Publications by authors named "D Shuttleworth"

Background: Social comparison feedback is often used in physical activity interventions but the optimal design of feedback is unknown.

Methods: This 4-arm, randomized trial consisted of a 13-week intervention period and 13-week follow-up period. During the intervention, 4-person teams were entered into a weekly lottery valued at about $1.

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Article Synopsis
  • A study aimed to see if lottery-based financial incentives could boost physical activity among University of Pennsylvania employees with a higher body mass index.
  • 209 participants were monitored for 26 weeks, using smartphones to track their steps, with some receiving various types of incentives over half the study period.
  • Results showed the "combined lottery" group achieved their step goals more often than the control group, while the "jackpot" group saw a drop in performance, indicating that the combined lottery incentives were the most effective in promoting activity.
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Apathy is one of the most prevalent and progressive psychiatric symptoms in Huntington's disease (HD) patients. However, preclinical work in HD mouse models tends to focus on molecular and motor, rather than affective, phenotypes. Measuring behavior in mice often produces noisy data and requires large cohorts to detect phenotypic rescue with appropriate power.

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Huntington's disease (HD) is an autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disease whose predominant neuropathological signature is the selective loss of medium spiny neurons in the striatum. Despite this selective neuropathology, the mutant protein (huntingtin) is found in virtually every cell so far studied, and, consequently, phenotypes are observed in a wide range of organ systems both inside and outside the central nervous system. We, and others, have suggested that peripheral dysfunction could contribute to the rate of progression of striatal phenotypes of HD.

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