Publications by authors named "Hickman R"

Article Synopsis
  • The study explored how self-rated physical and mental work demands affect cognition in older working adults, examining data from 6,377 participants in the 2004 Health and Retirement Study.
  • Results indicated that higher physical demands correlated with poorer cognitive performance, while higher mental demands were linked to better cognition, but the relationship between the two demands was interconnected.
  • The findings suggest that mental work demands may support cognitive health in older adults, especially when physical demands are low, highlighting the importance of considering interactions between different types of work demands in future research.
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Background: Supporting the sleep health of surrogate decision-makers of patients in the intensive care unit is a research priority. However, few studies have approached sleep health as a multidimensional construct, instead focusing on 1 or 2 dimensions in isolation.

Objective: To holistically examine the sleep health (satisfaction, timing, efficiency, duration) of surrogate decision-makers of critically ill patients.

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Human microglia play a pivotal role in neurological diseases, but we still have an incomplete understanding of microglial heterogeneity, which limits the development of targeted therapies directly modulating their state or function. Here, we use single-cell RNA sequencing to profile 215,680 live human microglia from 74 donors across diverse neurological diseases and CNS regions. We observe a central divide between oxidative and heterocyclic metabolism and identify microglial subsets associated with antigen presentation, motility and proliferation.

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The aim of the study was to examine the psychometric properties of the Sickle Cell Self-efficacy Scale (SCSES) in an anonymous, online cohort of adults with sickle cell disease (SCD). The SCSES was completed by 60 adults with SCD. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted.

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Introduction: Multiple individual sleep health dimensions (satisfaction, regularity, and duration) are associated with diabetes symptoms, precursors to micro-and macrovascular complications, among young adults with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Nearly half of young adults with T1DM develop vascular complications; however, modifiable contributors of diabetes symptoms, including sleep health, have been understudied.

Methods: This cross-sectional quantitative descriptive study involved the completion of multiple validated self-report questionnaires and the collection of raw continuous glucose monitor and diary data over a 14-day period.

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Objectives: Various factors impact sleep health including mental health and substance use. Mental health issues and substance use continue to rise in the United States. Yet, the association between mental health, substance use and sleep health in adults remains unclear.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study analyzed genetic alterations in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from 711 patients to help classify CNS cancers and guide targeted therapies.
  • They found detectable circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in over half of CSF samples from patients with CNS tumors, while none was found in samples from patients without CNS tumors.
  • The research also revealed clonal evolution and resistance mechanisms over time, with ctDNA presence linked to poorer overall survival rates for these patients.
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The dopamine reward prediction error signal is known to be subjective but has so far only been assessed in aggregate choices. However, personal choices fluctuate across trials and thus reflect the instantaneous subjective reward value. In the well-established Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) auction-like mechanism, participants are encouraged to place bids that accurately reveal their instantaneous subjective reward value; inaccurate bidding results in suboptimal reward ("incentive compatibility").

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Background: Caregiving in the African American community is informed by strong cultural expectations but may be associated with negative experiences and poor mental health outcomes.

Objective: The purpose of this convergent mixed-methods study is to understand the relationship between caregiving experiences and mental health and explore stress management strategies in African American family caregivers of adults with chronic or disabling conditions.

Methods: African American family caregivers (N = 100) were recruited using community-engaged methods and completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Caregiver Reaction Assessment scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D-10) Scale.

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Over the last four decades, pharmaceutical companies' expenditures on research and development have increased 51-fold. During this same time, clinical success rates for new drugs have remained unchanged at about 10 percent, predominantly due to lack of efficacy and/or safety concerns. This persistent problem underscores the need to innovate across the entire drug development process, particularly in drug formulation, which is often deprioritized and under-resourced.

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Nurses make decision for patients and the quality of nurses' decision making can affect patient outcomes. For some reason, nurses are experiencing impaired decision making and it can negatively impact patient care. A valid and reliable instrument to assess decision fatigue may let people know about the concept and guide the development of new policies or interventions for Korean nurses' decision fatigue.

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The mechanisms underlying the selective regional vulnerability to neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease (HD) have not been fully defined. To explore the role of astrocytes in this phenomenon, we used single-nucleus and bulk RNAseq, lipidomics, HTT gene CAG repeat-length measurements, and multiplexed immunofluorescence on HD and control post-mortem brains. We identified genes that correlated with CAG repeat length, which were enriched in astrocyte genes, and lipidomic signatures that implicated poly-unsaturated fatty acids in sensitizing neurons to cell death.

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Sleep and affective states are closely intertwined. Nevertheless, previous methods to evaluate sleep-affect associations have been limited by poor ecological validity, with a few studies examining temporal or dynamic interactions in naturalistic settings. First, to update and integrate evidence from studies investigating the reciprocal relationship between daily sleep and affective phenomena (mood, affect, and emotions) through ambulatory and prospective monitoring.

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Article Synopsis
  • The plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) plays a key role in regulating plant development and stress responses by triggering a complex gene regulatory network involving many transcription factors (TFs) and genes.
  • An RNA-seq time series identified 7151 differentially expressed genes in response to ABA treatment, which were organized into 44 coexpressed modules responsible for various biological functions.
  • The study further analyzed TF regulation and interaction within the ABA gene regulatory network, highlighting the significance of the bZIP TF family and identifying GT3a as a positive regulator of drought tolerance, validated by drought assays.
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Contemporary materials discovery requires intricate sequences of synthesis, formulation, and characterization that often span multiple locations with specialized expertise or instrumentation. To accelerate these workflows, we present a cloud-based strategy that enabled delocalized and asynchronous design-make-test-analyze cycles. We showcased this approach through the exploration of molecular gain materials for organic solid-state lasers as a frontier application in molecular optoelectronics.

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Aims: Liquid biopsy (LBx)-based next-generation sequencing (NGS) of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) can facilitate molecular profiling of haematopoietic neoplasms (HNs), particularly when tissue-based NGS is infeasible.

Methods And Results: We studied HN LBx samples tested with FoundationOne Liquid CDx, FoundationOne Liquid, or FoundationACT between July 2016 and March 2022. We identified 271 samples: 89 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), 43 plasma-cell neoplasm (PCN), 41 histiocytoses, 27 myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), 25 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), 22 myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), 14 Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), and 10 acute myeloid leukaemia (AML).

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Unlabelled: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic necessitates cost-effective, high-throughput, and timely whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viruses for outbreak investigations, identifying variants of concern (VoC), characterizing vaccine breakthrough infections, and public health surveillance. In addition, the enormous demand for WGS on supply chains and the resulting shortages of laboratory supplies necessitated the use of low-reagent and low-consumable methods. Here, we report an optimized library preparation method (the BCCDC cutdown method) that can be used in a high-throughput scenario, where one technologist can perform 576 library preparations (6 plates of 96 samples) over the course of one 8-hour shift.

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Due to its cost-effectiveness, convenience, and high patient adherence, oral drug administration normally remains the preferred approach. Yet, the effective delivery of hydrophobic drugs via the oral route is often hindered by their limited water solubility and first-pass metabolism. To mitigate these challenges, advanced delivery systems such as solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) have been developed to encapsulate hydrophobic drugs and enhance their bioavailability.

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Background: Involving family caregivers in a team-based approach has become increasingly important. Simulation-based interventions in nursing have been effective. However, the effect of simulation on family caregiver education is not widely known and is limited.

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Over the past few years, the adoption of machine learning (ML) techniques has rapidly expanded across many fields of research including formulation science. At the same time, the use of lipid nanoparticles to enable the successful delivery of mRNA vaccines in the recent COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the impact of formulation science. Yet, the design of advanced pharmaceutical formulations is non-trivial and primarily relies on costly and time-consuming wet-lab experimentation.

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Huntington disease (HD) is an incurable neurodegenerative disease characterized by neuronal loss and astrogliosis. One hallmark of HD is the selective neuronal vulnerability of striatal medium spiny neurons. To date, the underlying mechanisms of this selective vulnerability have not been fully defined.

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Background: Comprehensive analysis of brain tumor incidence and survival in the Veteran population has been lacking.

Methods: Veteran data were obtained from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Medical Centers via VHA Corporate Data Warehouse. Brain tumor statistics on the overall US population were generated from the Central Brain Tumor Registry of the US data.

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Aims: To examine the associations between environmental determinants of health and blood pressure and whether age, sex, or race moderated the associations among 18,754 adolescents and adults from the type 1 diabetes (T1D) Exchange Clinic Registry.

Methods: We used multivariable linear regression. Environmental determinants included exposure to ambient fine particulate matter (PM, obtained from an integrated model), nitrogen dioxide (NO), noise and light pollution, and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI, a marker of green space) at the ZIP code level of residence.

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Background: Multiple research strategies are required to recruit and engage a representative cohort of young adults in diabetes research. In this report, we describe an approach for internet-based recruitment for a repeated-measures descriptive study.

Objective: The objective of this cross-sectional study was to determine whether internet-based recruitment through multiple social media platforms, a clinical research platform, and cooperation with community partnerships-College Diabetes Network and Beyond Type 1-would serve as an effective way to recruit a representative sample of young adults aged 18-25 years with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

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