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Neuroscience

‘It takes a world’: Initiative urges global collaboration to help us understand the human brain – Genetic Literacy Project

First envisioned in 2016 through a series of discussions on the grand challenges in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University,the International Brain Initiative (IBI)came out [January 22] in aforward-looking paperinNeuron.

Rather than each country formulating their own brain projects independently, the project argues, its high time for the world to come together and share their findings, resources, and expertise across borders. By uniting efforts, the IBI can help shape the future ofneuroscienceresearch at a global scalefor promoting brain and mental health, for stimulating international collaboration, for ethical neuroscience practices, and for crafting future generations of scientists.

It takes a world to understand the brain,saidCaroline Montojo ofthe Kavli Foundation, which offered support to the project. When we have the best brains and the best minds working together, sharing information and research that could benefit us all.

The initiative, at the time of writing, includes JapansBrain/Minds,Australian Brain Alliance, theEUs Human Brain Project (HBP),Canadian Brain Research Strategy, theUSBRAIN Initiative(BRAINI), theKorea Brain Initiative, and theChina Brain Project.

Integrating multiple goals of various brain projects together, the IBI serves as meta-middleman to promote coordination, share resources, and help unite different ideas on the future of neuroscience.

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'It takes a world': Initiative urges global collaboration to help us understand the human brain - Genetic Literacy Project

Neuroscience

How African ‘feng shui’ can shape the continent’s cities of the future – CNN

Written by Matthew Ponsford, CNN

When architect Mphethi Morojele began designing Freedom Park in Pretoria, South Africa, a 130-acre (52-hectare) memorial to lives lost in the struggle against the country's Apartheid regime, he took the unconventional step of handing over the plans to a group of spiritual healers.

Work began nearly two decades ago, at which point these healers gathered signals from the natural and supernatural realms to create a sort of "heat map or a spiritual map of the site,'' explained Morojele.

"It's almost like the Chinese would use Feng Shui, where they feel the energies of the site and decide that this element must go here, this element must go there," he continued. "Then you start to lay out your design based on that as a kind of brief."

Freedom Park, Pretoria Credit: Clive Hassall

Alongside Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye and Burkina Faso-born Dibdo Francis Kr, Morojele's name was listed among "a generation poised to take on the ambitious projects that will define the architectural character and identities of rising Africa," in an New York Times article by Chika Okeke-Agulum, professor of art history at Princeton.

Morojele says it is a role he is glad to take on. During a telephone interview from his office in Johannesburg, he called for his peers to break down boundaries that still carve up the continent's architects along colonial lines, into Anglophone, Francophone, and other distinctions.

Mary Sibande re-imagines the story of South Africa's domestic workers

"Nowadays, there's a sufficient cohort of architects who have some relationship to the continent -- either having been trained here, or having lived here, or come from here -- who are beginning to question what it means to do architecture in Africa," he said.

The Hapo Museum Gallery, Freedom Park, Pretoria

For Morojele, the priorities he made when designing Freedom Park -- to respect the full sensory experience of the environment, including its spiritual content, and carefully construct community bonds through inviting diverse voices to input into the design process -- are key to constructing the African buildings and cities of the future.

Born in Lesotho, the mountainous nation enclaved inside South Africa's borders, Morojele has led Johannesburg-based MMA Design Studio since just months after the fall of Apartheid. In addition to Freedom Park, he has spearheaded other emblematic nation-building projects including designing the African Leadership Academy secondary school on the outskirts of Johannesburg, and South African embassies in Berlin and Addis Ababa.

The South African Embassy in Addis Ababa

Not confined to architecture and urban design, Morojele has been sought out for thought-leadership across design disciplines. In 2013 he was asked to help design the funeral of Nelson Mandela, which aimed to create a new tradition for how a leader of democratic South Africa would be laid to rest.

After Freedom Park, he again assembled spiritual leaders for input on another complex project, a market in Johannesburg where herbalists and healers sell "indigenous magic medicine," mostly herbs and plants, explained Morojele.

Long-forgotten family portrait sells at auction for $1.4 million

This complex project formalized the sale of products used by most South Africans, especially recent migrants from rural areas, which are sometimes frowned upon by city-dwellers and pushed to the margins of the city, he said. Creating a formal commercial space for traditional healers -- some are called inyangas or sangomas -- and the accompanying rituals, meant designing a new type of market that recognized which practitioners and which types of magic needed to be kept apart.

"I guess it's like any other client would brief you," he explained. "Only they work in the spiritual realm and then bring it back to brief us."

The process of working with spiritual workers is just one method Morojele has used to include often-excluded voices in the design process. He has also consulted diverse stakeholders -- members of the public, residents of townships and students at schools and academies -- incorporating users input into the design.

The Cradle of Humankind Visitor Centre, Maropeng, South Africa

The goal of greater inclusivity should be at the forefront for architects in South Africa and beyond, Morojele argued.

"I'd like to see architects focus on the way architecture creates social cohesion. In South Africa, architecture has always been used to separate. It had subtle mechanisms in buildings that were used to define who belongs where: which entrance you use, depending on your skin color, and things like that."

Morojele says architects and urban planners can -- and must -- reverse that historical process of division to repair fissures and create more equitable cities.

The African Leadership Academy Learning Commons in Johannesburg Credit: Tristan McLaren/Tristan McLaren

The unexpected art of Ghana's hand-painted movie posters

The African Leadership Academy Learning Commons in Johannesburg Credit: Tristan McLaren/Tristan McLaren

But the architect is distinguished in matching a hard-nosed focus on righting past wrongs of urban planning with a sensitive approach to planning. For example, he favors natural materials for heritage projects that draw on local animistic beliefs -- traditional beliefs that inanimate objects contain spiritual energy.

Vivid portraits shine light on Tahiti's 'third gender'

In Freedom Park, Morojele used natural materials to create a narrative of remembrance and hope. To do this he assembled boulders from South Africa's nine provinces -- having been ritually blessed in interfaith prayer sessions in the name of peace -- and even imported soil from across the world.

Stones in Isivivane, Freedom Park, are blessed in a ceremony

"It started off as a place that would offer symbolic restitution to people who lost their lives in the struggle for liberation," he said.

The Garden of Remembrance, a green belt surrounding the central memorial, contains earth from countries outside of South Africa where people had been stationed in exile and had died during the fight for liberation. "In a sense, the installation is given a certain spiritual energy because of the soil used that has come from different countries, which is now embedded into the monument or memorials," he said.

The Garden of Rememberance at Freedom Park, Pretoria

Morojoele is keen to now connect more analytic and spiritual approaches. As he plans for future commissions, he sees a path forward via neuroscience, and the ideas of "environmental psychology" developed by the likes of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa, which hopes to explain how our natural and built surroundings affect our behavior and emotions.

"The advances in neuroscience nowadays can relate the environment to people's emotions and people's nervous system, how it responds to different environments," Morojoele said. "I'm interested in understanding the Western scientific basis of what indigenous knowledge systems were expounding."

Why being an African artist is so important today

This approach -- combining neuroscience with animism, and layering landmarks and urban infrastructure with emotional nuances -- makes clear Morojele vision.

"We need to go back to understanding ourselves as biological beings, less as intellectual beings, bringing in more senses," he said.

Both forward-facing and grounded in tradition, Morojele hopes that the city of the future is an environment where we can connect with our own nature, and commune with our surroundings. "A more sensual architecture," he explained. "And one that heightens your experience of the environment."

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How African 'feng shui' can shape the continent's cities of the future - CNN

Neuroscience

New Light on the Genetic Relationship Between Three Mood Disorders – Technology Networks

Researchers shed new light on the genetic relationship between three mood disorders associated with depressionmajor depression and bipolar disorder types 1 and 2, in a newstudyin the journalBiological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

The clearest findings are a genetic distinction between type 1 bipolar and type 2 bipolar, and the greater similarity of type 2 bipolar to major depressive disorder, said first author Jonathan Coleman, PhD, a statistical geneticist and postdoctoral fellow in the lab of senior author Gerome Breen, PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Psychology at Kings College London, UK.

Both types of bipolar disorder used to be referred to as manic-depressive disorder. Mania is a behavioral state associated with behavioral activation, euphoric or irritable mood, reduced need for sleep, impulsive behavior, impaired judgement, racing disorganized thoughts, impulsive behaviors, and frequently strongly held false beliefs (delusions) or hallucinations. Bipolar disorder type 1 is associated with mania and depression, while bipolar 2 is predominately associated with depression marked by mild symptoms reminiscent of mania, called hypomania.

The insights came from several extremely large datasets analyzed together. For their meta-analysis, Coleman, Breen and their co-authors combined genome-wide association studies from three large datasets of people with major depression and bipolar disorder to evaluate shared and distinct molecular genetic associations. Most of the data came from the large international Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Additional data came from the UK Biobank, a major health resource established by the Wellcome Trust, and the online genetic service platform, 23andMe.

There are significant racial and ethnic differences in the findings from genome-wide association studies (GWAS). The findings of this study pertain only to people of European ancestry and findings might be different in other groups.

The authors also report that the genetic risk for these disorders was predictive of other traits as well. For example, the genetic risk for bipolar disorder was correlated with more educational attainment, while the heritable risk for major depressive disorder was associated with less education.

In the mouse brain, the authors also mapped the genetic risk for these disorders on to particular brain cell types using a sophisticated analytic strategy building on the pattern of genes expressed. They implicated serotonin neurons in the risk for both depression and bipolar disorder, while bipolar disorder distinctively involved GABA and glutamate neurons (nerve cell types also implicated in schizophrenia).

We have long known that mood disorders are highly heterogeneous and the boundaries between types of mood disorders are often difficult to define clinically, said John Krystal, MD, editor ofBiological Psychiatry. This new study suggests that there are aspects of genetic risk, and presumably brain function, that link forms of mood disorders, but there are also distinctions that may shed light on subtypes of depression that may have important implications for treatment.

Ultimately, the researchers want to develop clinical tools to help predict if a first episode of depression is likely to persist as a disorder or progress into bipolar disorder. Genetic data wont ever replace clinical insight, but it might be a useful addition to clinical models, said Coleman.

Reference:Coleman et al. (2019). The Genetics of the Mood Disorder Spectrum: Genome-wide Association Analyses of More Than 185,000 Cases and 439,000 Controls. Biological Psychiatry. DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2019.10.015.

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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New Light on the Genetic Relationship Between Three Mood Disorders - Technology Networks

Embryology

GE Healthcare joins CMRI to optimize gene therapy manufacturing – BSA bureau

The collaboration with Childrens Medical Research Institute will boost the efficiency of AAV purification, leading to increased access to the viral vectors needed to manufacture gene therapies.

GE Healthcare Life SciencesandChildrens Medical Research Institutewill jointly drive the development of new affinity ligands for the purification of adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors used in gene therapies. The focus of the collaboration is to bring to market-specific ligands for multiple AAV types, enhancing the chromatographic separation of AAV-based vectors. This will improve the manufacturing efficiency and scalability of gene therapies, enabling the availability of viral vectors on a global scale.

With more than 800 gene therapies currently in clinical trials, there is an increasing demand for the raw materials needed in the manufacturing process of viral vectors. AAVs are viral vectors used in more than 70% of the in vivo gene therapy clinical trials. According to GlobalData, the 2025 gene therapy in vivo therapeutic market is expected to reach USD 32 billion with an estimated CAGR of 105% between 2019-2025.

The collaboration combines the expertise from the latest available research on AAVs with application testing, advancing a comprehensive understanding of the clinical functionality and the commercial opportunities of AAV-based gene therapies. Childrens Medical Research Institute will share with GE Healthcare Life Sciences AAV capsid variants targeting different tissues. GE Healthcare Life Sciences will then design and test ligand prototypes, which Childrens Medical Research Institute will assess. Based on the performance results, GE Healthcare Life Sciences will manufacture and commercialize novel improved AAV affinity ligands.

Dr Leszek Lisowski, the lead gene therapy scientist at Childrens Medical Research Institute, says: Bringing the fruits of our work to the patients requires a joint effort between academia and the industry. The collaboration with GE Healthcare Life Sciences will allow us to expedite the development of novel clinical options at a lower cost.

Olivier Loeillot, General Manager, Bioprocess at GE Healthcare Life Sciences, says: The industry needs better and more personalized technologies to speed biopharmaceuticals through clinical trials and bring them to market. Our long biomanufacturing expertise combined with Childrens Medical Research Institutes pioneering research will lead to purification technologies that will streamline the production of gene therapies.

Catarina Flyborg, General Manager, Cell and Gene Therapy at GE Healthcare Life Sciences, says: Collaborations with organizations such as Childrens Medical Research Institute are critical to developing the technologies needed to move the industry forward. By working directly with world-class researchers, GE Healthcare Life Sciences can develop the purification technologies that will contribute to increasing the availability of viral vectors globally.

Childrens Medical Research Institute in Australia is globally recognized for its work on microsurgery, cancer research, neurobiology, embryology and gene therapy. The AAV affinity ligands resulting from this collaboration will be compatible with GE Healthcare Life Sciences resin-based chromatography portfolio used in the purification of most FDA-approved biopharmaceuticals.

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GE Healthcare joins CMRI to optimize gene therapy manufacturing - BSA bureau

Embryology

The case for Catholicism a response to Oliver Kamm – TheArticle

First things first Im one of those pesky Catholics. I believe that the teachings of the Catholic Church, which affirm a reverence for life at every moment, from conception to natural death, are a profound humanitarian teaching.

These teachings have far-reaching applications for a civilised society, from the rejection of war in global governance and, also, capital punishment to domestic and international outreach to the marginalised and deprived. The point is that the dignity of every human life, little and big born and unborn from the delivery room to death row, is seamless.

That said, the weakness of Oliver Kamms argument is twofold. It fails to make the case that Rebecca Long-Bailey was not discriminated against because of her Catholic beliefs on abortion. Second, his argument points to an anti-liberal mind-set far more effectively than any statement made by the MP for Salford. Consider the pejorative language Mr Kamn used to caricature the position of those who take a different view to himdespotic, moral authoritarians asserting inhumane and reactionary doctrine born of religious obscurantism.

Come, come, Mr Kamm these are intelligent and decent people, informed by medical as well as moral sensibilites, and every bit as familiar as yourself with the principles of representative democracy. Indignation at those whose views differ from yours is no substitute for respectful and reasoned debate. Reference to Jefferson and the Enlightenment doesnt give legitimacy.

Indeed, evoking the Enlightenment in an era where ideological colonisation has led to an anti-scientific and truly oppressive political environment is not without irony.

Nonetheless, the debate that it evokes is important precisely because it is happening against the backdrop of a fight for the heart and soul of a Labour Party thats bruised by electoral defeat and allegations of discrimination.

I lived in the UK when the Abortion Act 1967 was enacted. It envisaged a (very) limited application of the Act, with extensive protocols and procedures. The provisions which Mr Kamm cites no longer apply. The numbers themselves some 200,000 abortions annually demonstrate this reality. Contrary to the intent and expectations of the liberals who were behind the Act, it now amounts to abortion on demand. This raises serious social and healthcare issues that cannot be commandeered by the Labour Party or any political party as ano go domain for reflective analysis.

In his criticism of the Catholic perspective on non-medical abortion which explicitly encompasses Catholic politicians Mr Kamm fails to mention, even in passing, advances in embryology and imaging which allow MPs to see what was simply not possible back in 1967: the nature and scale of the assault on life and the impact on the infant in the womb.

Surely it is a sound and sensible proposition to review and reflect on any piece of legislation in the light of advances in science.Mr Kamm would have it otherwise. But that simply wont do it is not a defensible position.

This takes us to what appears to be the core of his argument. Religious and moral sensibilities should have, it seems, zero place in politics. Really? Does that include the likes of Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks? Is it defensible to insist that all his wisdom be left in the cloakrooms of the House of Lords. The early writings ofSt Thomas More especially Utopia and the accounts of his trial for not bending the knee to the self-serving assertions of Henry VIII show how much politics is in need of normative values and moral courage.

To adapt Mores Defense as he faced execution: The Kings or the Labour Party Excutives good servant: but Gods first. Mr Kamm cites, and rightly so, appalling institutional and human failings in the Church in recent times, but makes no reference whatever to the incalculable good which individual men and womenhavedone for the distressed and marginalised over the centuries, precisely because they were inspired by Gospel values.This lack of balance undermines his case.

But what does the real damage is the implication, at least as I read it, that Ms Long-Bailey, or any Catholic who takes their religious convictions regarding the unique and unrepeatable value of human life seriously, are by definitionilliberal and disqualified from public office. Why stop there? In such a secularist paradigm, why allow Catholics to vote at all dont dismiss the thought. We in Ireland were impacted by such thinking and, in historical terms, not so very long ago either.

Catholics should have the same right as secularists to a place in the public square. They should be allowed to argue their case in a Parliamentary democracy and to affirm their convictions regarding that most basic of all rights the right to life. That right is not, and cannot be, sequestered by a flawed definition of what it means to be liberal.

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The case for Catholicism a response to Oliver Kamm - TheArticle

Embryology

The Grief of Miscarriage Is a Modern Phenomenon – Fatherly

When Dr. Lara Freidenfelds, a historian of health, parenting, and reproduction,suffered a miscarriage 17 years ago, she was shocked and distressed. But what shocked her the most, as a PhD candidate in the History of Science writing her dissertation on the modern period and menstruation in 20th century America, was just how common miscarriages were. (Around 20 percent of confirmed pregnancies miscarry) Even more surprising to her: if you take a pregnancy test as early as you can, about six days before your expected period, theres almost a one in three chance that you are going to lose that pregnancy.

This got her Why was the information that was out there when I was trying to get pregnant so obscure?, she said Why didnt I know that just getting a positive test didnt really tell me, yet, that I was successfully pregnant?

Pulling at these threads, Dr. Freidenfelds dove into the history of miscarriages and came out with a brand new understanding of modern pregnancy and how market forces, medical advancements, pregnancy apps, and birth control have given expecting parents a sense of control and surety over their pregnancy that they just dont have in the first place. This makes miscarriages more difficult and painful than they often need to be. Her new book, The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: A History of Miscarriage in America, is a deeply researched and thoughtful exploration of the history of miscarriages that serves to teach parents about the history of pregnancy but also lift the shame over it.

Fatherly spoke to Freidenfelds about the history of miscarriages, how birth control created unrealistic expectations for familys abilities to get pregnant, and how mens roles in pregnancy and miscarriage have shifted right alongside their partners.

What compelled you to write about the history of miscarriages?

I started researching this book, now, about 17 years ago when I had the miscarriage.It really made me feel better to start thinking through this. I know, as a historian, that before the 20th century, women didnt think about early pregnancy in the same way they do now. They thought of it as a suspicion, that you could be pregnant, but not being certain about it. Looking for symptoms. But then, if you had a late menstrual period, and even if it was a crampy, heavy one, if you didnt see the form of a child in it, then women would attribute it to either sickness or just a late period or a pregnancy that had sort of begun. That the materials had never really come together into a child.

I thought, why cant I think about my pregnancies that way, too? In some ways, we know a lot now. We know a lot about embryology. But weve lost a lot of really important knowledge about how often embryos dont actually succeed and arent actually viable.

And then, I wanted to know, how did we come to such a different understanding? And how did we, in the process of learning so much science and medicine, actually lose a key piece of knowledge about how uncertain early pregnancy is?

So how did we lose that key piece of knowledge?

I think that theres some really large and important cultural forces at work. Theyve reshaped modern life in some really positive ways. Around the time of the American revolution, women and men began to want to have control over their reproduction. At least by 1960, with the birth control pill, we succeeded. Were successful at preventing pregnancies when we dont want them, so now, we feel like when we do decide to be pregnant, that it should be successful.

What do you mean?

Modern birth control is a wonderful thing, but it has given us a misleading intuition about how secure pregnancies are. Secondly, our vision of parenting has shifted in some really important ways. In colonial America, sure, you would like a child to love, but, parenting happens just because you got married. It was up to God and fate how many children you had, and children were for helping with household work, and working on the farm, and supporting you in your old age, and respecting God.

All of those reasons for being a parent over the last few centuries have dropped away. Today, our parenting is really focused, almost exclusively, on forming a loving bond with a child. That idea of when that bond is supposed to start has moved earlier and earlier into pregnancy and in recent decades into even the first weeks of pregnancy.

So, while I think that its wonderful that we focus on having a loving bond with our children now, I do think theres been some really emotionally traumatic side effects with starting to think that way at the very beginning of pregnancy. And then, marketers have gotten in the mix and are important pieces of this.

When did this begin?

Some of this begins with the 1920s advertisements for special Sears catalogs the baby edition. But it really gets going in the 1960s, when marketers become a lot more sophisticated about reaching specific segments, and realize that pregnant women are a really valuable group of consumers, because theyre about to make a bunch of brand choices.

Over the decades, since then, the market has gotten more and more aggressive about reaching women as early as possible in their pregnancy. A lot of pregnancy advice on websites and on apps is actually driven by marketing and advertising.

A responsible pregnancy manual author would never tell you to start browsing baby names at five weeks pregnant. But your app? Or your pregnancy website? It might very well do that, because they have every incentive to feed your excitement and your emotional attachment to your pregnancy.

It has gotten out of control.

Really out of control. So, as nice as it is that we have these wonderful baby products, the consumer culture has really gone in a direction that has not served peoples emotional wellbeing when it comes to early pregnancy.

And then we have these great medical technologies! Weve made new rituals around ultrasounds, and home pregnancy testing, that have also contributed to making us feel like its a real baby at a time when in fact it may not be secure yet.

So, 150 years ago was there not a lot of grief, or even a culture of silence around miscarriage?

Nineteenth century women werent talking about miscarriages in letters or diaries a lot. Part of whats complicated about this is, before people had good control of their fertility, they already had begun wishing for smaller families, and doing what they could to have smaller families. So 19th century women were commonly using douching and withdrawal and folk methods like heavy work or going on a bumpy carriage ride to try to bring on the menses, to try to not have a pregnancy this month.

So, if thats how youre thinking about early pregnancy as something that youre largely trying to avoid youre not that often in the situation of feeling distress about an early pregnancy loss. It took having a certain amount of control over fertility before early losses could seem like something that was clearly undesirable. So thats part of it.

The idea that having a choice in being able to limit pregnancy makes the loss of wanted pregnancy more jarring.

Part of it also is that when women wrote about second trimester losses, they were scary medical situations. They were relieved at not dying from them. So, the loss of the child was secondary to being relieved to have survived the process. Pregnancy and birth has become so much safer that we can focus on the expected child, and not on surviving the birth or miscarriage.

We see how womens attitudes towards miscarriages have changed over the last 150 years or so. Is there a sense that mens attitudes have changed alongside this shift?

Historically, when women had pregnancy losses that they were confident were pregnancy losses, so later in pregnancy, husbands were part of it in the same way they were part of birth. Which is that they were responsible for calling an assistant, or a medical practitioner, to come in and assist and make sure their wife survived. Men were highly invested, and very concerned, because they had the same concerns that their spouse could lose her life. They werent necessarily expected to be thinking about pregnancy as an already existing baby.

What has changed today as far as mens relationship to miscarriage?

I think that in many positive ways, the expectations about husbands and male partners being part of pregnancy is a new thing. Thats great for many couples. In some ways, some of these rituals weve developed around our medicine the ultrasound, going in for the ultrasound to see the baby is partly about helping the father feel involved, because he cant feel the pregnancy. But this way, he has a window into whats going on. Its also not literally the seeing of it. Its having a ritual format where you go in and start imagining yourself as parents, together.

And thats something that fathers can participate in. Thats very nice. But its just really hard on people when you find a miscarriage, instead of seeing the heartbeat.

Yes, incredibly.

So, fathers, I think, are experiencing the losses more directly now because of that. And the same thing with home pregnancy tests, especially with websites suggesting many exciting and sentimental ways for women to share their positive home pregnancy test with their spouse or other relatives. It can be a really nice way for fathers to be involved in their future parenting right from the same time as their partners. On the other hand, that means that theyre going to face the loss as well.

When parents suffer a miscarriage, its often an incredibly sad time for them. The grief is real.

People grieve in different ways. Part of whats so complicated about the situation, in terms of people giving appropriate emotional support, is that you dont know if your friend or relative who miscarried felt like they lost a child, and are grieving a death in the family, or, if they are very disappointed, but are ready to try again next month and youre going to make it harder for them if you say, Im so sorry your baby died.

Yes, and its hard to know, as a friend or family member, how to discuss it. Or if its appropriate to bring it up. So its often not addressed.

I think that people are looking for certain kinds of support, because we dont talk about it. And people dont talk about it partly because they are protecting themselves from the burden of what people might put on them having heard of their miscarriage. We dont have a standard ritual for handling miscarriage. We often dont know how to feel about it, which is sort of a strange thing.

It is strange.

Thee narratives that tend to get offered are trying to support women who are grieving their miscarriage. I think grievers do need a lot of support. But, its not true that the only way to think about a miscarriage is as the death of a child. If you tell people that that is the way youre supposed to think about it, its going to hurt people at the same time it helps others. I would like to see more discussion in our popular support literature about the variety of ways people might think about a miscarriage and also, that how you think about your miscarriage might change over the course of your life. Its not something that happens once, you experience it, and its permanently that way.

No life experience is. But this one, more than others, can change in its meaning and how you think about it in the context of your journey to parenthood, depending on how that goes.

So what do you think is the correct course of action?

We need to have this discussion enough so that people know it might happen ahead of time so that they can go into childbearing with the information that they may get pregnant next month and have a baby in nine months. They may take six months to get pregnant. They may have a successful pregnancy the first time around or the first one may not stick and it may take another try. All of those are normal, healthy ways that people have their children and if we can go in knowing that that might be the case, we might be able to handle early pregnancy a little bit differently so that when they dont work out, its not as distressing.

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The Grief of Miscarriage Is a Modern Phenomenon - Fatherly

Physiology

New Study: Daylight Saving Time Linked to 28 Fatal Car Accidents Per Year – Sleep Review

A study appearing January 30 in the journal Current Biology puts forth evidence of one downside of Daylight Saving Time (DST): it increases the risk of fatal car accidents in the United States for about a week each year.

The evidence shows about a 6% increase in the risk of fatal traffic accidents in the week after the time change each spring. In other words, more than 28 fatal accidents could be prevented yearly in the United States if the DST transition were abolished. The effect is especially pronounced in the morning hours and in locations further west within a time zone.

The acute adverse effects of DST on fatal traffic accident risk are real, and can be prevented, says senior author Cline Vetter, Dr. Phil, a circadian sleep scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder, in a release. Although the observed effects are of moderate size and are not long-lasting, we must not forget that DST transition affects billions of people every year, and thus small changes in risk can have a substantial public health impact.

The findings come at a time when numerous states, including Oregon, Washington, California, and Florida, are considering doing away with the switch entirely, and mounting research is showing spikes in heart attacks, strokes, workplace injuries, and other problems in the days following the time change.

But, Vetter explains, the findings on car accidents werent so clear-cut. In the new study, she and her colleagues, including first author Josef Fritz, set out to look deeper.

They took advantage of the federal Fatality Analysis Reporting System, which recorded 732,835 fatal car accidents across all US states observing DST from 1996 to 2017. After controlling for factors like year, season and day of the week, they found a consistent rise in fatal accidents in the week following the spring time change. Notably, that spike moved in 2007, when the Energy Policy Act extended daylight saving time to begin on the second Sunday of March instead of the first Sunday in April.

Prior to 2007, we saw the risk increase in April, and when daylight saving time moved to March, so did the risk increase, says Vetter. That gave us even more confidence that the risk increase we observe is indeed attributable to the daylight saving time switch, and not something else.

In absolute numbers, they report, this risk increase translated to an additional 5.7 fatal accidents per day from Monday to Friday after the spring DST transition in the United States. Thats more than 28 deaths during the workweek. Over the course of the 22 years, they report, thats more than 626 out of 8,958 fatal accidents that might have been prevented.

Those on the western edge of their time zone, in places like Amarillo, Texas, and St. George, Utah, already get less sleep on average than their counterparts in the eastabout 19 minutes less per day, research showsbecause the sun rises and sets later but they still have to be at work when everyone else does.

They already tend to be more misaligned and sleep-deprived, and when you transition to daylight saving time it makes things worse, says Fritz, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Physiology. In such western regions, the spike in fatal accidents was more than 8%, the study found.

The increase kicks in right away, on the Sunday when the clocks spring forward, and the bulk of the additional fatal accidents that week occur in the morning.

Changes in accident patterns also occur after the fall back time change, the study showed, with a decline in morning accidents and a spike in the evening, when darkness comes sooner.

Because they balance each other out, there is no overall change in accidents during the fall back week.

The public health impact of the DST transition regarding fatal traffic accident risk is clear from our data, Vetter says. Because our data only included the most severe accidents, namely where a fatality was recorded, this estimation is likely an underestimation of the true risk.

The findings offer yet another reason to consider getting rid of the switch to DST, the researchers say. They now hope to understand and better characterize the effects of DST on individuals and the physiology and health outcomes associated with the mini-jetlag DST causes. With such an understanding, they say theyll be in a better position to identify the people who are most vulnerable and affected by the time change.

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New Study: Daylight Saving Time Linked to 28 Fatal Car Accidents Per Year - Sleep Review

Physiology

MSU-Meridian to host meeting for those interested in education degrees on Feb. 13 – Meridian Star

Want to be an educator or further your career in education?

MSU-Meridians Division of Education will host an informational meetingfrom 5:30 7 p.m. onFeb. 13 in Kahlmus Auditorium located on the College Park Campus at 1000 Hwy 19 North.

According to Kim Hall, head of the Division of Education at MSU-Meridian, the meeting will help prospective students learn more about undergraduate and graduate degree programs in Education offered at the local campus, including kinesiology (clinical exercise physiology) and counseling.

Mississippi is facing a critical teacher shortage, said Hall, and we at MSU-Meridian have worked diligently the past several years to do our part by developing flexible delivery methods designed for the working adult for all our education degree programs. Weve also implemented the Professional Advancement Network for Teacher Assistants or PANTA initiative which helps teacher assistants complete the educational requirements to become licensed teachers, she added.

Those interested in attending must RSVP by contacting Kimberly Pace at 601.484.0243 or email kkd43@msstate.edu.

A light meal will be provided and anyone who attends the meeting and submit an application to Mississippi State University by Feb. 21, will have their application fee waived.

Education degrees offered at MSU-Meridian

UNDERGRADUATE:Educational Psychology,Elementary Education,(w/endorsements in Secondary Education& Special Education available),Kinesiology Clinical Exercise Physiology

MASTER OF ARTS IN TEACHING:Community College Education,Secondary Education (Alternate Route Program)

MASTER OF SCIENCE & EDUCATIONAL SPECIALIST:Counselor Education (Clinical Mental Health, Rehabilitation, School),Elementary Education,School Administration,Teacher Leadership

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MSU-Meridian to host meeting for those interested in education degrees on Feb. 13 - Meridian Star

Physiology

Do Bacteria in the Brain Impact Sleep? Researchers Get a Keck Grant to Find Out – Sleep Review

With a $1 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation, neuroscience researchers at Washington State University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst will explore whether variations in brain levels of bacterial fragments can account for lifes circadian rhythms.

The bacteria residing inside of you outnumber your own cells 10 to one and affect sleep, cognition, mood, brain temperature, appetite and many additional brain functions. Yet we lack an understanding of how they do it, says James Krueger, PhD, Regents Professor of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience at the WSU College of Veterinary Medicine, in a release.

The sleep research is led by Krueger, and the circadian rhythm portion of the project is led by co-investigator Ilia Karatsoreos, PhD, who recently joined UMass Amherst from WSU as an associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.

At Karatsoreos Lab, researchers will use models of simulated jet lag, a way to disrupt our circadian rhythms. As anyone who has flown cross-country has likely experienced firsthand, disrupting these rhythms is associated with changes in sleep, cognition and even body temperature.

When jetlagged, many of the normal bodily functions are out of synchrony with each other. This is a consequence of altering circadian rhythms, Karatsoreos says. By looking for changes of bacterial products in the brain, we anticipate we will discover new approaches to treat jet lag, and possibly the desynchrony of physiological functions that occurs with old age.

The new grant builds on nearly 40 years of sleep research. In the early 1980s, Krueger isolated a sleep-promoting molecule from brains of sleep-deprived rabbits and from human urine. Its chemical structure was a muramyl peptidea building block component of bacterial cell walls.

At the time of the discovery, it was difficult to measure small amounts of muramyl peptides. Now, improved measurement technologies and the Keck Foundation funding will enable researchers to determine the brains muramyl peptide levels and whether they correlate with sleep-wake cycles or circadian rhythms.

Whats more, researchers will determine if sleep loss results in increased levels of muramyl peptides in the brain, a predicted result based on the 1980s investigations.

Another goal of the Keck-funded work will be to determine how brain muramyl peptides elicit sleep. Our minds are an outcome of a bacteria/human symbiosis, Krueger says. Expanding this concept by determination of how such disparate species talk to each other will transform our views of cognition, psychiatric disorders, consciousness including sleep, and our understanding of what it means to be human.

The late W. M. Keck, founder of the Superior Oil Company, established The W. M. Keck Foundation in 1954. The Foundations grant making is focused primarily on pioneering efforts in the areas of medical research, science and engineering, and undergraduate education.

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Do Bacteria in the Brain Impact Sleep? Researchers Get a Keck Grant to Find Out - Sleep Review

Physiology

Classes help improve mind, body and spirit – TimminsToday

An Eastern philosophy is having a positive impact on a group of Timmins residents.

The Timmins branch of Fung Loy Kok Taoist Tai Chi members gather regularly to exercise their bodies, mind and spirit. While they initially tried tai chi for various reasons, they enjoy the benefits of the non-violent martial art.

The benefit is that everything relaxes. Its called a moving mediation, explained Shirley Calhoun, a co-leader of the Timmins branch. But it also has stretching, it has repair of different things. It helps your back. It helps your eyes. It helps you to just mellow out.

There is a meditative aspect to it. Its a wonderful art.

Taoist tai chi grew out of the ancient Chinese belief that health comes with the body, mind and spirit working together. According to the organizations website, tai chi involves deep stretching with a full range of motion and continuous turning of the spine. They exercise the whole physiology including muscular, skeletal and circulatory systems, as well as tendons, joints, connective tissue and organs.

The gentle, internal movements are balanced throughout the body and have a calming effect on the mind.

Taoist tai chi is marking 50 years in Canada.

In 1970, the fellow who actually started this came from China and his name was Moy Lin Shin, Cahlhoun said. He got it started in Montreal first, then he came to Toronto.

Weve got over 40,000 people that part of the society and do tai chi. Were in 25 or 26 countries. If you become a member here in Timmins, and you travel to, say, Costa Rica, you just bring your little card that says youre part of it all, then you can do tai chi there free.

Once youve become a participant in one place, youre all over the world.

A little more than 20 years after coming to Canada, tai chi arrived in Timmins.

The Timmins branch actually started around 1991-92, she said. There was a fellow from around North Bay, his name is Ron Dankovich, he was a continuing instructor and he came up to Timmins, got everybody started and showed what they had to do.

The Timmins branch began with about 15 members.

Right now, we have 75 members on the books, Calhoun said. Its hard to get started, you have to have enough population.

Members come to the branch for a variety of reasons. Some come to get more physically active, in a gentle way. Others seek a venue for meditation. Others want to find pain relief.

Membership is open to all age groups.

There is no criteria (to join), she said. You just come in and we show a demonstration. We usually have an open house, where we show what we do and we answer questions. If they want to sign up, we sign them up and they can come the next time.

All you need is a pair of loose pants, a pair of shoes that are flat that you wear inside only, we give you a t-shirt and thats it.

She said there are also social benefits to joining the group.

We have a lot of fun, Calhoun said. We have games night sometimes. We do have a lot of fun.

Were open to all age groups. Weve even had an eight-year-old come out with his mom.

The Timmins branch of Fung Loy Kok Taoist Tai Chi has ongoing, beginners and pain relief classes ongoing at the Masonic Hall, 35 Tamarack St.

It can be reachedat 705-268-4300 or onFacebook.

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Classes help improve mind, body and spirit - TimminsToday