Publications by authors named "Melissa Holt"

Purpose: Transgender and gender diverse youth (TGDY) can be a challenging population to reach because of limitations related to parental/guardian consent and concerns about privacy. This pilot study's purpose was to assess the feasibility of recruiting a US nation-wide longitudinal sample of TGDY through social media, and to compare participants who completed the Wave 1 survey only to TGDY who completed both Wave 1 and Wave 2 surveys.

Methods: Adolescents (aged 14-17 years) who identified as TGDY were recruited through social media and invited to complete two online surveys across a 3-month period.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Few studies have disentangled differences in victimization exposures and mental health symptoms among gender diverse subgroups, nor considered the role of potential protective factors in ameliorating the impact of victimization on gender diverse youths' mental health. Here we report findings from a secondary data analysis, in which we address this gap by analyzing cross-sectional survey data (N = 11,264 in the final analytic sample) from a population-based survey of youth in participating school districts in a large Midwestern U.S.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Bias-based harassment in U.S. schools is an increasingly significant concern for students' well-being.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Changes in sexual orientation identity (SOI) and gender identity (GI) have rarely been studied in transgender and/or nonbinary youth (TNBY), but documenting such changes is important for understanding identity development and gender transition and supporting the needs of TNBY. This study examined the frequency and patterning of changes in GI and SOI across 3 months (T1-T2) and 1.5 years (T1-T4) among 183 TNBY (baseline age 14-17 years; 83.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Opioid overdoses, particularly those involving fentanyl-related substances (FRS), present a significant public health challenge in the United States. This structure-activity relationship (SAR) study evaluated the relationship between the chemical structure of seventeen FRS and their in vivo mu-opioid-receptor (MOR) mediated effects. SAR evaluations included fluorine substitutions on the aniline or phenethyl ring and variations in N-acyl chain length.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Posttraumatic stress symptoms are prominent in the lives of parents of young children with substance use disorders (SUD). Parenting experiences, particularly stress and competence, impact parenting behaviors and concomitant child growth and development. Factors that promote positive experiences of parenting, such as parental reflective functioning (PRF), and protect the mother and child from negative outcomes are crucial to understand to develop effective therapeutic interventions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Unlabelled: Teachers contribute to the process of identifying and referring students for mental health services, however, relatively little is known about how they make those decisions and how decision-making differs across school contexts. This study used a vignette-based method to investigate individual and school contextual factors associated with the likelihood that teachers identify and refer students for mental health services. Teachers were recruited from public middle and high schools across the U.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Transgender and gender diverse youth (TGD) report high rates of mental health concerns. However, there is reason to expect that among TGD youth there is variation in mental health experiences related to specific aspects of gender identity. Furthermore, although certain school characteristics are related to improved mental health for sexual minority youth, it is unclear whether the same school characteristics are associated with improved mental health for TGD youth and whether gender identity moderates the associations between school characteristics and mental health.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study examines the respiratory depressant effects of seven synthetic fentanyl analogs on adult male mice, highlighting the rising concerns of opioid-related fatalities due to these substances.
  • Findings indicate that all tested drugs caused significant hypoventilation, with varying potencies compared to established opioids like morphine and buprenorphine.
  • Naloxone, an opioid antagonist, effectively reduced the hypoventilation effects, demonstrating the potential for reversal in cases of opioid overdose.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

School connectedness is consistently associated with adolescent mental health and well-being. We investigated whether student perceptions of school connectedness were associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms, even during remote learning due to COVID-19. In June of 2020, after 13 weeks of remote learning, 320 middle and high school students in one Massachusetts school district completed an online survey that included questions about their perceptions of school connectedness, social connectedness, and symptoms of anxiety and depression.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Purpose: Prior studies have been inconclusive in documenting whether the prevalence of adolescent anxiety is increasing, given sampling and measurement limitations. This study adds new information on recent time trends in anxiety prevalence, specifically investigating trends among previously unexamined sociodemographic subgroups.

Methods: Weighted data of 37,360 youth respondents (51.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In seeking novel and potent small molecule hematopoietic prostaglandin D synthase (H-PGDS) inhibitors as potential therapies for PGD-mediated diseases and conditions, we explored a series comprising multiple aryl/heteroaryl rings attached in a linear arrangement. Each compound incorporates an amide or imidazole "linker" between the pyrimidine or pyridine "core" ring and the "tail" ring system. We synthesized and screened twenty analogs by fluorescence polarization binding assay, thermal shift assay, glutathione S-transferase inhibition assay, and a cell-based assay measuring suppression of LPS-induced PGD stimulation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The link between peer victimization and somatic problems is well-established. What is currently understudied is under what contextual conditions victims' health might be most likely to be compromised. Studies demonstrate that victims suffer from poorer adjustment when they belong to a group in which victimization is less normative (social misfit hypothesis).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The EP prostanoid receptor is one of four GPCRs that mediate the diverse actions of prostaglandin E (PGE). Novel selective EP receptor agonists would assist to further elucidate receptor sub-type function and promote development of therapeutics for bone healing, heart failure, and other receptor associated conditions. The rat EP (rEP) receptor has been used as a surrogate for the human EP (hEP) receptor in multiple SAR studies.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Bullying is characterized by differences in power between targets and aggressors. This study examines how experiences with power dynamics in childhood bullying are associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety in college.

Participants: First-year college students ( = 470) at four universities reported on childhood bullying victimization and power imbalance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

UDP-3-O-(R-3-hydroxymyristoyl)-N-acetylglucosamine deacetylase (LpxC) is a Zn deacetylase that is essential for the survival of most pathogenic Gram-negative bacteria. ACHN-975 (N-((S)-3-amino-1-(hydroxyamino)-3-methyl-1-oxobutan-2-yl)-4-(((1R,2R)-2-(hydroxymethyl)cyclopropyl)buta-1,3-diyn-1-yl)benzamide) was the first LpxC inhibitor to reach human clinical testing and was discovered to have a dose-limiting cardiovascular toxicity of transient hypotension without compensatory tachycardia. Herein we report the effort beyond ACHN-975 to discover LpxC inhibitors optimized for enzyme potency, antibacterial activity, pharmacokinetics, and cardiovascular safety.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A series of small-molecule full agonists of the prostaglandin E type 4 (EP) receptor have been generated and evaluated for binding affinity and cellular potency. KMN-80 and its gem-difluoro analog KMN-159 possess high selectivity relative to other prostanoid receptors. Difluoro substitution is positioned alpha to the lactam ring carbonyl and results in KMN-159's fivefold increase in potency versus KMN-80.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: School-based extracurricular activity participation is one of the primary avenues for prosocial activity engagement during adolescence. In this study, we test the "overscheduling hypothesis" or whether the negative relationship between structured activity intensity (ie, hours) and adolescent bullying and fighting levels off or declines at moderate to high intensity (ie, threshold effects).

Methods: This study uses the Dane County Youth Survey (N = 14,124) to investigate the relationship between school-based extracurricular activity participation intensity and bullying perpetration and physical fighting and whether there are threshold effects of activity participation intensity.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Research indicates that victimization exposures are associated with sexual risk-taking behaviors, but there is a relative lack of research on the relation between peer victimization and sexual risk taking among adolescents. This study fills this gap through examining how bullying, cyberbullying, and dating violence victimization at baseline are related to sexual risk-taking behaviors 1 year later.

Methods: Participants were a convenience sample of 220 sexually active high school students who were drawn from a larger sample of 2205 adolescents attending 6 high schools in Illinois.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pancreatic cancer cells are characterized by deregulated metabolic programs that facilitate growth and resistance to oxidative stress. Among these programs, pancreatic cancers preferentially utilize a metabolic pathway through the enzyme aspartate aminotransferase 1 [also known as glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase 1 (GOT1)] to support cellular redox homeostasis. As such, small molecule inhibitors that target GOT1 could serve as starting points for the development of new therapies for pancreatic cancer.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

This study investigates the association between histories of childhood victimization and perceived consequences of college hazing. First-year college students at four US universities ( = 120). Participants completed Web-based surveys asking about childhood victimization (eg, child maltreatment), peer victimization, and perceived consequences of hazing during college.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Childhood bullying is an important predictor of psychological and health outcomes in adulthood; however, validated retrospective measures of childhood bullying are lacking. This study investigates the psychometric properties of an adult retrospective version of the California Bullying Victimization Scale (CBVS). The CBVS self-report measure was developed for use with children and adolescents to assess the three definitional characteristics of bullying (aggression that is chronic, intentional, and involves an imbalance of power), without using the term "bullying.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Negative relationships within the classroom, both with peers and teachers, can be very stressful for adolescents and are often found to be associated with a variety of negative outcomes. In this study, we investigated the concurrent role of peer victimization and perceived teacher unfairness in explaining psychosocial problems in a sample of 1378 Italian students (353 middle school students, M=12.61, SD=0.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF