Publications by authors named "S Grainger"

Objectives: There are currently major inconsistencies in the methodological approaches used to index social frailty. The present study aimed to better understand which of these approaches may be most valuable in predicting older adult's physical health and psychological wellbeing.

Design: One hundred and thirty-three participants aged 60-90 years completed five measures commonly used to index social frailty, along with five measures of physical health, and psychological wellbeing.

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Vascular stabilization is a mechanosensitive process, in part driven by blood flow. Here, we demonstrate the involvement of the mechanosensitive ion channel, Piezo1, in promoting arterial accumulation of vascular smooth muscle cells (vSMCs) during zebrafish development. Using a series of small molecule antagonists or agonists to temporally regulate Piezo1 activity, we identified a role for the Piezo1 channel in regulating klf2a, a blood flow responsive transcription factor, expression levels and altered targeting of vSMCs between arteries and veins.

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WNT9 paralogues, WNT9A and WNT9B, are secreted ligands driving both the canonical (β-catenin dependent) and non-canonical (β-catenin independent) Wnt signaling pathways. These pathways play roles in cell fate determination, embryonic patterning, bone development, and organogenesis, among other biological processes. Studies of Wnt9a and Wnt9b mutant animals demonstrate that they have specific and overlapping roles in these processes.

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Empathy plays a fundamental role in successful social interactions. However, most tasks currently available for measuring empathy have limited ecological validity and therefore may not elicit true emotional responses in observers. To address this gap, we developed the Empathic Measure of True Emotion (EMOTE), the first emotion stimuli set to include footage of genuine positive and negative emotions unfolding in naturalistic contexts.

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Wnt signaling is essential for both the development and homeostasis of diverse cellular lineages, including hematopoietic stem cells. Organism-wide, Wnt signals are tightly regulated, as overactivation of the pathway can lead to tumorigenesis. Although numerous Wnt ligands and Frizzled (Fzd) receptors exist, how particular Wnt/Fzd pairings are established and how their signals are regulated is poorly understood.

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