Trajectories of Resilience-Related Traits and Their Impact on Health Outcomes in Schizophrenia: Results From a 4-Year Longitudinal Study.

Background And Hypothesis: For the rapidly growing population of older people living with schizophrenia (PLWS), psychological resilience, or the capacity to adapt to adversity, is an understudied target for improving health. Little is known about resilience and its longitudinal impact on outcomes among PLWS. This study assesses trajectories of resilience-related traits in PLWS and a nonpsychiatric comparison group (NCs) and longitudinal interactions between resilience and health.

Utilizing machine learning to predict participant response to follow-up health surveys in the Millennium Cohort Study.

The Millennium Cohort Study is a longitudinal study which collects self-reported data from surveys to examine the long-term effects of military service. Participant nonresponse to follow-up surveys presents a potential threat to the validity and generalizability of study findings. In recent years, predictive analytics has emerged as a promising tool to identify predictors of nonresponse.

Associations between Neonicotinoid, Pyrethroid, and Organophosphate Insecticide Metabolites and Neurobehavioral Performance in Ecuadorian Adolescents.

Background: Organophosphate and pyrethroid insecticides can affect children's neurodevelopment and increase inflammation. Limited evidence exists among adolescents and on whether inflammation may mediate pesticide-neurobehavior associations. We examined the associations between insecticide metabolite concentrations and neurobehavior among adolescents in Ecuadorian agricultural communities.

A New Paradigm for High-dimensional Data: Distance-Based Semiparametric Feature Aggregation Framework via Between-Subject Attributes.

This article proposes a distance-based framework incentivized by the paradigm shift towards feature aggregation for high-dimensional data, which does not rely on the sparse-feature assumption or the permutation-based inference. Focusing on distance-based outcomes that preserve information without truncating any features, a class of semiparametric regression has been developed, which encapsulates multiple sources of high-dimensional variables using pairwise outcomes of between-subject attributes. Further, we propose a strategy to address the interlocking correlations among pairs via the U-statistics-based estimating equations (UGEE), which correspond to their unique efficient influence function (EIF).

Testing the causal impact of amyloidosis on total Tau using a genetically informative sample of adult male twins.

Introduction: The amyloid cascade hypothesis predicts that amyloid-beta (Aβ) aggregation drives tau tangle accumulation. We tested competing causal and non-causal hypotheses regarding the direction of causation between Aβ40 and Aβ42 and total Tau (t-Tau) plasma biomarkers.

Methods: Plasma Aβ40, Aβ42, t-Tau, and neurofilament light chain (NFL) were measured in 1,035 men (mean = 67.

Longitudinal relationships between BMI and hs-CRP among people with schizophrenia.

In people with schizophrenia (PwS), inflammation and metabolic issues significantly increase morbidity and mortality. However, our ability to understand inflammatory-metabolic mechanisms in this population has been limited to cross-sectional studies. This study involved 169 PwS and 156 non-psychiatric comparisons (NCs), aged 25-65, observed between 2012 and 2022 with 0 to 5 follow-ups post-baseline.

Non-invasive ventral cervical magnetoneurography as a proxy of in vivo lipopolysaccharide-induced inflammation.

Maintenance of autonomic homeostasis is continuously calibrated by sensory fibers of the vagus nerve and sympathetic chain that convey compound action potentials (CAPs) to the central nervous system. Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) intravenous challenge reliably elicits a robust inflammatory response that can resemble systemic inflammation and acute endotoxemia. Here, we administered LPS intravenously in nine healthy subjects while recording ventral cervical magnetoneurography (vcMNG)-derived CAPs at the rostral Right Nodose Ganglion (RNG) and the caudal Right Carotid Artery (RCA) with optically pumped magnetometers (OPM).

Rest-activity rhythm disruption and metabolic health in schizophrenia: a cross-sectional actigraphy study of community-dwelling people living with schizophrenia and nonpsychiatric comparison participants.

Study Objectives: People living with schizophrenia (PLWS) have increased physical comorbidities and premature mortality which may be linked to dysregulated rest-activity rhythms (RARs). This study aimed to compare RARs between PLWS and nonpsychiatric comparison participants (NCs) and to examine the relationships of RARs with age, sleep, metabolic, and physical health outcomes and, among PLWS, relationships of RARs with illness-related factors.

Methods: The study sample included 26 PLWS and 36 NCs, assessed with wrist-worn actigraphy to compute RAR variables and general sleep variables.

Exploring the Effect of Adding an Interactive Lecture to a Standardized Patient Curriculum on the Attitudes of Third-Year Medical Students About Patients With Obesity: A Quasi-Experimental Study.

Objectives: Anti-obesity bias is pervasive among medical professionals, students, and trainees. Stigmatization of patients leads to suboptimal care and clinical outcomes. Educational strategies in medical training are needed to reverse these attitudes.

Urinary Glyphosate, 2,4-D and DEET Biomarkers in Relation to Neurobehavioral Performance in Ecuadorian Adolescents in the ESPINA Cohort.

Background: Herbicides are the most used class of pesticides worldwide, and insect repellents are widely used globally. Yet, there is a dearth of studies characterizing the associations between these chemical groups and human neurobehavior. Experimental studies suggest that glyphosate and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) herbicides can affect neurobehavior and the cholinergic and glutamatergic pathways in the brain.

Executive functioning trajectories and their prospective association with inflammatory biomarkers in schizophrenia and non-psychiatric comparison participants.

Background And Hypothesis: Cognitive change in people with schizophrenia (PwS) is challenging to assess, but important to understand. Previous studies with limited age ranges and follow-up were subject to practice effects. Controlling for practice effects in a well-established cohort, we examined executive functioning trajectories and their association with inflammatory biomarkers, hypothesizing that PwS will have worsening executive functioning over time compared to non-psychiatric comparison participants (NCs), predicted by higher baseline inflammation with a stronger relationship in PwS than NCs.

Survey response over 15 years of follow-up in the Millennium Cohort Study.

Background: Patterns of survey response and the characteristics associated with response over time in longitudinal studies are important to discern for the development of tailored retention efforts aimed at minimizing response bias. The Millennium Cohort Study, the largest and longest running cohort study of military personnel and veterans, is designed to examine the long-term health effects of military service and experiences and thus relies on continued participant survey responses over time. Here, we describe the response rates for follow-up survey data collected over 15 years and identify characteristics associated with follow-up survey response and mode of response (paper vs.

The heritability of blood-based biomarkers related to risk of Alzheimer's disease in a population-based sample of early old-age men.

Introduction: Despite their increased application, the heritability of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-related blood-based biomarkers remains unexplored.

Methods: Plasma amyloid beta 40 (Aβ40), Aβ42, the Aβ42/40 ratio, total tau (t-tau), and neurofilament light (NfL) data came from 1035 men 60 to 73 years of age (μ = 67.0, SD = 2.

On testing proportional odds assumptions for proportional odds models.

Proportional odds models are commonly used to model ordinal responses, but the proportional odds assumption may not hold in practice, leading to biased inference. Tests such as score, Wald and likelihood ratio (LR) have been proposed to evaluate the proportional odds assumption based on models without the assumption. Brant has proposed an independent binary model-based Wald-type test, and Wolfe and Gould have extended the idea to propose an LR-type test.

Common antibiotics, azithromycin and amoxicillin, affect gut metagenomics within a household.

Background: The microbiome of the human gut serves a role in a number of physiological processes, but can be altered through effects of age, diet, and disturbances such as antibiotics. Several studies have demonstrated that commonly used antibiotics can have sustained impacts on the diversity and the composition of the gut microbiome. The impact of the two most overused antibiotics, azithromycin, and amoxicillin, in the human microbiome has not been thoroughly described.

Fecal virome transplantation is sufficient to alter fecal microbiota and drive lean and obese body phenotypes in mice.

The gastrointestinal microbiome plays a significant role in modulating numerous host processes, including metabolism. Prior studies show that when mice receive fecal transplants from obese donors on high-fat diets (HFD) (even when recipient mice are fed normal diets after transplantation), they develop obese phenotypes, demonstrating the prominent role that gut microbiota play in determining lean and obese phenotypes. While much of the credit has been given to gut bacteria, the impact of gut viruses on these phenotypes is understudied.

Magnetoencephalogram-based brain-computer interface for hand-gesture decoding using deep learning.

Advancements in deep learning algorithms over the past decade have led to extensive developments in brain-computer interfaces (BCI). A promising imaging modality for BCI is magnetoencephalography (MEG), which is a non-invasive functional imaging technique. The present study developed a MEG sensor-based BCI neural network to decode Rock-Paper-scissors gestures (MEG-RPSnet).

Misinterpreting cognitive change over multiple timepoints: When practice effects meet age-related decline.

Objective: Practice effects (PE) on cognitive testing have been shown to delay detection of impairment and impede our ability to assess change. When decline over time is expected, as with older adults or progressive diseases, failure to adequately address PEs may lead to inaccurate conclusions because PEs artificially boost scores while pathology- or age-related decline reduces scores. Unlike most methods, a participant-replacement approach can separate pathology- or age-related decline from PEs; however, this approach has only been used across two timepoints.

Associations Between Ambient Air Pollution and Cognitive Abilities from Midlife to Early Old Age: Modification by APOE Genotype.

Background: Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) measures of ambient air pollution are associated with accelerated age-related cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD).

Objective: We examined associations between air pollution, four cognitive factors, and the moderating role of apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype in the understudied period of midlife.

On modelling relative risks for longitudinal binomial responses: implications from two dueling paradigms.

Although logistic regression is the most popular for modelling regression relationships with binary responses, many find relative risk (RR), or risk ratio, easier to interpret and prefer to use this measure of risk in regression analysis. Indeed, since Zou published his modified Poisson regression approach for modelling RR for cross-sectional data, his paper has been cited over 7 000 times, demonstrating the popularity of this alternative measure of risk in regression analysis involving binary responses. As longitudinal studies have become increasingly popular in clinical trials and observational studies, it is imperative to extend Zou's approach for longitudinal data.

Fecal virome transplantation is sufficient to alter fecal microbiota and drive lean and obese body phenotypes in mice.

Background: The gastrointestinal microbiome plays a significant role in numerous host processes and has an especially large impact on modulating the host metabolism. Prior studies have shown that when mice receive fecal transplants from obese donors that were fed high-fat diets (HFD) (even when recipient mice are fed normal diets after transplantation), they develop obese phenotypes. These studies demonstrate the prominent role that the gut microbiota play in determining lean and obese phenotypes.

Post-hoc power analysis: a conceptually valid approach for power based on observed study data.

Power analysis is a key component of planning prospective studies such as clinical trials. However, some journals in biomedical and psychosocial sciences request power analysis for data already collected and analysed before accepting manuscripts for publication. Many have raised concerns about the conceptual basis for such post-hoc power analyses.