Many patients with Fontan physiology are unable to achieve the minimum criteria for peak effort during cardiopulmonary exercise testing. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of physical activity and other clinical predictors related to achieving peak exercise criteria, signified by respiratory exchange ratio ≥ 1.1 in youth with Fontan physiology.

Secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study of 8–18-year-olds with single ventricle post-Fontan palliation who underwent cardiopulmonary exercise testing (James cycle protocol) and completed a past-year physical activity survey. Bivariate associations were assessed by Wilcoxon rank-sum test and simple regression. Conditional inference forest algorithm was used to classify participants achieving respiratory exchange ratio > 1.1 and to predict peak respiratory exchange ratio.

Of the n = 43 participants, 65% were male, mean age was 14.0 ± 2.4 years, and 67.4% (n = 29) achieved respiratory exchange ratio ≥ 1.1. Despite some cardiopulmonary exercise stress test variables achieving statistical significance in bivariate associations with participants achieving respiratory exchange ratio > 1.1, the classification accuracy had area under the precision recall curve of 0.55. All variables together explained 21.4% of the variance in respiratory exchange ratio, with peak oxygen pulse being the most informative.

Demographic, physical activity, and cardiopulmonary exercise test measures could not classify meeting peak exercise criteria (respiratory exchange ratio ≥ 1.1) at a satisfactory accuracy. Correlations between respiratory exchange ratio and oxygen pulse suggest the augmentation of stroke volume with exercise may affect the Fontan patient’s ability to sustain high-intensity exercise.

Cognitive symptoms are common during and following episodes of depression. Little is known about the persistence of self-reported and performance-based cognition with depression and functional outcomes.

This is a secondary analysis of a prospective naturalistic observational clinical cohort study of individuals with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD; N = 623). Participants completed app-based self-reported and performance-based cognitive function assessments alongside validated measures of depression, functional disability, and self-esteem every 3 months. Participants were followed-up for a maximum of 2-years. Multilevel hierarchically nested modelling was employed to explore between- and within-participant variation over time to identify whether persistent cognitive difficulties are related to levels of depression and functional impairment during follow-up.

508 individuals (81.5%) provided data (mean age: 46.6, s.d.: 15.6; 76.2% female). Increasing persistence of self-reported cognitive difficulty was associated with higher levels of depression and functional impairment throughout the follow-up. In comparison to low persistence of objective cognitive difficulty (<25% of timepoints), those with high persistence (>75% of timepoints) reported significantly higher levels of depression (B = 5.17, s.e. = 2.21, p = 0.019) and functional impairment (B = 4.82, s.e. = 1.79, p = 0.002) over time. Examination of the individual cognitive modules shows that persistently impaired executive function is associated with worse functioning, and poor processing speed is particularly important for worsened depressive symptoms.

We replicated previous findings of greater persistence of cognitive difficulty with increasing severity of depression and further demonstrate that these cognitive difficulties are associated with pervasive functional disability. Difficulties with cognition may be an indicator and target for further treatment input.

Team development and idea generation are key intertwined steps in translational science that need a framework to accommodate unstructured, participatory interactions. To this end, we introduced Un-Meetings to the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program, innovative events that facilitate cross-disciplinary idea generation and informal discussions between translational scientists, policy makers, community members, advocates, and public health professionals. Here we describe a mixed methods study to characterize the conceptual diversity and clusterization of ideas generated through an Opioid Crisis Un-Meeting.

An Un-Meeting targeting translation science approaches to the opioid crisis were hosted at the University of Rochester Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC). We used semantic analysis and conceptual mapping of keywords to analyze how attendee-led idea generation sessions identified topics for breakout discussions.

One hundred and two individuals from 40 institutions proposed 150 unique ideas that were grouped into 23 breakout sessions. Network analysis showed that diverse pools of experts were bridged by topics addressing the complexities of the opioid crisis. Two clusters emerged: (1) systems, contexts, and community engagement, and (2) technologies, innovations, and treatment advancements.

The cross-disciplinary nature of topic areas that bridge across thematic communities provide opportunities for CTSA programs to engage and support development of diverse translational teams. Potential opportunities for team building include technological advancements of opioid prevention, treatment, surveillance, systems approaches, and studies focusing on special populations and health disparities. The analysis method here may be useful in identifying naturally emerging teams of experts and community gaps when addressing large problems.

Neonates and infants who undergo congenital cardiac surgery frequently have difficulty with feeding. The factors that predispose these patients to require a gastrostomy tube have not been well defined. We aimed to report the incidence and describe hospital outcomes and characteristics in neonates and infants undergoing congenital cardiac surgery who required gastrostomy tube placement.

A retrospective review was performed on patients undergoing congenital cardiac surgery between October 2015 and December 2020. Patients were identified by International Classification of Diseases 10th Revision codes, utilising the performance improvement database Vizient® Clinical Data Base, and stratified by age at admission: neonates (<1 month) and infants (1–12 months). Outcomes were compared and comparative analysis performed between admissions with and without gastrostomy tube placement.

There were 11,793 admissions, 3519 (29.8%) neonates and 8274 (70.2%) infants. We found an increased incidence of gastrostomy tube placement in neonates as compared to infants following congenital cardiac surgery (23.1% versus 6%, p = <0.001). Outcomes in neonates and infants were similar with increased length of stay and cost in those requiring a gastrostomy tube. Gastrostomy tube placement was noted to be more likely in neonates and infants with upper airway anomalies, congenital abnormalities, hospital infections, and genetic abnormalities.

Age at hospitalisation for congenital cardiac surgery is a definable risk factor for gastrostomy tube requirement. Additional factors contribute to gastrostomy tube placement and should be used when counselling families regarding the potential requirement of a gastrostomy tube.

Higher thalamic volume has been found in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and children with clinical-level symptoms within the general population (Boedhoe et al. 2017, Weeland et al. 2021a). Functionally distinct thalamic nuclei are an integral part of OCD-relevant brain circuitry.

We aimed to study the thalamic nuclei volume in relation to subclinical and clinical OCD across different age ranges. Understanding the role of thalamic nuclei and their associated circuits in pediatric OCD could lead towards treatment strategies specifically targeting these circuits.

We studied the relationship between thalamic nuclei and obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS) in a large sample of school-aged children from the Generation R Study (N = 2500) (Weeland et al. 2021b). Using the data from the ENIGMA-OCD working group we conducted mega-analyses to study thalamic subregional volume in OCD across the lifespan in 2,649 OCD patients and 2,774 healthy controls across 29 sites (Weeland et al. 2021c). Thalamic nuclei were grouped into five subregions: anterior, ventral, intralaminar/medial, lateral and pulvinar (Figure 1).

Both children with subclinical and clinical OCD compared with controls show increased volume across multiple thalamic subregions. Adult OCD patients have decreased volume across all subregions (Figure 2), which was mostly driven by medicated and adult-onset patients.

Our results suggests that OCD-related thalamic volume differences are global and not driven by particular subregions and that the direction of effects are driven by both age and medication status.

No significant relationships.

The physical and mental health of women prior to conception can have a significant impact on pregnancy and child outcomes. Given the rising burden of non-communicable diseases, the aim of this analysis was to explore the relationship between mental health, physical health and health behaviour in women planning a pregnancy.

To investigate the association between indices of physical and mental health in a large population of women in the UK planning a pregnancy.

Responses to a preconception health digital education tool provided data on the physical and mental health and health behaviour of 131,182 women planning pregnancy. Logistic regression was used to explore associations between mental health and physical health variables. Multiple imputation by chained equations was implemented to handle missing data.

There was evidence for an association between physical and mental health conditions (OR 2.22; 95% CI 2.14, 2.3). There was also an association between having a mental disorder and physical inactivity (OR 1.14; 95% CI 1.11, 1.18), substance misuse (OR 2.4; 95% CI 2.25, 2.55) and less folic acid use (OR 0.89; 95% CI 0.86,0.92).

There is a need for greater integration of physical and mental healthcare for women in the preconception period, which could support women, including those who wish to conceive, to optimise their health during this time.

No significant relationships.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is prevalent, often chronic, and requires ongoing monitoring of symptoms to track response to treatment and identify early indicators of relapse. Remote Measurement Technologies (RMT) provide an exciting opportunity to transform the measurement and management of MDD, via data collected from inbuilt smartphone sensors and wearable devices alongside app-based questionnaires and tasks.

To describe the amount of data collected during a multimodal longitudinal RMT study, in an MDD population.

RADAR-MDD is a multi-centre, prospective observational cohort study. People with a history of MDD were provided with a wrist-worn wearable, and several apps designed to: a) collect data from smartphone sensors; and b) deliver questionnaires, speech tasks and cognitive assessments and followed-up for a maximum of 2 years.

A total of 623 individuals with a history of MDD were enrolled in the study with 80% completion rates for primary outcome assessments across all timepoints. 79.8% of people participated for the maximum amount of time available and 20.2% withdrew prematurely. Data availability across all RMT data types varied depending on the source of data and the participant-burden for each data type. We found no evidence of an association between the severity of depression symptoms at baseline and the availability of data. 110 participants had > 50% data available across all data types, and thus able to contribute to multiparametric analyses.

RADAR-MDD is the largest multimodal RMT study in the field of mental health. Here, we have shown that collecting RMT data from a clinical population is feasible.

No significant relationships.

Social unrest tied to racism negatively impacted half of NIH-funded extramural researchers underrepresented (UR) in science. UR early-career scientists encounter more challenges in their research careers, but the impact of social unrest due to systemic racism in this group is unclear. We used mixed methods to describe the impact of social unrest due to systemic racism on mentoring relationships, research, and psychological well-being in UR post-doctoral fellows and early-career faculty.

This is a cross-sectional analysis of data collected in September 2021–January 2022 from 144 UR early-career researchers from 25 academic medical centers in the Building Up Trial. The primary outcomes were agreement on five-point Likert scales with social unrest impact statements (e.g., “I experienced psychological distress due to events of social unrest regarding systemic racism”). Thematic analysis was conducted on responses to one open-ended question assessing how social unrest regarding systemic racism affected participants.

Most participants were female (80%), non-Hispanic Black (35%), or Hispanic (40%). Over half of participants (57%) experienced psychological distress as a result of social unrest due to systemic racism. Participants described direct and indirect discrimination and isolation from other persons of color at their institutions. Twice as many participants felt their mentoring relationships were positively (21%) versus negatively (11%) impacted by social unrest due to systemic racism.

Experiences with racial bias and discrimination impact the career and well-being of UR early-career researchers. Mentoring relationships and institutional support play an important role in buffering the negative impact of racial injustice for this population.