The Impact of Legalizing Medical Aid in Dying on Patient Trust: A Randomized Controlled Survey Study.

Some commentators and several professional medical associations have expressed concern that legalizing medical aid in dying ("MAID") will undermine patient trust in the medical profession, particularly among historically disadvantaged patient populations. While this concern remains influential, it has been subject to limited empirical scrutiny. This study aims to empirically assess whether MAID legalization undermines patient trust, with considerations of potential trust/demographic correlations in marginalized and minority patient populations.

BAP1 is required prenatally for differentiation and maintenance of postnatal murine enteric nervous system.

Epigenetic regulatory mechanisms are underappreciated, yet are critical for enteric nervous system (ENS) development and maintenance. We discovered that fetal loss of the epigenetic regulator Bap1 in the ENS lineage caused severe postnatal bowel dysfunction and early death in Tyrosinase-Cre Bap1fl/fl mice. Bap1-depleted ENS appeared normal in neonates; however, by P15, Bap1-deficient enteric neurons were largely absent from the small and large intestine of Tyrosinase-Cre Bap1fl/fl mice.

Cell-autonomous retinoic acid receptor signaling has stage-specific effects on mouse enteric nervous system.

Retinoic acid (RA) signaling is essential for enteric nervous system (ENS) development, since vitamin A deficiency or mutations in RA signaling profoundly reduce bowel colonization by ENS precursors. These RA effects could occur because of RA activity within the ENS lineage or via RA activity in other cell types. To define cell-autonomous roles for retinoid signaling within the ENS lineage at distinct developmental time points, we activated a potent floxed dominant-negative RA receptor α (RarαDN) in the ENS using diverse CRE recombinase-expressing mouse lines.

scRNA-Seq Reveals New Enteric Nervous System Roles for GDNF, NRTN, and TBX3.

Background And Aims: Bowel function requires coordinated activity of diverse enteric neuron subtypes. Our aim was to define gene expression in these neuron subtypes to facilitate development of novel therapeutic approaches to treat devastating enteric neuropathies, and to learn more about enteric nervous system function.

Methods: To identify subtype-specific genes, we performed single-nucleus RNA-seq on adult mouse and human colon myenteric plexus, and single-cell RNA-seq on E17.