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Neurobiology of Learning and Memory Jan 2020Response and place memory systems have long been considered independent, encoding information in parallel, and involving the striatum and hippocampus, respectively. Most...
Response and place memory systems have long been considered independent, encoding information in parallel, and involving the striatum and hippocampus, respectively. Most experimental studies supporting this view used simple, repetitive tasks, with unrestrained access to spatial cues. They did not give animals an opportunity to correct a response strategy by shifting to a place one, which would demonstrate dynamic, adaptive interactions between both memory systems in the navigation correction process. In a first experiment, rats were trained in the double-H maze for different durations (1, 6, or 14 days; 4 trials/day) to acquire a repetitive task in darkness (forcing a response memory-based strategy) or normal light (placing response and place memory systems in balance), or to acquire a place memory. All rats were given a misleading shifted-start probe trial 24-h post-training to test both their strategy and their ability to correct their navigation directly or in response to negative feedback. Additional analyses focused on the dorsal striatum and the dorsal hippocampus using c-Fos gene expression imaging and, in a second experiment, reversible muscimol inactivation. The results indicate that, depending on training protocol and duration, the striatum, which was unexpectedly the first to come into play in the dual strategy task, and the hippocampus are both required when rats have to correct their navigation after having acquired a repetitive task in a cued environment. Partly contradicting the model established by Packard and McGaugh (1996, Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, vol. 65), these data point to memory systems that interact in more complex ways than considered so far. To some extent, they also challenge the notion of hippocampus-independent response memory and striatum-independent place memory systems.
Topics: Animals; Cues; Hippocampus; Male; Maze Learning; Neostriatum; Neurons; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-fos; Rats, Long-Evans; Spatial Memory; Spatial Navigation
PubMed: 31783128
DOI: 10.1016/j.nlm.2019.107131 -
Journal of Aging Studies Mar 2022Research has established the importance of understanding the dynamic relationship between older adults and the environments in which they are embedded. However, the...
Research has established the importance of understanding the dynamic relationship between older adults and the environments in which they are embedded. However, the meaning of place for unhoused older adults amidst an increasingly contested urban landscape is largely unknown. This exploratory study aims to further include unhoused older adults' experiences in the scholarship on aging and place by asking how unhoused adults over age 50 (1) describe their spatial patterns and experiences and (2) negotiate their relationship with common urban places. Through iterative mapping conducted in focus groups and interviews at Seattle senior centers, respondents identified how they interacted with their communities and environment. Using inductive and deductive coding of both textual and geospatial data, thematic analysis indicated that respondents: (1) experienced confinement to the downtown corridor and expulsion from surrounding areas- a phenomenon compounded by physical and subjective aging; (2) created routines amidst geographic and temporal restrictions to maximize comfort and security; (3) attempted to create residential normalcy in public places through adaptive and accommodative practices; and (4) experienced identities shaped by movement through and access to place. Current social, spatial, and political contexts of city living present many challenges for older unhoused adults. Supports that ignore people's identification with the places that are important to them are unlikely to be successful. Findings from this paper call for service, policy, and design strategies that facilitate personal agency and connection to place among unhoused people midlife and beyond.
Topics: Aged; Aging; Cities; Focus Groups; Humans; Independent Living; Residence Characteristics; Social Environment
PubMed: 35248316
DOI: 10.1016/j.jaging.2021.100997 -
Relationships between Personal and Collective Place Identity and Well-Being in Mountain Communities.Frontiers in Psychology 2017The aim was to investigate the relationships between landscape-related personal and collective identity and well-being of residents living in a Swedish mountain county (...
The aim was to investigate the relationships between landscape-related personal and collective identity and well-being of residents living in a Swedish mountain county ( = 850). It was shown that their most valued mountain activities were viewing and experiencing nature and landscape, outdoor recreation, rest and leisure, and socializing with friends/family. Qualitative analyses showed that the most valued aspects of the sites were landscape and outdoor restoration for personal favorite sites, and tourism and alpine for collective favorite sites. According to quantitative analyses the stronger the attachment/closeness/belonging (emotional component of place identity) residents felt to favorite personal and collective sites the more well-being they perceived when visiting these places. Similarly, the more remembrance, thinking and mental travel (cognitive component of place identity) residents directed to these sites the more well-being they perceived in these places. In both types of sites well-being was more strongly predicted by emotional than cognitive component of place-identity. All this indicates the importance of person-place bonds in beneficial experiences of the outdoors, over and above simply being in outdoor environments.
PubMed: 28197112
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00079 -
Journal of Geographical Systems 2023While platial representations are being developed for sedentary entities, a parallel and useful endeavor would be to consider time in so-called "platio-temporal"...
While platial representations are being developed for sedentary entities, a parallel and useful endeavor would be to consider time in so-called "platio-temporal" representations that would also expand notions of mobility in GIScience, that are solely dependent on Euclidean space and time. Besides enhancing such aspects of place and mobility via spatio-temporal, we also include human aspects of these representations via considerations of the sociological notions of mobility via the mobilities paradigm that can systematically introduce representation of both platial information along with mobilities associated with 'moving places.' We condense these aspects into 'platial mobility,' a novel conceptual framework, as an integration in GIScience and the mobilities paradigm in sociology, that denotes movement of places in our platio-temporal and sociology-based representations. As illustrative cases for further study using platial mobility as a framework, we explore its benefits and methodological aspects toward developing better understanding for disaster management, disaster risk reduction and pandemics. We then discuss some of the illustrative use cases to clarify the concept of platial mobility and its application prospects in the areas of disaster management, disaster risk reduction and pandemics. These use cases, which include flood events and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, have led to displaced and restricted communities having to change practices and places, which would be particularly amenable to the conceptual framework developed in our work.
PubMed: 35875724
DOI: 10.1007/s10109-022-00389-3 -
Health & Place Nov 2022This study explores the role of architecture in the affordance of hope for people with cancer. Specifically, it revisits 'enabling places' debates to understand the...
This study explores the role of architecture in the affordance of hope for people with cancer. Specifically, it revisits 'enabling places' debates to understand the influence of spatial design in the experience of cancer care. Combining interviews and focus group data from two separate studies of visitors, volunteers, and staff members of Maggie's Centres, an organisation providing cancer support in the UK and internationally, the study investigates the emotional power of their buildings. In particular, we explore how Maggie's Centre buildings provide material, social, and affective resources for their users. We argue that Maggie's Centres help its visitors to orient themselves to their changing lives and uncertain futures in thoughtful ways and, thus, their buildings offer examples of the 'taking place' of hope.
Topics: Humans; Neoplasms
PubMed: 35177318
DOI: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2022.102758 -
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric... Dec 2016Our surroundings affect our mood, our recovery from stress, our behavior, and, ultimately, our mental health. Understanding how our surroundings influence mental health... (Review)
Review
OBJECTIVES
Our surroundings affect our mood, our recovery from stress, our behavior, and, ultimately, our mental health. Understanding how our surroundings influence mental health is central to creating healthy cities. However, the traditional observational methods now dominant in the psychiatric epidemiology literature are not sufficient to advance such an understanding. In this essay we consider potential alternative strategies, such as randomizing people to places, randomizing places to change, or harnessing natural experiments that mimic randomized experiments.
METHODS
We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these methodological approaches with respect to (1) defining the most relevant scale and characteristics of context, (2) disentangling the effects of context from the effects of individuals' preferences and prior health, and (3) generalizing causal effects beyond the study setting.
RESULTS
Promising alternative strategies include creating many small-scale randomized place-based trials, using the deployment of place-based changes over time as natural experiments, and using fluctuations in the changes in our surroundings in combination with emerging data collection technologies to better understand how surroundings influence mood, behavior, and mental health.
CONCLUSIONS
Improving existing research strategies will require interdisciplinary partnerships between those specialized in mental health, those advancing new methods for place effects on health, and those who seek to optimize the design of local environments.
Topics: Biomedical Research; Environment; Humans; Mental Health; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
PubMed: 27787585
DOI: 10.1007/s00127-016-1300-x -
JBJS Essential Surgical Techniques 2022Achilles tendon ruptures commonly occur in physically active individuals and drastically alter the ability to perform recreational activities. Many patients want to...
UNLABELLED
Achilles tendon ruptures commonly occur in physically active individuals and drastically alter the ability to perform recreational activities. Many patients want to continue participating in recreational activities, which can be facilitated by operatively treating the injury in a timely fashion, maximizing their functional recovery. The Percutaneous Achilles Repair System (PARS) Jig (Arthrex) can be utilized in patients with acute mid-substance Achilles tendon ruptures.
DESCRIPTION
Begin by positioning the patient prone with a thigh tourniquet on the operative side. Mark a 3-cm transverse incision 1 cm distal to the proximal Achilles stump and make the incision, taking care to protect the sural nerve laterally. Next, create a transverse paratenon incision and bluntly dissect it from the Achilles circumferentially. After gaining access to the proximal Achilles stump, clamp it with an Allis clamp and insert the PARS Jig between the Achilles tendon and paratenon, sliding it proximally to the myotendinous junction. To secure the jig to the proximal Achilles tendon, insert a guide pin into the jig position-1 hole. To pass sutures through the Achilles tendon, insert pins with their respective sutures into positions 2 through 5 and insert the FiberTape suture (Arthrex) in position 1. Remove the jig from the transverse incision, pulling the suture ends out of the incision. Once they are out, reorient the sutures on the medial and lateral sides to match their positions when initially placed. On both sides, wrap the blue suture around the 2 striped green-and-white sutures twice, and pull the blue suture through the looped green-and-white suture on the ipsilateral side. After doing that, fold the blue suture on itself to create a shuttling suture with the green-and-white suture. Next, pull on the medial non-looped green-and-white suture until it has been pulled out medially, and repeat that with the lateral non-looped green-and-white suture until it has been pulled out laterally, to create a locking stitch. Group the medial sutures together and the lateral sutures together, and utilize a free needle to further incorporate both bundles of sutures into the Achilles tendon. Next, create bilateral mini-incisions 1.5 cm proximal to the calcaneal tuberosity. Insert a rigid cannulated suture-passing device into each mini-incision, pass it through the distal Achilles tendon, load the ipsilateral suture bundle into the Nitinol wire, and pull the suture-passing device out the distal mini-incision to approximate the Achilles. To prepare the calcaneus, drill calcaneal tunnels toward the midline bilaterally, taking care to avoid convergence of the tunnels. Place a suture-passing needle in the tunnels to assist with placing the anchors. Next, tension the sutures, cycling them 5 to 10 times to remove any slack in the system. With the ankle in 15° of plantar flexion, anchor the sutures with cortical bioabsorbable interference screws, following the angle that the suture-passing needles are in. After confirming function of the Achilles tendon, close the peritenon, deep tissues, and superficial tissues, and place the ankle in a splint in 15° of plantar flexion.
ALTERNATIVES
Acute Achilles ruptures can be treated operatively or nonoperatively. Operative techniques include open, percutaneous, or minimally invasive Achilles tendon repair. Open Achilles tendon repair involves making a 10-cm posteromedial incision to perform a primary repair, while percutaneous Achilles tendon repair involves the use of medial and lateral mini-incisions to pass needles and sutures into the Achilles tendon to repair it. Minimally invasive Achilles tendon repair involves the use of a small 3 to 4-cm incision to introduce instrumentation such as modified ring forceps or an Achillon device (Integra), along with a percutaneous technique, to repair the Achilles tendon. Nonoperative treatment can be utilized in patients with <5 mm of gapping between the ruptured tendon edges on dynamic ultrasound in 30° of plantar flexion, in patients with limited activity, or in patients whose comorbidities make them high-risk surgical candidates. Nonoperative treatment includes a below-the-knee rigid cast in 30° of plantar flexion or the use of a functional splint in 30° of plantar flexion with gradual progression to a neutral position, along with early rehabilitation according to the postoperative protocol described in the present article.
RATIONALE
This technique allows patients to begin early postoperative rehabilitation, limits wound and soft-tissue complications such as superficial and deep infections, and protects neurovascular structures such as the sural nerve that may be injured if utilizing other techniques. These benefits are achieved through the use of a minimally invasive knotless approach that places nearly all of the suture material into the Achilles tendon, reducing friction within the paratenon and potentially facilitating improved gliding. Additionally, securing the sutures into the calcaneus minimizes postoperative Achilles tendon elongation and facilitates early postoperative rehabilitation.
EXPECTED OUTCOMES
Patients undergoing this procedure can expect to return to their baseline physical activities by 5 months, with the best functional results observed at ≥12 months postoperatively. One retrospective cohort study compared the results of 101 patients who underwent Achilles repair with use of the PARS Jig and 169 patients who underwent open Achilles repair, and found that 98% of PARS patients returned to baseline activities in 5 months compared with 82% of patients undergoing open Achilles repair (p = 0.0001). Another retrospective chart review assessed the results of 19 patients who underwent Achilles repair with the PARS Jig and found that patients began to return to sport as early as 3 months postoperatively and that functional scores in patients increased as time progressed, with significant increases observed at 12 months and longer postoperatively.
IMPORTANT TIPS
Locate the Achilles tendon rupture site prior to marking the transverse incision.Bluntly dissecting the paratenon during closure stimulates healing and reduces scarring, thereby maintaining the integrity of the tissue.When advancing the PARS Jig, ensure that the proximal Achilles tendon remains inside the device.Maintaining meticulous suture management and organization prevents tangles and improves suture shuttling.Ensure that the Achilles tendon is tensioned with the ankle in 15° of plantar flexion prior to distal anchor fixation.
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
MRI = magnetic resonance imagingUS = ultrasoundBID = twice dailyPRN = as neededDVT = deep vein thrombosis.
PubMed: 36816527
DOI: 10.2106/JBJS.ST.21.00050 -
The Pan African Medical Journal 2022Medical research in the United States remains a global reference, endowed with unrivalled financing, a source of endless advancements, and recognized with many...
Medical research in the United States remains a global reference, endowed with unrivalled financing, a source of endless advancements, and recognized with many accolades; with 45 per cent of the winners, the United States outrageously dominates the Nobel Prize for Medicine. The volume of health spending in the United States is far more than any other country; however, the health outcomes are far below expectation. An American child Born in 2016 will live on average 78.6 years, which places the country around the thirty-fifth place in the world, somewhere between Cuba and Qatar; the United States has other modest results, as evidenced by the ranking of countries in terms of infant mortality in 2015, which placed the country 33 out of 35 member countries, ahead of only Turkey and Mexico. Although the United States ranks 35th out of 190 countries based on infant mortality in 2015, it is still far behind Cuba, which was 30 and the first "non-high" income country. In 2016, US health expenditures/gross domestic product (GDP) exceeded 16%, with an average of 10,000 USD/inhabitants, while Cuban health expenditures/GDP did not exceed 11% during the same period. We aim through the present work to show that the state of health doesn't improve by spending more. However, it improves by spending more on programs that we know from the evidence can improve health outcomes.
Topics: Delivery of Health Care; Gross Domestic Product; Health Expenditures; Health Facilities; Humans; Income; United States
PubMed: 36034037
DOI: 10.11604/pamj.2022.42.95.35133 -
PloS One 2019The timing and magnitude of sex differences in athletic performance during early human development, prior to adulthood, is unknown.
BACKGROUND
The timing and magnitude of sex differences in athletic performance during early human development, prior to adulthood, is unknown.
OBJECTIVE
To compare swimming velocity of boys and girls for all Olympic-length freestyle swimming events to determine the age of divergence in swimming performance.
METHODS
We collected the all-time top 100 U.S. freestyle swimming performance times of boys and girls age 5 to 18 years for the 50m to 1500m events.
RESULTS
Swimming performance improved with increasing age for boys and girls (p<0.001) until reaching a plateau, which initiated at a younger age for girls (15 years) than boys (17 years; sex×age; p<0.001). Prior to age 10, the top 5 swimming records for girls were 3% faster than the top boys (p<0.001). For the 10th-50th places, however, there were no sex-related differences in swimming performance prior to age 10 (p = 0.227). For both the top 5 and 10th-50th places, the sex difference in performance increased from age 10 (top 5, 2.5%; 10th-50th places, 1.0%) until age 17 (top 5, 7.6%; 10th-50th places, 8.0%). For all places, the sex difference in performance at age 18 was larger for sprint events (9.6%; 50-200m) than endurance events (7.1%; 400-1500m; p<0.001). Additionally, the sex-related difference in performance increased across age and US ranking from 2.4% for 1st place to 4.3% for 100th place (p<0.001), indicating less depth of performance in girls than boys. However, annual participation was ~20% higher in girls than boys for all ages (p<0.001).
CONCLUSION
The top 5 girls demonstrated faster swimming velocities and the 10th-50th place girls demonstrated similar swimming velocities than boys (until ~10 years). After age 10, however, boys demonstrated increasingly faster swimming velocities than girls until 17 years. Collectively, these data suggest girls are faster, or at least not slower, than boys prior to the performance-enhancing effects of puberty.
Topics: Adolescent; Athletic Performance; Child; Child, Preschool; Female; Humans; Male; Sex Characteristics; Swimming; Testosterone
PubMed: 31756208
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0225724 -
British Journal of Social Work Jun 2019Despite calls for greater social work attention to the centrality of place in human life, the profession has yet to hone frameworks that fully capture the role of place...
Despite calls for greater social work attention to the centrality of place in human life, the profession has yet to hone frameworks that fully capture the role of place in individual-collective identity and well-being. To move this agenda forward, this article draws on data from a series of focus groups to explore the placed experiences of women in Palestine. Analytically, it is informed by , which emphasises the deeply interactional relationships between people and places, views place-centred practice and research as catalysts for active responses to the spatialised nature of power and injustice, and focuses centrally on the geographic and spatial dynamics of colonisation, and particularly settler colonialism, as key determinants of individual and collective well-being. Women's spatial narratives revolved around individual-collective identity and sovereignty, focusing in particular on three interdependent factors: freedom of movement; possession and dispossession; and continuity of place. Findings also illuminated spatial practices of resistance by which women defend and promote identity and sovereignty. We conclude with recommendations for more explicit, critically informed attention to place in social work practice, education and research.
PubMed: 31308576
DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bcz049