptic potentials in the infralimbic region of the female rat prefrontal cortex. Field excitatory postsynaptic potentials (fEPSPs) evoked by stimulation of layer I were first characterized by recording responses at multiple depths between the cortical surface and the underlying white matter.

Do school-based prevention programs impact co-occurring alcohol use and psychological distress during adolescence?

Background: Adolescence is a critical period for preventing substance use and mental health concerns, often targeted through separate school-based programs. However, co-occurrence is common and is related to worse outcomes. This study explores prevention effects of leading school-based prevention programs on co-occurring alcohol use and psychological distress.

Toward Justice and Community Empowerment in Genomics Studies on Sensitive Traits.

Community engagement and participatory research have been appropriately employed to increase the relevance, rigor, and acceptability of all types of research, but these approaches may be particularly important in genomics and biomedical research on sensitive traits such as neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and behavioral ones. Here, we provide an overview of past and ongoing efforts in community engagement in genomics studies and consider successes and opportunities for further improvement. Informed by this knowledge as well as one of the author's experiences, we set out a vision for a more equitable and collaborative genomics where wider communities, including social, ethnic, and other communities that share a particular trait, are included in the research as peers and collaborators, not solely as objects of study.