Publications by authors named "Helen Fox"

Over 75% of young adults who use cannabis also report drinking alcohol, leading to increased risks that include impaired cognition, substance use disorders, and more heavy and frequent substance use. Studies suggest that subjective responses to either alcohol or cannabis can serve as a valuable indicator for identifying individuals at risk of prolonged substance use and use disorder. While laboratory studies show additive effects when alcohol and cannabis are used together, the impact of co-using these substances, specifically with respect to cannabidiol, on an individual's subjective experience remains unclear.

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Polysubstance use (PSU), the use of two or more substances proximally, is highly prevalent and has amplified the risk for morbidity and mortality. However, PSU patterns and associated risk factors are not well characterized. This may be especially relevant to women who are known to be vulnerable to stress/trauma, craving, pain, and anxious and depressive symptoms as associated risk factors for PSU.

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Marine protected areas (MPAs) are widely used for ocean conservation, yet the relative impacts of various types of MPAs are poorly understood. We estimated impacts on fish biomass from no-take and multiple-use (fished) MPAs, employing a rigorous matched counterfactual design with a global dataset of >14,000 surveys in and around 216 MPAs. Both no-take and multiple-use MPAs generated positive conservation outcomes relative to no protection (58.

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Article Synopsis
  • Filopodia are crucial for neuronal development, and proteins like TOCA-1 regulate their formation by interacting with actin and Ena/VASP proteins.
  • Increasing TOCA-1 levels boosts Ena/VASP binding and correlates with enhanced filopodial growth in retinal ganglion cells.
  • TOCA-1 clusters facilitate filopodial protrusion independently of membrane curvature, relying on its SH3 domain and activation of the Cdc42 protein.
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Objective: Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) is an efficacious intervention to aid recovery from substance use disorder. This study in a pilot sample of individuals in treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) characterizes longer-term changes after the MORE intervention and immediate effects of a brief MORE guided meditation session.

Design: Twelve female participants in residential treatment for OUD completed an 8-week MORE intervention.

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In the last decade, alcohol consumption in the US has risen by 84% in women compared with 35% in men. Furthermore, research has shown that sex- and gender-related differences may disadvantage women in terms of developing a range of psychological, cognitive, and medical problems considerably earlier in their drinking history than men, and despite consuming a similar quantity of substances. While this "telescoping" process has been acknowledged in the literature, a concomitant understanding of the underlying biobehavioral mechanisms, and an increase in the development of specific treatments tailored to women, has not occurred.

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Enterovirus A71 (EVA71) causes widespread disease in young children with occasional fatal consequences. In common with other picornaviruses, both empty capsids (ECs) and infectious virions are produced during the viral lifecycle. While initially antigenically indistinguishable from virions, ECs readily convert to an expanded conformation at moderate temperatures.

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Background: Stress and depression have each been associated with relapse risk. In clinical practice, chronic alcohol use is often accompanied by poor emotional and self-regulatory processes. Tonic and phasic changes in stress responsivity impact an individual's relapse risk to alcohol.

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Identifying locations of refugia from the thermal stresses of climate change for coral reefs and better managing them is one of the key recommendations for climate change adaptation. We review and summarize approximately 30 years of applied research focused on identifying climate refugia to prioritize the conservation actions for coral reefs under rapid climate change. We found that currently proposed climate refugia and the locations predicted to avoid future coral losses are highly reliant on  excess heat metrics, such as degree heating weeks.

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Enterovirus A71 (EVA71) causes widespread disease in young children with occasional fatal consequences. In common with other picornaviruses, both empty capsids (ECs) and infectious virions are produced during the viral lifecycle. While initially antigenically indistinguishable from virions, ECs readily convert to an expanded conformation at moderate temperatures.

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Strategies to prevent the recurrence of poliovirus (PV) after eradication may utilise non-infectious, recombinant virus-like particle (VLP) vaccines. Despite clear advantages over inactivated or attenuated virus vaccines, instability of VLPs can compromise their immunogenicity. Glutathione (GSH), an important cellular reducing agent, is a crucial co-factor for the morphogenesis of enteroviruses, including PV.

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Enterovirus A71 (EVA71) infection can result in paralysis and may be fatal. In common with other picornaviruses, empty capsids are produced alongside infectious virions during the viral lifecycle. These empty capsids are antigenically indistinguishable from infectious virus, but at moderate temperatures they are converted to an expanded conformation.

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Benevolent intersubjectivity developed in parent-infant interactions and compassion toward friend and foe alike are non-violent interventions to group behavior in conflict. Based on a dyadic active inference framework rooted in specific parental brain mechanisms, we suggest that interventions promoting compassion and intersubjectivity can reduce stress, and that compassionate mediation may resolve conflicts.

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Enterovirus A71 (EVA71) is a medically important virus that is commonly associated with hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). It is responsible for periodic outbreaks, resulting in significant economic impact and loss of life. Vaccination offers the potential to control future outbreaks, and vaccine development has been increasingly the focus of global research efforts.

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Genetic recombination in RNA viruses is an important evolutionary mechanism. It contributes to population diversity, host/tissue adaptation, and compromises vaccine efficacy. Both the molecular mechanism and initial products of recombination are relatively poorly understood.

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Article Synopsis
  • Interest in coral reef conservation is increasing due to challenges like climate warming and coral bleaching, leading to strategies such as ex situ propagation and transplantation of corals to restore degraded areas.
  • Current methods, including demographic restoration and assisted evolution (like selective breeding), show limited effectiveness in preventing severe coral decline under climate change unless there’s a significant, long-term input of resilient colonies.
  • The study suggests that fostering natural genetic diversity in coral populations may be more effective for long-term adaptation to warming than solely relying on introducing heat-tolerant corals.
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Accelerating ecosystem degradation has spurred proposals to vastly expand the extent of protected areas (PAs), potentially affecting the livelihoods and well-being of indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) worldwide. The benefits of multiuse PAs that elevate the role of IPLCs in management have long been recognized. However, quantitative examinations of how resource governance and the distribution of management rights affect conservation outcomes are vital for long-term sustainability.

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The Aberdeen birth cohorts of 1921 and 1936 (ABC21 and ABC36) were subjected to IQ tests in 1932 or 1947 when they were aged about 11y. They were recruited between 1997-2001 among cognitively healthy community residents and comprehensively phenotyped in a long-term study of brain aging and health up to 2017. Here, we report associations between baseline cognitive test scores and long-term cognitive outcomes.

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Several reports indicate either increased or decreased pain sensitivity associated with psychiatric disorders. Chronic pain is highly prevalent in many of these conditions. We reviewed the literature regarding experimental pain sensitivity in patients with major depression, bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.

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Global vaccination programs using live-attenuated oral and inactivated polio vaccine (OPV and IPV) have almost eradicated poliovirus (PV) but these vaccines or their production pose significant risk in a polio-free world. Recombinant PV virus-like particles (VLPs), lacking the viral genome, represent safe next-generation vaccines, however their production requires optimisation. Here we present an efficient mammalian expression strategy producing good yields of wild-type PV VLPs for all three serotypes and a thermostabilised variant for PV3.

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Objective: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a leading cause of global disease burden. Chronic, heavy use increases the likelihood of alcohol withdrawal symptoms and associated secondary outcomes of alcohol craving and mood, anxiety, and sleep disturbances, which are predictive of poor treatment outcomes. The authors examined whether alcohol withdrawal symptoms moderate the efficacy of prazosin in reducing alcohol intake and associated secondary outcomes.

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Background: Chronic alcohol use results in changes to stress biology and autonomic arousal contributing to acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms, neuroendocrine tolerance of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis responses, high stress-induced craving, and risk of alcohol relapse. Thus, stress coping and recovery from alcohol during early abstinence may be jeopardized by such stress system dysfunction. Significant preclinical evidence suggests that noradrenergic disruption may contribute to these alcohol-related stress arousal changes and that alpha-1 adrenergic antagonists, such as prazosin, may normalize these stress system adaptations and reduce alcohol intake.

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Chronic alcohol abuse and depressive symptoms are both associated with peripheral cytokine changes. Despite this, cytokine adaptations have not been assessed in co-morbid populations or prospectively as predictors of relapse. We examine cytokine responses to stress in alcohol-dependent individuals and social drinkers, both with and without subclinical depression.

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