Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre – Why choose a physical therapist with expertise or experience in pediatrics? – Business Wire

HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre -Physical therapy for children requires special skills. Children are not adults. Their bodies are different, and children grow, move, and think differently than adults. Physiotherapy in Hong Kong, Physiotherapists are specialists in child development, especially mobility development. Activities are the foundation of life and are vital to life. Therefore, physical therapy for children in physical therapist referrals plays an important role in infant and child development.

Physiotherapy for children at the Physiotherapy Center is for children from birth to under 19 years of age. Children's physiotherapy develops specialized skills and has expertise and experience in child development and childhood disorders.

What diseases or conditions do child physical therapists at the Physical Therapy and Sports Trauma Center work on:Nervous System Disorders: Brain injury in children such as cerebral palsy, autism cluster disorder or traumatic brain, congenital disorders, genetic diseases such as childhood idiopathic arthritis injury, or long-term illness with growth-related joint and posture correction.

Children in Physiotherapy Hong Kong Hong Kong physiotherapists are specialists in assessing, identifying, and managing developmental and mobility impairments in children. They have the knowledge and practical skills to tailor postural treatment for each child, to enable the child to participate in the treatment session actively and communicate with their parents and caregivers to assist the child in daily life and social activities.

When should a child see a pediatric physical therapist?Excessive range of motion of joints, genetic and metabolic abnormalities, neurological diseases, posture problems: accidents such as high and low shoulders, scoliosis, O-shaped legs, X-shaped legs, Muscle strain, etc., after surgery or major health accidents, or joint or muscle pain

Exercise therapy and physical therapy programs:Maintain or improve joint range of motionImprove muscle strength, and core stabilityRestoring body positioning and correct postureRe-adjust the movement mode and gait to meet the development requirements of large muscle movements and small muscle movementsEducation and SupportPromote activities of daily living

Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre also provides physiotherapy services and stretching treatments including Tennis Elbow Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Chiropractic Physiotherapy, Sacral Therapy, Chiropractic, Fifty Shoulder Physiotherapy, Orthopedic Physiotherapy, Frozen Shoulder Physiotherapy, High and low shoulder physical therapy, cruciate ligament physical therapy, intervertebral disc herniation therapy, cold back therapy, arthritis therapy, intervertebral disc herniation physical therapy, pain therapy, condylar and sacral therapy, muscle and bone sprain, joint strain and home physical therapy.

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Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre - Why choose a physical therapist with expertise or experience in pediatrics? - Business Wire

Physiology

C. Shan Xu named Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology – Yale News

C. Shan Xu

C. Shan Xu, a pioneer in the field of instrumentation development, has been appointed Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology, effective July 1.

Xu is a graduate of the University of Science and Technology of China and earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. He was a technical director in charge of research, development, and dissemination of advanced semiconductor technologies at Lam Research Corporation. In 2009, Xu joined the Janelia Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a senior scientist to develop enhanced focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) and later became the director of FIB-SEM technologies. He was recently recruited to Yale to further develop the next generation FIB-SEM technologies as a senior faculty member in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

A pioneer in instrumentation development, Xu holds more than 20 patents and is known for his work transforming conventional FIB-SEM from a metrology tool that is unreliable for more than a few days to a robust imaging platform with 100% effective reliability: capable of years of continuous imaging without defects in the final image stack. The enhanced FIB-SEM technology was initially invented to generate the largest and most detailed brain connectome to date, and was recently used to create an open-access, 3D atlas of whole cells and tissues at the finest isotropic resolution, including cancer and immune cells, mouse pancreatic islets, and Drosophila neural tissues. The story was featured in Nature and The Scientist. This technology has enabled significant discoveries in tissue biology, cell biology, and neuroscience where nano-scale resolution coupled with meso and even macro scale volumes is critical. In addition to technology development, Xu is well known for his leadership in disseminating enhanced FIB-SEM technology to worldwide research community.

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C. Shan Xu named Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology - Yale News

Physiology

Special Master’s Program in Physiology | Georgetown University

Preparing You for Your Future in Medicine

Established in 1975, the Georgetown University Special Masters Program is the foremost and longest-running program of its kind for college graduates seeking to apply to medical school. Our students learn alongside Georgetown medical students, and over 85% are accepted to med schools within two years.

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Special Master's Program in Physiology | Georgetown University

Physiology

Earths Largest Rodents Were Smaller Than We Once Thought – The New York Times

Modern rodents range in size from pygmy mice weighing less than an ounce to stocky capybaras pushing 175 pounds. But even the largest capybara is a pipsqueak compared with some prehistoric rodents that resembled a cross between a supersized capybara and a hairy hippopotamus. Paleontologists estimate that one, Phoberomys pattersoni, may have weighed as much as 1,300 pounds. Another, Josephoartigasia monesi, was believed to be around 2,000 pounds, as big as a bison.

But these size predictions have long sparked debate. People have said theyre the size of bison, but no one had any methods that could confidently nail down these sizes, said Russell Engelman, a paleontologist pursuing his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

So Mr. Engelman proposed a new method for accurately describing the dimensions of these rodents of unusual size. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, he downsized the animals by comparing a joint at the back of the skulls of Phoberomys, Josephoartigasia and other prehistoric rodents with those in large modern mammals instead of their pint-size relatives.

Between two million and eight million years ago, giant rodents like Phoberomys and Josephoartigasia inhabited South Americas wetlands. According to Ernesto Blanco, a paleontologist at Universidad de la Repblica in Uruguay who discovered the Josephoartigasia skull in 2008, these giant rodents had a powerful bite that could generate three times as much force as a modern tiger bite, potentially protecting them from predators like terror birds and saber-toothed marsupials.

Much of our understanding of these rodents is tied to their size. Body size is a key trait in mammals because everything you cannot physically measure in the fossil like ecology and physiology is correlated with body size, said Virginie Millien, a zoologist at McGill University who studies the body sizes of rodents and was not involved in the new study. In 2010, Dr. Millien used fossilized femurs to estimate that Phoberomys was the size of a large antelope.

Accurately sizing these gargantuan rodents has proved difficult. One reason is a lack of fossils. While paleontologists have unearthed leg bones and other bits of Phoberomyss skeleton, Josephoartigasia is known from only a single skull. Without fossil evidence, researchers often rely on the anatomies of an extinct animals closest living relatives. However, traits like Josephoartigasias prolonged skull and Phoberomyss bulky femurs are not found in living rodents. Thus, simply increasing the size of a capybara fails to render accurate anatomical estimates, and can yield distorted sizes similar to those seen in a carnival mirror.

So Mr. Engelman turned to the occipital condyle, the joint that helps connect an animals skull with its spine. The size of this joint varies little across all mammals to ensure the skull and spine stay securely attached, making it a bellwether for comparing different species. Usually paleontologists look for traits that are different between animals, Mr. Engelman said, but when youre looking at body size, you want to nail down the parts that have changed the least.

Recently, Mr. Engelman measured the width of the joint in more than 400 species of mammals, including mice and African elephants. He discovered that the occipital condyle width was an accurate predictor of their dimensions. Because the width of these joints was similar across mammals of a particular size, he could compare the size of the prehistoric rodents joints with those of other large mammals without having to extrapolate.

This left Mr. Engelman with drastically decreased sizes: Phoberomys maxed out under 450 pounds, and Josephoartigasia weighed around 1,000 pounds much closer to the size of a pony than a bison. If I made every reasonable assumption I could to make the masses higher, I still couldnt make them as big as people were saying, Mr. Engelman said. Even unreasonable assumptions couldnt get them that big.

Mr. Engelman also believes that this decrease in brawn may boost these rodents brains, which are measly for their perceived size. They have small brains, but they may not have these ridiculously tiny brains that people think they had, he said.

Dr. Blanco believes these figures are more realistic than previous estimates of these rodents weighing a metric ton. But he believes more fossil evidence is required before it is certain how large the largest rodents grew. Even with this excellent method, well have significant uncertainties until we have more than a skull, he said.

While the new findings are less eye-popping than earlier estimates, Dr. Millien said 1,000 pounds is still a really big rat.

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Earths Largest Rodents Were Smaller Than We Once Thought - The New York Times

Physiology

The Health Effects of Extreme Heat – The New York Times

When W. Larry Kenney, a professor of physiology at Pennsylvania State University, began studying how extreme heat harms humans, his research focused on workers inside the disaster-stricken Three Mile Island nuclear plant, where temperatures were as high as 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the decades that followed, Dr. Kenney has looked at how heat stress affects a range of people in intense environments: football players, soldiers in protective suits, distance runners in the Sahara.

Of late, however, his research has focused on a more mundane subject: ordinary people. Doing everyday things. As climate change broils the planet.

Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings were in effect on Monday across much of the eastern interior of the United States, following a weekend of record-smashing heat in the countrys Southwest. The heat will move farther Northeast in the next few days, according to the National Weather Service, into the upper Mississippi Valley, western Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

With severe heat waves now affecting swaths of the globe with frightening regularity, scientists are drilling down into the ways life in a hotter world will sicken and kill us. The aim is to get a better grip on how many more people will be afflicted by heat-related ailments, and how frequent and severe their suffering will be. And to understand how to better protect the most vulnerable.

One thing is for sure, scientists say: The heat waves of the past two decades are not good predictors of the risks that will confront us in the decades to come. Already, the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and sweltering temperatures is so clear that some researchers say there may soon no longer be any point trying to determine whether todays most extreme heat waves could have happened two centuries ago, before humans started warming the planet. None of them could have.

And if global warming is not slowed, the hottest heat wave many people have ever experienced will simply be their new summertime norm, said Matthew Huber, a climate scientist at Purdue University. Its not going to be something you can escape.

Whats tougher for scientists to pin down, Dr. Huber said, is how these climatic shifts will affect human health and well-being on a large scale, particularly in the developing world, where huge numbers of people are already suffering but good data is scarce. Heat stress is the product of so many factors humidity, sun, wind, hydration, clothing, physical fitness and causes such a range of harms that projecting future effects with any precision is tricky.

There also havent been enough studies, Dr. Huber said, on living full time in a warmer world, instead of just experiencing the occasional roasting summer. We dont know what the long-term consequences of getting up every day, working for three hours in nearly deadly heat, sweating like crazy and then going back home are, he said.

The growing urgency of these issues is drawing in researchers, like Dr. Kenney, who didnt always think of themselves as climate scientists. For a recent study, he and his colleagues placed young, healthy men and women in specially designed chambers, where they pedaled an exercise bike at low intensity. Then the researchers dialed up the heat and humidity.

They found that their subjects started overheating dangerously at much lower wet-bulb temperatures a measure that accounts for both heat and mugginess than what they had expected based on previous theoretical estimates by climate scientists.

Effectively, under steam-bath conditions, our bodies absorb heat from the environment faster than we can sweat to cool ourselves down. And unfortunately for humans, we dont pump out a lot more sweat to keep up, Dr. Kenney said.

Heat is climate change at its most devastatingly intimate, ravaging not just landscapes and ecosystems and infrastructure, but the depths of individual human bodies.

Heats victims often die alone, in their own homes. Apart from heatstroke, it can cause cardiovascular collapse and kidney failure. It damages our organs and cells, even our DNA. Its harms are multiplied in the very old and very young, and in people with high blood pressure, asthma, multiple sclerosis and other conditions.

When the mercury is high, we arent as effective at work. Our thinking and motor functions are impaired. Excessive heat is also associated with greater crime, anxiety, depression and suicide.

The toll on the body can be strikingly personal. George Havenith, director of the Environmental Ergonomics Research Center at Loughborough University in England, recalled an experiment years ago with a large group of subjects. They wore the same clothes and performed the same work for an hour, in 95 degree heat and 80 percent humidity. But by the end, their body temperatures ranged from 100 degrees to 102.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

A lot of the work were doing is trying to understand why one person ends up on one side of the spectrum and the other one on the other, he said.

For years, Vidhya Venugopal, a professor of environmental health at Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai, India, has been studying what heat does to workers in Indias steel plants, car factories and brick kilns. Many of them suffer from kidney stones caused by severe dehydration.

One encounter a decade ago has stayed with her. She met a steelworker who had been working 8-to-12-hour days near a furnace for 20 years. When she asked him how old he was, he said 38 to 40.

She was sure shed misunderstood. His hair was half white. His face was shrunken. He didnt look younger than 55.

So she asked how old his child was and how old he was when he got married. The math checked out.

For us, it was a turning point, Dr. Venugopal said. Thats when we started thinking, heat ages people.

Great Salt Lake. Local politicians and scientists are warning that climate change and rapid population growth are shrinking the lake, creating a bowl of toxic dust that could poison the air around Salt Lake City. But there are no easy solutions to avert that outcome.

Carbon dioxide levels. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit its highest level ever, scientists said. Humans pumped 36 billion tons of the planet-warming gas into the atmosphere in 2021, more than in any previous year.

Poor U.S. performance. The Environmental Performance Index, published every two years by researchers at Yale and Columbia, found that the United States performance on combating climate change had declinedin relation to other countries largely as a result of Trump-era policies.

Extreme heat. Global warming has made the severe heat wave in Pakistan and Indiahotter and much more likely to occur in the future, according to scientists. The researchers said that the chances of a heat wave in South Asia like this one have increased by at least 30 times since preindustrial times.

Adelaide M. Lusambili, a researcher at the Aga Khan University in Kenya, is investigating heats effects on pregnant women and newborns in Kilifi County, on Kenyas coast. In communities there, women fetch water for their families, which can mean walking long hours in the sun, even while pregnant. Studies have linked heat exposure to preterm births and underweight babies.

The most heartbreaking stories, Dr. Lusambili said, are of women who suffered after giving birth. Some walked great distances with their 1-day-olds on their backs, causing the babies to develop blisters on their bodies and mouths, and making breastfeeding difficult.

It has all been enough, she said, to make her wonder whether climate change is reversing the progress Africa has made on reducing newborn and childhood mortality.

Given how many people have no access to air-conditioners, which are themselves making the planet hotter by consuming huge amounts of electricity, societies need to find more sustainable defenses, said Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney.

Dr. Jay has studied the bodys responses to sitting near an electric fan, wearing wetted clothing and sponging down with water. For one project, he recreated a Bangladeshi garment factory in his lab to test low-cost ways of keeping workers safe, including green roofs, electric fans and scheduled water breaks.

Humans have some ability to acclimatize to hot environments. Our heart rate goes down; more blood is pumped with each stroke. More sweat glands are activated. But scientists primarily understand how our bodies adapt to heat in controlled laboratory settings, not in the real world, where many people can duck in and out of air-conditioned homes and cars, Dr. Jay said.

And even in the lab, inducing such changes requires exposing people to uncomfortable strain for hours a day over weeks, said Dr. Jay, who has done exactly that to his subjects.

Its not particularly pleasant, he said. Hardly a practical solution for life in a stifling future or, for people in some places, an increasingly oppressive present. More profound changes in the bodys adaptability will only occur on the time scale of human evolution.

Dr. Venugopal gets frustrated when asked, about her research on Indian workers, India is a hot country, so whats the big deal?

Nobody asks what the big deal is about having a fever, but heatstroke puts the body in a similar state.

That is human physiology, Dr. Venugopal said. You cant change that.

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The Health Effects of Extreme Heat - The New York Times

Physiology

UB-led study presents critical step forward in understanding Parkinson’s disease and how to treat it – UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff…

A new study led by a researcher in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB has important implications for developing future treatments for Parkinsons disease (PD), a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement and often includes tremors.

In this study, we find a method to differentiate human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to A9 dopamine neurons (A9 DA), which are lost in Parkinsons disease, says Jian Feng, professor of physiology and biophysics in the Jacobs School and senior author on the paper published May 24 in Molecular Psychiatry.

These neurons are pacemakers that continuously fire action potentials regardless of excitatory inputs from other neurons, he adds. Their pace-making property is very important to their function and underlies their vulnerability in Parkinsons disease.

This exciting breakthrough is a critical step forward in efforts to better understand Parkinsons disease and how to treat it, says Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. Jian Feng and his team are to be commended for their innovation and resolve.

Feng explains there are many different types of dopamine neurons in the human brain, and each type is responsible for different brain functions.

Nigral dopamine neurons, also known as the A9 DA neurons, are responsible for controlling voluntary movements. The loss of these neurons causes the movement symptoms of Parkinsons disease, he says.

Scientists have been trying hard to generate these neurons from human pluripotent stem cells to study Parkinsons disease and develop better therapies, Feng says. We have succeeded in making A9 dopamine neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells. It means that we can now generate these neurons from any PD patients to study their disease.

Feng notes that A9 DA neurons are probably the largest cells in the human body. Their volume is about four times the volume of a mature human egg.

Over 99% of the volume is contributed by their extremely extensive axon branches. The total length of axon branches of a single A9 DA neuron is about 4.5 meters, he says. The cell is like the water supply system in a city, with a relatively small plant and hundreds of miles of water pipes going to each building.

In addition to their unique morphology, the A9 DA neurons are pacemakers they fire action potentials continuously, regardless of synaptic input.

They depend on Ca2+ channels to maintain the pace-making activities. Thus, the cells need to deal with a lot of stress from handling Ca2+ and dopamine, Feng says. These unique features of A9 DA neurons make them vulnerable. Lots of efforts are being directed at understanding these vulnerabilities, with the hope of finding a way to arrest or prevent their loss in Parkinsons disease.

Pace-making is an important feature and vulnerability of A9 DA neurons. Now that we can generate A9 DA pacemakers from any patient, it is possible to use these neurons to screen for compounds that may protect their loss in PD, he notes. It is also possible to test whether these cells are a better candidate for transplantation therapy of PD.

To differentiate human iPSCs to A9 DA neurons, the researchers tried to mimic what happens in embryonic development, in which the cells secrete proteins called morphogens to signal to each other their correct position and destiny in the embryo.

Feng notes the A9 DA neurons are in the ventral part of the midbrain in development.

Thus, we differentiate the human iPSCs in three stages, each with different chemicals to mimic the developmental process, he says. The challenge is to identify the correct concentration, duration and treatment window of each chemical.

The combination of this painstaking work, which is based on previous work by many others in the field, makes it possible for us to generate A9 DA neurons, he adds.

Feng points out there are a number of roadblocks to studying Parkinsons disease, but that significant progress is being made.

There is no objective diagnostic test of Parkinsons disease, and when PD is diagnosed by clinical symptoms, it is already too late. The loss of nigral DA neurons has already been going on for at least a decade, he says.

There was previously no way to make human dopamine neurons from a PD patient so we could study these neurons to find out what goes wrong.

Scientists have been using animal models and human cell lines to study Parkinsons disease, but these systems are inadequate in their ability to reflect the situation in human nigral DA neurons, Feng says.

Just within the past 15 years, PD research has been transformed by the ability to make patient-specific dopamine neurons that are increasingly similar to their counterparts in the brain of a PD patient.

Houbo Jiang, research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Hong Li, a former postdoctoral associate in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, are co first-authors on the paper.

Other co-authors are Hanqin Li, a graduate of the doctoral program in neuroscience and currently a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley; Li Li, a trainee in UBs doctoral program in neuroscience; and Zhen Yan, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Biophysics.

The study was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health and by New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM).

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UB-led study presents critical step forward in understanding Parkinson's disease and how to treat it - UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff...

Physiology

How does your brain perceive the world around you? – KERA Think

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Neuroscientists have struggled for decades to fully understand how the brain takes in information from the outside world and makes near instantaneous decisions. Dr. Gyrgy Buzski is the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology and professor in the Department of Neurology at NYU. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss his research into the way the brain computes signals in order to better understand human decision making. His Scientific American article is called How the Brain Constructs the Outside World.

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How does your brain perceive the world around you? - KERA Think

Physiology

Study sheds light on inhibition of awn elongation in sorghum – News-Medical.Net

Over the years, the domestication of grasses like wheat, rice, barley, and sorghum for consumption has resulted in certain modifications to their morphology. One such modification is the partial or complete elimination of the 'awns', which are the bristle- or needle-like appendages extending from the tip of the lemma in grass spikelets.

The awn protects the grains from animals, promotes seed dispersal, and helps in photosynthesis in grasses like barley and wheat. However, its presence also hinders manual harvesting and reduces its value as livestock feed, explaining its elimination during domestication.

In the past, genetic studies have revealed the mechanism underlying awn development in crops such as rice and wheat. These indicate the possibility of the existence of complex and distinct genetic networks controlling awn formation in a species-specific manner.

In fact, the existence of an awn-inhibiting gene in sorghum was identified in 1921, but remained uncharacterized thereafter. Now, a group of researchers-;led by Prof. Wataru Sakamoto of Okayama University and including Prof. Hideki Takanashi of the Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Science, Tokyo University-;has finally shed light on this subject. Their research was published in Plant & Cell Physiology on 30 May 2022.

Justifying the rationale behind studying awn inhibition in sorghum.

Sorghum is an important C4 crop for high biomass and bioenergy. It has a high tolerance to drought, besides being the fifth largest cultivated cereal crop. Also, it is a morphologically diverse crop with a relatively small genome size, making it suitable for genetic studies in various agronomical traits."

Wataru Sakamoto, Professor, Okayama University

For the purpose of this study, a recombinant inbred population derived from a cross between "awnless" (BTx623) and "awned" (Takakibi NOG) sorghum varieties was created. "The prospect of gene hunting in sorghum using the population we generated for the last ten years was motivating", comments Prof. Sakamoto. Using next-generation sequencing, the researchers established a high-density genetic map of this recombinant cultivar.

Next, they performed quantitative trait loci analysis of the sorghum germplasm to identify the gene controlling awn development. They also conducted genome-wide association studies to identify the origins of the awn-inhibiting gene. Lastly, they introduced the awn-inhibiting gene in an awned rice cultivar to check its functionality in other grass species.

The researchers observed that approximately half of the recombinant cultivar population studied did not develop awns, just like their awnless parent. Moreover, they found a single locus on the cultivar chromosome to be responsible for regulating the absence as well as shortening of awns in the cultivars studied. They identified the gene corresponding to this locus as DOMINANT AWN INHIBITOR, or DAI.

The researchers found that DAI encodes a protein in the ALOG family, which negatively regulates awn formation as a transcription factor. Interestingly, when DAI was introduced into the awned rice cultivar, it suppressed awn formation. In the words of Prof. Sakamoto, "It was surprising that DAI also inhibits awn elongation in rice grains, because no such genes have been reported in rice. Thus, eliminating awns in cereal grains have occurred differently among cereal crops, but the mechanism can be shared between them."

In short, this study has established the importance of DAI for the development of modern awnless cultivars. Also, it points to the existence of a common mechanism of awn inhibition, despite the existence of species-specific inhibitors. Going ahead, further analysis is needed to understand the transcriptional regulation of DAI besides clarifying the association of DAI with sorghum domestication. As Prof. Sakamoto points out, "In the long term, the understanding of genetic traits affecting cereals can help us in making new varieties."

Source:

Journal reference:

Takanashi, H., et al. (2022) DOMINANT AWN INHIBITOR Encodes the ALOG Protein Originating from Gene Duplication and Inhibits AWN Elongation by Suppressing Cell Proliferation and Elongation in Sorghum. Plant and Cell Physiology. doi.org/10.1093/pcp/pcac057

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Study sheds light on inhibition of awn elongation in sorghum - News-Medical.Net

Physiology

The Effects of Different Housing Strategies for Mice and Insights Into Animal Well-Being via PhenoTyper – News-Medical.Net

When selecting animal models for conducting scientific research, welfare should be the main priority. This article considers the effects of different housing strategies for mice and how PhenoTyper offers researchers insight into animal well-being.

There is clearly a considerable ethical argument for optimizing the well-being of animals used in research. William Russel and Rex Burch infamously made this case in their 1952 paper The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique, in which they offered a blueprint for the considerations of animal welfare in science.1

The value of eliminating any unnecessary suffering and distress in animals should be readily apparent to most. But the argument for animal welfare extends much further than this.

A significant volume of research demonstrates that animals whose well-being is endangered are more likely to present physiological and behavioral abnormalities.2,3 Therefore, carefully controlling all factors that contribute to an animals well-being insofar as those that can be evaluated should be the guiding principle to guarantee experimental validity.

Image Credit: Shutterstock/unoL

Since the most frequently used animal models are mice in biomedical research, maximizing their well-being is crucial. The housing that mice are kept in plays a key role in this.

Naturally, mice are animals, so it is generally advised that when possible (and partible) they should be housed in groups.4

However, inter-male aggression is a major welfare concern for mice housed in captivity when it is not possible for them to escape each other as male mice do not naturally share territories.5 This means that paired housing or single housing is often a more feasible choice.

Other contributing factors experimental design and disease control in particular also make single housing a preferred choice in many cases. There are those that advocate for the use of cage dividers that allow sensory but not physical contact between neighboring mice to enable some level of social interaction.6

The immediate effects of housing on mices well-being, behavior and physiology are still up for debate. However, research shows that the single housing of mice is associated with various physiological ailments.

These include a reduction in growth rates and reduced lean body mass during growth, increased predisposition to obesity in adulthood and raised levels of visceral adipose tissue mass.7,8

Behavior can be influenced by housing too. Single-housed mice are known to exhibit anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors as well as broken cognitive function when compared to pair- or group-housed mice although these effects are also dependent on a range of other environmental and physiological factors.911

Separated pair housing using cage dividers seems to have some contrast in behavioral and locomotor performance when compared to single housing although it is not completely clear whether this corresponds with a difference in well-being.

Ideally, all of these changes should be considered in the research goals of experimenters using mice models.

In the long term, housing conditions tend to be at the mercy of experimental parameters. For instance, to prevent mice from damaging each others cannulas, single housing is mandatory for studies involving the cannulation of mice.12

Studies of energy balance regulation also tend to drift towards single housing so that the food intake and thermal profiles of each mouse can be carefully monitored. Single housing in individually vented cage (IVC) systems can also help prevent disease transmission between the mice.

Still, considering whether experimental parameters could permit paired (or separated pair) housing is useful if wanting to reduce stress, accomplish longer testing periods, and enhance experimental validity.

A number of experiments involve testing mice in a special environment away from their housing however, testing them in their home environment offers another chance to reduce stress levels and eradicate the confounding effects of a change in environment.13

Housing can have significant behavioral and physiological effects on mice: phenotypically, socially housed mice are not the same animal as mice that have been individually housed.

Observing animals in their home cage and comparing their behavior throughout the experiments is vital to understanding the effects of various housing paradigms.

So, whether opting for social or separate housing, it is essential to make sure everything is carefully considered and that a scoring system is in place.

PhenoTyper is a fully integrated and automated cage monitoring system. By facilitating simple monitoring of individual animals in their home cage, PhenoTyper offers researchers access to increased resolution when assessing animal model behavior within a particular housing paradigm.

Image Credit: Noldus

PhenoTyper can be customized to suit individual research needs. Each configuration is comprised of a bottom plate, four interchangeable walls, and a PhenoTyper top unit. A variety of walls are available to accommodate any configuration, with attachments for accessories such as feeding stations, drinking bottles and shelters.

The PhenoTyper top unit houses LEDs and a camera for automated tracking, with other sensor and stimuli options available. These can also be used to transmit feedback on animal behavior to EthoVision XT.

Automated tracking using EthoVision XT can provide full data integration and allow automation of experiments. EthoVision XT also offers precision tracking and good calculation of an extensive range of physiological and behavioral parameters while offering researchers access to unrivaled versatility in data processing and visualization.

As a result, EthoVision XT is considered to be the most cited video tracking system in the world.14

Image Credit: Noldus

To discover how PhenoTyper can offer deeper insight and faster results, contact Noldus today.

Noldus Information Technology was established in 1989 by Lucas Noldus, founder and CEO of the company. With a Ph.D. in animal behavior from Wageningen University, he developed the companys first software tool during his research in entomology. Noldus has strived to advance behavioral research ever since, evolving into a company that provides integrated systems including software, hardware, and services.

We now offer a wide range of solutions for research in animal and human domains, including biology, psychology, marketing, human factors, and healthcare. We work with leading suppliers and develop innovative, state-of-the art products. We also offer excellent technical support and customer care. As a result, our systems have found their way into more than 10,200 universities, research institutes, and companies in almost 100 countries.

The success of our company is determined to a large extent by the enthusiasm and creativity of our employees. We encourage each other to think outside the box, which leads to unique products and services for our customers. And we are always on the lookout for new talent!

Sponsored Content Policy: News-Medical.net publishes articles and related content that may be derived from sources where we have existing commercial relationships, provided such content adds value to the core editorial ethos of News-Medical.Net which is to educate and inform site visitors interested in medical research, science, medical devices and treatments.

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The Effects of Different Housing Strategies for Mice and Insights Into Animal Well-Being via PhenoTyper - News-Medical.Net

Physiology

Gut microbiome may be the "black box" of nutrition research – News-Medical.Net

In a recent paper published in theCelljournal, researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada, and the University College Cork, Ireland, analyzed the current nutritional guidelines for gut microbiota.

Review: Rethinking healthy eating in light of the gut microbiome. Image Credit:Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

Diet is critical to human health and the pathogenesis of epidemic-level noncommunicable chronic illnesses. The constant increase of chronic diseases among non-industrialized populations who convert to a Western-style diet is a striking witness to the substantial influence of diet on human health.

Evidence-based dietary advice is critical for health promotion, considering the global epidemic of diet-associated chronic diseases. Although human gut microbiota harbor significant relevance for the physiological consequences of diet and the genesis of chronic disease, national dietary recommendations across the globe are only beginning to take advantage of scientific advancements in the microbiome sector.

Studies at the intersection of microbiome and nutrition disciplines have expanded recently. Nonetheless, diet-microbiome-host connections have received little attention in current dietary guidelines.

In the present review, the researchers addressed current nutritional guidelines from the perspective of microbiome science, concentrating on mechanistic findings that revealed host-microbe interactions as drivers of the physiological impacts of diet. The scientists constricted their discussions on food-based dietary guidelines for health promotion and illness prevention among the common public, which is the goal of these guidelines.

The team concentrated on studies that showed how the gut microbiota regulates and facilitates the physiological impacts of dietary compounds, dietary habits, and specific foods. Theyused their findings to help clarify debates on nutrition, create innovative nutritional advice, and provide an experimental paradigm for incorporating the microbiome within nutrition research.

The authors found that national food-based dietary guidelines from many countries with various dietary traditions have a high level of consistency. These guidelines were in accord with other major nutritional platforms, like the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets and sustainable food systems and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

All dietary guidelines advised whole-plant foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and nuts instead of processed foods with added salt, saturated fats, or sugar. Dietary fibers and phytochemicals comprise two vital components of whole-plant foods.

The rapidly fermentable elements in processed foods might induce excessive growth ofbacteriain the small intestine and an undesirable microbial metabolic and compositional profile. Further, adversely impact the immune and endocrine systems. However, the colonic microbiota does not have access to them.

The evidence for the capacity of whole grains to lowerthe likelihoodof chronic diseases was strong, and the function of gut bacteria in these effects was being studied more and more. According to a study combining human research and mechanistic assessments in mice, the microbiota may have a causal role in the health impacts of whole grains.

Several dietary standards advise that plant-associatedprotein foods should be ingested frequently owingto their advantages to human and planetary health. Mounting studies indicate the gut microbiomeprobably has a role in the health benefits of legumes. Furthermore, solid proof from observational and intervention studies shows that highfatty fish consumption has a cardioprotective effect, and the gut flora might be mediating these health benefits.

The Mediterranean diet integrates many food types that have afavorable impact on host interactions. It advises fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, whole grains, and olive oil as dietary essentials, moderate consumption of eggs, poultry, fish, and dairy products, and limited consumption of processed and red meats and processed foods.

Multiple latest microbiome studies bolster the prominence of the Mediterranean diet in dietary guidelines. Indeed, recently updated dietary guidelines advocate eating patterns that mirror the Mediterranean diet, such as the dietary approaches to stop hypertension (DASH).

Toxicological considerations explain the risk classification of red and processed meats by the World Health Organization (WHO) or the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) expert panel, as well as existing dietary guidelines, based on likely dose-response correlations. Besides, many mechanistic animal models emphasizethe potentially harmful impacts of saturated fats derived from milk on microbiota homeostasis, strengthening dietary recommendations to limit high-fat dairy consumption.

It is uncertain if the microbiota contributes causally to acute metabolic consequences of low-carbohydrate and fat diets among humans. The authors noted using microbiome-targeted techniques to enhance low-carbohydrate diets will be beneficial.

The team stated that dietary recommendations, focused nutritional approaches, and the development of food products to combat chronic disease risk might benefit from accounting for how diet-microbiome interactions influenced human physiology. It also laid the groundwork for initiatives to restore the microbiome. The microbiome restoration technique might be achieved theoretically with dietary synbiotics and probiotics.

Reformulation of processed foods, rather than eradication, has been hypothesized to enhance the population-wide quality ofdiet. Such efforts will necessitate afood engineering breakthrough that addresses diet-microbe-host interconnections.

The researchers mentioned that nutritional strategies could be used to target microbiome and health-promoting taxa once their characteristics were recognized. Microbiome assessments were a critical element of precision-nutrition methods focused onchronic illness prevention and therapy, among other individual-specificaspects, due to the highly customized reaction of gut microbiota to diet.

Data on diet-microbiome-host relationships could improve, modify, and innovate dietary guidelines. Integrating the gut microbiome into dietary recommendations must be supported by proofof the microbiome's causal and mechanistic contributions to the physiological impacts of diet.

The team referred to outstanding reviews that lay out best-practice standards for diet-microbiome studies and supplemented them with a three-pillared experimental design incorporating the gut microbiome within all phases of nutrition research. Microbiome discoveries to develop healthy eating hypotheses, microbiome integration into human intervention studies, and mechanistic understanding and causal inferences regarding the microbiome's function in diet impacts were among these pillars.

According to the authors, the convergence of fundamental concepts in the nutrition and microbiome sectors confirms current dietary recommendations. They discovered that systematically incorporating microbiome knowledge into nutrition studies can further boost and revolutionize healthy eating.

Overall, the study findings indicated that diet was linked significantly to the absence or presence of disease, which subsequently connected to the microbiome. Diet-microbiome connections were anticipated to contribute to the molecular underpinning of dietary physiological effects, making the gut microbiome the "black box" of nutrition studies. There is a compelling evolutionary and biological rationale for the two disciplines to expand their already extensive and persistent collaborations to learn more about how to improve health through diet.

The investigators stated that microbiome-centered endpoints must be incorporated into all facets of nutrition science to increase the scientific basis for dietary recommendations. In addition, nutritional microbiology research can provide comprehensive information on all elements of healthy eating. Thus, contributing to solvingthe problem of diet-linked disease prevention and control.

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Gut microbiome may be the "black box" of nutrition research - News-Medical.Net