Time off after high school makes college less likely

March 3, 2022

Science Daily/Cornell University

Academic breaks after high school -- even those lasting just a few months -- can cause some students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to forgo enrolling in college altogether, according to new Cornell University research.

In the paper, "Disrupted academic careers: The returns to time off after high school," Evan Riehl, assistant professor in the ILR School, and co-author Nicolás de Roux of the Universidad de los Andes found that even a brief academic break led to an 8% reduction in college enrollment rates in two regions of Colombia. The researchers found that among those students, the break had the largest impact on those from disadvantaged academic and socioeconomic backgrounds.

The researchers also found that the academic break reduced the early-career earnings of high-ability students, but had little impact on the earnings for less-prepared students.

"In Colombia, as in many countries, college dropout rates are really high," Riehl said. "There is wide variation in the quality of colleges and the amount of resources that colleges have to help students graduate. So students must be academically prepared and motivated to earn a degree.

"We find that individuals who were prepared to succeed in college would have had large returns to attending college, and in this sense they made a 'mistake' by not enrolling," he said. "Other students, however, may have dropped out of college anyway, and so forgoing college did not have a big impact on their careers."

To conduct their study, Riehl and de Roux took advantage of a policy change that altered academic calendars in two Colombian regions, requiring nearly 30,000 high school graduates to wait an extra semester to start college. For data, they merged records from a national standardized high school exit exam to college enrollment and earnings records from the Ministries of Education and Social Protection.

The results of the study suggest that a variety of "mistakes" can arise in the transition from high school to college, and that there can be benefits to education systems, like those used in some European countries, that track students into appropriate postsecondary options.

"In the U.S. and Colombia, students have more flexibility in choosing which colleges to apply to after high school," wrote the authors. "More flexible education systems can lead to indecision in the transition from high school to college, and thus create breaks in students' academic careers. … The returns to college may be low if students are less prepared or less motivated."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220303125018.htm

Children eat what they like, but food intake driven more by what they dislike

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/Penn State

It is often said that "children eat what they like," but the results of a new study by Penn State nutritionists and sensory scientists suggests that when it comes to meals, it is more accurate and more relevant to say, "children do not eat what they dislike."

There is an important difference, according to lead researcher Kathleen Keller, associate professor in the departments of Nutritional Sciences and Food Science, who conducted an experiment involving 61 children ages 4-6 years to assess the relationship between their liking of foods in a meal and subsequent intake. The research revealed that when presented with a meal, disliking is a stronger predictor of what youngsters eat than liking.

"In other words, rather than high-liking driving greater intake, our study data indicate that lower-liking led children to avoid some foods and leave them on the plate," she said. "Kids have a limited amount of room in their bellies, so when they are handed a tray, they gravitate toward their favorite thing and typically eat that first, and then make choices about whether to eat other foods."

Study co-author John Hayes, professor of food science and director of the Sensory Evaluation Center in the College of Agricultural Sciences, puts it another way.

"For 50 plus years, we've known liking and intake are positively correlated, but this often leads to the mistaken assumption that if it tastes better, you will eat more," he said. "Reality is a bit more nuanced. In adults, we know that if you really like a food, you may or may not eat it. But if you don't like it, you'll rarely or never eat it. These new data show the same pattern is true in young kids."

Children participated in two identical laboratory sessions in the study conducted in Keller's Children's Eating Behavior Laboratory in the College of Health and Human Development, where seven foods -- chicken nuggets, ketchup, potato chips, grapes, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and cookies -- were included on a tray. Also included were two beverages, fruit punch and milk.

Before eating the meals, children were asked to rate their liking of each food on the following five-point scale -- Super Bad, Bad, Maybe Good-Maybe Bad, Good and Super Good. After the children had eaten as much of the meal as they wanted, the researchers weighed what they ate and compared the results with what the kids said they liked and disliked. The correlations were striking.

In findings recently published in the journal Appetite, the researchers reported that the relationship between liking and intake was not strong for most of the foods. For instance, only liking for potato chips, grapes, cherry tomatoes and fruit punch was positively associated with the amount consumed. But no associations were found between liking and intake of other meal items.

However, there was a strong correlation between consumption -- or nonconsumption in this case -- and the foods the children said they didn't like. At a multi-component meal, rather than eating what they like, these data are more consistent with the notion that children do not eat what they dislike, the researchers concluded.

Even at a young age, children's food choices are influenced by their parents and peers, Keller pointed out. So, we need to be careful with assumptions about what truly is driving their behavior when they sit down to eat a meal.

"They pick up on what is said around the table about what foods are good, and while that may not actually correspond to kids eating them, they are taking it all in, and that's affecting their perceptions of foods," she said. "Milk is a good example of that -- for some families, there may be a health halo effect around milk. Kids learn from an early age that drinking milk will give them a strong body, so they may drink milk even if it's not their favorite beverage."

Because children in the United States continue to consume insufficient amounts of vegetables, the findings of research projects such as this one are of great interest to parents, many of whom struggle to get their kids to eat vegetables, Keller believes. Parents want to know how they can improve their kids' nutrition.

"Some parents struggle with kids who are very picky eaters," she said. "That can cause long-term nutrition issues and creates a lot of stress for the family. I think picky eating is one of the most common complaints that I hear from parents -- 'How do I get my child to accept more foods? How do I make the dinner experience better and easier for my family?'"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222161826.htm

Adolescent psychological well-being tied to adult risk of cardiovascular disease

Researchers find that people who are more upbeat in their youth can lower their chances for heart disease as adults

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/University of Missouri-Columbia

Scientists have known for years that a person's risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) can be lowered with lifestyle changes such as modifying diet, exercise, alcohol and tobacco use. Now Anand Chockalingam and Sharan Srinivas at the University of Missouri demonstrate in a new study that a long-term association also exists between an adolescent's psychological well-being and their risk of CVD as an adult.

Specifically, Chockalingam, a professor of clinical medicine, and Srinivas, an assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, have found that people who are more optimistic or positive when they are adolescents can lower their chances of being in the high-risk category for CVD as an adult.

"Here, we are recognizing the role of the environment and lifestyle in heart disease," said, Chockalingam, who is also a cardiologist with MU Health Care. "Some prior research has shown that more than 80% of all heart attacks can be prevented with a few simple lifestyle interventions at any point in the individual's life. Although a heart attack may occur at the age of 55, the underlying buildup of plaque or atherosclerosis starts much earlier, often in teenage years. By exploring healthy habits and connecting with optimistic peers in the impressionable teenage years, it becomes intuitive to sustain a good lifestyle."

Chockalingam believes this study emphasizes the value of optimism in an adolescent's life.

"Adolescents are simultaneously understanding the world as well as their own inner nature and mindset," Chockalingam said. "Therefore, parents and other caregivers have a substantial role in the lifetime resilience and outlook of children. The biggest legacy that anyone can pass on for subsequent generations is optimism."

The team analyzed data from study participants involved with the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). Chockalingam said the database served as a rich source of information for their study.

"The Add Health database meticulously collected data from over 20,000 adolescents when they were about 15 years of age, and followed up every few years afterwards with repeated surveys of several hundred health aspects for the same group of children," Chockalingam said. "This gives us a unique window into the lifetime risk and correlation between various social, economic, psychological and genetic health determinants."

A shared interest in tennis

Both researchers have personal experience that reflects the results of their study. Srinivas credits his involvement in sports as a youth in India, including playing competitive tennis until age 18, for leading to a life and career advocating for a healthy lifestyle, both mentally and physically.

His passion, along with a continued interest in playing tennis, also led to a serendipitous research collaboration with Chockalingam. What began as a friendly game of tennis between two working professionals -- Srinivas and Chockalingam -- grew over time to include discussions of their mutual interests in health care-related research. Eventually, the two began working together on research projects, and their expertise complements one another -- Srinivas focuses on data analytics and industrial engineering tools to improve both the patient and health care provider experience; Chockalingam provides clinical insights and a health care provider perspective.

Integrating engineering and health care

Srinivas believes this study could help clinicians develop a personalized approach to lower someone's CVD risk by integrating problem-solving techniques currently used by industrial engineers that place an emphasis on prevention and early detection.

"There are several step-by-step techniques established by industrial engineers that help with early detection of problems in the manufacturing and service industries," said Srinivas, who has a joint appointment in the Trulaske College of Business. "This is an opportunity to adapt some of these techniques to enable health care practitioners to monitor the well-being of an adolescent over time, because that's the formative stage where your outlook on life is established, and it doesn't change much after that."

Srinivas acknowledges this study is only a first step toward establishing the association between adolescent well-being and CVD risk. He believes additional analysis of other data sets are needed to help overcome a limitation they had in this study, which was only taking a snapshot of someone's life during adolescence and again during young adulthood. He says there needs to be additional insights into how people are doing in between these life stages.

In the future, Srinivas would like to explore the use of other industrial engineering and data analytics techniques, such as machine learning.

"We want to use these techniques to help predict the long-term risk for CVD among adolescents, and uncover the impact that underlying factors can have on a person's chance to develop CVD, including the influence of a person's well-being," Srinivas said.

"Adolescent psychological well-being and adulthood cardiovascular disease risk: longitudinal association and implications for care quality management," was published in Benchmarking: An International Journal. Kavin Anand, an undergraduate student at Stanford University, also contributed to this work.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222135446.htm

One in three young people say they felt happier during lockdown

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/University of Cambridge

One in three young people say their mental health and wellbeing improved during COVID-19 lockdown measures, with potential contributing factors including feeling less lonely, avoiding bullying and getting more sleep and exercise, according to researchers at the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world, many countries imposed strict lockdown measures, with workplaces and businesses closing and people forced to remain at home. Measures also included school closures, with exceptions for young people whose parents were classified as essential workers and those considered 'vulnerable', for example children under the care of social services and those in families or social situations deemed by schools to be of concern.

Several studies have reported that the lockdown had a negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of young people, but this effect has not been uniformly reported, with a number of studies suggesting that some young people may have benefited from lockdown.

Emma Soneson, a PhD student and Gates Scholar at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, said: "The common narrative that the pandemic has had overwhelmingly negative effects on the lives of children and young people might not tell the full story. In fact, it seems as though a sizeable number of children and young people may have experienced what they felt was improved wellbeing during the first national lockdown of 2020.

"After hearing from patients in our clinical practice and informally from several parents and young people that they thought the lockdown was beneficial for their or their child's mental health, we decided to look at this trend."

Ms Soneson and colleagues explored this issue using the OxWell Student Survey, a large, school-based survey of students aged eight to 18 years living in England. More than 17,000 students took part in the June/July 2020 survey, during the tail end of the first national lockdown, answering questions about their experiences of the pandemic, school, home life, and relationships, among others. The results of their research have been published in European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The team found that one in three students thought their mental wellbeing had improved during the first lockdown. In fact, an almost identical number of students fell into each of the three categories: their mental wellbeing had improved; there had been no change; or they had experienced a deterioration to their wellbeing.

The highest proportions of students who reported improved mental wellbeing were among those who were in school every day (39%) and most days (35%), while the highest proportion of students who reported worse wellbeing were those who attended just once or twice (39%).

Students who felt they had had better wellbeing during lockdown were more likely than their peers to report positive lockdown experiences of school, home, relationships, and lifestyle. For example, compared with their peers, a greater percentage of students reporting better wellbeing also reported decreases in bullying, improved relationships with friends and family, less loneliness, better management of schoolwork, more sleep, and more exercise during lockdown compared with before.

Professor Peter Jones, also from Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, said: "What we've seen is a complex mix of factors that affect whether a child's mental health and wellbeing was affected by the lockdown. These range from their mental health before the pandemic through to their relationships with their families and peers, and their attitudes towards school."

While previous studies have reported young people worrying about the impact of lockdown on friendships, nearly half of those who reported improved mental wellbeing in this new study reported feeling less left out and lonely and having better relationships with friends and family. In part, this may be because access to digital forms of social interaction can mitigate the negative effects of reduced face-to-face contact. With many parents and carers at home, there was also potential for improved family relationships.

One specific aspect of peer relationships that changed during the pandemic was bullying. The researchers found that most young people who had been bullied in the past year reported that the bullying had reduced. The proportion that reported that they were bullied less than before lockdown was higher for those who reported improved wellbeing (92%) than for those who reported no change (83%) or deterioration in their wellbeing (81%).

For approximately half of the young people who reported improved mental wellbeing, lockdown was associated with improvements in sleep and exercise -- for example, 49% of those who reported improved mental wellbeing reported sleeping more, compared with 30% of those who reported no change and 19% of those who reported deterioration.

Family relationships also clearly played a part: the proportion of students who reported that they were getting along with household members better than before lockdown was higher for the group who reported improved mental wellbeing (53%) than for the groups who reported no change (26%) or deterioration (21%), with a similar pattern for getting along with friends (41%, 26%, and 27% respectively).

Professor Mina Fazel from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford said: "While the pandemic has undoubtedly had negative consequences for many, it is important to keep in mind that this is not the case for all children and young people. We are interested in how we can learn from this group and determine if some of the changes can be sustained in order to promote better mental health and wellbeing moving forward."

Some of the school-related factors that may have influenced how a young person responded to the lockdown include: the increased opportunities for flexible and tailored teaching that encouraged different styles of learning; smaller class sizes and more focused attention from teachers for those attending school; and later waking times and more freedom during the school day.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222135415.htm

Want students to do better in class? Send them on culturally enriching field trips

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/Brigham Young University

Students who attended three different field trips in fourth or fifth grade scored higher on end-of-grade exams, received higher course grades, were absent less often and had fewer behavioral infractions. These benefits were strongest when students entered middle school.

School field trips have been part of the educational experience for children across the nation for decades. While many school administrators believe there's intrinsic value in letting students develop socially with out-of-classroom experiences, quantifying the impact and the value of field trips is difficult. And justifying out-of-class time can be burdensome for teachers tasked with providing a good education amid the pandemic.

As such, many art venues, science museums and zoos have reported declines in field trip attendance. Teachers and students have also reported decreasing amounts of school-sponsored trips, particularly for minority students in academically low-performing schools.

But thanks to new research from BYU, Johns Hopkins University and the Heritage Foundation, the value of field trips is finally being understood and measured. The study, published in The Journal of Human Resources, found that students who participate in multiple field trips during the school year have higher test scores, perform better in class and have increased cultural conscientiousness over time.

"Contrary to practice where schools, facing accountability pressures, trade extracurriculars for increased seat time, we found that there's no harm to academics by taking time out of the classroom," said Heidi Holmes Erickson, assistant professor of educational leadership at BYU and lead author of the study. "It's possible to expose students to a broader world and have culturally enriching curriculum without sacrificing academic outcomes, and it may actually improve academic outcomes."

The study used an experimental design and randomly assigned fourth- and fifth-grade students from fifteen elementary schools in the Atlanta, Georgia, area to participate in three culturally enriching field trips during a school year. The field trips included a trip to an art museum, a live theater performance and a symphony concert.

Students who attended three different field trips in fourth or fifth grade scored higher on end-of-grade exams, received higher course grades, were absent less often and had fewer behavioral infractions. These benefits were strongest when students entered middle school.

"We anticipated that field trips wouldn't harm test scores. However, we started seeing academic improvements and realized that students who participated in these field trips were doing better in class," said Erickson. "One potential reason for this is that field trips expand students' world concept and expose them to new ideas. Similarly, students might be more engaged in school thanks to field trips. Students find school more exciting and want to try harder in class."

In addition to the academic improvements, students who participated in multiple field trips were 12% of a standard deviation more likely to express a desire to consume arts in the future and nearly 14% of a standard deviation more likely to agree with the statement, "I believe people can have different opinions about the same thing."

Researchers say this is more evidence that field trips are beneficial not only for academic success but for individual character development as well.

"Parents are very interested in the academic quality of their child's school, but they're also interested in the social skills and social engagement habits they develop. Cultural field trips are easy ways to help facilitate both."

Erickson says she's hopeful this study will be a resource for policymakers and school principals who are interested in improving children's growth during the children's school experience. When considered in the context of the pandemic, she says this research should be a caution to administrators who are considering eliminating out-of-class opportunities.

"Field trips have been non-existent for the last two years, and many cultural institutions like museums and science centers were closed. Schools want to make up learning loss from the pandemic and might feel pressure to sacrifice a well-rounded education for increased seat-time," says Erickson. "Field trips might be the first thing to go. Addressing student learning loss is crucial, but schools should be thoughtful in their approach."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222125106.htm

Positive parenting can reduce the risk that children develop obesity

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/Penn State

New research from Penn State found that children with positive, early interactions with their care givers -- characterized by warmth, responsiveness, and a sitmulating home environment -- were at reduced risk of childhood obesity.

"A lot of the discussion around childhood obesity and other health risks focuses on identifying and studying the exposure to risk," said Brandi Rollins, assistant research professor of biobehavioral health. "We took a strength-based approach in our analysis. We found that a supportive family and environment early in a child's life may outweigh some of the cumulative risk factors that children can face."

The study, "Family Psychosocial Assets, Child Behavioral Regulation, and Obesity," recently appeared in the journal Pediatrics. In the article, Rollins and Lori Francis, associate professor of biobehavioral health, analyzed data from over 1,000 mother-child pairs and found that children's early exposures to family psychosocial assets -- including a quality home environment, emotional warmth from the mother, and a child's ability to self-regulate -- reduced the risk of developing childhood obesity.

Encouragingly, these factors were protective even when children faced familial risks for obesity, including poverty, maternal depression, or residence in a single-parent home.

"Research on parenting has shown that these types of family assets influence children's behavior, academic success, career, and -- not surprisingly -- health," Rollins said. "It is significant that these factors also protect against childhood obesity because the family assets we studied are not food or diet-specific at all. It is heartening to know that, by providing a loving, safe environment, we can reduce the risk that children will develop obesity."

Severe obesity

Children are deemed to have obesity when their body mass indices (BMIs) are greater than 95% of other children their age and gender. There is a great deal of variance, however, in the BMIs of children who exceed the obesity threshold. Children whose BMI is 20% higher than the obesity threshold are considered to have severe obesity.

The researchers found that children who had early-onset severe obesity did not face greater levels of family risk than children who were not obese. Children with severe obesity, however, did have fewer family assets than children who were not obese or who displayed moderate levels of obesity. More research is needed to understand which factors contribute to the development of severe obesity and which factors reduce the risk.

"Though the findings on severe obesity may seem discouraging, they offer some hope," Rollins explained. "Some risk factors, like household poverty, can be very difficult to change. Assets, on the other hand, may be easier to build. People can learn to parent responsively. It is encouraging that parenting really matters, that family matters."

What parents can do

This work is based on research in parenting and child development. Responsive parenting, one of the family assets measured in the study, involves responding to children in a timely, sensitive, and age-appropriate manner based on the child's presenting needs. Researchers in Penn State's Center for Childhood Obesity Research are also exploring how responsive parenting can reduce the risk of childhood obesity.

This study focused on childhood obesity, but the researchers said that parents may improve many outcomes for their children by learning responsive-parenting skills. Knowledge of responsive-parenting skills, however, may not lead directly to implementing those skills in the home.

"No one can read a pamphlet about cars and suddenly expect to drive," said Rollins. "Driving is a skill that requires education and practice. The same is true of responsive parenting.

"Public health professionals, clinicians, and researchers must collaborate to help families develop psychosocial assets, including responsive parenting and a structured home environment," she continued. "This could improve childhood obesity rates and other important quality-of-life outcomes."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222135155.htm

Children with insomnia likely to continue to suffer as adults, long-term study finds

February 17, 2022

Science Daily/Penn State

Children with insomnia symptoms are likely to persist with them as young adults and are significantly more likely to develop an insomnia disorder in early adulthood compared to children who do not have difficulty sleeping, according to new research led by scientists at Penn State College of Medicine. The study is the first long-term cohort study to describe the developmental trajectories of childhood insomnia symptoms through adolescence and into young adulthood.

"Young adulthood is a stage in life where there is a documented increase in the severity and prevalence of physical and mental health problems, such as cardiovascular disease and suicide rates," said Julio Fernandez-Mendoza, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health. "Sleep disorders -- especially sleep apnea and insomnia -- are linked with poorer cardiovascular and mental health. Given that up to 25% of children, 35% of adolescents and 45% of young adults suffer from insomnia symptoms, we were interested in learning how these symptoms evolve over time as the child grows into adulthood."

The team's longitudinal study, which began in the year 2000, was designed as a random, population-based study of children, ages 5-12 years. Children and their parents provided reports of the children's insomnia symptoms -- defined as moderate-to-severe difficulties initiating and/or maintaining sleep. The children also participated in an objective in-laboratory sleep study using polysomnography, which can identify sleep apnea and other indicators such as the amount and quality of sleep. The team studied 502 children 7.4 years later as adolescents (median 16 years old) and 15 years later as young adults (median 24 years old).

The team found that 43% of children with insomnia symptoms continued to suffer through adolescence into adulthood. Although about 27% of children with insomnia symptoms experienced remission of symptoms by adolescence, close to 19% experienced a waxing and waning pattern into adulthood. Among children without insomnia symptoms, about 15% of them developed insomnia symptoms in the transition to adolescence and persisted with them into adulthood, and another 21% newly developed them in young adulthood. In addition, about 16% of these children without insomnia symptoms experienced a waxing-and-waning pattern.

"We know that not everyone who complains of insomnia symptoms has the same degree of sleep disturbance when sleep is measured objectively in the laboratory, so it was important that our study included these objective in-lab measurements in addition to the self-reports," said Fernandez-Mendoza. "Indeed, the study found that insomnia symptoms in adolescents who slept short in the lab were 5.5 times more likely to worsen into adult insomnia, while those who reported the same insomnia symptoms and slept normally in the lab were not at increased risk of worsening into adult insomnia.

The results published today (Feb. 16) in the journal Pediatrics.

"The key finding of this study is that insomnia symptoms in childhood are much more likely to persist over time than we previously believed," said Fernandez-Mendoza. "Those with insomnia symptoms and laboratory-measured short sleep duration are much more likely to evolve to develop a clinical condition in early adulthood, and not just to persist with the symptoms. So, parents and clinicians should not assume that insomnia symptoms are benign complaints that will go away with age. That's not what our study shows for a significant proportion of youth."

Fernandez-Mendoza added that on the flip side, many adults who have insomnia may have had problems sleeping as a child.

"Although adults' sleep issues tend to be triggered by their most recent life stressors, for some people, their insomnia may track back to sleep problems starting in childhood," he said.

Although the team did not investigate the underlying causes for children's sleep issues, Fernandez-Mendoza said the primary causes are typically 'behavioral,' such as when a child does not want to go to sleep or needs a parent in the room to fall asleep or resume sleep; psychiatric and behavioral disorders, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism or mood disorders; and medical conditions, such as headaches or gastrointestinal problems. However, he emphasized that gender, race and socioeconomic factors need always to be taken into account.

"We know there are health disparities in insomnia symptoms," said Fernandez-Mendoza. "For example, our prior studies showed that females after puberty; racial and ethnic minorities, specifically Black/African American; and children from low socioeconomic households are more likely to have insomnia symptoms that persist in the transition to adolescence."

Fernandez-Mendoza noted that the team's findings suggest that childhood insomnia symptoms require early intervention, while adolescence is a critical time to address chronic sleep issues. Interventions can include behavioral therapy for behavioral insomnia of childhood and appropriate treatments for medical or psychiatric conditions. The first-line intervention in adults is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI), which is also demonstrating to be highly effective in youth, particularly in adolescents.

In addition to examining the trajectory of insomnia symptoms over time, the researchers also collected data on health outcomes and are currently in the process of finalizing the publication of those data.

"We know that poor sleep is related to adverse health outcomes," said Fernandez-Mendoza. "We suspect that many children who experience insomnia symptoms that persist into adulthood will also suffer from some negative health consequences."

Other Penn State authors on the paper include Kristina Lenker, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral health; Susan L. Calhoun, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral health; Myra Qureshi, administrative assistant; Anna Ricci, graduate student; Fan He, instructor; Alexandros N. Vgontzas, professor of psychiatry; Jiangang Liao, professor of public health sciences; Duanping Liao, professor of public health sciences and vice chair for research; and Edward O. Bixler, professor of psychiatry. Elizaveta Bourchtein, postdoctoral fellow, University of Michigan, also is an author.

The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institute of Mental Health; and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences supported this research.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220217122401.htm

Link between high cholesterol and heart disease 'inconsistent'

March 14, 2022

Science Daily/RCS

New research from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences has revealed that the link between 'bad' cholesterol (LDL-C) and poor health outcomes, such as heart attack and stroke, may not be as strong as previously thought.

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the research questions the efficacy of statins when prescribed with the aim of lowering LDL-C and therefore reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Previous research has suggested that using statins to lower LDL-C positively affects health outcomes, and this is reflected in the various iterations of expert guidelines for the prevention of CVD. Statins are now commonly prescribed by doctors, with one third of Irish adults over the age of 50 taking statins, according to previous research.

The new findings contradict this theory, finding that this relationship was not as strong as previously thought. Instead, the research demonstrates that lowering LDL-C using statins had an inconsistent and inconclusive impact on CVD outcomes such as myocardial infarction (MI), stoke, and all-cause mortality.

In addition, it indicates that the overall benefit of taking statins may be small and will vary depending on an individual's personal risk factors.

The lead author on the paper is Dr Paula Byrne from the HRB Centre for Primary Care Research based in RCSI's Department of General Practice. Commenting on the findings, Dr Byrne said: "The message has long been that lowering your cholesterol will reduce your risk of heart disease, and that statins help to achieve this. However, our research indicates that, in reality, the benefits of taking statins are varied and can be quite modest."

The researchers go on to suggest that this updated information should be communicated to patients through informed clinical decision-making and updated clinical guidelines and policy.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220314120702.htm

Links between circadian rhythms, metabolism and addiction

Findings reveal possible role for peripheral organs in substance use disorders

March 11, 2022

Science Daily/University of California - Irvine

A new University of California, Irvine-led study establishes important conceptual connections between the fields of circadian rhythms, metabolism, and addiction. Going beyond current studies on substance use disorders, which focus on the impact of addictive drugs on the brain, this new research highlights an existing connection between specific neurons and peripheral organs.

The study, titled "Dopamine D2 receptor signaling in the brain modulates circadian liver metabolomic profiles," was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Our findings provide a link to substance use disorders and metabolic dysfunctions," explained Emiliana Borrelli, PhD, professor of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics at UCI School of Medicine who, for this study, collaborated with the late Paolo Sassone-Corsi, PhD, professor of Biological Chemistry at UCI. "Through our research we explored how the disruption of normal neuronal functions affects metabolic activity and may move the body to an altered state away from homeostasis, which could contribute to the drug seeking behaviors exhibited by people with substance use disorders."

By analyzing the liver metabolome of mice deficient in the expression of the dopamine D2 receptor (D2R) in striatal medium spiny neurons, the researchers found profound changes in the liver circadian metabolome compared to control mice. In addition, they found that activation of dopaminergic circuits by acute cocaine administration reprograms the circadian liver metabolome.

"D2R signaling in medium spiny neurons is key for striatal output and is essential for regulating the first response to the cellular and rewarding effects of cocaine," said Borrelli. "Thus, our results suggest that changes in dopamine signaling in specific striatal neurons evoke major changes in liver physiology. Dysregulation of liver metabolism could contribute to an altered allostatic state and therefore be involved in continued use of drugs."

The circadian clock is tightly intertwined with metabolism and relies heavily on multifaceted interactions between organ systems to maintain proper timing. Genetic and/or environmental causes can disrupt communication between organs and alter rhythmic activities. Substance use leads to altered dopamine signaling followed by reprogramming of circadian gene expression and metabolism in the reward system.

This study shows that dopamine D2 receptors (D2R) in striatal medium spiny neurons (MSNs) play a key role in regulating diurnal liver metabolic activities. In addition, drugs that increase dopamine levels, such as cocaine, disrupt circadian metabolic profiles in the liver, which is exacerbated by loss of D2R signaling in MSNs. These results uncover a strict communication between neurons/brain areas and liver metabolism as well as the association between substance use and systemic deficits," said Borrelli.

Substance use disorders affect millions of people worldwide. The rewarding properties of substances, such as alcohol, nicotine, opioids, and psychostimulants, are linked to their ability to increase dopamine levels in brain areas that control emotions and induce pleasure. Drug intake modifies neuronal plasticity and is at the start of the process of addiction, which leads vulnerable individuals to continually seek and abuse these substances despite the adverse consequences on their lives.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220311115311.htm

Music combined with auditory beat stimulation may reduce anxiety for some

Combined treatments appear to help people with moderate trait anxiety better than music alone

March 9, 2022

Science Daily/PLOS

Treatments integrating music and auditory beat stimulation are effective in reducing state anxiety in some patients, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Adiel Mallik and Frank Russo of the Ryerson University, Canada.

Anxiety has been steadily increasing, particularly in the adolescent and young adult populations, over recent decades. Studies have previously shown that listening to music can reduce anxiety, perhaps even more effectively than some anti-anxiety medications. However, quantitative data on the effects of personalized music on anxiety has been lacking.

In the new study, the researchers randomized 163 patients taking anti-anxiety medications to participate in an at-home treatment session involving music, auditory beat stimulation, both, or pink noise -- background sounds similar to white noise. The music was selected for each patient using LUCID's artificial intelligence which curates music based on the patient's emotional state and music preferences. Auditory beat stimulation involves combinations of tones, played in one or both ears, designed to trigger changes to brain activity. In all groups, patients were asked to download a customized application on their smart phone for the treatment, close their eyes, and listen to a 24-minute session.

Among people with moderate anxiety before the treatment session, greater reductions in somatic anxiety -- the physical symptoms of anxiety -- were seen in people who listened to both music and ABS (p=0.04, effect size=0.83), or those who listened to music alone (p=0.05, effect size=0.52), compared to those who listened to pink noise. The greatest reductions in cognitive state anxiety -- the aspect of anxiety related to thoughts and feelings -- were also seen in moderate trait anxiety participants who listened to both music and ABS. Among people with high trait anxiety before the session, the music-alone group had significantly higher reductions in anxiety compared to the ABS-alone group (p=0.04, effect size=0.72).

The authors conclude that sound-based treatments can be effective in reducing state anxiety and potentially offer a simple and easily distributable method of treating anxiety in a segment of the population.

Drs. Russo and Malik add: "With the pandemic and remote work, there has been a remarkable uptick in the use of digital health tools to support mental health. The results of this clinical trial indicate great promise for the use of digital health tools, such as LUCID's digital music therapy, in the management of anxiety and other mental health conditions."

"The findings from this research are exciting as they indicate that personalized music shows great promise in effectively reducing anxiety in specific segments of the population that suffer from anxiety. Hopefully, with additional research, we can help build a solid evidence base which further supports the use of personalized music as an additional tool in the clinician's toolbox that can be used to help reduce anxiety in the patient population."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220309140921.htm

Stress damages the movement centers in the brain

March 8, 2022

Science Daily/University of Bonn

Stress seems to have a negative effect on the learning of movements -- at least in mice. This is the conclusion of a recent study at the University of Bonn. According to the study, the neurons of rodents lose some of their contacts with other neurons after stress. The animals also developed motor deficits. The results may be useful for earlier diagnosis and improved therapy of stress-related diseases such as depression. They also document that stress leaves traces in the brain -- possibly permanent ones. The study appeared in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Chronically stressed people often show abnormalities in their motor skills, such as poorer fine motor control. However, how these symptoms occur has hardly been studied so far. "We investigated this question in our study," explains Prof. Dr. Valentin Stein from the Institute of Physiology II at the University of Bonn.

The researchers used mice as experimental animals, some of which they exposed to a stressful situation for a few days. Meanwhile, they used a special microscopy method to take pictures of the rodents' brains. They focused on parts of the cerebral cortex responsible for motor control and learning new movements.

"With our method, it is possible to observe one and the same neuron at different points in time," says Dr. Anne-Kathrin Gellner, a physician at the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at Bonn University Hospital. "We can therefore see whether and how it changes as a result of stress."

Stressed mice lose synapses

In fact, the researchers came across a conspicuous feature: after the stressful situation, the neurons studied lost some of their synapses -- these are the contacts to other nerve cells. During learning processes, new synapses are usually formed or existing ones are strengthened. Instead, the stressed rodents lost up to 15 percent of their contacts.

At the same time, the animals developed motor learning deficits. For example, they had to try to grasp a food pellet with one paw and transport it into their mouths. In the wild, mice use both paws to do this, so they had to relearn this skill. The non-stressed control group achieved a success rate of 30 percent after five days. The stressed rodents, however, only managed to take the food in every tenth attempt.

Mice vary in their sensitivity to stress. Some of them hardly develop any abnormalities after a few days of stress -- they are considered resilient. Surprisingly, these robust animals had similar difficulties as their more sensitive peers in learning to grasp with one hand. "It is therefore possible that motor tests are very suitable for detecting stress-related disorders such as depression before other symptoms become apparent," hopes Prof. Valentin Stein.

Even resilient animals are not immune

Even in resilient animals, moreover, the number of synapses decreased after the stress event. Unlike their stress-sensitive peers, however, the affected neurons recovered: after one and a half weeks, the number of synapses was again similar to that before the stress event and comparable to that in non-stressed control animals. "Nevertheless, it may well be that psychological stress also leaves permanent traces on them if it is too long or too frequent," worries Stein, who is also a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Area (TRA) "Life and Health."

The researchers also have clues as to what triggers the loss of synapses: Certain immune cells, the microglia, were activated in the rodents' brains. They belong to the so-called phagocytes and can, for example, digest pathogens or defective cells. It is possible that they are "switched on" by stress and then attack the contact sites.

The research group also examined the fluid that washes around the brain and spinal cord. They found certain proteins that can normally be detected there in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. "We therefore believe that stress-related psychiatric diseases such as depression are also associated with the degradation of neurons," says Dr. Gellner. "Accordingly, long-term stress -- to which children are increasingly exposed -- can potentially cause serious damage to the brain."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220308102845.htm

Communities with higher levels of racial prejudice have worse health outcomes

Area-level racial prejudice drives health inequities, research finds

March 7, 2022

Science Daily/American Psychological Association

People who live in communities with higher levels of racial prejudice have worse health outcomes, including more heart disease and mental health problems and higher overall mortality rates, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

The researchers conducted a systematic review of fourteen papers that used data gathered from Google, Twitter and other big-data sources to look at how prejudice and health are intertwined in communities across the United States.

"Racism is gaining recognition as a fundamental driver of health inequities," said lead study author Eli Michaels, MPH, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. "Leveraging big data to capture area-level racial prejudice is one innovative approach to measuring the overall racial climate in which people live, work, play and pray. The studies included in this review revealed that living in an area with high levels of racial prejudice may harm health and widen racial health inequities."

The research was published in the journal Health Psychology.

The studies in the review used a variety of sources to measure community-level racial prejudice and included tens of millions of data points from large-scale surveys, internet searches and social media. Three studies analyzed data from Google Trends on how often users' searches included a racial slur. Four studies analyzed data from Twitter on tweets that included negative sentiments toward people of color. Three studies used data from the General Social Survey, a nationally representative survey of social and political attitudes in the United States. And four studies used data from Project Implicit, an online tool that assesses people's implicit biases toward various groups. All of the data were coded by geographic area.

The studies examined how these different indicators of area-level racial prejudice correlated with health outcomes among individuals living in those areas, including mortality rates, adverse birth outcomes for mothers and infants, cardiovascular outcomes, mental health and overall self-rated health. All of the studies found an association between communities' levels of racial prejudice and adverse health outcomes for the people of color who lived there; four studies also showed a similar association among white residents (two studies showed a smaller but still harmful effect on whites compared with people of color).

"The majority of research on racial discrimination and health to date has focused on experiences at the individual level," said Amani M. Allen, PhD, MPH, a professor of community health sciences and epidemiology at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health and senior author of the study.

"The emerging body of work examined in this review is an important step in going above the level of the individual to capture the context of place and how it may impact the health of people living in those places," Allen said. "As we see from this review, living in an environment with an overall climate that is prejudiced against people of color is not only bad for racially marginalized groups, but for everyone. Area-level racial prejudice is a social determinant of population health."

There are various theories as to how community racial prejudice may harm health, according to the researchers. One is that at an individual level, living in a community with more prejudice could increase the number of prejudiced interactions that a person experiences, causing harmful stress. At the community level, more racial prejudice may erode social capital -- defined as "the norms of reciprocity, trust and social obligation" in a community -- leading to less social and emotional support to buffer stressful life events and less political support for policies and programs that could enhance the health and welfare of all community members.

More research is needed to disentangle these various factors that may tie community-level racial prejudice to adverse health outcomes for communities overall and for people of color in particular, according to the researchers.

"Because racism is multidimensional, dismantling it and its effects on health will require multidimensional solutions," Michaels said. "Research identifying the root causes of, and testing interventions to shift, our collective prejudice is an urgent priority."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220307190702.htm

More alcohol, less brain: Association begins with an average of just one drink a day

March 4, 2022

Science Daily/University of Pennsylvania

Even light-to-moderate drinking is associated with harm to the brain, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed data from more than 36,000 adults that found a link between drinking and reduced brain volume that begins at an average consumption level of less than one alcohol unit a day -- the equivalent of about half a beer -- and rises with each additional drink.

The research, using a dataset of more than 36,000 adults, revealed that going from one to two drinks a day was linked with changes in the brain equivalent to aging two years. Heavier drinking was associated with an even greater toll. The science on heavy drinking and the brain is clear: The two don't have a healthy relationship. People who drink heavily have alterations in brain structure and size that are associated with cognitive impairments.

But according to a new study, alcohol consumption even at levels most would consider modest -- a few beers or glasses of wine a week -- may also carry risks to the brain. An analysis of data from more than 36,000 adults, led by a team from the University of Pennsylvania, found that light-to-moderate alcohol consumption was associated with reductions in overall brain volume.

The link grew stronger the greater the level of alcohol consumption, the researchers showed. As an example, in 50-year-olds, as average drinking among individuals increases from one alcohol unit (about half a beer) a day to two units (a pint of beer or a glass of wine) there are associated changes in the brain equivalent to aging two years. Going from two to three alcohol units at the same age was like aging three and a half years. The team reported their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

"The fact that we have such a large sample size allows us to find subtle patterns, even between drinking the equivalent of half a beer and one beer a day," says Gideon Nave, a corresponding author on the study and faculty member at Penn's Wharton School. He collaborated with former postdoc and co-corresponding author Remi Daviet, now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Perelman School of Medicine colleagues Reagan Wetherill -- also a corresponding author on the study -- and Henry Kranzler, as well as other researchers.

"These findings contrast with scientific and governmental guidelines on safe drinking limits," says Kranzler, who directs the Penn Center for Studies of Addiction. "For example, although the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends that women consume an average of no more than one drink per day, recommended limits for men are twice that, an amount that exceeds the consumption level associated in the study with decreased brain volume,"

Ample research has examined the link between drinking and brain health, with ambiguous results. While strong evidence exists that heavy drinking causes changes in brain structure, including strong reductions in gray and white matter across the brain, other studies have suggested that moderate levels of alcohol consumption may not have an impact, or even that light drinking could benefit the brain in older adults.

These earlier investigations, however, lacked the power of large datasets. Probing massive quantities of data for patterns is the specialty of Nave, Daviet, and colleagues, who have conducted previous studies using the UK Biobank, a dataset with genetic and medical information from half a million British middle-aged and older adults. They employed biomedical data from this resource in the current study, specifically looking at brain MRIs from more than 36,000 adults in the Biobank, which can be used to calculate white and gray matter volume in different regions of the brain.

"Having this dataset is like having a microscope or a telescope with a more powerful lens," Nave says. "You get a better resolution and start seeing patterns and associations you couldn't before."

To gain an understanding of possible connections between drinking and the brain, it was critical to control for confounding variables that could cloud the relationship. The team controlled for age, height, handedness, sex, smoking status, socioeconomic status, genetic ancestry, and county of residence. They also corrected the brain-volume data for overall head size.

The volunteer participants in the Biobank had responded to survey questions about their alcohol consumption levels, from complete abstention to an average of four or more alcohol units a day. When the researchers grouped the participants by average-consumption levels, a small but apparent pattern emerged: The gray and white matter volume that might otherwise be predicted by the individual's other characteristics was reduced.

Going from zero to one alcohol units didn't make much of a difference in brain volume, but going from one to two or two to three units a day was associated with reductions in both gray and white matter.

"It's not linear," says Daviet. "It gets worse the more you drink."

Even removing the heavy drinkers from the analyses, the associations remained. The lower brain volume was not localized to any one brain region, the scientists found.

To give a sense of the impact, the researchers compared the reductions in brain size linked with drinking to those that occur with aging. Based on their modeling, each additional alcohol unit consumed per day was reflected in a greater aging effect in the brain. While going from zero to a daily average of one alcohol unit was associated with the equivalent of a half a year of aging, the difference between zero and four drinks was more than 10 years of aging.

In future work, the authors hope to tap the UK Biobank and other large datasets to help answer additional questions related to alcohol use. "This study looked at average consumption, but we're curious whether drinking one beer a day is better than drinking none during the week and then seven on the weekend," Nave says. "There's some evidence that binge drinking is worse for the brain, but we haven't looked closely at that yet."

They'd also like to be able to more definitively pin down causation rather than correlation, which may be possible with new longitudinal biomedical datasets that are following young people as they age.

"We may be able to look at these effects over time and, along with genetics, tease apart causal relationships," Nave says.

And while the researchers underscore that their study looked only at correlations, they say the findings may prompt drinkers to reconsider how much they imbibe.

"There is some evidence that the effect of drinking on the brain is exponential," says Daviet. "So, one additional drink in a day could have more of an impact than any of the previous drinks that day. That means that cutting back on that final drink of the night might have a big effect in terms of brain aging."

In other words, Nave says, "the people who can benefit the most from drinking less are the people who are already drinking the most."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220304090349.htm

Agreeableness a helpful trait for general success in life

After examining the effect of 'Big 5' personality traits in many kinds of occupations, researchers focus on one trait helpful to general life success.

March 3, 2022

Science Daily/University of Arkansas

Following a major study of the effects of personality on job performance, researchers zoomed in on one personality trait -- agreeableness -- and found that it has a desirable effect on hundreds of physical, psychological and occupational metrics that impact not only job performance but general life success.

Michael Wilmot, assistant professor of management at the University of Arkansas, and Deniz Ones, professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota, examined a wide range of variables, from psychological and physical health to interpersonal relationships, and from leadership effectiveness to performance in academic and organizational settings.

To better understand the impact of agreeableness, the researchers summarized results from 142 meta-analyses reporting effects for 275 variables. In all, the results comprised more than 1.9 million participants from roughly 3,900 studies. Meta-analysis is a process used to systematically merge multiple independent findings using statistical methods to calculate an overall effect.

Wilmot and Ones found that agreeableness had a desirable effect on 93% of variables and outcomes.

"We wanted to do a quantitative summary and synthesis of what we have learned about relations between agreeableness, one of the so-called Big 5 personality traits, and its consequences," Wilmot said. "We know this is important -- perhaps now more than ever -- because agreeableness is the personality trait primarily concerned with helping people and building positive relationships, which is not lost on organizational leaders."

In their previous study, Wilmot and Ones combined multiple meta-analyses of the five big personality traits -- conscientiousness, extraversion, openness and neuroticism, in addition to agreeableness -- and examined their effect on job performance. They found that relationships between personality traits and performance varied greatly across nine major occupational groups.

To clarify and emphasize the importance of agreeableness, the researchers organized the 275 variables into broader conceptual categories. These included physical and psychological health, performance, motivation and success.

Wilmot and Ones also synthesized eight themes that captured the characteristic functioning of agreeableness across all variables and categories. The themes illustrated the essence of how agreeableness is helpful to both individuals and organizations. The themes were:

• Self-transcendence -- Having aspirations for self-directed growth and motivation to show care and concern for others.

• Contentment -- Accepting life as it is, and an ability to successfully adjust to new contexts and institutions.

• Relational investment -- Motivation to cultivate and maintain positive relationships with others.

• Teamworking -- Empathetic capacity to coordinate goals with others and ability to cooperate effectively, regardless of role, to accomplish collective objectives.

• Work investment -- Willingness to expend effort on tasks, do quality work and show a responsiveness to the work environment.

• Lower results emphasis -- A generally lower emphasis on setting goals and producing individual results and a tendency to rate others' performance with greater leniency.

• Social norm orientation -- Greater sensitivity to and respect for behavioral compliance with social norms and rules and avoidance of rule-breaking and wrongdoing.

• Social integration -- Capacity for successful integration into social roles and institutions and a reduced likelihood of delinquency, antisocial behavior and turnover.

"Taken altogether, the interaction among the themes became clear," Wilmot said. "Agreeableness was marked by work investment, but this energy was best directed at helping or cooperating with others. In other words, teamwork."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220303191459.htm

Exposure to great outdoors boosted mental health during pandemic

Study finds those who spent more time in green spaces reported less depression, anxiety

March 2, 2022

Science Daily/University of Colorado at Boulder

People exposed to more green space during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic reported significantly less depression and anxiety, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research published March 2 in the journal PLOS One.

The study also found that, at a time when mental health problems soared due to financial woes, supply shortages and nonstop news coverage of the virus, people sought solace in the great outdoors, with one-third spending more time there than they did pre-COVID.

"This research shows how critical it is to keep parks and green spaces open in times of crisis," said senior author Colleen Reid, an assistant professor of geography in the Institute for Behavioral Science. "It also shows that, as a public health measure, more effort should be made to put in green spaces and make them accessible."

For the study, the authors presented about 1,200 Denver-area residents with a 30-minute survey gauging their mental health and their perceptions of green space near their home, including: how much there was, whether they could see it, whether it was accessible, how much they used it and its quality. They also collected aerial satellite imagery to objectively quantify greenery in respondents' neighborhoods.

The survey ran from November 2019 to January 2021.

Once COVID-19 emerged and lockdowns ensued, Reid added additional questions, providing a rare opportunity to also look at how the pandemic influenced mental health over time and what was most stressful about it.

"Not surprisingly, we found that the pandemic impacted mental health negatively," said co-author Emma Rieves, a master's student in the Department of Geography. "But we also found that green space could have a powerful protective effect, even at a time of such extraordinary stressors."

Supply shortages and job losses stressed people out

Surprisingly, the study found no association between being diagnosed with COVID and having poor mental health. But respondents reported that having symptoms, no diagnosis and no way to test was distressing.

Those who lost income or felt they were working in an unsafe environment were also more likely to be stressed or depressed, while the strongest source of mental health problems was a fear of supply shortages (including toilet paper and food).

People who spent a lot of time scrolling the internet looking at the news reported poorer mental health. In contrast, merely having abundant green space nearby, as measured by satellite images, was associated with lower depression scores.

To get the most benefit out of nearby green space, the study found, people had to get out and use it. Those who used green space most had significantly lower anxiety and depression.

"There are many dimensions of green space, and our study looked closely at how these dimensions impact mental health," said Rieves, noting that policymakers often rely solely on objective measures, like satellite images or proximity to parks when assessing whether to invest in more greenery in a community.

On a satellite image, Rieves points out, a large patch of greenery could actually be a weed-filled lot. A 'nearby park' could be on the other side of a busy highway.

"It's not just about being able to see trees from your home. The amount, quality and accessibility of that green space matters," said Rieves.

Many public agencies closed public green spaces, including neighborhood playgrounds and national parks, at the onset of the pandemic for fear that the virus could be easily spread via surfaces. Once parks reopened, with places like gyms, bars and churches still closed, Coloradans flocked to the outdoors: 33% of respondents reported spending more time in parks or on trails than the year before.

The 'biophilia hypothesis'

The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that green space can have a measurable impact on health.

According to one theory, known as the 'biophilia hypothesis,' humans innately tend to seek connections with green spaces, where the calming environment influences stress hormones in a way that promotes healing and fends off disease.

"The idea is that we have evolved with nature, and only in the recent past have we been living in the concrete jungle," said Reid.

One famous 1984 study even found that when hospital patients had rooms with a window looking out on green space, their wounds healed faster and they required less pain medication than those looking out on a brick wall.

Reid cautioned that correlations between green space and health have been scrutinized, in part because people with higher incomes and, thus, better access to healthy food and health care may also be more able to afford to live near green spaces.

To address that, Reid's study took sociodemographic factors into account, along with the many unique circumstances that have emerged during COVID.

After controlling for all the factors, the benefits still remained clear: "Spend more time outside," Rieves said. "Pandemic or no pandemic, it's good for your mental health."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/03/220302150329.htm

Your lunchtime walks in the summer could be making you less productive

Researchers find that a brief walk outside on a hot day impairs cognitive performance

February 28, 2022

Science Daily/University of Tsukuba

Studies have shown that being in a hot environment reduces cognitive performance, whereas a brief walk enhances cognition. But what happens when you go for a brief walk on a hot summer's day, as so many students and office workers do during lunch or an afternoon break? Turns out, you might be better off avoiding the heat.

In a study published this month in Building and Environment, researchers from the University of Tsukuba discovered that just 15 minutes of walking outside on a hot day impaired cognitive performance, and this was most striking in men who don't get enough sleep.

Those who work or study in urban heat islands, such as large cities in Japan, generally have the convenience of air-conditioning indoors over the summer months, which largely counters the negative impact of heat on learning and productivity. However, brief exposure to hot environments during commuting or breaks is inevitable, and whether such exposure affects cognition has not been known. "Previous experiments have used specialized climate chambers to test these effects. However, outdoor thermal environment differs significantly from indoor thermal environments in terms of radiation and wind," says senior author Professor Hiroyuki Kusaka. "Radiation and wind have significant effects on thermal perception. Therefore, in order to assess the effects of outdoor heat stress on cognitive performance, experiments should be conducted in real outdoor environments."

Researchers simulated a real-world scenario during the Japanese summer in which workers or students leave an air-conditioned indoor environment to walk or have a break in a hot outdoor urban environment. Ninety-six students completed a simple arithmetic test in an air-conditioned room before either staying indoors, walking outside, or resting outside for 15 minutes. They then returned indoors to complete a second arithmetic test, and any changes in performance were measured. Walking in a hot outdoor environment impaired cognitive performance; however, it was not simply the exposure to the hot environment that impaired cognition. Rather, it was the combination of walking and being outside in the summer heat that had impacted cognitive performance. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced in people, specifically men, who were sleep deprived, having slept less than 5 hours.

"Japanese office workers and students, especially men, need to be aware of this situation as they work and study," says Kusaka. The team hopes that their findings will help guide ways to improve productivity and learning in workers and students in Japan, and perhaps even further afield as the impact of climate change moves to the forefront.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220228114410.htm

ADHD linked to hoarding behavior

As many as 1 in 5 adults with ADHD could have significant hoarding symptoms

February 25, 2022

Science Daily/Anglia Ruskin University

New research has found that people with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are significantly more likely to also exhibit hoarding behaviours, which can have a serious impact on their quality of life.

The study, published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research and funded by theBritish Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, found that almost one in five people with ADHD exhibited clinically significant levels of hoarding, indicating there could be a hidden population of adults struggling with hoarding and its consequences.

Hoarding Disorder is a recognised condition that involves excessive accumulation, difficulties discarding and excessive clutter. The disorder can lead to distress or difficulties in everyday life and can contribute to depression and anxiety.

Previous research into Hoarding Disorder has mainly focused on older females who self-identify as hoarders and have sought help later in life. This new study, led by Dr Sharon Morein of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), recruited 88 participants from an adult ADHD clinic run by the Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

The study found that 19% of this ADHD group displayed clinically significant hoarding symptoms, were on average in their 30s, and there was an equal gender split. Amongst the remaining 81%, the researchers found greater hoarding severity, but not to a degree that significantly impaired their lives, compared to the study's control group.

The researchers asked the same questions, about ADHD symptoms and impulsivity, levels of hoarding and clutter, obsessive compulsive severity, perfectionism, depression and anxiety, and everyday function, on a closely-matched group of 90 adults from the general population, without an ADHD diagnosis, and found only 2% of this control group exhibited clinically significant hoarding symptoms.

They then replicated this with a larger online sample of 220 UK adults to see if similar patterns were found, and similarly only 3% of this group exhibited symptoms.

Dr Morein, Associate Professor in Psychology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: "Hoarding Disorder is much more than simply collecting too many possessions. People with diagnosed Hoarding Disorder have filled their living areas with so many items and clutter that it impacts their day-to-day functioning leading to a poorer quality of life, anxiety, and depression.

"Overall, we found that people who had been diagnosed with ADHD had a higher likelihood of also having hoarding symptoms. This is important because it demonstrates that hoarding doesn't just affect people later in life, who are typically the focus of much of the research so far into Hoarding Disorder.

"Our findings also indicate that Hoarding Disorder should be routinely assessed in individuals with ADHD, as they do not typically disclose associated difficulties despite these potentially impairing their everyday lives. Likewise, it is possible that many people who are currently being treated for Hoarding Disorder might also have undiagnosed ADHD.

"Greater awareness amongst clinicians and people with ADHD about the link between ADHD and hoarding could also lead to more effective long-term management, as hoarding often gradually worsens with time."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220225135652.htm

Feeling connected to nature linked to lower risk of snake and spider phobias

February 24, 2022

Science Daily/British Ecological Society

A study of over a thousand people in Hungary has found for the first time that people who feel more connected to nature are less likely to be affected by snake and spider fears or phobias. The research is published in British Ecological Society journal, People and Nature.

In the study, researchers from universities in Hungary, Czech Republic and Portugal used clinically established questionnaires to assess participants' fear of snakes and spiders and their connectedness to nature. They found that people who scored highly in their self-perceived connection to nature -- particularly a longing to be close to nature and engagement to protect it -- were less likely to score highly in measures of snake and spider fear.

The researchers say that because of this association, a connection to nature could potentially be a protective factor against snake and spider phobias, two of the most prevalent animal phobias.

Dr Jakub Polák at Charles University, Czech Republic, and co-author of the study said: "Analysis of our data showed one clear picture: the more you like nature and feel a part of it, the less you are at risk of developing a snake or spider phobia, an anxiety disorders which can significantly lower your quality of life."

Dr Coelho at the University of Porto, Portugal, and co-author of the study, stressed that the association found in this study can go both ways: "A connection to nature may cause people to experience less fear of snakes and spiders. However, it is also possible that people with lower fear of snakes and spiders are consequently more interested in nature and feel a stronger connection with the natural environment."

The researchers also collected demographic data from the participants and found older age and living in less urbanised environments were also associated with reduced fear of snakes and spiders.

The study findings add to the growing evidence of the positive effects from spending time in nature and feeling connected to it, such as improved health, enhanced mood, and reduced stress.

Dr András Norbert Zsido, at the University of Pécs, Hungary, and co-author of the study said: "Connectedness to nature, can have a wide range of positive effects. In our study we find that it may prevent the development of animal phobias or could facilitate coping with such fear if they already exist. It's also been shown that being connected to nature carries health benefits and can result in more knowledge and a more positive attitude towards animals, along with greater environmental responsibility."

Fear of snakes and spiders are thought to stem from threats in our evolutionary history. While these fears can protect us, having a phobia -- an extreme or irrational fear -- can cause significant distress and interfere with a person's day-to-day life as they try to avoid all confrontation with the phobic stimulus.

In the study the researchers assessed participants' connection to nature using the Nature Relatedness Scale. This questionnaire asks participants to agree or disagree with statements covering attitudes to conservation, feelings of belonging to nature and ease of being outdoors in the wilderness. Higher scores indicate a stronger connection with nature.

To assess participant's fear of snakes and spiders, the researchers used established questionnaires that are used in clinical screenings for phobias. Participants answered questions on fainting or avoidance in reaction to snakes and spiders and were then shown images of the animals and asked to rate them along three scales: whether they perceived the images to be unpleasant or pleasant, whether the images made them feel calm or excited, and whether they felt dominance or dominated by the animals in the pictures.

Because the study was correlational and didn't collect longitudinal data, the researchers were not able to determine the direction of the relationship between connection to nature and animal fears. Dr Zsido explained: "This was a cross-sectional study, so we were not able to measure possible effects of nature relatedness on fears over time. Whether pro-environmental education and increased time spent in natural environments could reliably decrease fears is still an open question."

The researchers are now hoping to explore whether their findings would be the same for other animal phobias or apply to other cultures around the world.

Dr Polák said: "I would like to see if the same association between connectedness to nature and animal fears would be found in other countries with a different culture, different levels of urbanisation, and potentially different attitudes towards animals. We suppose that fear of snakes and spiders is universal all over the world, but is the protective role of nature connectedness universal as well? That would be worth future research."

Understanding what causes animal phobias to persist also interests the researchers. Dr Coelho added: "I would like to know why some people never seem to leave behind their fears, even if they have a lot of experience with the object that evokes the feeling. Is this due to the nature of the stimuli itself, or maybe to individual differences?"

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220224091051.htm

Do pets have a positive effect on your brain health?

Study shows long-term pet ownership linked to slower decline in cognition over time

February 23, 2022

Science Daily/American Academy of Neurology

Owning a pet, like a dog or cat, especially for five years or longer, may be linked to slower cognitive decline in older adults, according to a preliminary study released today, February 23, 2022

"Prior studies have suggested that the human-animal bond may have health benefits like decreasing blood pressure and stress," said study author Tiffany Braley, MD, MS, of the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our results suggest pet ownership may also be protective against cognitive decline."

The study looked at cognitive data from 1,369 older adults with an average age of 65 who had normal cognitive skills at the start of the study. A total of 53% owned pets, and 32% were long-term pet owners, defined as those who owned pets for five years or more. Of study participants, 88% were white, 7% were Black, 2% were Hispanic and 3% were of another ethnicity or race.

Researchers used data from the Health and Retirement Study, a large study of Medicare beneficiaries. In that study, people were given multiple cognitive tests. Researchers used those cognitive tests to develop a composite cognitive score for each person, ranging from zero to 27. The composite score included common tests of subtraction, numeric counting and word recall. Researchers then used participants' composite cognitive scores and estimated the associations between years of pet ownership and cognitive function.

Over six years, cognitive scores decreased at a slower rate in pet owners. This difference was strongest among long-term pet owners. Taking into account other factors known to affect cognitive function, the study showed that long-term pet owners, on average, had a cognitive composite score that was 1.2 points higher at six years compared to non-pet owners. The researchers also found that the cognitive benefits associated with longer pet ownership were stronger for Black adults, college-educated adults and men. Braley says more research is needed to further explore the possible reasons for these associations.

"As stress can negatively affect cognitive function, the potential stress-buffering effects of pet ownership could provide a plausible reason for our findings," said Braley. "A companion animal can also increase physical activity, which could benefit cognitive health. That said, more research is needed to confirm our results and identify underlying mechanisms for this association."

A limitation of the study was that length of pet ownership was assessed only at one time point, so information regarding ongoing pet ownership was unavailable.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220223210035.htm

Singing in the brain

Neuroscientists have identified a population of neurons in the human brain that respond to singing but not other types of music

February 22, 2022

Science Daily/Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Woman singing (stock image).

Credit: © razihusin / stock.adobe.com

https://www.sciencedaily.com/images/2022/02/220222121221_1_540x360.jpg

These neurons, found in the auditory cortex, appear to respond to the specific combination of voice and music, but not to either regular speech or instrumental music. Exactly what they are doing is unknown and will require more work to uncover, the researchers say.

"The work provides evidence for relatively fine-grained segregation of function within the auditory cortex, in a way that aligns with an intuitive distinction within music," says Sam Norman-Haignere, a former MIT postdoc who is now an assistant professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

The work builds on a 2015 study in which the same research team used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify a population of neurons in the brain's auditory cortex that responds specifically to music. In the new work, the researchers used recordings of electrical activity taken at the surface of the brain, which gave them much more precise information than fMRI.

"There's one population of neurons that responds to singing, and then very nearby is another population of neurons that responds broadly to lots of music. At the scale of fMRI, they're so close that you can't disentangle them, but with intracranial recordings, we get additional resolution, and that's what we believe allowed us to pick them apart," says Norman-Haignere.

Norman-Haignere is the lead author of the study, which appears today in the journal Current Biology. Josh McDermott, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and Nancy Kanwisher, the Walter A. Rosenblith Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, both members of MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research and Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM), are the senior authors of the study.

Neural recordings

In their 2015 study, the researchers used fMRI to scan the brains of participants as they listened to a collection of 165 sounds, including different types of speech and music, as well as everyday sounds such as finger tapping or a dog barking. For that study, the researchers devised a novel method of analyzing the fMRI data, which allowed them to identify six neural populations with different response patterns, including the music-selective population and another population that responds selectively to speech.

In the new study, the researchers hoped to obtain higher-resolution data using a technique known as electrocorticography (ECoG), which allows electrical activity to be recorded by electrodes placed inside the skull. This offers a much more precise picture of electrical activity in the brain compared to fMRI, which measures blood flow in the brain as a proxy of neuron activity.

"With most of the methods in human cognitive neuroscience, you can't see the neural representations," Kanwisher says. "Most of the kind of data we can collect can tell us that here's a piece of brain that does something, but that's pretty limited. We want to know what's represented in there."

Electrocorticography cannot be typically be performed in humans because it is an invasive procedure, but it is often used to monitor patients with epilepsy who are about to undergo surgery to treat their seizures. Patients are monitored over several days so that doctors can determine where their seizures are originating before operating. During that time, if patients agree, they can participate in studies that involve measuring their brain activity while performing certain tasks. For this study, the MIT team was able to gather data from 15 participants over several years.

For those participants, the researchers played the same set of 165 sounds that they used in the earlier fMRI study. The location of each patient's electrodes was determined by their surgeons, so some did not pick up any responses to auditory input, but many did. Using a novel statistical analysis that they developed, the researchers were able to infer the types of neural populations that produced the data that were recorded by each electrode.

"When we applied this method to this data set, this neural response pattern popped out that only responded to singing," Norman-Haignere says. "This was a finding we really didn't expect, so it very much justifies the whole point of the approach, which is to reveal potentially novel things you might not think to look for."

That song-specific population of neurons had very weak responses to either speech or instrumental music, and therefore is distinct from the music- and speech-selective populations identified in their 2015 study.

Music in the brain

In the second part of their study, the researchers devised a mathematical method to combine the data from the intracranial recordings with the fMRI data from their 2015 study. Because fMRI can cover a much larger portion of the brain, this allowed them to determine more precisely the locations of the neural populations that respond to singing.

"This way of combining ECoG and fMRI is a significant methodological advance," McDermott says. "A lot of people have been doing ECoG over the past 10 or 15 years, but it's always been limited by this issue of the sparsity of the recordings. Sam is really the first person who figured out how to combine the improved resolution of the electrode recordings with fMRI data to get better localization of the overall responses."

The song-specific hotspot that they found is located at the top of the temporal lobe, near regions that are selective for language and music. That location suggests that the song-specific population may be responding to features such as the perceived pitch, or the interaction between words and perceived pitch, before sending information to other parts of the brain for further processing, the researchers say.

The researchers now hope to learn more about what aspects of singing drive the responses of these neurons. They are also working with MIT Professor Rebecca Saxe's lab to study whether infants have music-selective areas, in hopes of learning more about when and how these brain regions develop.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Army Research Office, the National Science Foundation, the NSF Science and Technology Center for Brains, Minds, and Machines, the Fondazione Neurone, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220222121221.htm