Publications by authors named "S L Schofield"
Illegal drug use may be a consequence of sustaining a serious physical combat injury, though no known research has investigated this in a UK setting. This analysis utilises the baseline data from a longitudinal cohort (ADVANCE), to assess whether 577 UK military personnel who sustained serious physical combat injuries reported more illegal drug use compared to 565 frequency-matched personnel without such injuries. Most personnel reported no illegal drug use in the past year (88.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Heart rate variability (HRV) is governed by sympathetic and parasympathetic regulatory systems. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may influence these systems and consequently affect cardiovascular functioning.
Methods: The sample consisted of 860 UK male military personnel approximately half of whom had sustained physical combat injuries in Afghanistan.
To ensure specificity, loading of the sense strand of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) into RISC must be inhibited. We show here that siRNAs with 5'- and 6'-morpholino LNA residues or 6'-OH-LNA at the 5' terminus of a fully phosphodiester sense strand resulted in metabolically stable siRNAs with a potency and a duration of action in mice that were greater than those of an siRNA in which the 5' terminus of the sense strand has two terminal phosphorothioate linkages and regular LNA.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle Synopsis
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is prevalent among military personnel and is linked to an increased risk of dementia, with the ADVANCE-TBI study focusing on the neurological effects of major battlefield trauma using blood biomarkers like NfL and GFAP.
- The study involved 1,145 servicemen and veterans, where TBI was identified in 16.9% of those exposed to major trauma, revealing significant mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, alongside impaired mobility and quality of life.
- Elevated GFAP levels were found post-TBI, particularly in more severe cases, indicating a correlation with mental health challenges and increased unemployment, demonstrating the long-term impact of TBI on military personnel.
Social support is a key determinant of mental health across multiple populations and contexts. Little is known about social support among UK (ex-)military personnel, especially those with combat injuries following deployment to Afghanistan. This study aimed to investigate the level of perceived social support and its associations with mental health among injured and uninjured UK (ex-)military personnel.
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