Publications by authors named "Timothy Nelson"

Objective: To examine aspects of the home and neighborhood food environment as predictors of adolescent diet.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Research laboratory in Nebraska.

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Salmon is the most commonly consumed finfish in the United States of America (USA), and the mislabeling of salmon is a widespread problem. Washington State is a global supplier of wild-caught Pacific salmon and local salmon mislabeling results in substantial economic, ecological, and cultural impacts. Previous studies in Washington State identified high levels of mislabeled salmon in both markets and restaurants, resulting in local legislation being passed that requires proper labeling of salmon products, including identifying it as wild-caught or farm-raised.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cardiac pressure overload can lead to problems for patients with congenital heart defects, and using stem cell-derived heart cells might help improve heart function alongside surgery.
  • Researchers successfully implanted human stem cell-derived heart cells into the hearts of rhesus macaques facing induced pressure overload, achieving good integration with the existing heart tissue.
  • Although some monkeys experienced episodes of ventricular tachycardia after the cell transplant, these events generally resolved within a few weeks, indicating a need for monitoring but also promising potential for this treatment approach.
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Objective: Alcohol misuse is common among women who have experienced sexual violence and is often attributed to the self-medication model of alcohol use to alleviate posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Despite the proximal theorized role of PTSD symptoms, less attention has been given to daily associations between PTSD symptoms, trauma-related drinking to cope (TRD) motives, and ensuing alcohol use by survivors. Moreover, despite indications that poor sleep impacts affective functioning and may exacerbate daily PTSD symptoms, the role of sleep duration and quality in drinking to cope with PTSD symptoms is not well understood.

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This study investigates concentrations of toxic and potentially toxic elements (PTEs) in organic and conventional wheat flour and grains marketed in Las Vegas. Geographic origins of the samples were evaluated using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Monte Carlo Simulation technique was also employed to evaluate non-carcinogenic risk in four life stages.

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Background: Executive control and temperament have been associated with pediatric obesity. However, interactions between these constructs in relation to future weight outcomes have not been investigated.

Objective: This longitudinal study examined early childhood executive control, early temperament (negative affectivity and surgency), and their interactions as predictors of adolescent BMI trajectories.

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Why are some life outcomes difficult to predict? We investigated this question through in-depth qualitative interviews with 40 families sampled from a multidecade longitudinal study. Our sampling and interviewing process was informed by the earlier efforts of hundreds of researchers to predict life outcomes for participants in this study. The qualitative evidence we uncovered in these interviews combined with a mathematical decomposition of prediction error led us to create a conceptual framework.

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This study examines the degree to which two middle childhood executive control aspects, working memory and combined inhibitory control/flexible shifting, predict adolescent substance use and externalizing and internalizing problems. Participants were 301 children (ages 3-6 years; 48.2% male) recruited from a Midwestern city in the United States and followed into adolescence (ages 14-18 years).

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Congenital heart disease (CHD) are genetically complex and comprise a wide range of structural defects that often predispose to - early heart failure, a common cause of neonatal morbidity and mortality. Transcriptome studies of CHD in human pediatric patients indicated a broad spectrum of diverse molecular signatures across various types of CHD. In order to advance research on congenital heart diseases (CHDs), we conducted a detailed review of transcriptome studies on this topic.

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There is a critical need for research examining how neural vulnerabilities associated with obesity, including lower executive control, interact with family factors to impact weight trajectories across adolescence. Utilizing a longitudinal design, the present study investigated caregivers' emotion socialization practices as a moderator of the association between preschool executive control and adolescent body mass index (BMI) trajectories. Participants were 229 youth (M = 5.

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In recent years, investigators have focused on neural vulnerability factors that increase the risk of unhealthy weight gain, which has provided a useful organizing structure for obesity neuroscience research. However, this framework, and much of the research it has informed, has given limited attention to contextual factors that may interact with key vulnerabilities to impact eating behaviors and weight gain. To fill this gap, we propose a , extending the existing theory to more intentionally incorporate contextual factors that are hypothesized to interact with neural vulnerabilities in shaping eating behaviors and weight trajectories.

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Hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) is a severe congenital heart disease (CHD) with a likely oligogenic etiology, but our understanding of the genetic complexities and pathogenic mechanisms leading to HLHS is limited. We performed whole genome sequencing (WGS) on 183 HLHS patient-parent trios to identify candidate genes, which were functionally tested in the heart model. Bioinformatic analysis of WGS data from an index family of a HLHS proband born to consanguineous parents prioritized 9 candidate genes with rare, predicted damaging homozygous variants.

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Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had a global impact on youth mental health, and there is a critical need for research examining individual factors that contribute to increased psychopathology during the pandemic. The current study explored whether executive control (EC) abilities in early childhood interact with COVID-related stress to attenuate risk for adolescent psychopathology during the first 6 months of the pandemic.

Methods: Participants were 337 youth (49% female) living in a small midwestern city in the United States.

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Oncogenic virus infections are estimated to cause ~15% of all cancers. Two prevalent human oncogenic viruses are members of the gammaherpesvirus family: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) and Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV). We use murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV-68), which shares significant homology with KSHV and EBV, as a model system to study gammaherpesvirus lytic replication.

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Prior research has linked deficits in executive control (EC) to marijuana use in adolescents but has relied either primarily on adolescent self-report of EC or tasked-based EC, and focused on limited aspects of EC, usually inhibitory control. We examined unique associations of three established aspects of EC (inhibitory control, working memory, and flexible shifting) assessed with both performance on laboratory tasks and self-report in relation to marijuana initiation. Participants were 260 youth (ages 14-18 years) from a small Midwestern city in the United States enrolled in the adolescent phase (beginning in 2017) of an ongoing study of EC development recruited originally between 2006 and 2012 (46% male, 72% European American).

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the effects of direct SARS-CoV-2 infection on heart cells, specifically human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs), to understand how the virus contributes to cardiac issues like arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death.
  • - Researchers found that exposing hiPSC-CMs to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein results in the formation of larger multinucleated cells, prolonged action potential duration, and abnormal calcium handling, which can lead to increased risks of heart arrhythmias.
  • - Treatment with a furin protease inhibitor or mutations to the spike protein reversed these cellular disruptions, suggesting that targeting the spike protein may help mitigate cardiac risks associated with COVID-19.
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Background: Although deprivation has been consistently shown to increase risk for psychopathology through impaired executive control, the unique effects of other dimensions of early adversity, such as unpredictability, on executive control development are poorly understood. The current study evaluated whether deprivation and/or unpredictability early in life have unique effects on the general factor of psychopathology through impaired preschool executive control.

Methods: Participants included 312 children (51% female) oversampled for greater sociodemographic risk.

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This Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences article reviews trials that evaluated an obesity treatment that combines response-inhibition training with high-calorie foods and training designed to reduce attention for high-calorie foods. Two randomized controlled trials suggest that food-response inhibition and attention training produced significant body-fat loss, along with a reduction in valuation of, and reward-region response to, high-calorie foods. However, these effects did not emerge in a third trial, potentially because this trial used more heterogeneous food images, which reduced inhibition learning and attentional learning.

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Recent work indicates that a general factor, often referred to as the p-factor, underlies nearly all forms of psychopathology. Although the criterion validity and utility of this general factor have been well supported, questions remain about the substantive meaning of the p-factor. The purpose of the present longitudinal study was to empirically test the hypothesis that the p-factor reflects dysregulation arising from a combination of high dispositional negative emotionality and low executive control.

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Congenital heart diseases, including single ventricle circulations, are clinically challenging due to chronic pressure overload and the inability of the myocardium to compensate for lifelong physiological demands. To determine the clinical relevance of autologous umbilical cord blood-derived mononuclear cells (UCB-MNCs) as a therapy to augment cardiac adaptation following surgical management of congenital heart disease, a validated model system of right ventricular pressure overload due to pulmonary artery banding (PAB) in juvenile pigs has been employed. PAB in a juvenile porcine model and intramyocardial delivery of UCB-MNCs was evaluated in three distinct 12-week studies utilizing serial cardiac imaging and end-of-study pathology evaluations.

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Nighttime eating has been associated with obesity, inflammation, and poor nutritional intake, yet correlates of this behavior are understudied in pediatric populations and among adolescents in particular. The current study examines modifiable factors related to nighttime eating, including sleep parameters and regulatory abilities-as well as the interplay between these constructs-in adolescents. A total of 223 adolescents (M = 15.

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Background: Child temperament styles characterized by increased emotionality or pleasure seeking may increase risk for less healthful eating patterns, while strong executive control (EC) may be protective. The interaction of these characteristics with longitudinal outcomes has not yet been examined.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the association of preschool temperament and EC, as well as their interaction with adolescent eating.

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Lineage-specific differentiation of human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) into cardiomyocytes (CMs) offers a patient-specific model to dissect development and disease pathogenesis in a dish. However, challenges exist with this model system, such as the relative immaturity of iPSC-derived CMs, which evoke the question of whether this model faithfully recapitulates in vivo cardiac development. As in vivo cardiac developmental stage is intimately linked with the proliferative capacity (or maturation is inversely correlated to proliferative capacity), we sought to understand how proliferation is regulated during hiPSC CM differentiation and how it compares with in vivo mouse cardiac development.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study explores the connection between childhood executive control (EC) and later substance use in adolescence, focusing on how behaviors like aggression and prosocial actions may act as links in this relationship.
  • Researchers followed 329 children from preschool into adolescence, assessing their EC, aggressive behaviors, and substance use patterns over time.
  • Findings indicate that lower EC in preschool can lead to increased relational aggression in elementary school, which statistically predicts higher chances of substance use initiation during adolescence.
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