Physiology

With Temperatures Rising, Can Animals Survive the Heat Stress? – Yale Environment 360

In the early 20th century, pioneering naturalist Joseph Grinnell and his team studied the flora and fauna of California, conducting meticulous surveys across large swaths of the state, including the Mojave Desert. They collected 100,000 specimens and took 74,000 pages of field notes, creating an invaluable baseline against which to measure long-term change.

Several years ago, a research team from the Grinnell Resurvey Project at the University of California, Berkeley set out to find how desert birds had fared over the last century. The changes were profound. In a study published last fall, the team found that on average temperatures in the desert had increased 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, making one of the worlds hottest places even hotter.

They also found that nearly a third of the 135 bird species present a century ago are far less common today and not nearly as widespread. The heat stress associated with climate change is the culprit, the study concluded, because desert birds need more water to keep cool, but it is not available.

We often think that climate change may cause a mass mortality event in the future, but this study tells us that the change in climate that has already occurred is too hot and in certain areas, animals cant tolerate the warming and drying that has already occurred, said Eric Riddell, a physiological ecologist and the lead author.

The impacts of a hotter world are no longer off in the future they have already arrived. As the planet grows warmer, the effects of heat stress on organisms trying to survive outside the temperature envelope they evolved in is becoming increasingly evident. From insects to coral reefs to biodiversity across entire ecosystems, researchers are chronicling the serious impacts of heat stress as temperatures break records. And several leading scientists believe we are underestimating the impacts, even as the heat ramps up.

The period from 2015 to 2019 was the warmest five-year period on record, according to a new report from the World Meteorological Association, and the just-finished decade was the hottest since record-keeping began. Last summer across Europe numerous high temperature records were broken, and the frequency, intensity, and duration of heat waves are all expected to increase, according to a recent paper. Marine heat waves are occurring four or five times more frequently than in the 1980s, according to another recent study.

Australia has been ground zero for recent extreme heat waves. Heat waves have occurred for centuries across the dry continent, but of the 39 known ones, 35 have taken place since 1994. This past summer was the second-hottest on record and the country is projected to warm faster than the global average, rising 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees F) by 2100. Australia set a new record high in 2019 of 107.4 degrees F, which was an average of highs across the country. The individual record-high temperature was 121 degrees F in 2019 in Port Augusta.

One of the best-studied heat events in Australia took place in 2011 and shows how devastating the effects of extreme heat can be, on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The exceptional temperatures, a 2018 paper concluded, caused rapid, diverse, and broad scale changes and triggered abrupt, synchronous ecological disruptions, including mortality, demographic shifts, and altered species distributions. The paper said that tree die-off and coral bleaching occurred simultaneously in response to the heat wave and were accompanied by terrestrial plant mortality, seagrass and kelp loss, population crash of an endangered terrestrial bird species [Carnabys black cockatoo], plummeting breeding success in marine penguins, and outbreaks of terrestrial wood-boring insects.

A spectacled flying fox that died in the November 2018 heat wave in Australia. Marc McCormack/EPA

This cascade of events led the team of researchers to conclude that the extent of ecological vulnerability to projected increases in heat waves is underestimated.

Other recent events show the disparate impacts of extreme heat. In November 2018, the temperature in northern Australia soared to 107 degrees and stayed there for days. Endangered spectacled flying foxes 2-pound animals with 5-foot wing spans were overwhelmed. They tried to cool off by fanning themselves with their wings and panting, but that fell far short. In the end, some 23,000 of the endangered animals fell out of trees and died. The heat also killed fish, wild horses, and camels.

In 2014, an Australian heat wave killed more than 45,000 bats of various species. In some places fire trucks were deployed to spray and cool off dying bats.

Last month, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that this year would bring the third major coral bleaching event to the Great Barrier Reef in five years because of heat waves. Coral bleaching occurs when high sea temperatures cause the living corals to expel the symbiotic algae on which the corals depend.

Research on impacts to the natural world from increasing temperatures is still in its early stages. But David Breshears a University of Arizona professor of ecology and an expert in forests and climate change, is deeply worried. First you get drought, on top of that the average temperature is going up, and on top of that a heatwave occurs, said Breshears, who co-authored the 2018 heat wave paper. Do extremes matter? You better believe they do, and its scary and getting scarier.

Extreme temperatures as opposed to warmer average temperatures are the catalyst for a growing number of local extinctions, experts say. A recent study looked at 538 plant and animal species at 581 sites around the world that had been previously surveyed. The goal was to understand what aspect of climate change was the most serious threat to biodiversity. Researchers found that 44 percent of the species at the sites had gone locally extinct, and that the culprit was an increase in the temperature of the hottest days of the year.

John J. Wiens, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Arizona and a co-author of that study, said this research creates a model that allows scientists to estimate at what temperatures species around the world will not be able to take the heat anymore. We can estimate the global extinction for each species, he said. He estimated that if there is moderate global warming, 16 percent of all species would be lost; if theres more severe warming, 30 percent could be lost. The big picture is that one in three species could go extinct over the next 50 years, Wiens said.

Part of what dictates whether species will survive is their physiology and habits. Birds pant to cool off, exhaling air and water. The hotter they get, the more water they need to expel. The mourning dove, for example, requires 10 to 30 percent more water to keep cool than it did a century ago, according to the Grinnell Resurvey Project.

A dead tree in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest during the September 2010 drought. NASA/JPL-Caltech

Insect or animal-eating birds, which get their water from their prey, are even worse off. The Mojave Desert study found that if water needs increase by 30 percent, larger birds need to catch 60 to 70 bugs more per day to satisfy their water needs, which has an energetic cost. Thats why avian carnivores in the desert including the kestrel, prairie falcon and turkey vulture have declined along with insectivores such as gnatcatchers and mountain chickadees. All told, the increasing need for water has led to a 43 percent decline in species richness, the Grinnell Resurvey Project concluded.

Birds suffer more than other animals. They have high exposure to climate change, said Riddell. They are diurnal and exposed to the hottest part of the day. Small mammals live underground and are generally nocturnal. Insects are small and can take advantage of smaller habitat niches.

If current trends continue, well see more declines in the desert birds, Riddell said. Even desert specialists are struggling to live in this environment that they are supposedly well adapted for.

Some insects in some places have taken a heat hit as well. A recent study found that the number of areas that native bumblebees occupy has plummeted 46 percent in North America and 17 percent in Europe compared to surveys taken from 1901 to 1974. Those bee-less areas were also places with a high degree of climate variation, especially higher temperatures. Climate change is related to the growing extinction risk that animals are facing around the world, lead author Peter Soroye said, because of hotter and more frequent extremes in temperatures.

At the same time, an increase in temperatures is also expected to boost some insect populations including those that eat crops. A 2018 study predicted that could have a serious detrimental impact on world food supplies. Warmer temperatures increase insect metabolic rates exponentially, said Chris Deutsch, a professor of oceanography at the University of Washington, who led the team. Second, with the exception of the tropics, warmer temperatures will increase the reproductive rates of insects. You have more insects and theyre eating more.

Warmer temperatures are already causing major damage to the worlds forests. As temperatures warm, trees become less resilient and die-offs become more frequent as much as five times more so. If the climate warms a little more, things dont get a little different, they get very different, said Henry Adams, a plant biologist at Oklahoma State University and co-author of a recent paper on the topic. You get an acceleration in the rate of mortality. As you crank up the heat, the time it takes to kill trees is less and less.

Warmer temperatures, in other words, make droughts more deadly.

And there is concern that warmer temperatures will also keep burned forests from re-growing and that those ecosystems will instead transform into grasslands or shrub ecosystems.

Part of the reason is that, in the American West, fires are becoming bigger and hotter and more frequent, which kills the mother trees needed to drop seeds and regenerate the forest. Extreme heat then reduces seedling survival. The hotter, drier climate is making it more difficult for trees to regenerate on sites to which a lot of these conifers were suited, said Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in New Mexico. Parts of the landscape are becoming less available to regrowth.

Native bumblebee species, such as the Bombus impatiens, have declined 46 percent in North America. Courtesy of Antoine Morin

This trend is especially important because forests are a significant carbon sink. For 30 years, nearly 100 institutions studied 565 tropical forests in Africa and the Amazon to understand their role in taking up and sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide, which helps mitigate climate warming.

What they found, in a paper published this month in the journal Nature, is that the uptake of CO2 in these forests peaked in the 1990s. By 2010, their ability to take up carbon had dropped by a third.

As warming alters Alaska, can a key wildlife refuge adapt? Read more.

The cause was the growing number of dead trees in these forests, which were killed by higher temperatures, according to Wannes Hubau, who worked on the project as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds and who now works with the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Belgium.

Our modeling of these factors shows a long-term future decline in the African [carbon] sink, said Hubau, and that the Amazonian sink will continue to rapidly weaken, which we predict to become a carbon source in the mid-2030s.

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With Temperatures Rising, Can Animals Survive the Heat Stress? - Yale Environment 360

Neuroscience

Immersion Neuroscience Index Reveals the Public Craves Direction From Its Elected Leaders, Not Celebrities, During a Crisis – Yahoo Finance

Immersion Neuroscience, the worlds most advanced predictive software company unlocking neuroscience to measure what people love, announced today a new Immersion Index revealing people's reaction to celebrities vs. elected officials communications about the current COVID-19 pandemic.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200319005599/en/

Immersion Neuroscience Index Reveals the Public Craves Direction from its Elected Leaders, not Celebrities, During a Crisis (Graphic: Business Wire)

Immersion researched the most effective way to share information with the public about coronavirus. This new study compares celebrities and their social media messages with elected officials.

"The best way to determine if communication is effective is to measure how well it "sticks" in the brain. Science has established that when the brain is immersed in information, it is remembered, shared with others, and acted on. Highly immersive information is what will reduce the spread of the coronavirus and save lives," said Dr. Paul J. Zak, Founder of Immersion.

The research study: Immersion asked participants to turn on their Apple watches or other wearable sensors and emailed them six videos to view online. The videos ran for one-and-a-half to two minutes and featured President Trump; Vice President Pence, who leads the White House Coronavirus Task Force; Dr. Anthony Fauci, who leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is a member of the Coronavirus Task Force; Georgia Governor Brian Kemp; singer Cardi B; and actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger, all speaking about the coronavirus outbreak.

The study revealed that communication about coronavirus by government leaders is significantly more effective than a celebrity rant or an offbeat video with miniature horses, for example.

The Immersion platform aggregated neurologic responses and returned an average Immersion value from 1-10 for each video.

Immersion Index results for communication effectiveness are:

Vice President Pence generated neurologic immersion that was 48% higher than the next most immersive speakers, a tie between President Trump and Governor Kemp. Dr. Fauci was a close third at 53% less immersive, while Arnold and Cardi B were at the bottom of the list at 61% and 64% less immersive than Mr. Pence.

The results show that fact-based videos from elected officials delivered without theatrics were significantly more immersive, meaning these are more likely to motivate actions by citizens.

"We salute celebrities for reminding the public to be safe. But, when times are tough, this study shows that brains know that experts provide the most valuable information. If you ask people which videos they "like" or find "entertaining," they will choose the stars over the experts. Extensive research has shown that "liking" has no relationship to what people do. In this time of crisis, action is what matters. That is why measuring neurologic immersion is so important," said Immersion CEO Scott Brown.

Fifteen years of peer-reviewed research has proven that when the brain produces a specific set of unconscious responses called "immersion," it identifies an experience as valuable.

Story continues

Immersions proprietary solution and software is the world's most accurate way to measure the brain's unconscious emotional responses to virtually any type of content whether its video, music, live events, training, educational resources and more. Developed by distinguished research scientists, Immersions simple-to-use and scalable predictive SaaS platform democratizes neuroscience so that anyone can measure what people love at scale.

The Immersion platform is unique in its ability to perform distributed neuroscience, which becomes essential at a time when the world is sheltering in place. Immersion measures brain responses anyplace that people are using a mobile app that sends data to cloud servers. Algorithms developed by Immersion scientists infer brain activity from a small wearable sensor.

To learn more about Immersion, visit http://www.getimmersion.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200319005599/en/

Contacts

Andrew LaszacsBob Gold & Associates 310-320-2010immersion@bobgoldpr.com

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Immersion Neuroscience Index Reveals the Public Craves Direction From Its Elected Leaders, Not Celebrities, During a Crisis - Yahoo Finance

Neuroscience

The Neuroscience of Respect Discredits Toxic Leadership Culture in the US – CEOWORLD magazine

There is a common misconception among corporate leaders that the most effective method to enact change is through tough leadership, ultimatums, and punishment for bad behavior.

A new nonprofit recently launched with a singular mission in mind: to challenge this corporate culture and educate leaders on the benefits of respectful leadership. The Center for Respectful Leadership was founded by Gregg Ward, an established leadership expert and bestselling author.

Neuroscience of Respect

Despite our best efforts to run completely on logic, especially in the workplace, humans are still ruled by emotions. Workplaces and boardrooms are full of emotional beings that are expected to keep their emotions in check while on the clock.

All humans still have a reactive, reptilian brain, and disrespect in the workplace can wreak havoc on employee productivity, and company culture. A Gallup study showed that positively engaged or connected companies perform better than their competitors.

Gregg Ward explains further, Its imperative for leaders to understand that culture eats strategy for breakfast, and if they tolerate or contribute to a toxic work environment, no matter how brilliant the product or idea, the chances of overall success are significantly reduced.

How Emotional Intelligence Can Help Leaders

Rigid standards and norms about professionalism have built a corporate culture in America that completely ignores the ever-present emotions of the human beings it employs.

Gregg Ward has dedicated his career to educating leaders on leveraging and sharpening their emotional intelligence to better manage teams. The Center for Respectful Leadership is a group of experts dedicated to building a better business community through experiential learning programs.

By learning and applying emotional intelligence and basic empathy to the corporate culture, leaders will not only find they are more effective but also that their team is more productive.

Ward warns, As a nation, were at a crossroads right now: do we go all in on disrespecting each other more and more and more, or do we find a way to step back from the cliff and potentially help our fellow Americans to step back too?

Unique Training Opportunities

With live theatre training, HR and C-level executives learn how to navigate confrontational and uncomfortable social interactions in the workplace.

The results are therapeutic and help leadership to turn around struggling and toxic corporate cultures. The theater format provides a safe place to practice tough conversations and make mistakes without jeopardizing professional relationships.

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The Neuroscience of Respect Discredits Toxic Leadership Culture in the US - CEOWORLD magazine

Neuroscience

BioXcel Therapeutics Provides an Update on its Ongoing Phase 3 SERENITY Trials – BioSpace

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc. (BTI or Company) (Nasdaq: BTAI), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company utilizing artificial intelligence to identify improved therapies in neuroscience and immuno-oncology, today announced that more than one-third of the patients in the Phase 3 SERENITY trials have been enrolled and treated. To date, the company has not observed a change in enrollment rates resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and currently maintains previous guidance that SERENITY I & II are expected to be completed by mid-year 2020.

Despite the current situation with COVID-19, we remain on track with the enrollment of our SERENITY studies, stated Vimal Mehta, Chief Executive Officer of BTI. Up to now, all schizophrenia and bipolar patients enrolled have successfully self-administered the BXCL501 treatment, guided by a healthcare provider, and the trials seem to be progressing well. We are optimistic that enrollment rates will continue to stay consistent with previous weeks and are looking forward to sharing topline results in the middle of this year.

The SERENITY studies are randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, adaptive trials of up to 750 patients, 18 to 75 years of age. SERENITY I is enrolling patients with agitation associated with schizophrenia, with each arm receiving BXCL501 at 120 micrograms, 180 micrograms or placebo, respectively. SERENITY II is evaluating patients with agitation associated with bipolar disorder, also in three arms receiving BXCL501 at 120 micrograms, 180 micrograms or placebo, respectively. The primary endpoint of the trials is reducing acute agitation measured by the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, examining the Excited Component (PEC) change from baseline compared to placebo. A key secondary endpoint includes determining the earliest time where an effect on agitation is apparent as measured by the change from baseline in PEC total score.

About Agitation in Neuropsychology

Agitation is a common and difficult to manage symptom associated with a number of psychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It is estimated that approximately 19 million people are at risk of agitation, and 8.3 million in the U.S. suffer from agitation each year, costing approximately $40 billion annually in treatment related expenses. Early identification and prompt intervention to relieve agitation are essential to avoid symptomatic escalation and emergence of aggression. Recent consensus guidelines emphasize the need for non-coercive management strategies to protect the therapeutic alliance between patients and their healthcare providersan alliance that is critical for the effective management of chronic psychiatric conditions. A non-invasive therapy that causes rapid symptom relief and de-escalates agitation may be necessary to avoid the costly and traumatic use of coercive techniques, like physical restraint and seclusion, which require admission and prolonged hospitalization.

About BXCL501

BXCL501 is an investigational proprietary sublingual thin film of dexmedetomidine, a selective alpha-2a receptor agonist for the treatment of acute agitation. BTI believes that BXCL501 directly targets a causal agitation mechanism, and the Company has observed anti-agitation effects in multiple clinical studies across multiple neuropsychiatric indications. BXCL501 has been granted Fast Track Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the acute treatment of agitation.

A Phase 1b safety and efficacy study of BXCL501 in patients with schizophrenia yielded positive dose-response data. BXCL501 is being evaluated in the SERENITY program, consisting of two Phase 3 studies for the acute treatment of agitation in patients with schizophrenia (SERENITY I) and bipolar disorder (SERENITY II). BXCL501 is also being evaluated in a Phase 1b/2 trial (TRANQUILITY) for the treatment of agitation associated with dementia, and the Company is preparing to initiate a Phase 1b/2 study (RELEASE) of BXCL501 for the treatment of opioid withdrawal symptoms.

About BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc.:

BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company utilizing artificial intelligence to identify improved therapies in neuroscience and immuno-oncology. BTI's drug re-innovation approach leverages existing approved drugs and/or clinically evaluated product candidates together with big data and proprietary machine learning algorithms to identify new therapeutic indices. BTI's two most advanced clinical development programs are BXCL501, an investigational sublingual thin film formulation in development for acute treatment of agitation resulting from neuropsychiatric disorders, and BXCL701, an investigational orally administered systemic innate immunity activator in development for treatment of a rare form of prostate cancer and for treatment of pancreatic cancer in combination with other immuno-oncology agents. For more information, please visit http://www.bioxceltherapeutics.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements in this press release include but are not limited to the enrollment of patients in the Phase 3 SERENITY trials and the timing of topline data from these trials. When used herein, words including anticipate, being, will, plan, may, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. In addition, any statements or information that refer to expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, performance or other characterizations of future events or circumstances, including any underlying assumptions, are forward-looking. All forward-looking statements are based upon BTI's current expectations and various assumptions. BTI believes there is a reasonable basis for its expectations and beliefs, but they are inherently uncertain.

BTI may not realize its expectations, and its beliefs may not prove correct. Actual results could differ materially from those described or implied by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including, without limitation, its limited operating history; its incurrence of significant losses; its need for substantial additional funding and ability to raise capital when needed; its limited experience in drug discovery and drug development; its dependence on the success and commercialization of BXCL501 and BXCL701 and other product candidates; the failure of preliminary data from its clinical studies to predict final study results; failure of its early clinical studies or preclinical studies to predict future clinical studies; its ability to receive regulatory approval for its product candidates; its ability to enroll patients in its clinical trials; its approach to the discovery and development of product candidates based on EvolverAI is novel and unproven; its exposure to patent infringement lawsuits; its ability to comply with the extensive regulations applicable to it; its ability to commercialize its product candidates; and the other important factors discussed under the caption Risk Factors in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, as such factors may be updated from time to time in its other filings with the SEC, which are accessible on the SECs website at http://www.sec.gov.

These and other important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent managements estimates as of the date of this press release. While BTI may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, except as required by law, it disclaims any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing BTIs views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Contact Information:

BioXcel Therapeutics, Inc.www.bioxceltherapeutics.com

Investor Relations:John Grazianojgraziano@troutgroup.com1.646.378.2942

Media:Julia Deutschjdeutsch@troutgroup.com1.646.378.2967

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BioXcel Therapeutics Provides an Update on its Ongoing Phase 3 SERENITY Trials - BioSpace

Neuroscience

How to protect your mental health during the coronavirus pandemic – London Post

The coronavirus pandemic is creating stress in the global population. Empty store shelves, fear about the disease and quarantine or self-isolation can negatively impact depression and anxiety. The mental health implications of the pandemic will impact everyone differently, and clinical psychologists at Flow Neuroscience have offered a guide to support and manage ones mental health and those of others during these times.

Global concern about coronavirus means its very important to keep the normal routine as much as possible when it comes to sleep, nutrition and exercise, particularly in people with existing mental health problems, says Daniel Mansson, clinical psychologist and co-founder of Flow Neuroscience. In the current situation, finding ways to maintain your normal routine is essential to reducing stress and potential depressive thoughts that may appear.

First things first filter news and social media

The constant news about the pandemic can feel relentless and may exacerbate existing mental health problems. Be careful about the balance of watching important news and the news that could cause you to feel depressed. Seek trusted information, such as the NHS website, at specific times to take practical steps to protect yourself and loved ones. Have breaks from social media and mute triggering keywords and accounts.

Talk openly

Some people might feel that talking about their depression and anxiety requires no additional attention during these unprecedented times. People should be encouraged to talk about their feelings. Various support helplines are available, including Samaritans, as well as mental health crisis services, details of which can be found via the mental health charity Mind.

Eat an anti-depression diet

Anxiety is likely to increase during the current crisis, but a well-nourished body is better at handling stress. Traditional Mediterranean food, sometimes referred to as the anti-depression diet, for its anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, includes whole grains, vegetables (particularly green leaves), fruit, berries, nuts (including almonds), seeds and olive oil. The Flow app, free to download on iOS and Android, can help people to improve their nutrition and reduce the risk of depression at home.

Get therapeutic sleep

90% of depressed people struggle with sleep, which is likely to increase with fears over coronavirus. Good quality sleep is a form of overnight therapy, and increases the chance of handling strong emotions. Try to wake up and go to bed at the same time every day. Achieving 8 hours of sleep, taking a hot bath, setting the bedroom temperature to 18 degrees and having no screen time 2 hours before bedtime will also help.

Exercise as depression treatment

With months of the coronavirus pandemic ahead, it is important to keep exercising. Clinical studies show that regular exercise produces chemicals, such as dopamine and serotonin, which are as effective as antidepressant medication or psychotherapy for treating milder depression. Most people will not have access to a gym during the crisis, so it is important to create a daily exercise routine at home. Experts recommend between 30-40 minutes of exercise, 3-4 times a week to work up a sweat. People with depression often struggle with exercise, so start small with a 10 minute walk, then add a few minutes daily.

Home treatment for depression with brain stimulation

If you are suffering from clinical depression, it is important to contact your doctor or psychologist should your symptoms worsen.

As the coronavirus epidemic approaches though, many NHS services will be strained to cope with the demand to save lives. A modern drug-free treatment for depression, which does not require NHS services, is available in the UK since June of 2019.

Created by Flow Neuroscience, the brain stimulation headset is the only one in the EU to be medically approved as a home treatment for depression. The headset uses tDCS, a type of brain stimulation which is now listed as a treatment for depression on the NHS website. Clinical studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the British Journal of Psychiatry showed that the type of tDCS brain stimulation used in the Flow headset had a similar impact to antidepressants

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How to protect your mental health during the coronavirus pandemic - London Post

Neuroscience

Researchers find key molecule that helps neurons maintain information in working memory – The Medical News

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Mar 19 2020

Working memory, the ability to hold a thought in mind even through distraction, is the foundation of abstract reasoning and a defining characteristic of the human brain. It is also impaired in disorders such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease.

Now Yale researchers have found a key molecule that helps neurons maintain information in working memory, which could lead to potential treatments for neurocognitive disorders, they report March 19 in the journal Neuron.

Working memory arises from neuronal circuits in the prefrontal cortex. We have been learning that these circuits have special molecular maintenance requirements."

Min Wang, senior research scientist in neuroscience, Yale University

Neurons in the prefrontal cortex excite each other to keep information "in mind." These circuits act as a sort of mental sketch pad, allowing us to remember that caramelized onions are cooking in the frying pan while we search the next room for a pair of scissors.

The new study shows that these prefrontal cortical circuits depend upon the neurotransmitter acetylcholine stimulating muscarinic M1 receptors aligned on the surface of neurons of the prefrontal cortex. Blocking muscarinic M1 receptors reduced the firing of neurons involved in working memory, while activating the M1 receptors helped restore neuronal firing. Because acetylcholine actions at M1 receptors are reduced in schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease, the M1 receptor may serve as a potential therapeutic target, the authors suggest.

Wang notes that a drug currently under development for the treatment of schizophrenia stimulates this M1 receptor and has shown promise in early clinical trials.

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Researchers find key molecule that helps neurons maintain information in working memory - The Medical News

Neuroscience

Hooked to books? These happy reads are the best choice in the time of social distancing – YourStory

As the world rallies together to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the International Day of Happiness - observed on March 20 - reminds us that staying optimistic, happy, and maintaining mental well-being is the need of the hour.

Remember the slew of memes on Happiness is? Well, its true for every individual. The word happiness can have any meaning some may find it in playing with a dog, taking a long nap, enjoying the rain, spending time in nature, drinking a cold glass of lassi on a summer day...the list goes on.

International Happiness Day is usually the day when the United Nations calls upon nations to approach public policies in ways that can improve the well-being of citizens. It is believed that to attain global happiness, economic development must be accompanied by social and environmental well-being.

As we focus on social distancing this week to shut down coronavirus, YS Weekender has curated a list of Happy Reads for you.

So, grab a cup of coffee, get cosy in your bed or sofa, and enjoy these books on motivation, happiness, and self-help.

The Happiness Project book was a year-long project, carried out by lawyer-turned-author, Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen decided to dedicate a year to happiness, and The Happiness Project was the result. Published in 2009 and having spent close to two years on the New York Times bestsellers list, the book chronicles Gretchens adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier.

Photo Credits: Goodreads

During her journey, she made many discoveries novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness. She discovered that money can help buy happiness when spent wisely, outer order contributes to inner calm, and the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.

On her website, Gretchen says that her book has turned to a movement where people are creating groups to discuss their Happiness project with each other, and many professors, psychiatrists, and clergy have recommended her book in various book clubs.

Authored by renowned Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness describes the shortcomings of imagination and illusions of foresight that causes people to misconceive their future and misestimate their satisfactions.

Photo Credits: Goodreads

With powerful insights, the New York Times bestseller book explains why we seem to know so little about the hearts and minds of the people we are about to become.

After experiencing a terrible panic attack on live television on Good Morning America, news anchor Dan Harris embarked on an unexpected journey through the worlds of spirituality and self-help, and discovered a way to become happier in the true sense.

Photo Credits: Goodreads

10% Happier delves in the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of Americas spiritual scene, and leaves you with a takeaway that could actually change your life.

For long now, Denmark has been regarded as the happiest country in the world. And hygge is the reason for it.

Photo Credits: Romireads

In this New York Times bestseller, The Little Book of Hygge, Meik helps you be more hygge: from picking the right lighting and planning a dinner party through to creating an emergency hygge kit and even how to dress.

Meik is the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, and has said that hygge is the magic ingredient that makes Danes the happiest nation in the world.

Author Russ Harris in his book, The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living, explains the way most people go about trying to find happiness, and end up making themselves miserable, driving the epidemics of stress, anxiety, and depression.

The empowering book showcases the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a revolutionary new psychotherapy based on cutting-edge research in behavioural psychology.

Photo Credits: Goodreads

By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness, ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life, the author says.

He presents the following techniques to help readers:

Reduce stress and worry

Handle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively

Break self-defeating habits

Overcome insecurity and self-doubt

Create a rich, full, and meaningful life

Spiritual leader The Dalai Lama dedicated all his life to peace-keeping. A Nobel Prize winner will tell you that happiness is the purpose of life, and that "the very motion of our life is towards happiness."

Photo Credits: Goodreads

Through conversations, stories, and meditation, he explores the many facets of everyday life, including relationships, loss, and the pursuit of wealth, to illustrate how to ride through life's obstacles with a deep and abiding source of inner peace.

(Edited by Asha Chowdary)

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Hooked to books? These happy reads are the best choice in the time of social distancing - YourStory

Cell Biology

University restricts research in effort to prevent COVID-19 spread – The Brown Daily Herald

While people turn to scientists for the latest updates on COVID-19, laboratories across campus will more or less go dark after 5 pm today. The constant hum of machines mixing samples will grow quiet as equipment is shut off, new experiments are canceled and entry is limited to essential personnel only.

The decision to ramp down research efforts was released March 15th in a message from Provost Richard Locke P 18 and Vice President for Research Jill Pipher that was posted on Browns COVID-19 website.

The ramping down of research laboratories is in support of social distancing to smooth the curve of expected COVID-19 cases and the potential to overwhelm our local healthcare system which has limited resources, Director of Browns Environmental Health and Safety Stephen Morin wrote in an email to The Herald.

As the University increased efforts across the board to stop the spread of COVID-19, by Sunday, it became pretty clear that we would be going into a completely different mode and everything would be conducted remotely, said Mark Johnson, Royce family associate professor of teaching excellence, associate professor of biology and director for the molecular biology, cell biology and biochemistry graduate program.

My sense is that everybody really wants to cooperate. Everyone appreciates the leadership of the Provost on this and is doing their best to comply, Johnson said.

Laboratories and research in general are a vital function of Brown University and it takes a campus community to support their operations, Morin wrote. He added that many groups ranging from faculty to student researchers, as well as facilities management, environmental health and safety staff and administrative personnel, are crucial for the everyday work of laboratories on campus.

It could be a risk to all these groups to allow them to continue under normal operations, Morin wrote.

Only those who need to enter for critical work will have access to laboratory buildings, Morin wrote. Examples of critical work include equipment maintenance such as preservation (or) maintenance of cell lines, changing out gas tanks or cryogens, filters and water checks.

Animals that are currently maintained as research subjects will also receive continued veterinary care, Morin wrote.

Labs working with bacteria and other cells are able to preserve the organisms grown for their experiments through cryogenic storage the process of freezing cells in liquid nitrogen. But for labs reliant on more complex living organisms, the solution is not so simple.

Among the University faculty winding down their research this week is Assistant Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology Shipra Vaishnava, who uses mice at the Universitys Biomedical Center to investigate how diet and bacteria in the gut impact immunity against infections and diseases. The mice are kept in a gnotobiotic mouse facility in a germ-free environment. These now paused long-term studies require mice to be bred for months, prompting researchers to reduce their mouse populations and cryo-preserve the sperm of their mouse lines for propagation whenever research can resume. Weve lost a lot of time that weve already invested in these experiments, so anywhere between three to six months, she said.

Many labs typically have teams of researchers conducting experiments from early morning until late evening, including many weekends. This level of activity has already dropped significantly due to COVID-19 concerns. Aside from the scurry of mice, the only other source of movement in the Vaishnava Lab will now be from the two essential personnel at a time looking after the labs animals for only two to three hours each week.

Critical work that is permitted to continue also includes work whose interruption would result in irretrievable or unrecoverable loss of data or samples, or loss of time for an ongoing experiment that could not be recovered within a reasonable period, Vice President for Research Jill Pipher wrote in a statement to The Herald.

Pipher added that Brown is carefully reviewing, on a case-by-case basis, every request to continue critical work.

In early March, Johnsons lab began a new study on the relationship between temperature and plant production. Following the new restrictions,the laboratory-based components of the project will be put on hold. But he is grateful that the lab collected a data set a couple weeks ago that they can now analyze remotely.

In a way projects dont really have beginnings and ends. There are always new things that you want to try in the lab, Johnson said. Now that labs are being closed, its hard to sort of wrap your head around the idea that you cant do that.

The closure of the labs is also impacting research trainees, including undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students, who cannot continue their work away from the lab bench. Undergraduate students were asked to leave campus by Tuesday evening, The Herald previously reported.

Vaishnava had undergraduate students doing for-credit research in her lab. For the rest of the semester, she said they will have to instead concentrate on readings, discussions and designing future experiments. Graduate students timelines to collect data and finish their research papers may now have to shift, and postdoctoral students can no longer attend the workshops and conferences that were important parts of their education, Vaishnava said.

The interruption of experiments delays publication of their own findings which factors into researchers career promotions. But Vaishnava hopes since this is such a worldwide, global phenomenon, there would be a mindfulness about it.

Samuel Rasche GS, a second-year masters student in the Laboratory for Cognitive and Perceptual Learning and a visiting research fellow from the University of Amsterdam, has also had to pause his work because of necessary restrictions on human subjects research. His research depends on people who attend numerous sessions involving a series of complex tasks that they could not perform remotely on their own.

Similar to Vaishnavas lab, researchers working in the same lab as Rasche are practicing social distancing by not permitting more than one person to be in a room at the same time, Rasche said.

For now, Rasche plans to stay in Providence. The University of Amsterdam has not yet requested that he return home, but a lot of other students and supervisors I know that are from abroad went back (home), so that kind of pressures me too to go back, he said.

I just try to stay positive and productive, Rasche said. Its a sad situation because I also met a lot of people here and literally everybody left. Its a big change.

Sarah Berman 20.5 said that the decision for research to shut down made the transition of leaving campus easier. Honestly, if the lab had stayed open, I would have stayed. If labs are able to reopen for student research during the semester, Im absolutely coming back, she said. She is able to do some remote work at home on the project that will become her thesis in the fall.

Researchers have also lost time needed to train students. We have lost this overlap period of a couple of months that is critical for passing down skills and materials and samples from graduating researchers to those still in the lab who would be taking over the projects, Vaishnava said.

With the global, national and state-wide situation surrounding COVID-19 rapidly changing, the current protocols are also subject to change. The University will continue to monitor and re-evaluate the situation, issuing updates and guidance for researchers as often as necessary, Pipher wrote.

While the context of COVID-19 is unprecedented, EH and S has previously worked to safely close laboratories in the event that a professor left the University or in the case of renovation. This week they developed a set of guidelines for researchers to follow to assist researchers in thinking about the steps to be taken to safely close the space temporarily.

COVID-19 is a serious public health issue, and we all have to do our part. As scientists, we should understand this more than anyone else why these steps are needed, Vaishnava said. Its hard, but I think its something we need to do.

The health and safety of the research community is our top priority, Pipher wrote.

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University restricts research in effort to prevent COVID-19 spread - The Brown Daily Herald

Cell Biology

Smoking or Vaping May Increase the Risk of a Severe Coronavirus Infection – Scientific American

Smoking or vaping could make you more vulnerable to a severe infection with the novel coronavirus, some experts say.

Although there have not been many studies investigating this link specifically, a wealth of evidence suggests that smoking suppresses immune function in the lungs and triggers inflammation. There have been far fewer investigations of vaping, but preliminary research suggests it may do similar damage. And both long-term smokers and e-cigarette users are at a heightened risk of developing chronic lung conditions, which have been associated with more severe cases of COVID-19, as the disease caused by the new virus is called. Scientists say it therefore seems reasonable to assume that smokingand possibly vapingcould increase the risk of developing a serious infection from the coronavirus.

All these things make me believe that we are going to have more severe casesespecially [in] people who are [long-term] smokers or vapers, says Melodi Pirzada, chief of pediatric pulmonology at NYU Winthrop Hospital on Long Island.* She has not treated COVID-19 patients herself, but it is definitely common sense to think that once you have a history of smoking or vaping, the whole airways, the defense mechanism of your lungseverything changes, she says.

Very little research has looked directly at whether smoking or vaping increases a persons risk of severe COVID-19. A preprint study in China found that men were slightly more likely than women to be hospitalized for coronavirus infections, and scientists say this observation could be related to the fact that in the country, vastly more men than women smoke. (The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, has been withdrawn because it was based on early data. It will be replaced with a more up-to-date version soon, the authors write.) Another study, which has been published online in the Chinese Medical Journal, involved 78 patients with COVID-19 and found that those with a history of smoking had a 14 percent higher risk of developing pneumonia.

There is substantial scientific literature showing that smoking inflames the lungs and suppresses immune function. For regular smoking, we know it inhibits the ciliary clearance of the airways, Pirzada says. We have these little [hairlike] structures known as cilia, and they are responsible for taking the toxins and the mucus out of our airways and clearing the lungs when we cough. We know that that is affected when you smoke and when you vape.

During a respiratory infection in the lungs, there tends to be an influx of white blood cells called neutrophilsthe first responders that start killing the pathogenfollowed by an influx of lymphocyteswhich are responsible for clearing the infection. Theres a very coordinated series of events that take place when you do become infected with a virus, says Ray Pickles, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. These are probably the events that take place in the vast majority of us as individuals, whether were infected by influenza or whether were infected by SARS-CoV-2, as the new coronavirus is known. I think once you start perturbing this sequence of events in any which way or direction, thats when things can go awry.

Smoking is a known risk factor for influenza, says Robert Tarran, a professor of cell biology and physiology at Chapel Hill. People who smoke are immunosuppressed to some degree, Tarran says. They make more mucus. It doesnt clear the lungs as well. There are pro-inflammatory changes; immune cells are changed as well. And all that leads up to, basically, theyre more likely to get viruses and have a worse outcome.

Vapers risk of viral infections has not been studied much, although there are some epidemiological studies suggesting they are more likely to get respiratory infections, Tarran says. And animal studies provide some clues. Mice that were exposed to e-cigarette aerosol and then inoculated with Streptococcus pneumoniaebacteria or influenza A were less likely to survive. And vaping may interfere with neutrophil function, some studies suggest. Scientists at Chapel Hill have shown that e-cigarette use suppresses the activity of immune- and inflammatory-response genes in nasal cellsmore so even than smoking. And a preprint study found that the gene that encodes the receptor ACE2, which the novel coronavirus uses to infect cells, is more active in smokers than nonsmokers.

Of course, none of these studies directly show that smoking or vaping increases the severity of COVID-19 infections; it is not clear to what extent they can be extrapolated to the current pandemic. But given that smoking and vaping do well-established harm to the immune system, it seems prudent to assume they might make coronavirus infections worse.

I think that a sensible thing to do for people is to stop smoking and stop vapingand avoid secondhand exposure, says Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. We dont have every little detail on this nailed down, he says. But based on what we know, generally, about smoking and e-cigarettesand in particular about smoking and COVID-19 from people who are already sick, from one study in Chinait stands to reason that you would lower your risk if you stopped doing these things. After all, Glantz adds, whats the downside?

*Editors Note (3/17/20): Thissentencewaseditedafter posting toupdateMelodi Pirzadas title.

Read more about the coronavirus outbreakhere.

Original post:
Smoking or Vaping May Increase the Risk of a Severe Coronavirus Infection - Scientific American

Cell Biology

Singapore researchers find common therapeutic vulnerability for a deadly blood cancer – The Medical News

Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc.Mar 18 2020

CML is a blood cancer that can be controlled by continuously taking an expensive type of medicine called a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI). In almost all patients, stopping TKI treatment results in recurrence of CML. While most CML patients respond well to life-long TKI usage, about 10 per cent of patients become resistant to TKIs, and progress to late-stage or blast crisis (BC) CML. Patients with BC almost always die from their disease. While many genetic mutations are known to be associated with BC progression, the mechanisms by which they and other factors cause BC remain largely unknown. This knowledge gap prevents clinicians from identifying which CML patients are at risk of BC progression, and treating BC when it occurs.

To fill these critical gaps, we employed the latest molecular approaches to establish that the so-called 'polycomb repressive complex', or PRC, alters the regulation of a set of genes which drive BC progression. We found that the consequences of altered PRC activity were common to the majority of BC cases, regardless of the different leukemia-causing mutations we also found in them."

Dr. Tun Kiat Ko, Research Fellow at Duke-NUS' Cancer and Stem Cell Biology (CSCB) program

Using this increased understanding, the team devised novel drug combinations, which reverse the downstream effects of the PRC in BC. At the same time, they also developed methods to identify CML patients who were at increased risk of developing TKI-resistance and progressing to BC.

"Our discovery is like finding the 'one ring that rules them all'. Since there are many cancer-causing genetic mutations that occur when chronic phase CML transforms to blast crisis, it has been very challenging to determine which ones are critical to BC, and therefore important to target. By discovering this 'one ring' and how to 'destroy' it with a novel drug combination, we open the door to treating this deadly cancer with the same combination of drugs regardless of the myriad mutations that exist in any particular patient. In addition, our study demonstrates the ability of scientists and clinicians to make exciting discoveries that can be translated to the improved health of patients all over the world, as well as Singaporeans," said Associate Professor Ong Sin Tiong from the Duke-NUS CSCB programme and corresponding author of this study.

"The multi-omics approach was critical to the success of the study. Each layer of information provided us corroborative evidence and insight into the dysfunction of the polycomb repressive complex leading to the progression to blast crisis stage of CML," asserted Asif Javed, co-corresponding author of the study.

"This study is another example of how interdisciplinary research leads to new insight," says Axel Hillmer, Group Leader at the GIS who led the genomics part of the project.

Patrick Tan, Executive Director of GIS, adds, "Due to technology advancements over the last years, it is now possible to apply more complex genomic analyses to translate such findings into routine diagnostics."

"As a hematologist treating patients with advanced blast crisis CML, it is disheartening when we run out of treatment options for them. And that is why we are very encouraged by the study findings and certainly hopeful that our patients may one day benefit from the efforts of our collaboration," Associate Professor Charles Chuah, Senior Consultant, Department of Haematology, SGH.

The team is currently working on approaches to identify CML patients who are at risk of BC transformation, and also to determine why the key PRC-related events occur in the first place.

Source:

Journal reference:

Ko, T.K., et al. (2020) An integrative model of pathway convergence in genetically heterogeneous blast crisis chronic myeloid leukemia. Blood. doi.org/10.1182/blood.2020004834.

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Singapore researchers find common therapeutic vulnerability for a deadly blood cancer - The Medical News