We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Response to lithium in patients with bipolar disorder is associated with clinical and transdiagnostic genetic factors. The predictive combination of these variables might help clinicians better predict which patients will respond to lithium treatment.
Aims
To use a combination of transdiagnostic genetic and clinical factors to predict lithium response in patients with bipolar disorder.
Method
This study utilised genetic and clinical data (n = 1034) collected as part of the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen) project. Polygenic risk scores (PRS) were computed for schizophrenia and major depressive disorder, and then combined with clinical variables using a cross-validated machine-learning regression approach. Unimodal, multimodal and genetically stratified models were trained and validated using ridge, elastic net and random forest regression on 692 patients with bipolar disorder from ten study sites using leave-site-out cross-validation. All models were then tested on an independent test set of 342 patients. The best performing models were then tested in a classification framework.
Results
The best performing linear model explained 5.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response and was composed of clinical variables, PRS variables and interaction terms between them. The best performing non-linear model used only clinical variables and explained 8.1% (P = 0.0001) of variance in lithium response. A priori genomic stratification improved non-linear model performance to 13.7% (P = 0.0001) and improved the binary classification of lithium response. This model stratified patients based on their meta-polygenic loadings for major depressive disorder and schizophrenia and was then trained using clinical data.
Conclusions
Using PRS to first stratify patients genetically and then train machine-learning models with clinical predictors led to large improvements in lithium response prediction. When used with other PRS and biological markers in the future this approach may help inform which patients are most likely to respond to lithium treatment.
Early adversity confers risk for depression in part through its association with recent (i.e., proximal) acute stress. However, it remains unresolved whether: a) early adversity predicts increases in recent acute stress over time; b) all – or only certain types – of recent events mediate the relationship between early adversity and depression; and c) early adversity places individuals at greater risk for depression via greater exposure to independent (i.e., fateful) interpersonal events or via greater generation of dependent (i.e., partially self-initiated) interpersonal events (i.e., stress generation) or both. These questions were examined in a 3-wave longitudinal study of early adolescent girls (N = 125; M = 12.35 years [SD = .77]) with no history of diagnosable depression using contextual life stress and diagnostic interviews. Path analyses indicated that increases in past-year acute interpersonal, but not non-interpersonal, stress mediated the link between early adversity and depressive symptoms. The mediating role of interpersonal events was limited to independent ones, suggesting increases in interpersonal event exposure, not interpersonal stress generation, acted as a mediator. Finally, findings support prior evidence that early adversity may not directly predict future depressive symptoms. Implications for understanding the role of recent stress in the association between early adversity and adolescent depression are discussed.
Persisting symptoms and dysfunction after SARS-CoV-2 infection have frequently been observed. However, information on the aftermath of COVID-19 is inadequate. We followed up people with severe mental illness (SMI) infected with SARS-CoV-2, and evaluated their longer-term mortality, using data from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, UK. We examined the time course and duration of mortality risk from the point of diagnosis. After SARS-CoV-2 infection, people with SMI had a substantially higher risk of death (hazard ratio (HR) = 5.16, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.56–17.03; P = 0.007) during the first 28 days and during the following 28–60 days (HR = 2.96, 95% CI 1.21–7.26; P = 0.018) than those without infection, but after 60 days the additional risk of death was no longer significant (HR = 2.33, 95% CI 0.83–6.53; P = 0.107).
Background: Thrombus embolization during endovascular treatment (EVT) occurs in up to 9% of cases, making secondary medium-vessel occlusions (MeVOs) of particular interest to neurointerventionalists. We sought to gain insight into the current EVT approaches for secondary MeVO stroke in an international case-based survey as there are currently no clear recommendations for EVT in these patients. Methods: Participants were presented with three secondary MeVO cases, each consisting of three case-vignettes with changes in patient neurological status (improvement, no change, unable to assess). Clustered multivariable logistic regression analyses were used to assess factors influencing the decision to treat. Results: 366 physicians from 44 countries took part. The majority (54.1%) were in favor of EVT. Participants were more likely to treat occlusions in the anterior M2/3 (74.3%; risk ratio [RR]2.62, 95%CI:2.27-3.03) or A3 (59.7%; RR2.11, 95%CI:1.83-2.42) segment, compared to the M3/4 segment (28.3%;reference). Physicians were less likely to pursue EVT in patients with neurological improvement (49.9% versus 57.0%; RR0.88, 95%CI:0.83-0.92). Interventionalists and more experienced physicians were more likely to treat secondary MeVOs. Conclusions: Physician’s willingness to treat secondary MeVOs endovascularly is limited and varies per occlusion location and change in neurological status. More evidence on the safety and efficacy of EVT for secondary MeVO stroke is needed.
Background: Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe progressive neuromuscular disease. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence, healthcare resource utilization (HRU), and medical costs of DMD in Alberta. Methods: This retrospective study linked provincial healthcare administrative data to identify patients with DMD utilizing a modified diagnostic code algorithm, including males <30 years of age. Five-year (April 2012 to March 2017) prevalence estimates were calculated and all-cause direct HRU and costs were examined in the first-year post-diagnosis. Results: Overall, 111 patients (median age: 12.0 years (IQR 4.7-18.3)) with DMD were identified. The estimated five-year period prevalence was 35.72 (95% CI 31.88-39.91) per 100,000 persons. All-cause HRU in the first-year post-diagnosis included a mean (SD) of 0.48 (1.19) hospitalizations (length of stay: 9.37 days (36.47)), 3.96 (6.16) general practitioner visits, 28.52 (62.98) specialist visits, and 20.14 (16.49) ambulatory care visits. Mean (SD) all-cause direct costs were $18,868 ($29,206) CAD in the first-year post-diagnosis. Conclusions: Patients with DMD had multiple interactions with the healthcare system in the year following diagnosis, resulting in substantial direct medical costs. More effective treatment strategies are needed to improve health outcomes and reduce the burden of DMD.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has resulted in shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), underscoring the urgent need for simple, efficient, and inexpensive methods to decontaminate masks and respirators exposed to severe acute respiratory coronavirus virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We hypothesized that methylene blue (MB) photochemical treatment, which has various clinical applications, could decontaminate PPE contaminated with coronavirus.
Design:
The 2 arms of the study included (1) PPE inoculation with coronaviruses followed by MB with light (MBL) decontamination treatment and (2) PPE treatment with MBL for 5 cycles of decontamination to determine maintenance of PPE performance.
Methods:
MBL treatment was used to inactivate coronaviruses on 3 N95 filtering facepiece respirator (FFR) and 2 medical mask models. We inoculated FFR and medical mask materials with 3 coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, and we treated them with 10 µM MB and exposed them to 50,000 lux of white light or 12,500 lux of red light for 30 minutes. In parallel, integrity was assessed after 5 cycles of decontamination using multiple US and international test methods, and the process was compared with the FDA-authorized vaporized hydrogen peroxide plus ozone (VHP+O3) decontamination method.
Results:
Overall, MBL robustly and consistently inactivated all 3 coronaviruses with 99.8% to >99.9% virus inactivation across all FFRs and medical masks tested. FFR and medical mask integrity was maintained after 5 cycles of MBL treatment, whereas 1 FFR model failed after 5 cycles of VHP+O3.
Conclusions:
MBL treatment decontaminated respirators and masks by inactivating 3 tested coronaviruses without compromising integrity through 5 cycles of decontamination. MBL decontamination is effective, is low cost, and does not require specialized equipment, making it applicable in low- to high-resource settings.
Current treatments for schizophrenia are often associated with increased rates of metabolic syndrome (MetSy). MetSy is defined as meeting 3 of the following 5 criteria: waist circumference >40in (men) or >35in (women), triglycerides =150mg/dL, high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL) <40mg/dL (men) or <50mg/dL (women), systolic blood pressure (BP) =130mmHg or diastolic BP =85mmHg, fasting glucose =100mg/dL. Patients with MetSy have an elevated risk of developing type II diabetes and increased mortality due to cardiovascular disease. Lumateperone (lumateperone tosylate, ITI−007), a mechanistically novel antipsychotic that simultaneously modulates serotonin, dopamine, and glutamate neurotransmission, is FDA approved for the treatment of schizophrenia. This distinct pharmacological profile has been associated with favorable tolerability and a low risk of adverse metabolic effects in clinical trials. This post hoc analysis of 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of patients with an acute exacerbation of schizophrenia compared rates of MetSy with lumateperone and risperidone. Data from an open-label long-term trial of lumateperone were also evaluated.
Method
The incidence and shift in MetSy were analyzed in data pooled from 2 short-term (4 or 6 week) placebo- and active-controlled (risperidone 4mg) studies of lumateperone 42mg (Studies 005 and 302). The pooled lumateperone data were compared with data for risperidone. Data from an open-label 1-year trial (Study 303) evaluated MetSy in patients with stable schizophrenia switched from prior antipsychotic (PA) treatment to lumateperone 42mg.
Results
In the acute studies (n=256 lumateperone 42mg, n=255 risperidone 4mg), rates of MetSy were similar between groups at baseline (16% lumateperone, 19% risperidone). At the end of treatment (EOT), MetSy was less common with lumateperone than with risperidone (13% vs 25%). More lumateperone patients (46%) compared with risperidone (25%) patients improved from having MetSy at baseline to no longer meeting MetSy criteria at EOT. Conversely, more patients on risperidone than on lumateperone developed MetSy during treatment (13% vs 5%). Differences in MetSy conversion rates were driven by changes in triglycerides and glucose. In the long-term study (n=602 lumateperone 42mg), 33% of patients had MetSy at PA baseline. Thirty-six percent of patients (36%) with MetSy at PA baseline improved to no longer meeting criteria at EOT. Fewer than half that percentage shifted from not meeting MetSy criteria to having MetSy (15%).
Conclusions
In this post hoc analysis, lumateperone 42mg patients had reduced rates of MetSy compared with risperidone patients. In the long-term study, patients with MetSy on PA switched to lumateperone 42mg had a reduction in the risk of MetSy. These results suggest that lumateperone 42mg is a promising new treatment for schizophrenia with a favorable metabolic profile.
Dry wind-tunnel (DWT) flutter test systems model the unsteady distributed aerodynamic force using various electromagnetic exciters. They can be used to test the aeroelastic and aeroservoelastic stability of smart aircraft or high-speed flight vehicles. A new parameterised modelling method at the full system level based on the generalised force equivalence for DWT flutter systems is proposed herein. The full system model includes the structural dynamic model, electromechanical coupling model and fast aerodynamic computation model. An optimisation search method is applied to determine the best locations for measurement and excitation by introducing Fisher’s information matrix. The feasibility and accuracy of the proposed system-level numerical DWT modelling method have been validated for a plate aeroelastic model with four exciters/transducers. The effects of key parameters including the number of exciters, the control time delay, the noise interference and the electrical parameters of the electromagnetic exciter model have also been investigated. The numerical and experimental results indicate that the proposed modelling method achieves good accuracy (with deviations of less than 1.5% from simulations and 4.5% from experimental test results for the flutter speed) and robust performance even in uncertain environments with a 10% noise level.
ABSTRACT IMPACT: Screening the effect of thousands of non-coding genetic variants will help identify variants important in the etiology of diseases OBJECTIVES/GOALS: Massively parallel reporter assays (MPRAs) can experimentally evaluate the impact of genetic variants on gene expression. In this study, our objective was to systematically evaluate the functional activity of 3’-UTR SNPs associated with neurological disorders and use those results to help understand their contributions to disease etiology. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: To choose variants to evaluate with the MPRA, we first gathered SNPs from the GWAS Catalog that were associated with any neurological disorder trait with p-value < 10-5. For each SNP, we identified the region that was in linkage disequilibrium (r2 > 0.8) and retrieved all the common 3’-UTR SNPs (allele-frequency > 0.05) within that region. We used an MPRA to measure the impact of these 3’-UTR variants in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells and a microglial cell line. These results were then used to train a deep-learning model to predict the impact of variants and identify features that contribute to the predictions. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: Of the 13,515 3’-UTR SNPs tested, 400 and 657 significantly impacted gene expression in SH-SY5Y and microglia, respectively. Of the 84 SNPs significantly impacted in both cells, the direction of impact was the same in 81. The direction of eQTL in GTEx tissues agreed with the assay SNP effect in SH-SY5Y cells but not microglial cells. The deep-learning model predicted sequence activity level correlated with the experimental activity level (Spearman’s corr = 0.45). The deep-learning model identified several predictive motifs similar to motifs of RNA-binding proteins. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF FINDINGS: This study demonstrates that MPRAs can be used to evaluate the effect of non-coding variants, and the results can be used to train a machine learning model and interpret its predictions. Together, these can help identify causal variants and further understand the etiology of diseases.
Autocracies are widely assumed to have a counterterrorism advantage because they can censor media and are insulated from public opinion, thereby depriving terrorists of both their audience and political leverage. However, institutionalized autocracies such as China draw legitimacy from public approval and feature partially free media environments, meaning that their information strategies must be much more sophisticated than simple censorship. To better understand the strategic considerations that govern decisions about transparency in this context, this article explores the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) treatment of domestic terrorist incidents in the official party mouthpiece – the People's Daily. Drawing on original, comprehensive datasets of all known Uyghur terrorist violence in China and the official coverage of that violence, the findings demonstrate that the CCP promptly acknowledges terrorist violence only when both domestic and international conditions are favorable. The authors attribute this pattern to the entrenched prioritization of short-term social stability over longer-term legitimacy.
Benzodiazepine (BZD) prescription rates have increased over the past decade in the United States. Available literature indicates that sociodemographic factors may influence diagnostic patterns and/or prescription behaviour. Herein, the aim of this study is to determine whether the gender of the prescriber and/or patient influences BZD prescription.
Methods
Cross-sectional study using data from the Florida Medicaid Managed Medical Assistance Program from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. Eligible recipients ages 18 to 64, inclusive, enrolled in the Florida Medicaid plan for at least 1 day, and were dually eligible. Recipients either had a serious mental illness (SMI), or non-SMI and anxiety.
Results
Total 125 463 cases were identified (i.e., received BZD or non-BZD prescription). Main effect of patient and prescriber gender was significant F(1, 125 459) = 0.105, P = 0 .745, partial η2 < 0.001. Relative risk (RR) of male prescribers prescribing a BZD compared to female prescribers was 1.540, 95% confidence intervals (CI) [1.513, 1.567], whereas the RR of male patients being prescribed a BZD compared to female patients was 1.16, 95% CI [1.14, 1.18]. Main effects of patient and prescriber gender were statistically significant F(1, 125 459) = 188.232, P < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.001 and F(1, 125 459) = 349.704, P < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.013, respectively.
Conclusions
Male prescribers are more likely to prescribe BZDs, and male patients are more likely to receive BZDs. Further studies are required to characterize factors that influence this gender-by-gender interaction.
We summarize some of the past year's most important findings within climate change-related research. New research has improved our understanding about the remaining options to achieve the Paris Agreement goals, through overcoming political barriers to carbon pricing, taking into account non-CO2 factors, a well-designed implementation of demand-side and nature-based solutions, resilience building of ecosystems and the recognition that climate change mitigation costs can be justified by benefits to the health of humans and nature alone. We consider new insights about what to expect if we fail to include a new dimension of fire extremes and the prospect of cascading climate tipping elements.
Technical summary
A synthesis is made of 10 topics within climate research, where there have been significant advances since January 2020. The insights are based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings include: (1) the options to still keep global warming below 1.5 °C; (2) the impact of non-CO2 factors in global warming; (3) a new dimension of fire extremes forced by climate change; (4) the increasing pressure on interconnected climate tipping elements; (5) the dimensions of climate justice; (6) political challenges impeding the effectiveness of carbon pricing; (7) demand-side solutions as vehicles of climate mitigation; (8) the potentials and caveats of nature-based solutions; (9) how building resilience of marine ecosystems is possible; and (10) that the costs of climate change mitigation policies can be more than justified by the benefits to the health of humans and nature.
Social media summary
How do we limit global warming to 1.5 °C and why is it crucial? See highlights of latest climate science.
There is compelling evidence for gradient effects of household income on school readiness. Potential mechanisms are described, yet the growth curve trajectory of maternal mental health in a child's early life has not been thoroughly investigated. We aimed to examine the relationships between household incomes, maternal mental health trajectories from antenatal to the postnatal period, and school readiness.
Methods
Prospective data from 505 mother–child dyads in a birth cohort in Singapore were used, including household income, repeated measures of maternal mental health from pregnancy to 2-years postpartum, and a range of child behavioural, socio-emotional and cognitive outcomes from 2 to 6 years of age. Antenatal mental health and its trajectory were tested as mediators in the latent growth curve models.
Results
Household income was a robust predictor of antenatal maternal mental health and all child outcomes. Between children from the bottom and top household income quartiles, four dimensions of school readiness skills differed by a range of 0.52 (95% Cl: 0.23, 0.67) to 1.21 s.d. (95% CI: 1.02, 1.40). Thirty-eight percent of pregnant mothers in this cohort were found to have perinatal depressive and anxiety symptoms in the subclinical and clinical ranges. Poorer school readiness skills were found in children of these mothers when compared to those of mothers with little or no symptoms. After adjustment of unmeasured confounding on the indirect effect, antenatal maternal mental health provided a robust mediating path between household income and multiple school readiness outcomes (χ2 126.05, df 63, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.031, CFI = 0.980, SRMR = 0.034).
Conclusions
Pregnant mothers with mental health symptoms, particularly those from economically-challenged households, are potential targets for intervention to level the playing field of their children.
Brief measurements of the subjective experience of stress with good predictive capability are important in a range of community mental health and research settings. The potential for large-scale implementation of such a measure for screening may facilitate early risk detection and intervention opportunities. Few such measures however have been developed and validated in epidemiological and longitudinal community samples. We designed a new single-item measure of the subjective level of stress (SLS-1) and tested its validity and ability to predict long-term mental health outcomes of up to 12 months through two separate studies.
Methods
We first examined the content and face validity of the SLS-1 with a panel consisting of mental health experts and laypersons. Two studies were conducted to examine its validity and predictive utility. In study 1, we tested the convergent and divergent validity as well as incremental validity of the SLS-1 in a large epidemiological sample of young people in Hong Kong (n = 1445). In study 2, in a consecutively recruited longitudinal community sample of young people (n = 258), we first performed the same procedures as in study 1 to ensure replicability of the findings. We then examined in this longitudinal sample the utility of the SLS-1 in predicting long-term depressive, anxiety and stress outcomes assessed at 3 months and 6 months (n = 182) and at 12 months (n = 84).
Results
The SLS-1 demonstrated good content and face validity. Findings from the two studies showed that SLS-1 was moderately to strongly correlated with a range of mental health outcomes, including depressive, anxiety, stress and distress symptoms. We also demonstrated its ability to explain the variance explained in symptoms beyond other known personal and psychological factors. Using the longitudinal sample in study 2, we further showed the significant predictive capability of the SLS-1 for long-term symptom outcomes for up to 12 months even when accounting for demographic characteristics.
Conclusions
The findings altogether support the validity and predictive utility of the SLS-1 as a brief measure of stress with strong indications of both concurrent and long-term mental health outcomes. Given the value of brief measures of mental health risks at a population level, the SLS-1 may have potential for use as an early screening tool to inform early preventative intervention work.
Ensuring equitable access to health care is a widely agreed-upon goal in medicine, yet access to care is a multidimensional concept that is difficult to measure. Although frameworks exist to evaluate access to care generally, the concept of “access to genomic medicine” is largely unexplored and a clear framework for studying and addressing major dimensions is lacking.
Methods:
Comprised of seven clinical genomic research projects, the Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Research consortium (CSER) presented opportunities to examine access to genomic medicine across diverse contexts. CSER emphasized engaging historically underrepresented and/or underserved populations. We used descriptive analysis of CSER participant survey data and qualitative case studies to explore anticipated and encountered access barriers and interventions to address them.
Results:
CSER’s enrolled population was largely lower income and racially and ethnically diverse, with many Spanish-preferring individuals. In surveys, less than a fifth (18.7%) of participants reported experiencing barriers to care. However, CSER project case studies revealed a more nuanced picture that highlighted the blurred boundary between access to genomic research and clinical care. Drawing on insights from CSER, we build on an existing framework to characterize the concept and dimensions of access to genomic medicine along with associated measures and improvement strategies.
Conclusions:
Our findings support adopting a broad conceptualization of access to care encompassing multiple dimensions, using mixed methods to study access issues, and investing in innovative improvement strategies. This conceptualization may inform clinical translation of other cutting-edge technologies and contribute to the promotion of equitable, effective, and efficient access to genomic medicine.
Previous studies have revealed associations of meteorological factors with tuberculosis (TB) cases. However, few studies have examined their lag effects on TB cases. This study was aimed to analyse nonlinear lag effects of meteorological factors on the number of TB notifications in Hong Kong. Using a 22-year consecutive surveillance data in Hong Kong, we examined the association of monthly average temperature and relative humidity with temporal dynamics of the monthly number of TB notifications using a distributed lag nonlinear models combined with a Poisson regression. The relative risks (RRs) of TB notifications were >1.15 as monthly average temperatures were between 16.3 and 17.3 °C at lagged 13–15 months, reaching the peak risk of 1.18 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02–1.35) when it was 16.8 °C at lagged 14 months. The RRs of TB notifications were >1.05 as relative humidities of 60.0–63.6% at lagged 9–11 months expanded to 68.0–71.0% at lagged 12–17 months, reaching the highest risk of 1.06 (95% CI 1.01–1.11) when it was 69.0% at lagged 13 months. The nonlinear and delayed effects of average temperature and relative humidity on TB epidemic were identified, which may provide a practical reference for improving the TB warning system.