Circadian rhythm disruption found to be common among mental health disorders

Researchers spotlight links and propose investigation into molecular underpinnings

September 1, 2022

Science Daily/University of California - Irvine

Anxiety, autism, schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome each have their own distinguishing characteristics, but one factor bridging these and most other mental disorders is circadian rhythm disruption, according to a team of neuroscience, pharmaceutical sciences and computer science researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

In an article published recently in the Nature journal Translational Psychiatry, the scientists hypothesize that CRD is a psychopathology factor shared by a broad range of mental illnesses and that research into its molecular foundation could be key to unlocking better therapies and treatments.

"Circadian rhythms play a fundamental role in all biological systems at all scales, from molecules to populations," said senior author Pierre Baldi, UCI Distinguished Professor of computer science. "Our analysis found that circadian rhythm disruption is a factor that broadly overlaps the entire spectrum of mental health disorders."

Lead author Amal Alachkar, a neuroscientist and professor of teaching in UCI's Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, noted the challenges of testing the team's hypothesis at the molecular level but said the researchers found ample evidence of the connection by thoroughly examining peer-reviewed literature on the most prevalent mental health disorders.

"The telltale sign of circadian rhythm disruption -- a problem with sleep -- was present in each disorder," Alachkar said. "While our focus was on widely known conditions including autism, ADHD and bipolar disorder, we argue that the CRD psychopathology factor hypothesis can be generalized to other mental health issues, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, food addiction and Parkinson's disease."

Circadian rhythms regulate our bodies' physiological activity and biological processes during each solar day. Synchronized to a 24-hour light/dark cycle, circadian rhythms influence when we normally need to sleep and when we're awake. They also manage other functions such as hormone production and release, body temperature maintenance and consolidation of memories. Effective, nondisrupted operation of this natural timekeeping system is necessary for the survival of all living organisms, according to the paper's authors.

Circadian rhythms are intrinsically sensitive to light/dark cues, so they can be easily disrupted by light exposure at night, and the level of disruption appears to be sex-dependent and changes with age. One example is a hormonal response to CRD felt by pregnant women; both the mother and the fetus can experience clinical effects from CRD and chronic stress.

"An interesting issue that we explored is the interplay of circadian rhythms and mental disorders with sex," said Baldi, director of UCI's Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics. "For instance, Tourette syndrome is present primarily in males, and Alzheimer's disease is more common in females by a ratio of roughly two-thirds to one-third."

Age also is an important factor, according to scientists, as CRD can affect neurodevelopment in early life in addition to leading to the onset of aging-related mental disorders among the elderly.

Baldi said an important unresolved issue centers on the causal relationship between CRD and mental health disorders: Is CRD a key player in the origin and onset of these maladies or a self-reinforcing symptom in the progression of disease?

To answer this and other questions, the UCI-led team suggests an examination of CRD at the molecular level using transcriptomic (gene expression) and metabolomic technologies in mouse models.

"This will be a high-throughput process with researchers acquiring samples from healthy and diseased subjects every few hours along the circadian cycle," Baldi said. "This approach can be applied with limitations in humans, since only serum samples can really be used, but it could be applied on a large scale in animal models, particularly mice, by sampling tissues from different brain areas and different organs, in addition to serum. These are extensive, painstaking experiments that could benefit from having a consortium of laboratories."

He added that if the experiments were conducted in a systematic way with respect to age, sex and brain areas to investigate circadian molecular rhythmicity before and during disease progression, it would help the mental health research community identify potential biomarkers, causal relationships, and novel therapeutic targets and avenues.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220901200635.htm

New method could aid Alzheimer's research by predicting risk before symptoms start

Researchers demonstrate how DNA-based method enables nomination of key proteins linked to Alzheimer's

Science Daily/September 1, 2022

PLOS

Researchers have developed a new method to identify people who are at greater genetic risk of developing Alzheimer's disease before any symptoms appear -- which could help speed creation of novel treatments. Manish Paranjpe of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Genetics on September 1.

People with Alzheimer's disease experience gradual loss of memory and other cognitive functions. While some treatments can ease symptoms, it has been challenging to develop treatments to prevent or slow disease progression. Some clinical trials investigating potential treatments may have been unsuccessful because they involved patients whose disease was too advanced to be treated. Better methods to identify people at high risk of developing Alzheimer's could aid treatment research.

To help meet that need, Paranjpe and colleagues analyzed data on 7.1 million common DNA variants -- alterations to the standard DNA sequence -- from an earlier study that included tens of thousands of people with or without Alzheimer's. They used this data to develop a novel method that predicts a person's risk of Alzheimer's, depending on which DNA variants the person has. Then, they refined and validated the method with data from more than 300,000 additional people.

The researchers note that their DNA-based method is unlikely to be suitable for doctors to predict a patient's risk of Alzheimer's because it may be less accurate for non-European populations, it could impact insurance, and it could cause anxiety without the relief of reliable preventive treatments. However, it could be applied to speed Alzheimer's research.

To demonstrate the potential of the new method, the researchers applied it to determine the risk of Alzheimer's for each of 636 blood donors and examined whether blood levels of any of 3,000 proteins were higher or lower than normal for those identified as being high-risk. The analysis surfaced 28 proteins that could be linked to Alzheimer's risk, including several that have never been studied in Alzheimer's research. Studying these proteins could uncover new directions for drug development.

Future research could help replicate and confirm these findings and expand on them, such as by considering populations with non-European ancestry.

Senior author Dr. Amit V. Khera adds, "We developed a genetic predictor of Alzheimer's disease associated with both clinical diagnosis and age-dependent cognitive decline. By studying the circulating proteome of healthy individuals with very high versus low inherited risk, our team nominated new biomarkers of neurocognitive disease."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/09/220901151607.htm

Double burden of paid and unpaid labor leading to poorer mental health in women

New research reveals unpaid labor is associated with poorer mental health in employed women, but the effects are less apparent for men

September 1, 2022

University of Melbourne

Women still do the bulk of unpaid work at home while also holding down a job. A new review finds this double burden is taking a toll on their mental health.

New research reveals unpaid labour is associated with poorer mental health in employed women, but the effects are less apparent for men.

Published in the Lancet Public Health, University of Melbourne researchers have conducted a review -- the first of its kind -- to bring together and assess the existing evidence examining the gendered association between unpaid labour and mental health.

Of the 14 studies included -- totalling more than 66,800 participants worldwide -- five examined unpaid labour (inclusive of care), nine examined housework time and, of these, four also examined childcare.

Researchers found that in addition to the economic penalty women experience shouldering most of the world's unpaid labour load, there is a mental health cost as well.

Overall, in 11 of the 14 studies examined, women self-reported increased depressive or psychological distress symptoms with increasing unpaid labour demands. For men, only three out of a possible 12 studies reported any negative association.

"We found substantial gender differences in exposure to unpaid labour, with women uniformly doing more in every geographical and time setting -- in more than 35 countries -- around the world," research lead Jen Ervin said.

"This double burden of paid and unpaid work exposures women to greater risk for overload, time poverty and poorer mental health. Crucially, women are also routinely trading off paid work hours to meet their disproportionally high unpaid labour responsibilities."

Ms Ervin said the study highlights the need for greater attention and meaningful action to drive greater equity in the division of unpaid labour.

"There is an undeniable mental load that accompanies unpaid labour and family responsibilities. Reducing the disproportionate unpaid labour burden on women, by enabling men to take on their equal share, has the potential to improve women's mental health," she said.

In addition, researchers say substantive policy changes, such as universal childcare and normalising flexible working arrangements for men are urgently required to enable real change.

Researchers conclude that this review highlights the need for further high-quality longitudinal research in this area, the need to better understand nuances within different dimensions of unpaid labour, as well as the need for a consistent approach in how unpaid labour is defined and measured.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831210017.htm

Positive neighbor involvement important if teens don't develop mother-child bond

August 31, 2022

Science Daily/University of Michigan

Teens who live in neighborhoods with trusted, engaged adults can still develop critical social skills that were not nurtured early in life, according to a new University of Michigan study.

Previous studies have shown the importance of early mother-child bonding that contributes to teens having social skills, such as positive behaviors that optimize relationships with others, solid academic performance and self-management of emotions.

But what happens when that connection isn't formed? Social cohesion -- or the trust and bonds among neighbors -- can benefit the adolescents, researchers said.

The study focused on social skills among 15-year-olds as a function of early attachment between mothers -- also considered primary caregivers -- and their 3-year-old kids, as well as neighborhood social cohesion.

Data from 1,883 children ages 1, 3 and 15 came from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a nationally representative study of children born in 20 U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000.

The present study asked 39 questions to determine the children's attachment, such as "is easily comforted by contact or interaction with mother when crying or otherwise distressed." A higher score indicated a greater level of security in the child's attachment with the mother.

To measure adolescent social skills, behavior questions were asked of the 15-year-old participants. High scores in child attachment were positively correlated with increased adolescent social skills, the study showed.

At age 3, some of the traits reflecting closeness would be "hugs or cuddles with mother without being asked to do so," "responds positively to helpful hints from mother," and "when a mother says follow, child does so willingly."

High scores in neighborhood social cohesion at age 3 were positively correlated with increased adolescent social skills. And when the bond between the mother-child wasn't strong, the impact neighbors had on kids' social skills was important, the research indicated.

"Children who live in neighborhoods with a high degree of social cohesion may have more opportunities to engage within their community and interact with other trusted adults, as well as form friendships with children," said study lead author Sunghyun Hong, a doctoral student of social work and psychology.

These connections with other sources of support may be the driving force behind the buffering impact of social cohesion on social skills for children who had insecure attachments to their caregivers

"This underscores the value of children having access to supportive and loving relationships with the mother and the surrounding community, even from early childhood," Hong said.

The data was collected in the late 90s to early 20s, in which mothers were frequently the primary caregivers. However, in recent decades, the definition of primary caregivers has been expanding with families having diverse forms, including more fathers who are engaged in co-parenting and are the sole primary caregiver. Thus, if the research involved father, the study's results would be similar, Hong said.

The findings, which appear in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, show that living in a neighborhood with high social cohesion is as important as having high attachment security to the mother," she said.

"This means that when we think about policies and programs to empower our children in the community, we must consider directly supporting the family relations and investing in their surrounding community relations," Hong said.

The study's co-authors were U-M psychology graduate student Felicia Hardi and Kathryn Maguire-Jack, associate professor of social work.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831095034.htm

Humble leaders can help make groups more effective

Study of teachers links leadership to psychological empowerment

August 31, 2022

Science Daily/Ohio State University

Leaders of teacher groups who were thought of as humble helped improve professionalism and collaboration among team members, new research has shown.

The study, done in China, found that teachers in the Chinese equivalent of professional learning communities (PLCs) were more willing to share their knowledge and expertise when they rated their PLC leaders as being higher in humility.

The reason was that humble leaders made teachers feel more empowered to share their knowledge because they felt psychologically safe to take risks, said study co-author Roger Goddard, professor of educational studies at The Ohio State University.

"A little humility on the part of leaders goes a long way in helping groups be more productive and collaborative," Goddard said.

"When people feel their leader admits mistakes and is open to learning from others, everyone contributes more and makes these groups more effective."

Goddard conducted the study with Yun Qu of Beijing Normal University in China and Jinjie Zhu, a doctoral student in education at Ohio State. The study was published online recently in the journal Educational Studies.

In the United States and elsewhere, PLCs are designed to facilitate professional development through discussions in which teachers share their best practices and what they have learned through their experiences in the classroom.

"Teachers can feel fairly isolated in the classroom," Goddard said. "PLCs help teachers build a sense of community and learn from each other about how to improve classroom instruction."

In China, the equivalent of PLCs are called Teaching Research Groups (TRGs). The leaders of TRGs are experienced teachers who are not traditional administrators, but do serve as supervisors and coordinators and are involved in teacher evaluations, lesson planning and teacher selection.

This study involved 537 teachers from 238 TRGs in a variety of both urban and rural schools in China.

Teachers rated their TRG leaders on three dimensions of humility: their willingness to view themselves accurately, such as admitting when they didn't know how to do something; their appreciation of others' strengths; and their teachability, such as being open to other teachers' advice.

Results showed that teachers who rated their TRG leaders as being higher in humility were more likely to report that they shared their knowledge and expertise in TRG meetings.

"The whole point of these groups is for teachers to share their knowledge, so the fact that humble leaders inspired individuals in their groups to be more willing to do this is very significant," Goddard said.

The study also found why humble leaders were so effective in helping their teachers share their knowledge.

Results showed that in TRGs with more humble leaders, teachers reported higher levels of psychological safety -- they felt they could take risks and knew that others would not act in a way to undermine their efforts.

That feeling of safety led them to feel more psychologically empowered: They felt their jobs had meaning, they had autonomy to do their work, and they felt they were competent and that their work had impact in the school.

So humble leadership led to teachers feeling psychologically safe, which made them feel empowered and ultimately led them to share their experience and knowledge more fully with their colleagues, Goddard said.

"This feeling of teachers that they could safely share their knowledge comes from having a leader who has humility -- an openness to learning from others, a willingness to revise opinions, and an appreciation for the strengths of others," he said.

While this research was done in China, Goddard said he believes the results would be similar in the United States and elsewhere.

"There's a lot of evidence that suggests trust is a key part of successful organizations. And feeling psychologically safe and empowered to share your knowledge in the workplace is part of building trust, and that's what humble leaders help create," he said.

"That is as true in the United States as it is in China."

In the same way, the results should be applicable outside of education.

"Many of the same principles that make successful organizations cut across cultures and fields. It makes sense that humble leaders will build trust and better relationships that will increase the effectiveness of any groups that have to work together," Goddard said.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831095002.htm

Sharing on social media makes us overconfident in our knowledge

Sharing articles on social media, even when we haven't read them, can lead us to believe we are experts on a topic

August 30, 2022

Science Daily/University of Texas at Austin

Sharing news articles with friends and followers on social media can prompt people to think they know more about the articles' topics than they actually do, according to a new study from researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.

Social media sharers believe that they are knowledgeable about the content they share, even if they have not read it or have only glanced at a headline. Sharing can create this rise in confidence because by putting information online, sharers publicly commit to an expert identity. Doing so shapes their sense of self, helping them to feel just as knowledgeable as their post makes them seem.

This is especially true when sharing with close friends, according to a new paper from Susan M. Broniarczyk, professor of marketing, and Adrian Ward, assistant professor of marketing, at UT's McCombs School of Business.

The research is online in advance in the Journal of Consumer Psychology. The findings are relevant in a world in which it's simple to share content online without reading it. Recent data from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism show only 51% of consumers who "read" an online news story actually read the whole article, while 26% read part, and 22% looked at just the headline or a few lines.

Broniarczyk, Ward and Frank Zheng, a McCombs marketing doctoral alum, conducted several studies that support their theory. In an initial one, the researchers presented 98 undergraduate students with a set of online news articles and told them they were free to read, share, or do both as they saw fit. Headlines included "Why Does Theatre Popcorn Cost So Much" and "Red Meats Linked to Cancer."

Next, they measured participants' subjective and objective knowledge for each article -- what the students thought they knew, and what they actually knew. Reading articles led to increases in both objective and subjective knowledge. Sharing articles also predicted increases in subjective knowledge -- even when students had not read what they chose to share, and thus lacked objective knowledge about the articles' content.

In a second study, people who shared an article about cancer prevention came to believe they knew more about cancer than those who did not, even if they had not read the article.

Three additional studies found this effect occurs because people internalize their sharing into the self-concept, which leads them to believe they are as knowledgeable as their posts make them appear. Participants thought they knew more when their sharing publicly committed them to an expert identity: when sharing under their own identity versus an alias, when sharing with friends versus strangers, and when they had free choice in choosing what to share.

In a final study, the researchers asked 300 active Facebook users to read an article on "How to Start Investing: A Guide for Beginners." Then, they assigned students to a sharing or no sharing group. All participants were told the content existed on several websites and saw Facebook posts with the sites. Sharers were asked to look at all posts and choose one to share on their Facebook page.

Next, in a supposedly unrelated task, a robo-advised retirement planning simulation informed participants that allocating more money to stocks is considered "more aggressive" and to bonds "more conservative," and they received a customized investment recommendation based on their age. Participants then distributed a hypothetical $10,000 in retirement funds between stocks and bonds: Sharers took significantly more investment risk. Those who shared articles were twice as likely to take more risk than recommended by the robo-advisor.

"When people feel they're more knowledgeable, they're more likely to make riskier decisions," Ward said.

The research also suggests there's merit to social media companies that have piloted ways to encourage people to read articles before sharing.

"If people feel more knowledgeable on a topic, they also feel they maybe don't need to read or learn additional information on that topic," Broniarczyk said. "This miscalibrated sense of knowledge can be hard to correct."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220830165307.htm

Brain activity during sleep differs in young people with genetic risk of psychiatric disorders

August 30, 2022

Science Daily/eLife

Young people living with a genetic alteration that increases the risk of psychiatric disorders have markedly different brain activity during sleep, a new study shows.

The brain activity patterns during sleep shed light on the neurobiology behind a genetic condition called 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome (22q11.2DS) and could be used as a biomarker to detect the onset of neuropsychiatric disorders in people with 22q11.2DS.

22q11.2DS is caused by a gene deletion of around 30 genes on chromosome 22 and occurs in 1 in 3000 births. It increases the risk of intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and epileptic seizures. It is also one of the largest biological risk factors for schizophrenia. However, the biological mechanisms underlying psychiatric symptoms in 22q11.2DS are unclear.

"We have recently shown that the majority of young people with 22q11.2DS have sleep problems, particularly insomnia and sleep fragmentation, that are linked with psychiatric disorders," says co-senior author Marianne van den Bree, Professor of Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University, UK. "However, our previous analysis was based on parents reporting on sleep quality of their children, and the neurophysiology -- what's happening to brain activity -- has not yet been explored."

An established way of measuring brain activity during sleep is an electroencephalogram (EEG). This measures electrical activity during sleep and features patterns called spindles and slow-wave (SW) oscillations. These features are hallmarks of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and are thought to aid memory consolidation and brain development. "Because sleep EEG is known to be altered in many neurodevelopmental disorders, the properties and coordination of these alterations can be used as biomarkers for psychiatric dysfunction" explained lead author Nick Donnelly, Clinical Lecturer in General Adult Psychiatry at the University of Bristol, UK

To explore this in 22q11.2DS, the team recorded sleep EEG over one night in 28 young people aged 6-20 years old with the chromosome deletion and in 17 unaffected siblings, recruited as part of the Cardiff University Experiences of Children with copy number variants (ECHO) study, led by Prof. van den Bree. They measured correlations between sleep EEG patterns and psychiatric symptoms, as well as performance in a recall test the next morning.

They found that the group with 22q11.2DS had significant alterations in sleep patterns including a greater proportion of N3 NREM sleep (slow-wave sleep) and lower proportions of N1 (the first and lightest sleep stage) and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, compared with their siblings. Those carrying the chromosome deletion also had increased EEG power for both slow-wave oscillations and spindles. There was also an increase in the frequency and density of spindle patterns and stronger coupling between the spindle and slow-wave EEG features in the 22q112.DS group. These changes may reflect alterations in the connections within and between areas of the brain that generate these oscillations, the cortex and the thalamus.

Participants also took part in a 2D object location task before sleep, where they had to remember where matching cards were on a screen. They were tested again on the same task in the morning, and the team found that in those with 22q11.2DS, higher spindle and SW amplitudes were associated with lower accuracy. By contrast, in participants without the chromosome deletion, higher amplitudes were linked to higher accuracy in the morning recall test.

Finally, the team estimated the impact of the differences in sleep patterns on psychiatric symptoms in the two groups using a statistical method called mediation. They calculated the total effect of genotype on psychiatric measures and IQ, the indirect (mediated) effect of EEG measures, and then the proportion of the total effect that may be mediated by EEG patterns. They found that the effects on anxiety, ADHD and ASD driven by the 22q11.2 deletion were partially mediated by sleep EEG differences.

"Our EEG findings together suggest a complex picture of sleep neurophysiology in 22q11.2DS and highlight differences that could serve as potential biomarkers for 22q11.2DS-associated neurodevelopmental syndromes," concluded co-senior author Matt Jones, Professorial Research Fellow in Neuroscience, University of Bristol, UK. "Further study will now need to clarify the relationship between psychiatric symptoms, sleep EEG measures and neurodevelopment, with a view to pinpointing markers of brain circuit dysfunction that could inform doctors which patients are most at risk, and support treatment decisions."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220830131627.htm

Good face recognizers can learn faces from fragments

August 31, 2022

Science Daily/University of New South Wales

Good with faces? New research suggests that your ability might be more akin to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle than taking a photograph.

Psychologists at UNSW Sydney and University of Wollongong have challenged the prevailing view that people with exceptional face recognition abilities rely on processing faces holistically.

Instead, they argue, people who are great at learning and remembering new faces -- also known as super recognisers -- can divide new faces into parts, before storing them in the brain as composite images.

"It's been a long-held belief that to remember a face well you need to have a global impression of the face, basically by looking at the centre and seeing the face as a whole," said lead researcher, Dr James Dunn.

"But our research shows that super-recognisers are still able to recognise faces better than others even when they can only see smaller regions at a time. This suggests that they can piece together an overall impression from smaller chunks, rather than from a holistic impression taken in a single glance."

In a paper published today in the journal Psychological Science, the researchers described how they set up an experiment that tested both super recognisers and people with average face recognition skills to see whether revealing only small areas of a face at a time made any difference to super recognisers' superior ability to remember a face.

Not only did super recognisers continue to perform better when only seeing small parts of a face at a time, but they seemed to spend less time looking at the eyes than other participants in the test.

But according to Dr Dunn, the results don't mean that super-recognisers are necessarily doing anything differently than the rest of us.

"It seems that super-recognisers are not processing faces in a qualitatively different way from everyone else," Dr Dunn said. "They are doing similar things to normal people, but they are doing some important things more and this leads to better accuracy."

The setup

The researchers recruited 37 super-recognisers and 68 typical recognisers and sat them before a computer screen. There, they looked at faces through a 'spotlight' that captured up to 60 per cent of the face at the largest aperture, down to just 12 per cent at the smallest aperture, using eye tracking technology.

Each person had five seconds to scan an outline of a face, and only the parts of the face that their gaze illuminated was revealed in detail, with the rest blurred beyond recognition. As they looked around the face, new details of the face were revealed, while the preceding area was again obscured. They looked at a total of 12 faces.

In the next phase they were presented with 24 faces -- the 12 that they had viewed in the first part of the test, and 12 new faces -- and asked to identify the faces they had seen in the face learning phase.

Good lookers

It turned out that the super-recognisers were more accurate than typical recognisers whether the size of the aperture was large or very small. While there didn't seem to be a pattern in the features that super-recognisers gazed at compared to typical recognisers, there was a difference in the time that they spent looking at the eyes.

"We found that they actually look at the eyes less. This is despite the fact that a lot of research has been saying that looking at the eyes is such an important part of recognition and that the eyes do contain visual information that can give away a person's identity.

"So this was a bit of a mystery. One theory we have is that looking away from the eyes creates the opportunity to extract identity information from other features."

The researchers said their experiment changes the way we think about why some people are better than others at committing a face to memory.

"We think one of the things they're doing uniquely is exploring the face more to find information that is useful for remembering or recognising a person later. So when super-recognisers learn a face, it is more like putting together pieces in a jigsaw puzzle than taking a single snapshot of the whole face."

Other superpowers?

So are super-recognisers good at other tasks, like matching patterns, remembering phone numbers, or having photographic memories?

While that wasn't a subject of this particular study, Dr Dunn said that in another study recently published in Psychonomic Bulletin & Reviewthey found that those who are good at comparing images of people's faces -- like comparing someone's face to their driver's licence photo -- may also be good at comparing other types of visual patterns.

"We are starting to find evidence from super-recognisers and the public that people who were accurate when matching photographs of faces also tended to be more accurate matching other types of visual patterns, like the fingerprint and firearm samples that are analysed by forensic scientists.

"This leads us to believe that there is a general ability to compare complex visual patterns that is shared across different objects, which means that the same skills that make someone good at matching faces may also help you compare these other patterns as well," he said.

Looking ahead, Dr Dunn and his fellow researchers are keen to take super-recognising out of the lab and into the real world. They plan to have super-recognisers wear special eye-tracking glasses that record what their eyes are doing as they move about in the world and interact with people.

"We'd like to see whether some of the things we've observed in the lab about how super-recognisers learn and remember faces are the same in their day-to-day life."

The super-recognisers who were part of the study were selected after performing strongly in the online UNSW Face Test.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831113609.htm

Your blood type could predict your risk of having a stroke before age 60

Research could lead to potential new ways to predict and prevent strokes in young adults

August 31, 2022

Science Daily/University of Maryland School of Medicine

A person's blood type may be linked to their risk of having an early stroke, according to a new meta-analysis led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers. Findings were published today in the journal Neurology. The meta-analysis included all available data from genetic studies focusing on ischemic strokes, which are caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain, occurring in younger adults under age 60.

"The number of people with early strokes is rising. These people are more likely to die from the life-threatening event, and survivors potentially face decades with disability. Despite this, there is little research on the causes of early strokes," said study co-principal investigator Steven J. Kittner, MD, MPH, Professor of Neurology at UMSOM and a neurologist with the University of Maryland Medical Center.

He and his colleagues conducted the study by performing a meta-analysis of 48 studies on genetics and ischemic stroke that included 17,000 stroke patients and nearly 600,000 healthy controls who never had experienced a stroke. They then looked across all collected chromosomes to identify genetic variants associated with a stroke and found a link between early-onset stroke -- occurring before age 60 -- and the area of the chromosome that includes the gene that determines whether a blood type is A, AB, B, or O.

The study found that people with early stroke were more likely to have blood type A and less likely to have blood type O (the most common blood type) -- compared to people with late stroke and people who never had a stroke. Both early and late stroke were also more likely to have blood type B compared to controls. After adjusting for sex and other factors, researchers found those who had blood type A had a 16 percent higher risk of having an early stroke than people with other blood types. Those who had blood type O had a 12 percent lower risk of having a stroke than people with other blood types.

"Our meta-analysis looked at people's genetic profiles and found associations between blood type and risk of early-onset stroke. The association of blood type with later-onset stroke was much weaker than what we found with early stroke," said study co-principal investigator Braxton D. Mitchell, PhD, MPH, Professor of Medicine at UMSOM.

The researchers emphasized that the increased risk was very modest and that those with type A blood should not worry about having an early-onset stroke or engage in extra screening or medical testing based on this finding.

"We still don't know why blood type A would confer a higher risk, but it likely has something to do with blood-clotting factors like platelets and cells that line the blood vessels as well as other circulating proteins, all of which play a role in the development of blood clots," said Dr. Kittner. Previous studies suggest that those with an A blood type have a slightly higher risk of developing blood clots in the legs known as deep vein thrombosis. "We clearly need more follow-up studies to clarify the mechanisms of increased stroke risk,"he added.

In addition to Dr. Kittner and Dr. Mitchell, UMSOM faculty involved in this study included Huichun Xu, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine; Patrick F. McArdle, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine; Timothy O'Connor, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine; James A. Perry, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine; Kathleen A. Ryan, MPH, MS, Statistician; John W. Cole, MD, Professor of Neurology; Marc C. Hochberg, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine; O. Colin Stine, PhD, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health; and Charles C. Hong, MD, PhD, Melvin Sharoky MD Professor of Medicine.

A limitation of the study was the relative lack of diversity among participants. The data was derived from the Early Onset Stroke Consortium, a collaboration of 48 different studies across North America, Europe, Japan, Pakistan, and Australia. About 35 percent of the participants were of non-European ancestry.

"This study raises an important question that requires a deeper investigation into how our genetically predetermined blood type may play a role in early stroke risk," said Mark T. Gladwin, MD, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "It points to the urgent need to find new ways to prevent these potentially devastating events in younger adults."

The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health and Department of Veterans Affairs. Researchers from more than 50 institutions worldwide were co-authors on this study.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220831162509.htm

Cannabis legalization boosts use by double digits

A first-of-its kind study of twins finds those who live in states where marijuana is legal use it 24% more

August 27, 2022

Science Daily/University of Colorado at Boulder

Residents of states where cannabis has been legalized use marijuana 24% more frequently than those living in states where it remains illegal, according to new research published today in the journal Addiction.

The study of more than 3,400 adult twins, by researchers at University of Minnesota and University of Colorado, constitutes some of the strongest evidence yet that legalization causes increased use.

It comes at a time when cannabis use is rising nationwide, including during adulthood -- a phase of life when individuals have historically tended to cut back.

"Across America, there is a trend toward using more marijuana but we found that the change is bigger in states where it is legal," said lead author Stephanie Zellers, a recent University of Minnesota graduate who began the research while a PhD student at CU Boulder's Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG).

For the study, Zellers and co-authors at CU Boulder, CU Anschutz Medical Campus and University of Minnesota analyzed data from two large longitudinal twin studies, which have tracked twins since childhood in both states: one housed at IBG and another at the Minnesota Center for Twin Family Research.

Participants were asked how frequently they used cannabis before and after 2014 when Colorado became one of the first states to commence legal sales of recreational marijuana. Recreational cannabis remains illegal in Minnesota. Before 2014, there was little difference in use between states, the study found. After 2014, across all participants, residents of states where recreational use of marijuana was legalized used cannabis 24% more frequently than those in illegal states.

When specifically comparing identical twins in which one now lives in a state where marijuana is legal and the other lives in a state where it is illegal, those living in the state with legal marijuana used cannabis 20% more frequently, the researchers found.

Because twins share their genes and tend to share socioeconomic status, parental influences and community norms, they provide well-matched controls for each other, enabling researchers to minimize alternative explanations for results and get at what causes what.

"This is the first study to confirm that the association between legal cannabis and increased use holds within families in genetically identical individuals," said co-author John Hewitt, a professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and faculty fellow at IBG. "This makes it much more likely that legalization does, in itself, result in increased use."

More than 141 million Americans now live in a state with recreationally legal cannabis and, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, use among young adults age 19 to 30 is at an all-time high, with 43% reporting use in the past year and 29% in the last month.

"Typically, what we would expect to see is that people tend to increase use as adolescents and then reduce it as they transition into adult roles, family life and stable jobs," said Zellers. "Interestingly, we saw escalation, not reduction, in adults."

The authors note that it is unlikely that legalization would cause those who abstained from marijuana before to pick up the habit.

And preliminary results from their broader ongoing research project suggest increased use may not necessarily be a bad thing.

"In other analyses, we are finding that this increased use is not accompanied by increased problems, may be associated with less alcohol-related problems, and otherwise does not, in general, seem to have adverse consequences," said Hewitt.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220827092455.htm

Psychedelics may lessen fear of death and dying, similar to feelings reported by those who've had near death experiences

August 24, 2022

Science Daily/Johns Hopkins Medicine

In a survey study of more than 3,000 adults, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers compared psychedelic experiences with near-death experiences that were not drug related and found notable similarities in people's attitudes toward death. Survey participants in both groups reported having less fear of death and dying after the experience. They also reported that the experience had a lasting positive effect, providing personal meaning, spiritual significance and psychological insight.

The study was published Aug. 24, 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE.

The results are consistent with several recent clinical trials showing that a single treatment with the psychedelic psilocybin produced sustained decreases in anxiety and depression among patients with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis. The largest of these trials (Griffiths et al., 2016) was conducted at Johns Hopkins Medicine by the authors of this survey. That study, a randomized trial of 51 patients with cancer who had clinically significant anxiety or depressive symptoms, demonstrated that receiving a controlled, high dose of psilocybin given with supportive psychotherapy resulted in significant increases in ratings of death acceptance, as well as decreases in anxiety about death.

For the present study, the researchers analyzed data gathered from 3,192 people who answered an online survey between December 2015 and April 2018. Participants were divided into groups: 933 individuals had non-drug-related near-death experiences, and the rest of the participants had psychedelic experiences, which were prompted by either lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) (904), psilocybin (766), ayahuasca (282) or N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) (307). Participants were predominantly white (85%) and mostly from the United States. Compared with the non-drug group, there were more men in the psychedelic group (78% versus 32%), and they tended to be younger (32 versus 55 years of age) at the time of the experience.

Similarities between the groups include:

• About 90% of participants in both groups reported a decrease in fear of death when considering changes in their views from before to after the experience.

• Most participants in both groups (non-drug group, 85%; psychedelics group, 75%) rated the experience to be among the top five most personally meaningful and spiritually significant of their life.

• Participants in both groups reported moderate to strong persisting positive changes in personal well-being and life purpose and meaning.

Differences between the groups include:

• The non-drug group was more likely to report that their life was in danger (47% versus the psychedelics group, 3%), being medically unconscious (36% versus the psychedelics group, 10%), or being clinically dead (21% versus the psychedelics group, less than 1%).

• The non-drug group was more likely to report that their experience was very brief, lasting five minutes or less (40% versus the psychedelics group, 7%).

The researchers say that future studies are needed to better understand the potential clinical use of psychedelics in ameliorating suffering related to fear of death.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220824152209.htm

Psychedelic drug therapy may help treat alcohol addiction

August 24, 2022

Science Daily/NYU Langone Health / NYU Grossman School of Medicine

wo doses of psilocybin, a compound found in psychedelic mushrooms, reduces heavy drinking by 83% on average among heavy drinkers when combined with psychotherapy, a new study shows.

Led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the investigation involved 93 men and women with alcohol dependence. They were randomly assigned to receive either two doses of psilocybin or an antihistamine placebo. Neither the researchers nor the study participants knew which medication they received. Within an eight-month period from the start of their treatment, those who were given psilocybin reduced heavy drinking by 83% relative to their drinking before the study began. Meanwhile, those who had received antihistamine reduced their drinking by 51%.

Among the other key findings, the study showed that eight months after their first dose, almost half (48%) of those who received psilocybin stopped drinking altogether compared with 24% of the placebo group.

"Our findings strongly suggest that psilocybin therapy is a promising means of treating alcohol use disorder, a complex disease that has proven notoriously difficult to manage," says study senior author and psychiatrist Michael Bogenschutz, MD, director of the NYU Langone Center for Psychedelic Medicine.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that excessive alcohol use kills roughly 95,000 Americans every year, often due to binge drinking or liver disease. It is also linked to enormous economic and workplace losses, injury accidents, and impaired learning, memory, and mental health, says Bogenschutz, also a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Langone Health. Current methods to prevent excessive alcohol use and dependency include psychological counseling, supervised detoxification programs, and certain drug regimens that dampen cravings.

According to study investigators, previous research had already identified psilocybin treatment as an effective means of alleviating anxiety and depression in people with the most severe forms of cancer. And earlier research by Bogenschutz and others suggested that psilocybin could serve as a potential therapy for alcohol use disorder and other addictions.

The new study, publishing Aug. 24 in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, is the first placebo-controlled trial to explore psilocybin as a treatment for excessive alcohol consumption, according to the study authors.

For the investigation, the research team recruited men and women who were diagnosed with alcohol dependence based on standard definitions and consumed on average seven drinks on days when they drank. Forty-eight patients received at least one dose and up to three doses of psilocybin, and 45 patients received the antihistamine placebo.

All received up to 12 psychotherapy sessions. These took place both before and after the drug treatments. Afterwards, the participants were asked to report the percentage of heavy drinking days they experienced during weeks 5 to 36 of the study. They also provided hair and fingernail samples to confirm that they had not been drinking. All participants were then offered a third session of psilocybin to ensure that those who previously received a placebo had the chance to be treated with the psychedelic drug.

"As research into psychedelic treatment grows, we find more possible applications for mental health conditions," says Bogenschutz. "Beyond alcohol use disorder, this approach may prove useful in treating other addictions such as cigarette smoking and abuse of cocaine and opioids."

Bogenschutz says the research team next plans to conduct a larger, multicenter trial under an FDA IND sponsored by B.More Inc.

He cautions that more work needs to be done to document psilocybin's effects and to clarify appropriate dosing before the drug is ready for widespread clinical use. He notes that researchers have started such trials.

Psilocybin is a naturally occurring compound derived from fungi with mind-altering qualities similar to those of LSD and mescaline. Most study participants experience profound alterations in perception, emotions, and sense of self, often including experiences which are felt to be of great personal and spiritual significance. Because the drug raises blood pressure and heart rate and can cause incapacitating and sometimes overwhelming psychological effects, researchers caution that it should only be used in carefully controlled settings and in conjunction with psychological evaluation and preparation.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220824120823.htm

People who use therapeutic cannabis are more likely to use nicotine, too

Study is among the first to examine the association between therapeutic cannabis use and nicotine use

August 23, 2022

Science Daily/Rutgers University

People who use therapeutic cannabis are more likely to also use nicotine products than the general population, according to a Rutgers study.

The study, published in the American Journal on Addictions, is among the first to examine nicotine use among patients of a medical marijuana dispensary.

"Simultaneous use of cannabis and nicotine is a growing concern, but while the relationship between recreational cannabis and nicotine use is well-established, little is known about nicotine use among users of medical cannabis," said Mary Bridgeman, a clinical professor at Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.

The researchers surveyed 697 patients between ages 18 and 89 at a medical marijuana dispensary on their nicotine and cannabis use, how they self-administered the cannabis (smoked, vaped) and the medical conditions that qualified them for using therapeutic cannabis.

They found that close to 40 percent of medical marijuana users also use nicotine -- sharply higher than the 14 percent of U.S. adults who smoke.

Therapeutic cannabis users who also used electronic cigarettes or didn't use nicotine at all were about four times more likely to vape, rather than smoke, cannabis than those who exclusively smoked cigarettes.

The study also found 75 percent of the respondents smoked cannabis rather than vaped and about 80 percent of the cigarette smokers reported planning to quit in the next six months.

These findings reveal that while medical cannabis dispensaries may recommend vaping rather than smoking cannabis due to the health concerns associated with combustible products, this recommendation alone may not influence patients who also smoke cigarettes," said co-author Marc Steinberg, author of the study and a professor in the department of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

"Between the higher rates of nicotine use in those using medical cannabis, the fact that cigarette smokers opt to smoke cannabis as well and that those people also are seeking to quit using nicotine presents a strong argument that dispensaries provide tobacco control messaging at the point-of-sale to encourage cigarette smokers to quit," Steinberg added. "The strategy also could increase the chances that a medical cannabis user would vape the product, which is a less harmful route than smoking."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220823135701.htm

Marijuana and hallucinogen use among young adults reached all time-high in 2021

Study also found past-month vaping levels rebound after early pandemic drop

August 22, 2022

Science Daily/NIH/National Institute on Drug Abuse

Marijuana and hallucinogen use in the past year reported by young adults 19 to 30 years old increased significantly in 2021 compared to five and 10 years ago, reaching historic highs in this age group since 1988, according to the Monitoring the Future (MTF) panel study. Rates of past-month nicotine vaping, which have been gradually increasing in young adults for the past four years, also continued their general upward trend in 2021, despite leveling off in 2020. Past-month marijuana vaping, which had significantly decreased in 2020, rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2021.

Alcohol remains the most used substance among adults in the study, though past-year, past-month, and daily drinking have been decreasing over the past decade. Binge drinking (five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks) rebounded in 2021 from a historic low in 2020, during the early stages of COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, high-intensity drinking (having 10 or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks) has been steadily increasing over the past decade and in 2021 reached its highest level ever recorded since first measured in 2005.

"As the drug landscape shifts over time, this data provides a window into the substances and patterns of use favored by young adults. We need to know more about how young adults are using drugs like marijuana and hallucinogens, and the health effects that result from consuming different potencies and forms of these substances," said National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow, M.D. "Young adults are in a critical life stage and honing their ability to make informed choices. Understanding how substance use can impact the formative choices in young adulthood is critical to help position the new generations for success."

Since 1975, the Monitoring the Future study (https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/trends-statistics/monitoring-future) has annually surveyed substance use behaviors and attitudes among a nationally representative sample of teens. A longitudinal panel study component of MTF conducts follow-up surveys on a subset of these participants to track their drug use through adulthood. Participants self-report their drug use behaviors across three primary time periods -- lifetime, past year (12 months), and past month (30 days). The MTF study is conducted by scientists at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, and is funded by NIDA, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Data for the 2021 survey were collected online from April 2021 through October 2021. Key findings in the young adult group include:

Marijuana Use: Past-year, past-month, and daily marijuana use (use on 20 or more occasions in the past 30 days) reached the highest levels ever recorded since these trends were first monitored in 1988. The proportion of young adults who reported past-year marijuana use reached 43% in 2021, a significant increase from 34% five years ago (2016) and 29% 10 years ago (2011). Marijuana use in the past month was reported by 29% of young adults in 2021, compared to 21% in 2016 and 17% in 2011. Daily marijuana use also significantly increased during these time periods, reported by 11% of young adults in 2021, compared to 8% in 2016 and 6% in 2011.

Hallucinogen Use: Past-year hallucinogen use had been relatively stable over the past few decades until 2020, when reports of use started to increase dramatically. In 2021, 8% of young adults reported past-year hallucinogen use, representing an all-time high since the category was first surveyed in 1988. By comparison, in 2016, 5% of young adults reported past-year hallucinogen use, and in 2011, only 3% reported use. Types of hallucinogens reported by participants included LSD, MDMA, mescaline, peyote, "shrooms" or psilocybin, and PCP. The only hallucinogen measured that significantly decreased in use was MDMA (also called ecstasy or Molly), showing statistically significant decreases within one year as well as the past five years -- from 5% in both 2016 and 2020 to 3% in 2021.

Vaping: Nicotine vaping in the past month increased significantly among young adults in 2021 despite leveling off in 2020 during the earlier part of the pandemic. The continued increase in 2021 reflects a general long-term upward trend: in 2021, nicotine vaping prevalence nearly tripled to 16% compared to 6% in 2017, when the behavior was first recorded.

Prevalence of marijuana vaping in the past month among young adults had significantly dipped in 2020 but returned to near pre-pandemic levels in 2021. Since 2017, when marijuana vaping was included in this study, past-month prevalence has doubled -- from 6% in 2017 to 12% in 2021.

Alcohol Use: Reports of binge drinking by young adults -- defined as having five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks -- returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2021 after significantly decreasing in 2020 (32% reported in 2021, versus 28% in 2020 and 32% in 2019). High-intensity drinking, defined as having 10 or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks, was at its highest level since it was first measured in 2005, reported by 13% of young adults in 2021, compared with 11% in 2005. However, past-month and past-year alcohol use, and daily drinking have been on a downward trend in young adults for the past 10 years. For example, in 2021, 66% of young adults reported alcohol use in the past 30 days, a significant decline from 70% recorded in 2016 and 69% in 2011.

The study also showed significant decreases in past-month cigarette smoking by young adults and non-medical use of opioid medications in the past year (surveyed as "narcotics other than heroin") compared to 10 years ago. Both substances have been declining steadily in use for the past decade. Additional data from the 2021 MTF panel study include drug use reported by adults 35 to 50 years old, college/non-college young adults, and among various demographic subgroups.

"One of the best ways we can learn more about drug use and its impact on people is to observe which drugs are appearing, in which populations, for how long, and under which contexts," said Megan Patrick, Ph.D., a research professor at the University of Michigan and principal investigator of the MTF panel study. "Monitoring the Future and similar large-scale surveys on a consistent sample population allow us to assess the effects of 'natural experiments' like the pandemic. We can examine how and why drugs are used and highlight critical areas to guide where the research should go next and to inform public health interventions."

View more information on the methods behind MTF panel study data collection (http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtfpanelreport2022) and how the survey adjusts for the effects of potential exclusions in the report (http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/monographs/mtfpanelchap1_2022).

Results from the related 2021 MTF study of substance use behaviors and related attitudes among teens in the United States was released in December 2021, and 2022 results are upcoming in December 2022.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220822130344.htm

New study estimates over 5.5 million U.S. adults use hallucinogens

Past 12-month LSD use rate increased from 0.9 percent in 2002 to 4 percent in 2019

August 18, 2022

Science Daily/Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health

Hallucinogen use has increased since 2015, overall and particularly among adults 26 and older, while use decreased in adolescents aged 12-17 years according to a new study by Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Estimates of over 5.5 million people in the U.S. used hallucinogens in the past year in 2019, which represents an increase from 1.7 percent of the population ages 12 years and over in 2002 to 2.2 percent in 2019.

LSD use between 2002 and 2019 increased overall and in all age groups with the past 12-month rate increasing from 0.9 percent in 2002 to 4 percent in 2019 for those 18-25 years of age. Conversely, PCP use between 2002 and 2019 decreased, as did the drug Ecstasy since 2015. The study is the first to provide formal statistical analyses of trends in prevalence of hallucinogen use overall and by age groups during the last two decades.

The findings are published online in the peer-reviewed journal Addiction.

To assess trends in hallucinogen use in the U.S. general population, the researchers analyzed data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) from 2002 to 2019 for participants 12 years of age and older.

The use of hallucinogens -- a broad category of psychoactive substances, including "classic" psychedelics such as LSD -- are mostly designated as Schedule I drugs in the U. S., and may entail risk for adverse consequences including anxious reactions, confusion, acute delusional states and a prolonged sense of fear and dread. LSD and Ecstasy and several other hallucinogens are associated with an increased risk of autonomic, endocrine, cardiovascular and neurological adverse effects including elevated blood pressure, heart rate and loss of appetite, tremors and seizures. PCP is considered to be one of the most dangerous hallucinogens, and known to cause adverse effects similar to LSD and ecstasy, but unlike those drugs, PCP can lead to hostile and violent behaviors that may result in severe trauma.

"While new findings suggesting benefits from use of certain hallucinogens among a range of cognitive areas are being published at a rapid rate, there are still gaps in knowledge concerning safe hallucinogen use, and evidence for potential adverse effects even with professionally supervised use that warrant attention." said Ofir Livne, MD, MPH, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School, and first author.

From 2002 to 2019, the prevalence of 12-month LSD use increased significantly overall and among respondents aged 12-17 years. However, the prevalence of great risk for regular LSD use decreased significantly overall for the years 2002-14, and among all age groups.

"Our finding of an upward trend in 12-month LSD use, overall and by age, matches our finding of a downward trend in perception of LSD as risky," said Deborah Hasin, PhD, professor of epidemiology (in psychiatry) at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and senior author. "Factors such as changes in risk perception, in the specific types of drugs available and in expectations of beneficial effects of 'microdosing' may all have led to increased use of certain hallucinogens in recent years."

According to author Livne, "Given the recent media coverage showing that an increasing number of adults may be reporting positive effects of 'microdosing' and expecting therapeutic benefits of hallucinogens without negative effects, our findings merit a comprehensive examination of time trends and motives for hallucinogen frequency and quantity of use."

"In light of popular media reports of a forthcoming 'psychedelic revolution' with commercialization and marketing that may further reduce public perception of any risk, researchers, clinicians and policymakers should increase their attention to the rising rates of unsupervised hallucinogen use among the general public," observes Hasin. "Our results highlight such use as a growing public health concern and suggest that the increasing risk of potentially unsupervised hallucinogen use warrants preventive strategies."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220818122413.htm

Study with military suggests 'blended' individual and team mindfulness is at least as effective as standard mindfulness training

Team mindfulness training combining collective stress management skills with elements of the individually-focused mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course could offer more benefit than MBSR alone, study suggests.

August 23, 2022

Science Daily/City University London

A new study suggests that a 'blended' eight-week mindfulness programme that adds Team Mindfulness Training (TMT) to a shortened version of the mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) course for individual mindfulness is just as effective as the standard MBSR course alone. It may even offer further benefit by increasing collective stress management skills.

Led by Dr Jutta Tobias Mortlock, Co-director of the Centre for Excellence in Mindfulness Research (CEMR) at City, University of London, in collaboration with Dr Alison Carter, Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of Employment Studies (IES), the study bridges the gap between the well-established body of research supporting the benefits of individual mindfulness practice, epitomised by the eight-week MBSR course, and the burgeoning science on team and collective mindfulness. MBSR has been shown to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and pain. Collective mindfulness is strongly linked to organisational resilience.

The study was conducted in a high-stress military context: military officers in training in the British Army and in the Royal Navy, and was funded by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). A mixed method approach was used that consisted of two research phases.

Twenty-three junior officers-to-be from the British Army participated in a pre-pilot study which trialled the newly designed Team Mindfulness Training (TMT) intervention: half the time was dedicated to training participants in individual stress management skills using the MBSR curriculum, with the remainder focusing on training collective stress management skills using the principles of collective mindfulness.

A larger pilot study, in which 105 Royal Navy officer cadets took part, then compared the TMT intervention against the standard eight-week MBSR course. The effect of participating in either intervention group was measured by assessing individual resilience, collective mindfulness, and individual performance. While the two former measures were self-reported, the last was assessed using an objective computer-test of working memory, as a proxy for performance at work. All measures were taken at three time points: directly before, directly after and two months after the intervention. Participants also took part in semi-structured interviews.

The study found that participating in both intervention groups led to significantly increased individual resilience and working memory, with no significant difference between the two groups.

Whilst neither group showed statistically significant improvements in collective mindfulness over time, the TMT group experienced a near-significant collective mindfulness increase after participating in the training.

In addition, results from analyses of the interviews suggest that participants in the TMT group seem more able to report that they had learned to manage difficult work stress collectively. Most notably, however, only individuals from the TMT group (and none from the MBSR group) indicated they were able to apply their newly learned MBSR skills to stressful work challenges. This suggests that a collectively mindful team atmosphere supported the application of individual stress management skills when it really mattered.

The authors suggest that the study opens up ground for follow-up research that may help address recently reported counterintuitive effects of individually-focused workplace mindfulness, such as lower work motivation after brief periods of mindful meditation.

They also stress that this study brings back the prosocial orientation to mindfulness practice that may have been eclipsed by the more recent mindfulness-as-self-help movement. This prosocial aspiration is a core tenet of mindfulness traditions: to generate transformative capacity to overcome stress and suffering in oneself as well as for all.

First author of the study, Dr Jutta Tobias Mortlock, says:

Our intervention considers mindfulness as a team sport. Combining individual with collective mindfulness makes mindfulness training more powerful. And offering mindfulness practices to organisations that stretch beyond individually-focused meditation helps extend the transformative potential of mindfulness for organisations.

Dr Alison Carter, Principal Investigator of the study and co-author of its publication, adds:

This work shifts the needle from self-focused mindfulness towards creating a mindful culture in workplaces. This is both helpful and practical because when people at work look out for each other, then stress at work becomes a collective responsibility rather than something that needs to be shouldered by individuals in isolation of others. And we know that managing stress collectively is more effective than managing stress alone.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220823095440.htm

Boosting duration, intensity & frequency of physical activity may lower heart failure risk

The study, in Circulation, is one of the first to examine the association between objectively measured physical activity levels and heart failure risk independently of sociodemographic, lifestyle and clinical factors

August 29, 2022

Science Daily/American Heart Association

Researchers tracked the incidence of heart failure over six years in more than 94,000 middle-aged adults in the U.K. Biobank who wore wrist accelerometers to record the amount and intensity of their physical activity over seven days between 2013-2015. Participants who engaged in 150-300 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75-150 minutes of vigorous physical activity during the week of observation reduced their risk of being hospitalized for or death from heart failure by two-thirds compared to participants who did not engage in the same amounts of moderate or vigorous physical activity during the week.

A six-year analysis of more than 94,000 adults in the U.K. Biobank with no history of heart failure at enrollment has found that engaging in moderate or vigorous physical activity may lower the risk of developing heart failure, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's flagship journal Circulation.

The study is one of the first to use objectively measured activity levels to estimate heart failure risk. The results are consistent with previous studies finding that performing 150-300 minutes of moderate exercise or 75-150 minutes of vigorous exercise each week may reduce the incidence of heart attack and stroke.

Heart failure is a chronic, progressive condition that develops when the heart is not capable of pumping sufficient blood to keep up with the body's needs for blood and oxygen, and it can result in fatigue and difficulty breathing. Heart failure affects more than 6 million adults in the United States, according to the American Heart Association, and more than 86,000 Americans died of heart failure in 2019. The Association recommends adults should engage in at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity.

"There are many potential ways that regular physical activity may reduce the risk of developing heart failure," said Frederick K. Ho, Ph.D., co-lead author of the study and a lecturer in public health at the University of Glasgow in Glasgow, Scotland. "For example, physical activity helps prevent weight gain and related cardiometabolic conditions, such as high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes, all of which are risk factors for heart failure. Regular physical exercise may also strengthen the heart muscle, which, in turn, may prevent heart failure from developing."

The investigators analyzed the health records of 94,739 adults aged 37-73 in the U.K. Biobank -- a large research database in the United Kingdom that enrolled and collected health information on 500,000 adults who received care through the National Health Service. The participants in the U.K. Biobank were enrolled in the database between 2006 and 2010 across Scotland, England and Wales.

Data for this study was gathered between 2013-2015. During that time period, the subset of 94,739 participants were randomly invited to enroll in the study via the email address they had provided to the U.K. Biobank. Participants were an average age of 56 years at enrollment; 57% were female, and 96.6% were white adults. At the time each participant was invited, enrolled and analyzed, they had not been diagnosed with heart failure or had a heart attack. Each participant wore a wrist accelerometer for seven consecutive days, 24 hours per day, to measure the intensity and duration of physical activity. After enrollment, data was collected through linked hospital and death records.

During a median follow-up of 6.1 years after the physical activity measurement was conducted, the analysis found:

• The adults who logged 150-300 minutes of moderate physical activity in one week had a 63% lower risk of heart failure; and

• those who performed 75-150 minutes of vigorous physical activity in one week were estimated to have a 66% lower risk of heart failure compared to participants who engaged in minimal to no moderate or vigorous physical activity.

The estimated risk reductions were adjusted for age, sex, ethnicity, education, socioeconomic conditions, smoking, alcohol intake and dietary factors.

"These findings indicate that every physical movement counts. A leisurely, 10-minute walk is better than sitting and no physical activity. And, if possible, try to walk a little faster, which increases the intensity and potential benefits of exercise," Ho said.

According to Ho, the study results suggest that going above and beyond the current AHA recommendations for moderate activity may provide greater protection against heart failure. "We found that moderate physical activity has the potential increased cardiovascular risk benefits up until 500 minutes/week, as appropriate for each individual," he said.

People whose risk factors for heart failure include having a BMI that meets the criteria for overweight or obese, high blood pressure and elevated glucose or cholesterol, may be particularly likely to benefit from increasing their physical activity, according to Ho and colleagues.

"Health care professionals may suggest more physical activity based on a patient's current lifestyle and health status," Ho said. "Generally, moderate physical activity is easier to incorporate into daily routines, and it's generally safer. Vigorous physical activity is sometimes the most time-efficient and may be more suitable for busy people. However, caution is advised for all when beginning a new physical activity regimen to prevent injuries or acute adverse events (such as a heart attack in a formerly sedentary person initiating a vigorous exercise program)."

This observational study cannot prove a cause-and-effect link between the amount and intensity of physical activity and the risk of developing heart failure. Because participants in the U.K. Biobank are overwhelmingly white, further studies would be needed to confirm that these results apply to people from diverse backgrounds who may experience negative social determinants of health.

"Our findings add to the overwhelming body of other evidence, suggesting that maintaining even a modest amount of regular physical activity can help prevent a range of chronic conditions from developing, including heart failure," said Naveed Sattar, the senior author of the study. Sattar is a professor of metabolic medicine at the Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220829085948.htm

Physical activity may have a stronger role than genes in longevity

August 24, 2022

Science Daily/University of California - San Diego

Previous research has shown that low physical activity and greater time spent sitting are associated with a higher risk of death. Does risk change if a person is genetically predisposed to live a long life?

That is the question researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego set out to answer in a study published in the August 24, 2022 online edition of the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity.

"The goal of this research was to understand whether associations between physical activity and sedentary time with death varied based on different levels of genetic predisposition for longevity," said lead author Alexander Posis, M.P.H., a fourth-year doctoral student in the San Diego State University/UC San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health.

In 2012, as part of the Women's Health Initiative Objective Physical Activity and Cardiovascular Health study (OPACH), researchers began measuring the physical activity of 5,446 women in the United States who were 63 and older, following them through 2020 to determine mortality. Participants wore a research-grade accelerometer for up to seven days to measure how much time they spent moving, the intensity of physical activity, and sedentary time.

The prospective study found that higher levels of light physical activity and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity were associated with lower risk of death. Higher sedentary time was associated with higher risk of mortality. These associations were consistent among women who had different levels of genetic predisposition for longevity.

"Our study showed that, even if you aren't likely to live long based on your genes, you can still extend your lifespan by engaging in positive lifestyle behaviors such as regular exercise and sitting less," said senior author Aladdin H. Shadyab, Ph.D., assistant professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at UC San Diego. "Conversely, even if your genes predispose you to a long life, remaining physically active is still important to achieve longevity."

Given the aging adult population in the United States, and longer time spent engaging in lower intensity activities, the study findings support recommendations that older women should participate in physical activity of any intensity to reduce the risk of disease and premature death, wrote the authors.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220824152218.htm

Exercise answer: Research shows it's how often you do it, not how much

We all know exercise is important, but is it better to do a little every day, or a lot a few times a week?

August 15, 2022

Science Daily/Edith Cowan University

So… should I exercise a little bit every day, or exercise for longer once a week?

It's a dilemma faced by many health-conscious people -- and new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) is answering the question.

This latest research indicates a little bit of daily activity could well be the most beneficial approach, at least for muscle strength.

And happily, it also suggests you don't have to put in a mountain of work every day.

In collaboration with Niigata University and Nishi Kyushu University in Japan, the four-week training study had three groups of participants performing an arm resistance exercise and changes in muscle strength and muscle thickness were measured and compared.

The exercise consisted of 'maximal voluntary eccentric bicep contractions' performed on a machine which measures muscle strength in each muscle contraction you would do at the gym.

An eccentric contraction is when the muscle is lengthening; in this case, like lowering a heavy dumbbell in a bicep curl.

Two groups performed 30 contractions per week, with one group doing six contractions a day for five days a week (6x5 group), while the other crammed all 30 into a single day, once a week (30x1 group).

Another group only performed six contractions one day a week.

After four weeks, the group doing 30 contractions in a single day did not show any increase in muscle strength, although muscle thickness (an indicator of increase in muscle size) increased 5.8 per cent.

The group doing six contractions once a week did not show any changes in muscle strength and muscle thickness.

However, the 6x5 group saw significant increases in muscle strength -- more than 10 per cent -- with an increase in muscle thickness similar to the 30x1 group.

Frequency, not volume

Importantly, the increase in muscle strength of the 6x5 group was similar to the group in a previous study that performed only one three-second maximal eccentric contraction per day for five days a week for four weeks.

ECU Exercise and Sports Science Professor Ken Nosaka said these studies continue to suggest very manageable amounts of exercise done regularly can have a real effect on people's strength.

"People think they have to do a lengthy session of resistance training in the gym, but that's not the case," he said.

"Just lowering a heavy dumbbell slowly once or six times a day is enough."

Professor Nosaka said while the study required participants to exert maximum effort, early findings from current, ongoing research indicated similar results could be achieved without needing to push as hard as possible.

"We only used the bicep curl exercise in this study, but we believe this would be the case for other muscles also, at least to some extent," he said.

"Muscle strength is important to our health. This could help prevent a decrease in muscle mass and strength with ageing.

"A decrease in muscle mass is a cause of many chronic disease such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, some cancers, dementia, plus musculoskeletal problems such as osteoporosis."

Rest up

It is not yet known precisely why the body responds better to resistance exercises with eccentric contractions in smaller doses rather than bigger loads less frequently.

Professor Nosaka said it may relate to how often the brain is asked to make a muscle perform in a particular manner.

However, he stressed it was also important to include rest in an exercise regimen.

"In this study, the 6x5 group had two days off per week," he said.

"Muscle adaptions occur when we are resting; if someone was able to somehow train 24 hours a day, there would actually be no improvement at all.

"Muscles need rest to improve their strength and their muscle mass, but muscles appear to like to be stimulated more frequently."

He also highlighted if someone was unable to exercise for a period, there was no value in trying to "make up" for it with a longer session later.

"If someone's sick and can't exercise for a week, that's fine, but it is better to just return to regular exercise routine when you're feeling better" he said.

Clarifying advice

Current Australian Government guidelines already indicate adults should try to be active every day and perform 2.5-5 hours of moderate physical activity per week.

Professor Nosaka said there needed to be more emphasis on the importance of making exercise a daily activity, rather than hitting a weekly minute goal.

"If you're just going to the gym once a week, it's not as effective as doing a bit of exercise every day at home," he said.

"This research, together with our previous study, suggests the importance of accumulating a small amount of exercise a week, than just spending hours exercising once a week.

"We need to know that every muscle contraction counts, and it's how regularly you perform them that counts."

'Greater effects by performing a small number of eccentric contractions daily than a larger number of them once a week' was published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220815085707.htm

Music helps patients with dementia connect with loved ones

Novel music intervention sparks emotional connection between patients and caregivers

August 29, 2022

Science Daily/Northwestern University

People with dementia often lose their ability to communicate verbally with loved ones in later stages of the disease. But a Northwestern Medicine study, in collaboration with Institute for Therapy through the Arts (ITA), shows how that gap can be bridged with a new music intervention.

In the intervention -- developed at ITA and called "Musical Bridges to Memory" -- a live ensemble plays music from a patient's youth such as songs from the musicals "Oklahoma" or "The Sound of Music." This creates an emotional connection between a patient and their caregiver by allowing them to interact with the music together via singing, dancing and playing simple instruments, the study authors said.

The program also enhanced patients' social engagement and reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms such as agitation, anxiety and depression in both patients and caregivers.

More than 6 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer's disease.

The study is unusual because it targeted patients with dementia and their caregivers, said lead study author Dr. Borna Bonakdarpour. Most prior studies using music for dementia patients have focused only on the patients.

"Patients were able to connect with partners through music, a connection that was not available to them verbally," said Bonakdarpour, an associate professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine neurologist. "The family and friends of people with dementia also are affected by it. It's painful for them when they can't connect with a loved one. When language is no longer possible, music gives them a bridge to each other."

The study was published Aug. 25 in Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders.

Musical memory, processing not as affected by Alzheimer's

Music memories often remain in the brain even as language and other memories disappear in dementia, Bonakdarpour said. This is because regions of the brain that are involved in musical memory and processing (e.g., the cerebellum) are not as affected by Alzheimer's or dementia until much later in the disease course. Thus, patients can retain the ability to dance and sing long after their ability to talk has diminished.

How the study worked

In the study, individuals with dementia -- residents of Silverado Memory Care (in a suburb of Chicago) -- and their care partners were recorded on video conversing and interacting for 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after the intervention. Before playing the music, each patient/caregiver pair had training on how to interact more effectively during the music.

During the 45-minute musical intervention, an ensemble of chamber musicians and a singer performed songs that appealed to the patients from their younger days. The patients and their caregivers received simple instruments such as tambourines and shakers to accompany the music. Specially trained music therapists interacted with patients during performances, getting them to beat on drums, sing and dance.

A group conversation followed the music. Patients were more socially engaged as evidenced by more eye contact, less distraction, less agitation and an elevated mood. In comparison, the control group, which did not receive the intervention and were exposed to usual daily care and programs, did not show such changes within the same time frame.

The program included 12 sessions over three months.

'All could relate to their loved one'

Before the intervention, some individuals would not communicate much with their partners. However, during the intervention, they started to play, sing and dance together, which was a significant change for the family. These changes generalized to their behavior outside the sessions as well.

"As the program progressed, caregivers invited multiple family members," said Jeffrey Wolfe, a neurologic music therapist-fellow at ITA and leader of the Musical Bridges to Memory program. "It became a normalizing experience for the whole family. All could relate to their loved one despite their degree of dementia."

The next step in the research is to conduct the study on a larger group of patients. ITA and Northwestern have been funded by a three-year grant through the National Endowment for the Arts to expand this study.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/08/220829143926.htm