Culture

Regular monitoring ("active surveillance") rather than immediate treatment is justified for moderate cervical lesions - abnormal cells on the surface of the cervix, often called cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia grade 2 or CIN2 - suggests a review of the evidence published by The BMJ today.

The findings should help women make more informed choices with their doctor, but study limitations mean that the results should be interpreted with caution.

CIN is divided into grades 1, 2 or 3 based on the severity of the precancerous changes, but CIN is not cervical cancer. It has the potential to progress to cancer, but may also return to normal (regress) or remain unchanged.

A diagnosis of CIN2 is currently the cut-off point for treatment. But some studies have suggested that CIN2 lesions often regress completely without treatment and should be actively monitored instead, especially in younger women because treatment can be harmful for future pregnancies.

So an international team of researchers, led by Maria Kyrgiou at Imperial College London, set out to estimate rates of regression, persistence, and progression of untreated CIN grade 2 lesions as well as compliance with active surveillance.

They analysed results from 36 studies involving 3,160 women with a laboratory confirmed diagnosis of CIN2 who were actively monitored for at least three months.

Differences in study design and quality were taken into account, and rates of regression, persistence, and progression were measured at 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, and 60 months.

After two years, half (50%) of the lesions had regressed spontaneously, one third (32%) persisted, and just under one in five (18%) progressed to CIN3 or worse. In women aged under 30, the rate of regression was even higher (60%), persistence was 23%, and progression was 11%.

Based on these estimates, the researchers explain that in 1000 women aged under 30 with a diagnosis of CIN2, 600 will experience regression, 230 will remain unchanged, and 110 will progress within two years of active surveillance.

Only 15 cases of cancer (0.5%) were reported, most in women aged more than 30. Compliance with surveillance was high - around 90% over two years - and similar patterns emerged after further analyses to test the strength of the results.

However, the researchers point to some limitations, such as the substantial differences between studies and possible misclassification of lesions. Although they were able to account for some of these shortcomings, they cannot rule out the possibility that they may have influenced the results. As such, they say their findings "should be interpreted with caution."

They conclude: "Most CIN2 lesions, particularly in women aged less than 30, regress spontaneously. Active surveillance, rather than immediate intervention, is therefore justified, especially among young women who are likely to adhere to monitoring."

So what does this review mean for women trying to decide which management option is best after a CIN2 diagnosis, asks Professor Maggie Cruickshank at the University of Aberdeen, in a linked editorial?

Knowing that the chance of regression is 50-60%, "still means taking a gamble that surveillance is simply delaying treatment and even a small risk of cancer (0.5% in this study) may still be unacceptable to some," she writes. Other important considerations include the effects of treatment, the inconvenience of regular clinic visits, and the possibility of pregnancy complications.

Knowledge of the rates of regression from CIN2 are reassuring, she says, "but they must be presented in a meaningful way alongside clear information about the effects of both surveillance and treatment, so women can make fully informed choices."

Screening for food insecurity at the pediatrician's office can be quite effective, but fear of Child Protective Services and a complicated referral process could be barriers to food insecure families getting the help they need, a new study shows.

A two-question food insecurity screening was added to the visits of more than 7,000 families at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) over a two-year period to find out how useful it was. The evaluation of the effort -- run by the Center for Hunger-Free Communities of Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health in collaboration with CHOP and Benefits Data Trust -- sought to determine what barriers there might be to implementing such screening and how it could be made most successful.

"The screening itself worked very well: Providers could incorporate it into their workflow, and many parents and caregivers responded," said Molly Knowles, research and communications manager for the Center, who served the lead author of the study published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

More than 1,000 families -- roughly 15 percent -- of the families involved reported food insecurity (meaning that they did not have enough money for consistent access to food). Of that group, more than half were referred to Benefits Data Trust for further services and resources.

But the challenge came after these initial interactions. It was then that connections were dropped.

"Because of patient privacy and confidentiality protections, there were several steps in between being able to identify a food insecure family and connecting them with resources," Knowles explained. "That meant that parents -- more than 60 percent -- weren't able to connect with the referral agency."

Red tape wasn't the only major barrier discovered by the study. Parents were also initially reluctant to say that they were struggling to feed their families, for fear that they'd be reported as unfit caregivers.

"Parents know that healthcare providers are mandatory reporters of child abuse and neglect, and although food insecurity is not a form of neglect, many parents described feelings of shame and fear of Child Protective Services involvement," Knowles explained. "They talked about how important it was for pediatricians and other providers to clarify the purpose of the screening, and connect with parents in a respectful, collaborative, and caring way."

The study showed that medical professionals were eager to implement the hunger screening and parents reported interest in being asked about food needs: everything just came down to better communication. With that, any unfounded fears from parents might be alleviated, and other obstacles could be solved by health providers from the outset.

Something that the researchers didn't expect to find was that of those who reported being food insecure and referred for help, 79 percent already participated in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps).

"Parents recommended connecting families with immediate resources -- not only food resources, but other resources that could free up household budgets for food -- to supplement any public benefits they may already receive," Knowles said.

So that fewer families are lost between their screening and being referred to an assisting agency, Knowles recommended getting families' consent to share contact info right away at the first screening.

"Our study shows that the process of following up is just as important as the screening itself," said Mariana Chilton, PhD, Drexel professor, director of the Center for Hunger Free Communities, and study co-author. "We need better, more coordinated systems and processes to assist families."

Although this study only took place at CHOP in Philadelphia, its results fall in line with others. The interest is certainly there for screening.

"It's widely known that food insecurity is bad for child health and costs health systems more money," Chilton explained. "This is why every big health system in the Philadelphia and Camden areas are currently implementing -- or attempting to implement -- food insecurity screening. If our region's health systems could screen and refer successfully, while also finding meaningful ways to prevent food insecurity, then these efforts could serve as a model for the rest of the country."

Researchers find that a substance indicating oxidative damage increases in urine as people get older. The study, published today in open-access journal in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, also describes a way to easily measure levels of this marker in human urine samples. The new marker potentially provides a method to measure how much our body has aged -- our biological rather than chronological age. This could help predict our risk of developing age-related disease, and even our risk of death.

While everyone born in the same year has the same chronological age, the bodies of different people age at different rates. This means that, although the risk of many diseases increases with age, the link between our age in years and our health and lifespan is relatively loose. Many people enjoy long lives, relatively free of disease, while others suffer chronic illness and premature death.

So, if our age in years isn't the most reliable indicator of aging in our bodies, what is?

Some researchers consider normal aging to be a disease, where our cells accumulate damage over time. The rate of this cellular damage can vary from person to person, and may be dictated by genetics, lifestyle and the environment we live in. This cellular damage may be a more accurate indication of our biological age than the number of years since we were born.

Finding a way to measure biological age could help to predict the risk of developing age-related disease and even death. We also need to be able to measure biological age to know whether treatments to slow aging - which may be possible in the future -- are effective.

One mechanism thought to underlie biological aging involves a molecule vital to our survival - oxygen - in what is called the free radical theory of aging.

"Oxygen by-products produced during normal metabolism can cause oxidative damage to biomolecules in cells, such as DNA and RNA," explains Jian-Ping Cai, a researcher involved in the study. "As we age, we suffer increasing oxidative damage, and so the levels of oxidative markers increase in our body."

One such marker, with the catchy name of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanosine -- or 8-oxoGsn for short -- results from oxidation of a crucial molecule in our cells called RNA. In previous studies in animals, Cai and colleagues found that 8-oxoGsn levels increase in urine with age.

To see if this is true for humans as well, the researchers measured 8-oxoGsn in urine samples from 1,228 Chinese residents aged 2-90 years old, using a rapid analysis technique called ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography.

"We found an age-dependent increase in urinary 8-oxoGsn in participants 21 years old and older." said Cai. "Therefore, urinary 8-oxoGsn is promising as a new marker of aging."

Interestingly, levels of 8-oxoGsn were roughly the same between men and women, except in post-menopausal women, who showed higher levels. This may have been caused by the decrease in estrogen levels that happens during menopause, as estrogen is known to have anti-oxidant effects.

The team's rapid analysis technique could be useful for large-scale aging studies, as it can process urine samples from up to 10 participants per hour.

"Urinary 8-oxoGsn may reflect the real condition of our bodies better than our chronological age, and may help us to predict the risk of age-related diseases," concludes Cai.

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA and CARDIFF, UK - In an article published in SPIE's Journal of Biomedical Optics, researchers announce new advances in measuring blood flow velocity in deep tissue. Blood flow speed is a critical element in assessing tissue functionality as well as diagnosing diseases, and photoacoustic flowmetry (PAF) is already acknowledged as a promising technique for deep tissue measurement of blood flow velocity. The new work demonstrates successful use of a handheld ultrasound probe common in clinical settings, paving the way to explore the feasibility of measuring flow in a physiologically realistic situation.

The article, "Processing methods for photoacousitc Doppler flowmetry with a clinical ultrasound scanner," by Thore M. Bücking, Stavroula Balabani, Paul C. Beard, and Joanna Brunker of University College London, and Pim Jasper van den Berg and Wiendelt Steenbergen of University of Twente, outlines key steps in their processing methods - including image filtering, motion detection, and masking - that bring photoacoustic flowmetry an important step closer to clinical applicability, according to Journal of Biomedical Optics editor, Andreas Mandelis.

"The manuscript by Brunker and her colleagues has reported, I believe, one of the most important steps forward in photoacoustic flow measurements, by using a clinical ultrasound array, human whole blood, and wide-field optical illumination in AR-PAF settings," says Mandelis. "This long-overdue work is extremely exciting for the photoacoustic imaging community, and can potentially bring photoacoustic flow imaging into clinical practice."

States with robust tobacco control policies and regulations, such as smoke free air laws and taxes on cigarettes, not only have fewer cigarette users but also fewer e-cigarette users, according to research from NYU School of Medicine and the NYU College of Global Public Health.

The findings, published in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research, suggest that existing state-level tobacco control measures likely influence e-cigarette use, despite their focus on traditional cigarettes.

"Our research adds to the understanding of the geographic and sociodemographic factors underlying e-cigarette use within the existing tobacco control environment," said Omar El-Shahawy, MD, MPH, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine and the study's lead author.

Tobacco control efforts worldwide have slowed the epidemic of tobacco use by introducing a variety of policies and regulations, including smoke free air laws, cigarette taxes, and increasing the availability of smoking cessation medications and counseling. In the United States, for example, the American Heart Association and its partners have worked effectively to bring 66 percent of the population under coverage of smoke free air laws.

In recent years, the use of e-cigarettes has rapidly grown. The current study examined the association between e-cigarette and cigarette use and existing state-level tobacco control measures. To calculate and map the use of e-cigarettes and cigarettes, the researchers used 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 data from the National Adult Tobacco Survey, a telephone survey of more than 60,000 U.S. adults. They looked at the prevalence of smoking and vaping over respondents' lifetimes, as well as their current use, and accounted for a variety of sociodemographic factors.

The researchers used the American Lung Association's State of Tobacco Control reports published in 2013 and 2014 to evaluate state tobacco control policies and measures, which they then compared with state-specific smoking and vaping rates.

More than 16 percent of adults in the United States have tried e-cigarettes in their lifetime; of these, one-third were current e-cigarette users, which translates to 5.4 percent overall current e-cigarette use prevalence. There is an assumption that e-cigarette use would help smokers switch away from combustible tobacco use; however, traditional cigarette use persists at more than three times the rate of current e-cigarette use, with more than 17 percent identifying as current smokers.

There were marked variations in e-cigarette use by region and state; mostly western and southern states tended to have higher rates, while rates in eastern states tended to be lower. Current e-cigarette use was highest in Oklahoma (10.3 percent) and lowest in Delaware (2.7 percent), and current cigarette use was highest in West Virginia (26.1 percent) and lowest in Utah (10.7 percent).

Of note, states with stronger implementation of tobacco control measures, including state-level funding for tobacco prevention and control programs that are recommended by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had lower rates of both current cigarette and e-cigarette use.

The researchers point out that their study will be useful for monitoring the impact of future state and federal strategies and regulatory policies pertaining to e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes are believed to be less harmful than cigarettes since the combustion of conventional cigarettes releases most of the known elements linked to a variety of cancers; however, there is no long-term data about their safety. While e-cigarettes are marketed as aides for smoking cessation, "whether e-cigarettes actually help people quit tobacco use completely is currently under scrutiny among the tobacco control community," said study author Scott E. Sherman, MD, MPH, professor of population health at NYU School of Medicine and an affiliated faculty member at the NYU College of Global Public Health.

"Several decades of research on traditional cigarettes guided the existing tobacco control environment. E-cigarettes are relatively new and constantly evolving, which makes the FDA's task in regulating them very challenging," said El-Shahawy. "There are still many unknowns pertaining to the role of e-cigarette in tobacco control. Until this ongoing debate is settled, tobacco control advocates and policy makers should continue focusing on enforcing the existing tobacco control interventions and regulatory framework."

A new microfluidic device developed by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may help realize the potential of tumor-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) - tiny lipid particles that carry molecules through the bloodstream - as biomarkers that could monitor a tumor's response to therapy and provide detailed information to guide treatment choice. In their report published earlier this year in Nature Communications, the team from the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine (MGH-CEM) describes how EVs captured from serum or plasma samples of patients with the dangerous brain tumor glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) provided detailed, tumor-specific genetic and molecular information.

"Glioblastoma is a highly fatal disease with few treatment options," says senior author Shannon Stott, PhD, of the MGH Cancer Center and the BioMEMS Resource Center in the MGH-CEM. "Due to the tumor's location, it has been challenging to get dynamic, real-time molecular information, which limits the ability to determine tumor progression and to match patients with the most promising new therapies. Our device's ability to sort tumor-specific EVs out from the billions of EVs carried through the bloodstream may lead to the development of much-needed diagnostic and monitoring tools for this and other hard-to-treat cancers."

Previous technologies designed to isolate EVs were limited in their ability to distinguish tumor EVs from those carrying molecules from non-malignant cells. More specific approaches using tumor-specific antibodies were time-consuming and cumbersome or did not capture sufficient numbers of tumor-specific EVs from a sample. Other "liquid biopsy" technologies designed to capture tumor cells and molecules - such as several circulating tumor cell (CTC)-isolating devices developed by member of the MGH team - may be limited in their ability to monitor brain tumors throughout treatment. Since these potential biomarkers may not consistently pass through the blood brain barrier, their presence at the time a blood sample is drawn may be limited.

Stott's team combined features of the CTC-detecting HB-Chip, which she helped to develop, with features specific to the capture of EVs. The surfaces through which a sample is passed are optimized to the physical properties of EVs - which are thousands of times smaller than cells - and contain a "cocktail" of antibodies against proteins highly expressed on GBM cells. The team also identified factors that increased the number of tumor-specific EVs captured from a sample and developed methods for releasing EVs from the device while preserving their contents for detailed analysis. Taking this approach, their device can isolate as few as 100 nanometer-sized vesicles in a one-microliter droplet of plasma.

Using the new device, dubbed the EVHB-Chip, the researchers analyzed serum or plasma samples from 13 patients with GBM and 6 control samples from healthy donors. The EVHB-Chip isolated tumor-specific EVs from all 13 patients, and identified the EGFRvIII mutation in 5 of 6 patients tested for that mutation. The captured EVs also identified genes present in the four characteristic subtypes of GBM and revealed the upregulation of more than 50 cancer-associated genes, some not previously observed in GBM EVs.

An assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Stott notes that the great specificity and sensitivity of the EVHB-Chip allow the use of relatively small blood samples, which would be particularly beneficial for pediatric patients for whom other blood biopsy approaches are not always feasible. The flexibility of the device should allow it to be useful for many types of cancer and, since all cells release EVs into the circulation, for other conditions including infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, cardiac events and neurodegenerative disorders. Simultaneous investigations of biomarkers provided by EVs, CTCs and circulating DNA should help determine which can be most informative for specific patients and stages of treatment.

Stott notes that the EVHB-Chip was designed to be a low-cost, easy to use device with the hope of rapid translation to the clinic. "We are excited by this early-stage data, and we look forward to scaling the technology and increasing the number of patient samples analyzed. Specifically, we are interested in exploring how these vesicles change over time in response to treatment, and we see our blood-based assay as an ideal way to explore this in brain tumor patients," she says.

Scientists used a technology designed for the purposes of human forensics, to provide the first genetically documented case of infanticide in brown bears, following the murder of a female and her two cubs in Trentino, the Italian Alps, where a small re-introduced population has been genetically monitored for already 20 years.

The study, conducted and authored by Francesca Davoli, The Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), Bologna, and her team, is published in the open access journal Nature Conservation.

To secure their own reproduction, males of some social mammalian species, such as lions and bears, exhibit infanticidal behaviour where they kill the offspring of their competitors, so that they can mate with the females which become fertile again soon after they lose their cubs. However, sometimes females are also killed while trying to protect their young, resulting in a survival threat to small populations and endangered species.

"In isolated populations with a small number of reproductive adults, sexually selected infanticide can negatively impact the long-term conservation of the species, especially in the case where the female is killed while protecting her cubs," point out the researchers.

"Taking this into account, the genetic identification of the perpetrators could give concrete indications for the management of small populations, for example, placing radio-collars on infanticidal males to track them," they add. "Nevertheless, genetic studies for identifying infanticidal males have received little attention."

Thanks to a database containing the genotypes of all bears known to inhabit the study site and an open-source software used to analyse human forensic genetic profiles, the scientists were able to solve the case much like in a television crime series.

Upon finding the three corpses, the researchers were certain that the animals had not been killed by a human. In the beginning, the suspects were all male brown bears reported from the area in 2015.

Hoping to isolate the DNA of the perpetrator, the researchers collected three samples of hairs and swabbed the female's wounds in search for saliva. Dealing with a relatively small population, the scientists expected that the animals would share a genotype to an extent, meaning they needed plenty of samples.

However, while the DNA retrieved from the saliva swabs did point to an adult male, at first glance it seemed that it belonged to the cubs' father. Later, the scientists puzzled out that the attacker must have injured the cubs and the mother alternately, thus spreading blood containing the inherited genetic material from the father bear. Previous knowledge also excluded the father, since there are no known cases of male bears killing their offspring. In fact, they seem to distinguish their own younglings, even though they most likely recognise the mother.

To successfully determine the attacker, the scientists had to use the very small amount of genetic material from the saliva swabs they managed to collect and conduct a highly sophisticated analysis, in order to obtain four genetic profiles largely overlapping with each other. Then, they compared them against each of the males reported from the area that year. Eventually, they narrowed down the options to an individual listed as M7.

"The monitoring of litters is a fundamental tool for the management of bear populations: it has allowed the authors to genetically confirm the existence of cases of infanticide and in the future may facilitate the retrieval of information necessary to assess the impact of SSI on demographic trends," conclude the researchers.

Maunakea, Hawaii - An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) has made a surprising discovery about the birthplace of groups of stars located in the halo of our Milky Way galaxy.

These halo stars are grouped together in giant structures that orbit the center of our galaxy, above and below the flat disk of the Milky Way. Researchers thought they may have formed from debris left behind by smaller galaxies that invaded the Milky Way in the past.

But in a study published today in the journal Nature, astronomers now have compelling evidence showing that some of these halo structures actually originate from the Milky Way's disk itself, but were kicked out.

"This phenomenon is called galactic eviction," said co-author Judy Cohen, Kate Van Nuys Page Professor of Astronomy at Caltech. "These structures are pushed off the plane of the Milky Way when a massive dwarf galaxy passes through the galactic disk. This passage causes oscillations, or waves, that eject stars from the disk, either above or below it depending on the direction that the perturbing mass is moving."

"The oscillations can be compared to sound waves in a musical instrument," said lead author Maria Bergemann of MPIA. "We call this 'ringing' in the Milky Way galaxy 'galactoseismology,' which has been predicted theoretically decades ago. We now have the clearest evidence for these oscillations in our galaxy's disk obtained so far!"

For the first time, Bergemann's team presented detailed chemical abundance patterns of these halo stars using the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaii.

"The analysis of chemical abundances is a very powerful test, which allows, in a way similar to the DNA matching, to identify the parent population of the star. Different parent populations, such as the Milky Way disk or halo, dwarf satellite galaxies or globular clusters, are known to have radically different chemical compositions. So once we know what the stars are made of, we can immediately link them to their parent populations," said Bergemann.

The scientists investigated 14 stars located in two different halo structures - the Triangulum-Andromeda (Tri-And) and the A13 stellar overdensities. These two structures lie on opposite sides of the Milky Way disk; about 14,000 light years above and below the Galactic plane (see Figure 1).

The team obtained spectra of the halo stars using Keck Observatory's High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES).

"The high throughput and high spectral resolution of HIRES were crucial to the success of the observations of the stars in the outer part of the Milky Way," said Cohen. "Another key factor was the smooth operation of Keck Observatory; good pointing and smooth operation allows one to get spectra of more stars in only a few nights of observation. The spectra in this study were obtained in only one night of Keck time, which shows how valuable even a single night can be."

The team also obtained a spectrum of one additional star taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile.

When comparing the chemical compositions of these stars with the ones found in other cosmic structures, the scientists were surprised to find that the chemical compositions are almost identical, both within and between these groups, and closely match the abundance patterns of the Milky Way outer disk stars.

This provides compelling evidence that the halo stars most likely originate from the Galactic thin disk (the younger part of Milky Way, strongly concentrated towards the Galactic plane) itself.

These findings are very exciting because they indicate the Milky Way's disk and its dynamics are significantly more complex than previously thought.

"We showed that it may be fairly common for groups of stars in the disk to be relocated to more distant realms within the Milky Way - having been 'kicked out' by an invading satellite galaxy. Similar chemical patterns may also be found in other galaxies, indicating a potential galactic universality of this dynamic process," said co-author Allyson Sheffield of LaGuardia Community College/CUNY.

As a next step, the astronomers plan to analyse the spectra of additional stars in the Tri-And and A13 overdensities, as well as stars in other stellar structures further away from the disk. They also plan to determine masses and ages of these stars so they can constrain the time limits of when this galactic eviction took place.

A treatment that improves the lives of nearly 1.3 million people with rheumatoid arthritis might one day originate from scorpion venom. A group of researchers led by Dr. Christine Beeton at Baylor College of Medicine has found that one of the hundreds of components in scorpion venom can reduce the severity of the disease in animal models, without inducing side effects associated with similar treatments. The study appears in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

"Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease - one in which the immune system attacks its own body. In this case, it affects the joints," said Beeton, associate professor of molecular physiology and biophysics and member Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine. "Cells called fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS) play a major role in the disease. As they grow and move from joint to joint, they secrete products that damage the joints and attract immune cells that cause inflammation and pain. As damage progresses, the joints become enlarged and are unable to move."

Current treatments target the immune cells involved in the disease and none are specific for FLS. Beeton and her colleagues studied FLS looking for an 'Achilles' heel' that would allow them to prevent or stop them from damaging the joints.

"In previous work, we identified a potassium channel on FLS of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and found that the channel was very important for the development of the disease," Beeton said. "We wanted to find a way to block the channel to stop the cells damaging the joints."

Potassium channels work by opening gates on the surface of cells that allow potassium ions - small charged atoms - to flow in and out of the cell. The flow of ions through the channels is necessary for the cells to carry out many of their essential functions. Animals such as scorpions have venoms that block potassium and other ion channels. They use the venoms to paralyze and kill prey. Decades ago, scientists discovered this and realized that, if handled correctly, venoms also might have medicinal applications.

Scorpion venom may lead to improved treatments for rheumatoid arthritis

"Scorpion venom has hundreds of different components. One of the components in the venom of the scorpion called Buthus tamulus specifically blocks the potassium channel of FLS and not the channels in other cells such as those of the nervous system," said first author Dr. Mark Tanner, a graduate student in the Beeton lab during the development of this project. "Here, we investigated whether this venom component, called iberiotoxin, would be able to specifically block the FLS potassium channel and reduce the severity of the rheumatoid arthritis in rat models of the disease."

When the researchers treated rat models of the disease with iberiotoxin, they stopped the progression of the disease. In some cases they reversed the signs of established disease, meaning that the animals had better joint mobility and less inflammation in their joints. In addition, treatment with iberiotoxin did not induce side effects, such as tremors and incontinence, observed when treating with another channel blocker called paxilline.

"It was very exciting to see that iberiotoxin is very specific for the potassium channel in FLS and that it did not seem to affect the channels in other types of cells, which might explain the lack of tremors and incontinence," Tanner said.

"Although these results are promising, much more research needs to be conducted before we can use scorpion venom components to treat rheumatoid arthritis," Beeton said. "We think that this venom component, iberiotoxin, can become the basis for developing a new treatment for rheumatoid arthritis in the future."

Offenders should be routinely checked for signs of past head injuries, researchers say.

When a person enters the justice system, there is an "opportunity" to screen them for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), which could help to better support their medical needs.

TBI is linked to greater violence and to problems when in prison, so better support could help to reduce the likelihood of offending or re-offending, and reduce the societal costs of incarceration.

The call comes from researchers who reviewed existing evidence and concluded that young people with TBI are at greater risk of early, more violent offending.

They propose that this may be because TBI can compromise the neurological functions for self-regulation and social behaviour, and increases risk of behavioural and psychiatric disorders.

The study also found that young offenders with TBI are particularly at risk of self-harm and suicidal behaviour.

The experts - from the universities of Exeter, Manchester, Oxford, Glasgow and Sheffield, and the Centre for Mental Health - say the findings question the assumption that TBI is a "coincidental occurrence in the lives of risk takers".

"Addressing TBI offers a means to not only improve the lives of those who offend, but also to reduce crime," said lead author Professor Huw Williams, of the University of Exeter.

"A range of measures could reduce the risk of crime following TBI.

"These could include any form of neurorehabilitation, and better links between emergency departments, community mental health services, GPs and school systems that might lead to early identification and management of TBI in children and young people, particularly in areas of socioeconomic deprivation.

"On a person's entry into the justice system, there is an opportunity to deliver routine screening for TBI and provision of treatment options.

"Another beneficial step could be brain injury link-workers in prisons to enable screening and support for those with TBI."

TBIs result from serious blows to the head that cause permanent brain changes, for example in an assault, a fall or car crash. A very mild injury - typically referred to as a concussion (with some disorientation at the time but no, or brief, loss of consciousness) - rarely leads to TBI. With increased severity of injury, there is a higher risk of chronic problems.

Research has suggested the lifetime costs of TBI are £155,000 for a person aged 15 with "mild to moderate" TBI - £95,000 in healthcare costs and £60,000 for the costs of additional offending. The figures are much higher for young people who are already in the criminal justice system.

The review says people with TBI are incarcerated "at high cost in facilities that might not be well placed to address their needs".

It says 10-20% of people in custody have "complicated mild TBI or moderate to severe head injury", and another 30-40% could have milder TBI.

To reach the finding that TBI is a risk factor for "earlier, more violent, offending", the researchers analysed data from various studies. As a result, the figures used varied depending on things like age, follow-up period and classification of TBI - but overall the researchers estimate that this risk more than doubles in people with TBI.

The review highlights progress, such as UK Parliamentary bodies acknowledging the need to take account of TBI in the criminal justice system.

There are initiatives in England that allow neurodisability screening for people entering youth custody, as well as pilot projects to assess for TBI and other neurodisabilities in young adults and adult prisons.

The review also finds:

TBI is linked to poor engagement in treatment, infractions when in custody and reoffending
Histories of abuse, neglect, and trauma appear particularly elevated in those with TBI versus those without, as are ongoing mental health and drug and alcohol problems.

The paper, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, is entitled: "Traumatic brain injury: a potential cause of violent crime?"

TORONTO, February 26, 2018 - Is clinical depression always the same illness, or does it change over time?

New brain imaging research from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) shows that the brain alters after years of persistent depression, suggesting the need to change how we think about depression as it progresses.

The study, led by senior author Dr. Jeff Meyer of CAMH's Campbell Family Mental Health Research Institute, is published in The Lancet Psychiatry.

The research shows that people with longer periods of untreated depression, lasting more than a decade, had significantly more brain inflammation compared to those who had less than 10 years of untreated depression. In an earlier study, Dr. Meyer's team discovered the first definitive evidence of inflammation in the brain in clinical depression.

This study provides the first biological evidence for large brain changes in long-lasting depression, suggesting that it is a different stage of illness that needs different therapeutics - the same perspective taken for early and later stages of Alzheimer's disease, he says.

"Greater inflammation in the brain is a common response with degenerative brain diseases as they progress, such as with Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson´s disease," says Dr. Meyer, who also holds Canada Research Chair in the Neurochemistry of Major Depression. While depression is not considered a degenerative brain disease, the change in inflammation shows that, for those in whom depression persists, it may be progressive and not a static condition.

Yet currently, says Dr. Meyer, regardless of how long a person has been ill, major depressive disorder is mainly treated with the same approach. Some people may have a couple of episodes of depression over a few years. Others may have persistent episodes over a decade with worsening symptoms, and increasing difficulty going to work or carrying out routine activities.

Treatment options for this later stage of illness, such as medications targeting inflammation, are being investigated by Dr. Meyer and others. This includes re-purposing current medications designed for inflammation in other illnesses to be used in major depressive disorder.

In the study, brain inflammation was measured using a type of brain imaging called positron emission tomography (PET). The brain's immune cells, known as microglia, are involved in the brain's normal inflammatory response to trauma or injury, but too much inflammation is associated with other degenerative illnesses as well as depression. When microglia are activated, they make more translocator protein (TSPO), a marker of inflammation that can be seen using PET imaging.

The study involved 25 people with more than 10 years of depression, 25 with less than 10 years of illness, and 30 people with no depression as a comparison group. TSPO levels were about 30 per cent higher in different brain regions among those with long-lasting untreated depression, compared to those with shorter periods of untreated depression. The group with long-term depression also had higher TSPO levels than those with no depression.

Dr. Meyer also notes that in treatment studies, patients with serious, longstanding depression tend to be excluded, so there is a lack of evidence of how to treat this stage of illness, which needs to be addressed.

Scientists, companies and government agencies are hard at work on decreasing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. In recent years, biofuels produced from corn have emerged as a fuel source to power motor vehicles and, perhaps, airplanes.

But corn is problematic as a biofuel source material. It's resource-intensive to grow, creates many environmental impacts, and is more useful as food.

A study from Colorado State University finds new promise for biofuels produced from switchgrass, a non-edible native grass that grows in many parts of North America. Scientists used modeling to simulate various growing scenarios, and found a climate footprint ranging from -11 to 10 grams of carbon dioxide per mega-joule -- the standard way of measuring greenhouse gas emissions.

To compare with other fuels, the impact of using gasoline results in 94 grams of carbon dioxide per mega-joule.

The study, "High resolution techno-ecological modeling of a bioenergy landscape to identify climate mitigation opportunities in cellulosic ethanol production," was published online Feb. 19 in Nature Energy.

John Field, research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Lab at CSU, said what the team found is significant. "What we saw with switchgrass is that you're actually storing carbon in the soil," he said. "You're building up organic matter and sequestering carbon."

His CSU research team works on second-generation cellulosic biofuels made from non-edible plant material such as grasses. Cellulose is the stringy fiber of a plant. These grasses, including switchgrass, are potentially more productive as crops and can be grown with less of an environmental footprint than corn.

"They don't require a lot of fertilizer or irrigation," Field said. "Farmers don't have to plow up the field every year to plant new crops, and they're good for a decade or longer."

Researchers chose a study site in Kansas since it has a cellulosic biofuel production plant, one of only three in the United States.

The team used DayCent, an ecosystem modeling tool that tracks the carbon cycle, plant growth, and how growth responds to weather, climate and other factors at a local scale. It was developed at CSU in the mid-1990s. The tool allows scientists to predict whether crop production contributes to or helps combat climate change, and how feasible it is to produce certain crops in a given area.

Previous studies on cellulosic biofuels have focused on the engineering details of the supply chain. These details have included analyzing the distance between the farms where the plant material is produced, and the biofuel production plant to which it must be transported. However, the CSU analysis finds that the details of where and how you grow the plant material is just as significant or even more significant for the greenhouse gas footprint of the biofuel, said Field.

The biofuel industry is experiencing challenges, due to low oil prices. The production plant referenced above has new owners and is undergoing a reorganization.

But the future looks bright for biofuels and bioenergy, said Field.

"Biofuels have some capabilities that other renewable energy sources like wind and solar power just don't have," said Field. "If and when the price of oil gets higher, we'll see continued interest and research in biofuels, including the construction of new facilities."

Anxiety can help people to remember things, a study from the University of Waterloo has found.

The study of 80 undergraduate students found that manageable levels of anxiety actually aided people in being able to recall the details of events.

It also found that when anxiety levels got too high or descended into fear, it could lead to the colouring of memories where people begin to associate otherwise neutral elements of an experience to the negative context.

"People with high anxiety have to be careful," said co-author Myra Fernandes, professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo.

"To some degree, there is an optimal level of anxiety that is going to benefit your memory, but we know from other research that high levels of anxiety can cause people to reach a tipping point, which impacts their memories and performance."

The study saw 80 undergraduate students from the University of Waterloo (64 females) complete the experiment. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to a deep encoding instruction group while the other half were randomly assigned to a shallow encoding group. All participants completed the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales.

It was discovered that individuals high in anxiety showed a heightened sensitivity to the influences of emotional context on their memory, with neutral information becoming tainted, or coloured by the emotion with which it was associated during encoding

"By thinking about emotional events or by thinking about negative events this might put you in a negative mindset that can bias you or change the way you perceive your current environment," said Christopher Lee, a psychology Ph. D. candidate at Waterloo. "So, I think for the general public it is important to be aware of what biases you might bring to the table or what particular mindset you might be viewing the world in and how that might ultimately shape what we walk away seeing."

Fernandes also said that for educators, it is important to be mindful that there could be individual factors that influence the retention of the material they are teaching and that lightening the mood when teaching could be beneficial.

A University of Pennsylvania paleontologist has described a 5.5 million-year-old fossil species of turtle from eastern Tennessee. It represents a new species of the genus Trachemys, commonly known as sliders, which are frequently kept as pets today.

Steven Jasinski, author of the new study, is a doctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania and acting curator of paleontology and geology at the State Museum of Pennsylvania. He is completing his Ph.D. at Penn under Peter Dodson, a professor of paleontology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science in the School of Arts and Sciences and a professor of anatomy in the School of Veterinary Medicine.

The study investigated a fossil turtle found around the Miocene-Pliocene boundary in the Gray Fossil Site, an area rich with fossils in eastern Tennessee near East Tennessee State University, where Jasinski completed his master's degree. The site represents an ancient sinkhole surrounded by a forest from which dozens of fossil animal species have been characterized, including new species of red panda, Eurasian badger, kinosternid turtle, and colubrid snake.

Thorough examination of the dozens of turtle fossils from the site revealed important differences between this turtle and other known fossil and living species. Jasinski named the fossil turtle Trachemys haugrudi, after Shawn Haugrud, the lab and field manager and lead preparer at the Gray Fossil Site.

"Shawn has spent an incredible number of hours working on these specimens," Jasinski said. "He cleaned and prepared the fossils and was able to essentially glue this turtle back to life, giving me numerous nearly complete turtle shells to use in this research. Without all that time and effort, I wouldn't have been able to determine nearly as much about this turtle as I did.

"Shawn also didn't do this work alone, as numerous other people including volunteers worked on these fossils and got them prepared so that I could complete my research. They really did all the hard work, and I was then able to determine why it was new and what its implications are" he said.

Turtles are best known for their shells, and indeed it is this feature of their anatomy that is commonly found as fossils. Yet the fossil shells are typically found in broken pieces. Often gaps or holes remain, or only single small pieces are found, and the whole must be inferred from other information, including other fossil and living creatures.

"It is extremely rare to get more complete fossils," Jasinski said, "but Trachemys haugrudi, commonly called Haugrud's slider turtle, provides me with dozens of shells, and several are nearly complete."

Haugrud's slider turtle was a fairly small turtle, not more than approximately 10 inches (25 cm) in total shell length, smaller than the modern-day red-eared slider turtle, Trachemys scripta elegans. Red-eared slider turtles are commonly purchased as pets, though they can grow large, and some owners release them into the wild. As a result, though native to the southeastern United States, red-eared sliders have become one of the most invasive animal species in the world today, found on every continent except Antarctica.

"People tend to see all turtles as similar and release them into whatever pond or river is close by when they no longer want to care for them," Jasinski said. "Once released, however, they often outcompete native species. It is a problem that scientists are still dealing with."

As part of the study, Jasinski sought to determine where Trachemys haugrudi was positioned in the evolution of similar turtles both within the genus and in related genera. He performed a phylogenetic analysis, a method that compares shapes and features of different species to determine how similar or dissimilar and therefore how closely related they may be. He found Haugrud's to be most closely related to a group of fossil Trachemys turtles from Florida and next most closely related to a distinct group of fossil Trachemys from the midwestern U.S. Together, these fossil Trachemys form a closely related group situated within other still-living species of Trachemys.

Today, distinct, closely-related groups of Trachemys species dwell in Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Jasinski's investigation, along with other information from previous studies, indicates that one group evolved in Mexico and Central and South America and evolved into different species within this geographic area, and another group evolved separately in the Caribbean.

Species from the U.S., including the red-eared slider turtle, are found near the base of their "branch" of the Trachemys family tree; their fossil ancestors are still waiting to be discovered. The fossil Trachemys species in Jasinski's analysis are on a distinct part of the Trachemys tree, and current understanding suggests that they did not give rise to the modern species living today.

The findings imply that there was once much greater diversity in Trachemys turtles than exists today. It seems that many of the ancient slider species died out without leaving any direct descendents, perhaps because they lacked the ability to adapt to different environments.

"While Trachemys turtle species are considered plastic, implying they can adapt to and live in many environments, this adaptive lifestyle may be a relatively newer characteristic of these turtles," Jasinski said. "More fossils are needed to better understand if this aspect of their evolution is a recent addition."

To get a handle on invasive turtles, understanding more about their ancient relatives could only be helpful, Jasinski said.

"Trachemys haugrudi helps provide more information on Trachemys and begins to offer us insights into the evolution of an animal that has become a problematic invader in many areas of the world," he said. "Understanding how something evolved into its present form may help us understand why an animal is so adaptive and good at invading new areas and outcompeting native species. If we can see that Trachemys today are especially adaptive because evolution has allowed them to become more generalized through time, we can use that information to determine where they may invade, what species they may outcompete and what we can do to counteract those invasions or help native species compete against them."

Jasinski is undertaking further study into the fossil species of not only Trachemys but other turtles within the family Emydidae, which includes Trachemys. He hopes that further data and fossils will help shed light on other turtle species and provide a clearer understanding of the evolution of this group of mainly New World turtles.

A research team has published a new study lead by Pat Roche, professor of astrophysics at The University of Oxford, and Chris Packham, associate professor of physics and astronomy at The University of Texas at San Antonio. It reveals a new high resolution map of the magnetic field lines in gas and dust swirling around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The team created the map, which is the first of its kind, using the CanariCam infrared camera attached to the Gran Telescopio Canarias on the island of La Palma.

"This collaborative work is an exciting step forward in our collective efforts to gain a greater understanding of our own galaxy and the super-massive black hole at the center of it. It also demonstrates the importance of access to the largest telescopes using advanced cameras/techniques," Packham said.

Black holes are objects with gravitational fields so strong that even light cannot escape their grasp. The center of almost every galaxy appears to host a black hole, including the Milky Way, where we live. Stars move around the black hole at speeds of up to 800 million kilometres an hour, indicating that it has a mass of at least a million times our Sun. Depending on how the material flows, some of it may eventually be captured and engulfed by the black hole.

Visible light from sources in the center of the Milky Way is blocked by clouds of gas and dust. Infrared light, as well as X-rays and radio, more freely passes through this obscuring material, so astronomers use this to see the region more clearly. CanariCam combines this with a polarising device, which preferentially filters light with the particular characteristics associated with magnetic fields.

"This work, in addition to its scientific relevance, is very important to the advancement of the Ph.D. physics and astronomy program here at UTSA, since it involves students in cutting edge research," said Miguel Jose Yacaman, professor and Lutcher Brown Endowed Chair of the UTSA Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Centered on the supermassive black hole, the new infrared map covers a region about one light year on each side. The image shows the intensity of infrared light, and traces magnetic field lines within filaments of warm dust grains and hot gas, which appear here as thin lines reminiscent of brush strokes in a painting.

The filaments, several light years long, appear to meet close to the black hole and may indicate where orbits of streams of gas and dust converge. One prominent feature links some of the brightest stars in the center of the galaxy. Despite the strong winds flowing from these stars, the filaments remain in place, bound by the magnetic field within them. Elsewhere the magnetic field is less clearly aligned with the filaments.

The new observations give astronomers more detailed information on the relationship between the bright stars and the dusty filaments. The origin of the magnetic field in this region is not understood, but it is likely that a smaller magnetic field is stretched out as the filaments are elongated by the gravitational influence of the black hole and stars in the galactic center.

"Big telescopes like GTC, and instruments like CanariCam, deliver real results," Roche said. "We're now able to watch material race around a black hole 25,000 light years away, and for the first time see magnetic fields there in detail."