High Temporal Resolution Measurements of Movement Reveal Novel Early-Life Physiological Decline in C. elegans

Age-related physiological changes are most notable and best-studied late in life, while the nature of aging in early- or middle-aged individuals has not been explored as thoroughly. In C. elegans, studies of movement vs. age generally delineate three distinct phases: sustained, youthful movement; a discrete onset of rapidly progressing impairment; and gross immobility. We investigated whether this first period of early-life adult movement is simply a sustained “healthy” level of high function followed by a discrete “movement catastrophe” — or whether there are early-life changes in movement that precede future physiological declines. To determine how movement varies during early adult life, we followed isolated individuals throughout life with a previously unachieved combination of duration and temporal resolution. By tracking individuals across the first six days of adulthood, we observed declines in movement starting as early as the first two days of adult life, as well as high interindividual variability in total daily movement. These findings suggest that movement is a highly dynamic behavior early in life, and that factors driving movement decline may begin acting as early as the first day of adulthood. Using simulation studies based on acquired data, we suggest that too infrequent sampling in common movement assays limits observation of early-adult changes in motility, and we propose feasible alternate strategies and a framework for designing assays with increased sensitivity for early movement declines.

What happens after high school? A review of independent living practices to support youth with disabilities transitioning to adult life

BACKGROUND: Centers for Independent Living (CILs) can help out of school youth with disabilities. CIL services may be particularly important for minority youth with disabilities that face additional transition barriers. OBJECTIVE: This literature review documents existing practices that might aid CILs as they seek to help youth, including minority youth, with disabilities transition to adult life. METHODS: First, we conducted a literature search to identify practices that might help CILs assist youth with disabilities transition to independent living (IL) in early adult life. Then we examined various literature syntheses of postsecondary transition interventions with evidence of promise or efficacy for any IL-related outcome—regardless of whether the intervention targeted youth with disabilities. RESULTS: We discovered a variety of practices CILs might learn from or consider adopting to help youth with disabilities transition to adult life. However, the practices rarely focused on minority youth and usually had limited or no evidence about whether they improved IL outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The limitations of the evidence we found suggest the need to develop and test interventions that help transition age youth with disabilities—especially minority youth with disabilities—achieve their IL goals.

Sosipatra as a Wife, Mother, and Widow

This chapter explores what Sosipatra’s late adolescent/early adult life might have been from her betrothal to Eustathius to the time when she began teaching in Pergamum. It describes family life for someone such as Sosipatra. It will endeavor to answer questions such as what her household responsibilities would have been, what difficulties and dangers she may have faced in bringing her children into the world and bringing them up, what role might she have played in their education, and so forth. It uses what is known from the late ancient eastern Empire about adolescence, betrothal, marriage, childbirth and childrearing, and widowhood to weave a plausible picture of the life of Sosipatra.

A Strategy for Building Transition-Focused Education Capacity to Support Disabled Students in Australian Schools

This chapter explores how an ongoing collaboration between a local university and an educational district within Queensland, Australia, has assisted educational professionals to better address the requirements of students with disabilities to transition successfully from high school to adulthood. The collaboration was a response to federal data that identified poor outcomes for students with disabilities and provided funding to improve these outcomes through school and system capacity-building. In Australia, there is a paucity of research into transition-focused education and postschool outcomes, a lack of research and technical assistance centers, poor professional preparation and development for teaching staff, and poor systemic structures to support this student population at school and in their early adult life. The study outlined here addresses this lack of research on school to adulthood transitions for students with disabilities and offers an example of implementing recommended practice to support transitions.

PINK1 deficiency impairs adult neurogenesis of dopaminergic neurons

Recent evidence suggests neurogenesis is on-going throughout life but the relevance of these findings for neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) is poorly understood. Biallelic PINK1 mutations cause early onset, Mendelian inherited PD. We studied the effect of PINK1 deficiency on adult neurogenesis of dopaminergic (DA) neurons in two complementary model systems. Zebrafish are a widely-used model to study neurogenesis in development and through adulthood. Using EdU analyses and lineage-tracing studies, we first demonstrate that a subset of ascending DA neurons and adjacent local-projecting DA neurons are each generated into adulthood in wild type zebrafish at a rate that decreases with age. Pink1-deficiency impedes DA neurogenesis in these populations, most significantly in early adult life. Pink1 already exerts an early effect on Th1+ progenitor cells rather than on differentiated DA neurons only. In addition, we investigate the effect of PINK1 deficiency in a human isogenic organoid model. Global neuronal differentiation in PINK1-deficient organoids and isogenic controls is similar, but PINK1-deficient organoids display impeded DA neurogenesis. The observation of impaired adult dopaminergic neurogenesis in Pink1 deficiency in two complementing model systems may have significant consequences for future therapeutic approaches in human PD patients with biallelic PINK1 mutations.

A Neurodevelopment Approach for a Transitional Model of Early Onset Schizophrenia

In the last decades, the conceptualization of schizophrenia has dramatically changed, moving from a neurodegenerative process occurring in early adult life to a neurodevelopmental disorder starting be-fore birth, showing a variety of premorbid and prodromal symptoms and, in relatively few cases, evolving in the full-blown psychotic syndrome. High rates of co-occurring different neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism spectrum disorder and ADHD, predating the onset of SCZ, and neurobio-logical underpinning with significant similarities, support the notion of a pan-developmental disturbance consisting of impairments in neuromotor, receptive language, social and cognitive development. Con-sidering that many SCZ risk factors may be similar to symptoms of other neurodevelopmental psychi-atric disorders, transition processes from child & adolescent to adult systems of care should include both high risk people as well as subject with other neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorders with different levels of severity. This descriptive mini-review discuss the need of innovative clinical approaches, re-considering specific diagnostic categories, stimulating a careful analysis of risk factors and promoting the appropriate use of new and safer medications.

Jack Yeats’s Scrapbooks

A one-time commercial illustrator, a playwright and a fiction writer, Jack Yeats spent much of his early adult life in in Devon, where he lived before he moved to Greystones, County Wicklow, in 1910. He loved to swim and to sail, and the characteristic he valued most was a wildness that he associated with a natural freedom, a liberty that drew him to paint travellers, fishermen, and circus performers. Wildness for Yeats was a freedom from self-consciousness and a capacity to act gaily, a characteristic he drew with vigor in his sketches of jockeys, boxers, and pirates for his children’s theatre. This last represented a freedom of the port and sea that was anchored in a much older culture of oceanic trade and discovery and the portals of this maritime world were a threshold between the diverse cultures that Yeats inhabited, which this chapter reads through his scrapbook collection.

AOX1 and XDH Enzymes Genotyping and its Effect on Clinical Response to Azathioprine in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients Among Jordanian Population

Background and Objective: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a set of chronic inflammatory gastrointestinal disorders, which include ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD) that affects many patients worldwide with a peak incidence in early adult life. The immunosuppressant drug Azathioprine (AZA) represents one of the most useful drugs in the management of IBD. It is metabolized by many enzymes like AOX1, and XDH enzymes, the variation in the metabolism of AZA may contribute to inter-individual variation in response to this treatment. This study aims to find out if there is an association between certain AOX1 and XDH polymorphisms and AZA response in Jordanian IBD patients. Methods: One hundred IBD patients aged between (17-72) years and taking AZA were enrolled and genotyped for AOX13404G, XDH1936C and XDH2107C polymorphisms using DNA Sequencing (Sanger) method. Results and Conclusion: This study revealed that 16% of our patients were non-responders to AZA; they needed an alternative therapy (biological agent) or steroids along with AZA. There was no statistically significant association (p-value>0.05) between the AOX1 3404G, XDH 1936C and XDH 2107C polymorphisms and the response to AZA among Jordanian IBD patients. Finally, the study showed an association between the age of the patient and the response to AZA (p-value=0.013).