Imagining a Personalized Scenario Selectively Increases Perceived Risk of Viral Transmission for Older Adults
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Sinclair A
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9387905 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:IntroductionMillions of people worldwide take medications such as L-DOPA that increase dopamine to treat Parkinson's disease. Yet, we do not fully understand how L-DOPA affects sleep and memory. Our earlier research in Parkinson's disease revealed that the timing of L-DOPA relative to sleep affects dopamine's impact on long-term memory. Dopamine projections between the midbrain and hippocampus potentially support memory processes during slow wave sleep. In this study, we aimed to test the hypothesis that L-DOPA enhances memory consolidation by modulating NREM sleep.MethodsWe conducted a double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled crossover trial with healthy older adults (65-79 years, n = 35). Participants first learned a word list and were then administered long-acting L-DOPA (or placebo) before a full night of sleep. Before sleeping, a proportion of the words were re-exposed using a recognition test to strengthen memory. L-DOPA was active during sleep and the practice-recognition test, but not during initial learning.ResultsThe single dose of L-DOPA increased total slow-wave sleep duration by approximately 11% compared to placebo, while also increasing spindle amplitudes around slow oscillation peaks and around 1-4 Hz NREM spectral power. However, behaviourally, L-DOPA worsened memory of words presented only once compared to re-exposed words. The coupling of spindles to slow oscillation peaks correlated with these differential effects on weaker and stronger memories. To gauge whether L-DOPA affects encoding or retrieval of information in addition to consolidation, we conducted a second experiment targeting L-DOPA only to initial encoding or retrieval and found no behavioural effects.DiscussionOur results demonstrate that L-DOPA augments slow wave sleep in elderly, perhaps tuning coordinated network activity and impacting the selection of information for long-term storage. The pharmaceutical modification of slow-wave sleep and long-term memory may have clinical implications.Clinical trial registrationEudract number: 2015-002027-26; https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN90897064, ISRCTN90897064.
| S-EPMC10113484 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Remembering and imagining specific, personal experiences can help shape our decisions. For example, cues to imagine future events can reduce delay discounting (i.e., increase the subjective value of future rewards). It is not known, however, whether such cues can also modulate other forms of reward discounting, such as probability discounting (i.e., the decrease in the subjective value of a possible reward as the odds against its occurrence increase). In addition, it is unclear whether there are age-related differences in the effects of cueing on either delay or probability discounting. Accordingly, young and older adult participants were administered delay and probability discounting tasks both with and without cues to imagine specific, personally meaningful events. As expected, cued episodic imagining decreased the discounting of delayed rewards. Notably, however, this effect was significantly less pronounced in older adults. In contrast to the effects of cueing on delay discounting, personally relevant event cues had little or no effect on the discounting of probabilistic rewards in either young or older adults; Bayesian analysis revealed compelling support for the null hypothesis that event cues do not modulate the subjective value of probabilistic rewards. In sum, imagining future events appears only to affect decisions involving delayed rewards. Although the cueing effect is smaller in older adults, nevertheless, it likely contributes to how adults of all ages evaluate delayed rewards and thus, it is, in fact, about time.
| S-EPMC7152567 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Changes in the labor market and employment contracts over the past several decades and a recent global recession have increased the salience of perceived job insecurity as a risk factor for poor mental health. We use 25 years of prospective data from the Americans' Changing Lives study to examine long-term histories of perceived job insecurity and their link to psychological distress. We build on the prior literature by using a much longer window of exposure and accounting for involuntary job losses over the lengthy observation period. We find that persistent perceived job insecurity is strongly and significantly associated with greater psychological distress among U.S. workers in the latter part of their careers. Moreover, considering histories of exposure reveals more nuance in the sociodemographic characteristics and employment interruptions that predict persistent or intermittent insecurity and that identify contemporary older workers at particular risk.
| S-EPMC5558894 | biostudies-other
Project description:Research on stress and cognitive aging has primarily focused on examining the effects of biological and psychosocial indicators of stress, with little attention provided to examining the association between perceived stress and cognitive aging. We examined the longitudinal association between global perceived stress (GPS) and cognitive change among 116 older adults (M(age) = 80, SD = 6.40, range = 67-96) in a repeated measurement burst design. Bursts of 6 daily cognitive assessments were repeated every 6 months over a 2-year period, with self-reported GPS assessed at the start of every burst. Using a double-exponential learning model, 2 parameters were estimated: (a) asymptotic level (peak performance), and (b) asymptotic change (the rate at which peak performance changed across bursts). We hypothesized that greater GPS would predict slowed performance in tasks of attention, working memory, and speed of processing and that increases in GPS across time would predict cognitive slowing. Results from latent growth curve analyses were consistent with our first hypothesis and indicated that level of GPS predicted cognitive slowing across time. Changes in GPS did not predict cognitive slowing. This study extends previous findings by demonstrating a prospective association between level of GPS and cognitive slowing across a 2-year period, highlighting the role of psychological stress as a risk factor for poor cognitive function.
| S-EPMC4559145 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundHigher levels of functional health in older adults leads to higher quality of life and improves the ability to age-in-place. Tracking functional health objectively could help clinicians to make decisions for interventions in case of health deterioration. Even though several geriatric assessments capture several aspects of functional health, there is limited research in longitudinally tracking personalized functional health of older adults using a combination of these assessments.MethodsWe used geriatric assessment data collected from 150 older adults to develop and validate a functional health prediction model based on risks associated with falls, hospitalizations, emergency visits, and death. We used mixed effects logistic regression to construct the model. The geriatric assessments included were Activities of Daily Living (ADL), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and Short Form 12 (SF12). Construct validators such as fall risks associated with model predictions, and case studies with functional health trajectories were used to validate the model.ResultsThe model is shown to separate samples with and without adverse health event outcomes with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of > 0.85. The model could predict emergency visit or hospitalization with an AUC of 0.72 (95% CI 0.65-0.79), fall with an AUC of 0.86 (95% CI 0.83-0.89), fall with hospitalization with an AUC of 0.89 (95% CI 0.85-0.92), and mortality with an AUC of 0.93 (95% CI 0.88-0.97). Multiple comparisons of means using Turkey HSD test show that model prediction means for samples with no adverse health events versus samples with fall, hospitalization, and death were statistically significant (p < 0.001). Case studies for individual residents using predicted functional health trajectories show that changes in model predictions over time correspond to critical health changes in older adults.ConclusionsThe personalized functional health tracking may provide clinicians with a longitudinal view of overall functional health in older adults to help address the early detection of deterioration trends and decide appropriate interventions. It can also help older adults and family members take proactive steps to improve functional health.
| S-EPMC7576843 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The alignment between visual pathway signaling and pupil dynamics offers a promising non-invasive method to further illuminate the mechanisms of human color perception. However, only limited research has been done in this area and the effects of healthy aging on pupil responses to the different color components have not been studied yet. Here we aim to address this by modelling the effects of color lightness and chroma (colorfulness) on pupil responses in young and older adults, in a closely controlled passive viewing experiment with 26 broad-spectrum digital color fields. We show that pupil responses to color lightness and chroma are independent from each other in both young and older adults. Pupil responses to color lightness levels are unaffected by healthy aging, when correcting for smaller baseline pupil sizes in older adults. Older adults exhibit weaker pupil responses to chroma increases, predominantly along the Green-Magenta axis, while relatively sparing the Blue-Yellow axis. Our findings complement behavioral studies in providing physiological evidence that colors fade with age, with implications for color-based applications and interventions both in healthy aging and later-life neurodegenerative disorders.
| S-EPMC10719259 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Whole genome sequencing of gut microbiota in cognitively frail and robust older adults from the AGELESS Cohort
| PRJNA1258750 | ENA
Project description:BackgroundPerceived physical fatigability is highly prevalent in older adults and associated with mobility decline and other health consequences. We examined the prognostic value of perceived physical fatigability as an independent predictor of risk of death among older adults.MethodsParticipants (N = 2 906), mean age 73.5 [SD, 10.4] years, 54.2% women, 99.7% white enrolled in the Long Life Family Study, were assessed at Visit 2 (2014-2017) with 2.7 [SD, 1.0] years follow-up. The Pittsburgh Fatigability Scale (PFS), a 10-item, self-administered validated questionnaire (score range 0-50, higher = greater fatigability) measured perceived physical fatigability at Visit 2. Deaths post-Visit 2 through December 31, 2019 were identified by family members notifying field centers, reporting during another family member's annual phone follow-up, an obituary, or Civil Registration System (Denmark). We censored all other participants at their last contact. Cox proportional hazard models predicted mortality by fatigability severity, adjusted for family relatedness and other covariates.ResultsAge-adjusted PFS Physical scores were higher for those who died (19.1 [SE, 0.8]) compared with alive (12.2, [SE, 0.4]) overall, as well as across age strata (p < .001), except for those 60-69 years (p = .79). Participants with the most severe fatigability (PFS Physical scores ≥ 25) were over twice as likely to die (hazard ratio, 2.33 [95% CI, 1.65-3.28]) compared with those who had less severe fatigability (PFS Physical scores < 25) after adjustment.ConclusionsOur work underscores the utility of the PFS as a novel patient-reported prognostic indicator of phenotypic aging that captures both overt and underlying disease burden that predicts death.
| S-EPMC8974332 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The present study explored the impact of COVID-19 on hearing health and problems faced by older adults using hearing aid/s. Fifty older adults in the age range of 55-95 years were selected for the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Therefore, the developed questionnaire was administered to them. Statistical analysis was performed for all the responses achieved. Closure of hearing aid companies and audiological centers was found to have a negative impact on availing audiological services. Likewise, a huge hike in the price of these services made it impossible for people to afford them. Despite the availability of tele-audiology, older adults were not able to make the best use of it due to numerous reasons. We sought to explore patients' perceptions to break down these barriers by enhancing the quality of tele-audiology, home visits, and remote services. Therefore, the present report may facilitate in planning and implementation of policies related to audiological services, especially during times of crisis, which may help strengthen our hearing health care system.Supplementary informationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12070-022-03209-8.
| S-EPMC9734753 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Here we present a personalized viral genomics approach to investigating a rare case of perinatal herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) transmission that ended in death of both mother and neonate. We sought to determine whether the virus involved in this rare case had any unusual features that may have contributed to the dire patient outcome. A pregnant woman with negative HerpeSelect antibody test underwent cesarean section at 30 wk gestation and died the same day. The premature newborn died 5 d later. Both individuals were found postmortem to have positive blood HSV-1 PCR tests. Using oligonucleotide enrichment and deep sequencing, we determined that viral transmission from mother to infant was nearly perfect at the consensus genome level. At the virus population level, 77% of minor variants (MVs) in the mother's blood also appeared on the neonate's skin, of which more than half were disseminated into the neonate's blood. We also detected nonmaternal MVs that arose de novo in the neonate's viral populations. Of note, one de novo MV in the neonate's skin virus induced a nonsynonymous mutation in the UL6 protein, which is a component of the portal that allows DNA entry into new progeny capsids. This case suggests that perinatal viremic HSV-1 transmission includes the majority of genetic diversity from the maternal virus population and that new, nonsynonymous mutations can occur after relatively few rounds of replication. This report expands our understanding of viral transmission in humans and may lead to improved diagnostic strategies for neonatal HSV-1 acquisition.
| S-EPMC6913147 | biostudies-literature