Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Study paves the way for a better understanding of muscle injury – News-Medical.Net

Researchers from the INCLIVA Health Research Institute, the Clinical Hospital of Valencia, and the University of Valencia (UV) have participated in a study, the results of which have just been published in Science, which paves the way for a better understanding of muscle injury. The work will enable, in the future, the application of interventions that accelerate its repair both in the physiological field, in sports performance, and probably also in the clinical field, in the frail or sarcopenic patient (loss of muscle mass and strength in older adults).

The main finding of this study is the discovery that muscle cells are capable of regenerating rapidly and autonomously and not only through the intervention of stem cells, as was believed until now. The objective of the work in which Mari Carmen Gmez-Cabrera, professor of the Department of Physiology of the UV and researcher of this project for the INCLIVA, and the researcher Esther Garca have participated was to clarify the mechanisms by which the muscle fibre regenerates after moderate damage such as that induced by physical exercise.

The mechanisms by which muscle is repaired in the event of very serious muscle injury are well described and involve a type of cell called a muscle satellite cell. In less severe and much more common muscle injuries, such as those that occur after exercise and, probably also, in those associated with the muscle aging process itself, the repair mechanism was not well established.

According to Gmez-Cabrera, "contrary to what happens in other cells in our body, our muscles are made up of cells that have multiple nuclei. The muscle cell is damaged when, for example, we suffer a trauma (a blow) but also when we do physical exercise. Exercises with an important eccentric component (a type of contraction in which the muscle generates tension while increasing its length), such as walking down stairs, can cause muscle damage". In addition, the professor at the University of Valencia specifies: "muscle damage is very common in athletes and repair mechanisms are very important in the fields of sports medicine, traumatology and rehabilitation".

The expert highlights the importance of this study, "which has made it possible to find that the repair mechanism for non-severe muscle injuries does not involve, as was originally thought, muscle stem cells or satellite cells".

What happens in a damaged fibre is that the cores of the fibre itself are attracted to the place of damage, which accelerates their repair."

Mari Carmen Gmez-Cabrera, Professor, Department of Physiology, UV

The study is the result of a collaboration between the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) and CIBERNED, in Spain; and the Joo Lobo Antunes Institute of Molecular Medicine (iMM), in Portugal.

The nuclei near the damage area use the release of messenger RNA as a repair mechanism, which is translated into proteins, that act as building blocks to resolve the muscle injury and return the fibre to its functionality.

Three types of experimental models have been used in this work. They have included athletes who have performed an exercise protocol they knew to induce muscle damage, mice, and various cell models: myotubes and muscle myofibres. The repair mechanism they have described is preserved in the three models studied and represents a very efficient and highly relevant protection mechanism for minor muscle injuries.

In addition, the study has been fundamental in the housing units, as well as the equipment acquired by INCLIVA through the ERDF funds derived from the Valencian Community strategy for research on aging and frailty.

INCLIVA's work for this study has been developed thanks to funding received from the Carlos III Health Institute CB16 / 10/00435 (CIBERFES), from the Ministry of Science and Innovation (PID2019-110906RB-I00 / AEI / 10.13039 / 501100011033); 109_RESIFIT, CSIC General Foundation; PROMETEO / 2019/097 of the Ministry of Health of the Valencian Government and FEDER Funds.

M Carmen Gmez-Cabrera is coordinator of the Research Group on Exercise, Nutrition and Healthy Lifestyle and co-coordinator of the Transversal Program on Aging and Associated Diseases of INCLIVA. She is also part of CIBERFES (Centre for Biomedical Research on Frailty and Healthy Aging Network). Predoctoral researcher Esther Garca has also intervened in the work, through the design and development of in vivo studies with exercise, both in humans and in mice, over the last 18 months.

Source:

Journal reference:

Roman, W., et al. (2021) Muscle repair after physiological damage relies on nuclear migration for cellular reconstruction. Science. doi.org/10.1126/science.abe5620.

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Study paves the way for a better understanding of muscle injury - News-Medical.Net

Physiology

Guest Blog: Virtually Possible (How the Pandemic Forced Us to Rethink Data Collection) – Michigan Tech News

The pandemics impacts on our campus research ecosystem are many and varied. In his guest blog, Kevin Trewartha shares how the halt in face-to-face interactions compelled his team to find alternatives with applications far beyond current challenges.

In the Aging, Cognition, and Action Lab, we investigate the relationship between age-related changes in cognitive and motor function and the neurophysiological basis for those changes. Like so many others who study human behavior and physiology, our research relies on volunteers to perform tasks in the laboratory while we record their performance.

The pandemic caused a sudden and unexpected end to all face-to-face data collection, and an astounding pause in the research methods I have relied on for almost two decades. Yet, as is often opined, great challenges bring great opportunities.

Our understanding of human cognitive, motor, social, and physiological function is dependent on our ability to gather data from participants who volunteer their time in the spirit of scientific inquiry. For many scholars, collecting data means bringing participants into the laboratory to perform a variety of tasks in close contact with the experimenters.

In my lab, we study age-related changes in neurophysiological, cognitive, and motor function by testing individuals 65 and older. Collecting data with human participants means working closely with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) to ensure that our protocols do not present any significant physical or psychological risk to our participants. As researchers, we have a moral and ethical responsibility to ensure their safety. Any risks to the participant must be minimized and reasonable in relation to the expected benefits and importance of the knowledge to be obtained by the research.

The COVID-19 pandemic suddenly elevated the risk of recruiting participants for face-to-face data collection. Prior to widespread availability of a vaccine, the risk of developing serious illness after contracting the virus meant that it was no longer safe to bring participants into the lab. Data collection initiatives like ours were suspended in labs all over the world as we learned more about the virus.

As the weeks passed, a clear picture emerged about the relative risk of severe illness and death due to COVID-19. Older individuals and those with underlying medical conditions were at disproportionate risk for adverse outcomes. With careful planning and review, the IRB worked closely with researchers to mitigate the risks involved and allow human subjects research to eventually resume. However, work with individuals over 65 years old was deemed too risky for the participant.

On a personal level, too, I was unwilling to run the risk of a participant getting severely sick or dying just because they chose to volunteer for research in my lab. Although we expected the shutdown to be temporary, it ended up being more than 15 months before we could prepare to resume data collection with our most vulnerable participant populations.

One of our current National Institutes of Health-funded research projects involves working with older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or early stages of Alzheimers disease. We are investigating whether subtle changes in motor learning behavior could be a sign of early cognitive impairment. The very same week in March 2020 that Michigan Tech and the State of Michigan recognized the need to change our day-to-day operations, we were collecting data with this high-risk population. Immediately, we recognized the need to pause our data collection an incredibly frustrating albeit necessary decision, given that we were about halfway through our three-year project at the time.

Having to halt most progress on our funded project for almost as much time as we had been working on it provided an opportunity to refocus on one of the biggest challenges we face in behavioral and physiology labs: How do we collect data from human participants if we cannot meet with them face-to-face?

In fact, this was a problem we recognized. There were already well-known, existing disparities between the types of individuals who participate in research and those who do not. Much of the human performance literature is based on data collected from more urban centers, from people who have the physical and financial means to travel to our labs. Fewer studies tend to recruit rural populations, especially those living in more isolated communities and those who have physical and financial barriers to traveling. We once wrote a grant that included a request for funds to develop and test a mobile (tablet-based) platform for motor learning and cognitive testing. Unfortunately, it was not funded, and the idea was set aside.

Although the pandemic levied a devastating blow to our research program, it also provided an important opportunity for us to revisit the mobile testing idea and develop a method to collect data remotely. The development of such technology was beyond my expertise, so we reached out to a colleague in the College of Computing: Robert Pastel, who agreed to collaborate with us on this new project.

At the time, travel was ill advised, so we had some time to work through the development of a web-based app for administering the same motor learning experiments we typically run on our sophisticated equipment in the lab. One of my graduate students was then able to shift the focus of her masters thesis to testing the validity of this new app with healthy younger and older adults by administering the experiment remotely over Zoom.

There were several added challenges to shifting this focus that we did not anticipate at the time. We grow comfortable with our standard methodologies, and shifting to something completely different takes time. Anticipating hiccups along the way is difficult when you enter personally uncharted waters.

The pandemic imposed great challenges outside of work as well. Sudden losses of child care; sharing remote workspaces with family or roommates; trying to help care for family members who live elsewhere; figuring out how to stay physically active; and managing stress, isolation, fear and ever-shifting public health guidance were struggles we all shared. Trying to manage those challenges while trying to launch a new line of research was daunting, especially while working to stay as productive as we could with our existing projects. Despite all those challenges, we made steady progress and expect to finish our initial remote data collection project during the fall 2021 semester.

We are excited about this new line of research and fully expect to continue exploring remote data collection after the pandemic is over. This new approach is a silver lining to a year fraught with barriers to our research productivity. We also consider ourselves fortunate that it was feasible to shift some of our work to an online platform. Many methods of measuring human behavior and physiology, including some of our own, are simply not possible through remote data collection, at least with existing technology. But as is the case with many aspects of our daily lives, the pandemic taught us to adapt, think outside the box and be resilient.

Additional challenges will arise, even as the spread of SARS-CoV-2 wanes. For human subjects research, it will take time to ramp up data collection initiatives to normal levels. Testing sessions may also be slowed down by the need to practice careful mitigation strategies to further limit the risk of spreading the virus. It also remains unclear what lingering impact the pandemic may have on participant recruitment. Some individuals may be more hesitant to volunteer, especially high-risk populations. Regardless, I am so proud of my students, colleagues, collaborators and clinical consultants for their agility, patience and hard work this past year, and I am confident we will meet any new challenges that arise.

The new directions in our labs research program this past year are a testament to the importance of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary collaborations. Without the expertise and efforts of Pastel, our new line of remote testing research wouldnt have happened. Our interactions during the development process also taught me a lot about considerations programmers need to make when developing apps like this. Collaborations of this sort really start with an informal conversation among colleagues. We have plenty of work to do in this area in the future, but I am excited for a new and somewhat unexpected direction for my research program.

The resilience and adaptability of human subjects researchers will continue to be put to the test for the foreseeable future. This pandemic is not over. We all look forward to a day when we can resume normal life again. That day can happen soon, but it requires that we acknowledge the pandemic for what it is a worldwide public health crisis that does not care about our politics.

Thanks to scientists who have dedicated their lives to developing health technologies, we have access to several safe and effective vaccines that not only prevent people from getting sick and dying, but will prevent the virus from mutating to a point that it evades our immune system defenses and puts us back to square one. When it comes to vaccination, we need to ignore the media, social media, armchair researchers and politicians in favor of seeking advice from our trusted medical professionals. As we collectively band together to end this pandemic, we are coming out the other side with new innovations that will make society better.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.

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Guest Blog: Virtually Possible (How the Pandemic Forced Us to Rethink Data Collection) - Michigan Tech News

Physiology

Leslie A. Leinwand, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, to receive the American Heart Association’s 2021 Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award…

Embargoed until 7 a.m. CT / 8 a.m. ET Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021

DALLAS, Nov. 3, 2021 The American Heart Association, a global force for longer, healthier lives, will present its 2021 Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award to Leslie A. Leinwand, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado Boulder. She will receive the award during the Presidential Session on Sunday, Nov. 14 at the AssociationsScientific Sessions 2021. The meeting will be fully virtual, Saturday, Nov. 13 through Monday, Nov. 15, 2021, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care worldwide.

Dr. Leinwand is chief scientific officer of the BioFrontiers Institute, and a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, Professor of Cardiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. Her contributions have revolutionized our understanding of heart failure by using molecular techniques in heart and muscle biology. She was selected as this years recipient of the Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award because of her instrumental role in mentoring young cardiovascular scientists and physician scientists.

Dr. Leslie Leinwand has an impressive career history of shaping young scientists into outstanding leaders in health care and cardiovascular medicine, while continuing to advance our knowledge and understanding of the roles that gender and diet play in heart health, said Association President Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, M.D., Sc.M., FAHA. Her longstanding commitment to supporting the future of cardiovascular science is exemplary, and she has been an outstanding role model and inspiration for generations of scientists.

Throughout her career, she has been passionate about science education and advancement, she encourages pure scientific discovery, and she fosters career development, which she emphasizes through mentorships. She has provided invaluable support and guidance to scientists and researchers including her active mentees, as well as her previous students, many of whom remain in contact with her as their career-long mentor.

It is such an honor to receive this award in the name of Eugene Braunwald and to follow all of the previous outstanding awardees, said Dr. Leinwand. Mentoring is one of the most important things that we do as scientists, and I am tremendously proud of all of my trainees who have gone onto such distinguished careers and become great mentors themselves.

Dr. Leinwand earned her doctorate in biology from Yale University. She has mentored nearly 200 cardiovascular and physician scientists during the past 40 years. Many of her protgs are current cardiovascular leaders who hold the title of chief of cardiology, some have been internationally recognized for leading-edge research. In 2017, she was recognized with the Associations Distinguished Scientist Award for outstanding contributions to the field of heart health. Dr. Leinwand holds four U.S. patents for the solubilization of protein after bacterial expression using sarkosyl, transgenic model for heart failure, diagnosis and treatment of myocardial failure, and methods and compositions for inducing physiological hypertrophy, with another three patents pending. She has published more than 320 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals.

The Leinwand Lab at the University of Colorados College of Arts and Sciences, founded and led by Dr. Leinwand, is focused on genetics and molecular physiology of inherited diseases of the heart, as well as how biological sex and diet affect the heart. The scientists utilize multidisciplinary approaches, including molecular biology, analysis of human tissues and mouse genetics and cardiac physiology. They study cardiac and skeletal muscle with particular focus on the genetic diseases that affect them. They also are exploring extreme biology exhibited by the Burmese python after consuming infrequent and massive meals.

Additional Resources:

The Association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific Association programs and events. The Association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and biotech companies, device manufacturers and health insurance providers and the Associations overall financial information are availablehere.

The American Heart AssociationsScientific Sessions 2021is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care professionals worldwide. The three-day meeting will feature more than 500 sessions focused on breakthrough cardiovascular basic, clinical and population science updates in a fully virtual experience Saturday, Nov. 13 through Monday, Nov. 15, 2021. Thousands of leading physicians, scientists, cardiologists, advanced practice nurses and allied health care professionals from around the world will convene virtually to participate in basic, clinical and population science presentations, discussions and curricula that can shape the future of cardiovascular science and medicine, including prevention and quality improvement. During the three-day meeting, attendees receive exclusive access to more than 4,000 original research presentations and can earn Continuing Medical Education (CME), Continuing Education (CE) or Maintenance of Certification (MOC) credits for educational sessions. Engage in Scientific Sessions 2021 on social media via#AHA21.

About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a leading force for a world of longer, healthier lives. With nearly a century of lifesaving work, the Dallas-based association is dedicated to ensuring equitable health for all. We are a trustworthy source empowering people to improve their heart health, brain health and well-being. We collaborate with numerous organizations and millions of volunteers to fund innovative research, advocate for stronger public health policies, and share lifesaving resources and information. Connect with us onheart.org,Facebook,Twitteror by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.

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Leslie A. Leinwand, Ph.D., of the University of Colorado, to receive the American Heart Association's 2021 Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award...

Physiology

What’s Behind The Strange Drop in American Body Temperatures Over The Past 200 Years? – ScienceAlert

The human body is often said to rest at a healthy internal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, or 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

This average was established two centuries ago in France, and yet in the meantime, it seems our 'normal' physiology has changed ever so slightly.

Early last year, researchers in the United Statescombed Civil War veteran records and national health surveys and found temperatures among men born at the turn of this century were 0.59 degrees Celsius cooler than those men born around two hundred years earlier.

Women, on the other hand, had seen a 0.32 degrees Celsius decline since the 1890s.

At the time, the authors suggested it might have something to do with inflammation due to disease, which is closely tied to body temperature. With the rise of modern medicine, we've seen a decline in chronic infections, and maybe, the authors suggested, this has chilled us out, so to speak.

Later in 2020, another group of researchers found an eerily similar reduction in body temperature among a relatively remote indigenous tribe in Bolivia, where infections have remained widespread and medical care minimal, despite some modern changes.

The reasons for the recent decline in body temperature clearly had to go beyond improved hygiene, cleaner water, or improved medical care, and some researchers at Harvard are now investigating another explanation: a decline in physical activity.

When a person exercises regularly, it often coincides with an increase in their metabolism. This, in turn, can raise their body's resting temperature for hours or even up to a day, which means falling body temperature measurements might indicate falling physical activity.

Unfortunately, the methods we have for measuring physical activity today weren't around 200 years ago, so we can't really compare how we move now to how we moved then.

What could be possible, however, is to use historical body temperature data asa "thermometer" to gauge physical activity before we started keeping track of these things.

If we can model the relationships between physical activity, metabolism, and body temperature we could theoretically work backward.

The idea started as a "back-of-the-envelope" calculation among Harvard researchers, and while their "first pass estimate" is a good start, it's still based on a bunch of assumptions. That said, it is an intriguing hypothesis.

The model the researchers ultimately created found every 1C increase in historical body temperature is linked to an approximate 10 percent change in resting metabolic rate.

Given how much male body temperatures seem to have decreased since the 1820s, their metabolic rate must have therefore declined by 6 percent in the same time.

That's equivalent to about half an hour of physical activity a day, according to the authors' calculations. More precisely, a 27-minute fast walk or slow run for a 75-kilogram (165-pound) male.

"This is a first pass estimate of taking physiological data and trying to quantify declines in activity," explains skeletal biologist Andrew Yegian from Harvard University.

"The next step would be to try to apply this as a tool to other populations."

Because these initial estimates use body temperature as a proxy for metabolic activity and then metabolic activity as a proxy for physical activity, it's very unlikely these results are a perfect representation of the reality.

The rate at which a population metabolizes calories can be pinned down to more than just physical activity, although it is undoubtedly true the average American today exercises less than they did 50 years ago, thanks to automobiles, televisions, and the dawn of the desk job.

It's just less clear what that's doing to our metabolisms and the temperature of our bodies. And it might not be the same for men and women.

"Fat also acts as an insulator, affecting heat dissipation from the body, while also increasing the cost of PA, and our estimation methods did not correct for changes in fat mass over time," the authors write.

A reduced need to thermoregulate in modern environments could also be impacting our metabolic rates, as could improved health and nutrition.

The authors admit their calculations need further refinement, but they hope their approximation will serve "as an anchor for understanding how the decline in physical activity affected health and morbidity during the industrial era."

The study was published in Current Biology.

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What's Behind The Strange Drop in American Body Temperatures Over The Past 200 Years? - ScienceAlert

Physiology

Uncovering How Injury to the Pancreas Impacts Cancer Formation – Laboratory Equipment

Pioneering research from scientists at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine Basic Sciences and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies shows that acinar cells in the pancreas form new cell types to mitigate injury but are then susceptible to cancerous mutations.

This research, led byKathy DelGiorno, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology at the School of Medicine Basic Sciences,Geoffrey Wahl, professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and first authorZhibo Ma, postdoctoral fellow in the Wahl lab, was published inGastroenterology.

The findings establish a better understanding of the mechanisms of healing in the pancreas and when these processes go awry, DelGiorno said.

The team used a multidisciplinary approach that combined single-cell RNA sequencing, ultrastructural microscopy, genetically engineered models, and patient samples to identify the cell types that form in response to pancreatic injury. Vanderbilt contributions included computational analysis byKen Lau, associate professor of cell and developmental biology, and various microscopy approaches byDylan Burnette, associate professor of cell and developmental biology, andRafael Arrojo e Drigo, assistant professor of molecular physiology and biophysics.

From this approach, we compared our dataset to published datasets of gastric injury, oncogene-induced pancreatic neoplasia, and human pancreatitis to identify conserved processes across species and organ systems, said DelGiorno.

According to Wahl, the findings of this paper support our long-held thesis that tissue inflammation causes cells to reprogram to a more primitive, developmentally plastic state that under normal circumstances contributes to tissue repair. When subverted by oncogenes like RAS in pancreas cancer, it causes one of the most incalcitrant cancers known to medical science.

Pancreatic cancer is a major public health burden and is slated to become the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the U.S. by the year 2030. Currently, the average five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer is only 10 percent, one of the worst of any cancer type. New and innovative treatments are greatly needed to change these outcomes for pancreatic cancer patients.

Our work captured how these acinar cells change in response to injury with incredible resolution. Weve been able to identify multiple diverse cells generated by the acinar cells and uncover where they came from. Our findings provide a valuable resource to the field of pancreatic cancer research for understanding the processes that happen early in pancreas injury and tumorigenesis, Ma said.

We hope to co-opt and/or target these processes for the benefit of patients needing treatment for pancreatitis and cancer, DelGiorno said.

The Vanderbilt team has received a National Institute of General Medical Sciences Maximizing Investigators' Research Award to follow up on this work.

We will be using genetically engineered models to study the lineage trajectories and functional role of the cell types identified in this study, DelGiorno said. We will identify the physiological role of these cell types in pancreatic injury, regeneration, and tumorigenesis.

Republished courtesy of Vanderbilt University.Photo: Pancreatic acinar cells form a heterogeneous population of new cell types in response to injury with the potential to limit or drive disease. Acinar-derived clones labeled in red and green. Credit: DelGiorno, et. al.

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Uncovering How Injury to the Pancreas Impacts Cancer Formation - Laboratory Equipment

Physiology

What to know from the Educational Policy and Institutional Resources Committee meeting – Vermont Cynic

The board of trustees voted to terminate several majors, minors, graduate degrees and doctorates today in their meeting on Educational Policy & Institutional Resources.

The Educational Policy & Institutional Resources Committee unanimously voted to terminate molecular physiology masters and doctorate degrees, molecular biology and pharmacology doctorates, the Italian minor and the Italian studies major.

The committee terminated speech and debate and Vermont studies minors with one objecting vote.

Carolyn Dwyer, chair of the Educational Policy & Institutional Resources Committee, introduced resolutions for terminations without a summary because the meeting ran long.

Legislative Trustee John Bartholomew said some of these programs are necessary.

For these suggestions based on lack of enrollment[], a couple of [programs] seem pretty important, Bartholomew said. Like microbiology, molecular genetics and pharmacology.

However, Patricia Prelock, vice provost and senior vice president, said the new CME program in the College of Medicine now includes molecular physiology and molecular biology, rendering those masters and doctorates redundant.

These resolutions came through six points of contact before arriving at the board of trustees for a decision, Prelock said. A total of 11 minors were requested for termination and the rest are coming forward, she said.

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What to know from the Educational Policy and Institutional Resources Committee meeting - Vermont Cynic

Physiology

Do you recognize this mystery plant? – Bluffton Today

John Nelson| For Bluffton Today/Jasper County Sun Times

Winter is still a long way off, but the leaves have been falling for several weeks now. Wont be long before sweaters and jackets will be part of the morning routine, along with a steaming bowl of oatmeal. Butter and brown sugar, please.

Autumn and the resultant winter seasons offer plenty of lessons from the world of botany. In general, plants respond to quite a number of environmental signalsthroughout the year.

During autumn, its the accumulated change of day length that has many effects of plants. And of course, it's cooling down, which is important in this way, too. Most plants have already begun a sort of slide into a quiescent period;not exactly hibernation, but similar. There are various ways of seeing these effects exhibited by the plants around us.

For example, many woody species (trees and shrubs) are deciduous everybody knows this and they lose all their leaves regularly. Evergreen species such as our Southern magnolia and American holly, of course, do not fall into this plan.

Botanists like to tell us that late in the growing season, the physiology of the leaves of deciduous species is much changed. Their leaves are, in a sense, dispensable, and dont need to be around any longer than one growing season.

Its sort of sad to see the leaves fizzle out in a colorful last fling and go away, but after they fall, there is something else for botanists to enjoy: twigs. By the way, even evergreentrees eventually lose their leaves, a process lasting two or more seasons.

This weeks mystery plant is a native species, easily familiar to Southerners, as it can be found commonly from Virginia to Oklahoma, then down to northern Florida. It grows in a variety of habitats, including floodplains and low woods, but is perhaps more well-known on high-ground sites, in forests, rocky places, roadsides and even in fields.

This is usually a small tree, but it is potentially quite large (the national champion is more than 100 feettall). They make good street trees, too.

The leaves are rather football-shaped, up to about 2 incheslong or so, with finely serrated margins. Small flowers, not much to look at, appear early in the spring. There will be female and male flowers on the same tree. Ripe fruits are flat and wafer-like, easily able to flutter around in the breeze, enabling dispersal.

The remarkable twigs, during the growing season, produce conspicuous flat bands or wingsof corky, bark-like material. The wings are not always produced to the same degree on every twig of a given tree, so there is much variability in the expression of these wings. The most extreme exhibitions of the wings are on young trees, or on sprouts from stumps.

Why would a plant go to the trouble of making such wings? We don't know. These wings have no known functional value for the plant, so there's an additional mystery. Questions beginning with the word "why" are often unanswerable, especially in the world of nature.

John Nelson is retired curator of the A.C. Moore Herbarium at the University of South Carolina. As a public service, the herbarium offers free plant identifications. For more information, go to http://www.herbarium.org or email johnbnelson@sc.rr.com.

Answer: Winged elm,Ulmus alata

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Do you recognize this mystery plant? - Bluffton Today

Physiology

Meet the queen in the north: Yvonne Ejim continues to reign over – Bulletin

Yvonne Ejim is a force to be reckoned with, in and out of the country.

The 6-foot-1-inch forward has made a place for herself on the Gonzaga womens basketball team as a valuable addition to the team.

Doubling as a member of Canadas national team, the GU sophomore from Calgary, Alberta, was named to the West Coast Conference (WCC) All-Tournament Team, seeing action in multiple international tournaments.

It all started when Ejim was 7 years old. Her original exposure to basketball came from her family, but the Steve Nash camp she attended is where she found her passion.

From there, her natural abilities never went unnoticed. Ejim said coaches and parents would make suggestions as to where she could go play in close proximity to her mom, eventually snowballing into playing on the Canadian national team and at GU.

In eighth grade, Ejim was invited to a Team Canada camp. Ejim recounted how they had to make a different slideshow for her to lay out what her time on the team would be like, as she was the youngest by at least a year. Although she didnt make it, the exposure to that environment sparked that interest to go far in basketball.

Ejim continued to play volleyball and track throughout junior high and high school before committing to basketball for the abundance of opportunities presented to her.

I kept going into basketball because I knew this was the thing I wanted to do, Ejim said.

That decision to stick with basketball paid off. She made Team Canada during ninth grade and played with the team through 11th grade.

It was nerve racking, Ejim said. The first time I got that email with the invitation to the national team, I was shocked but really proud of myself for accomplishing that. That was the wow moment for me. Its the national team, its my country, and I want to continue pushing myself with [the team].

Ejim has traveled the world with Team Canada. Her first international tournament was in Argentina, and the lack of a major time difference made the adjustment to playing internationally easier. However, her favorite place has been Bangkok, Thailand, where she played three summers ago.

With Team Canada, we have to keep in mind that we are representing more than ourselves and our families, were representing our country, Ejim said. We take that pride that we have with us wherever we go to show people in other countries what Canada is about.

At GU, Ejim has made a place for herself both academically and athletically.

Studying human physiology, Ejim is just as dedicated to her career goals as she is to her athletic ones. With her natural passion for and abilities in math and science, human physiology felt like the best major to pursue to help her reach her goal of becoming a doctor.

She cited a need to give back to those in the medical field for doing so much as her motivator for pursuing a career as a doctor. Ejim is keeping an open mind for the kind of medical science she wants to pursue, but knows she will end up in the medical field.

On the court, Ejim has made herself indispensable for both her accomplishments and her addition to team morale.

She has the ability to challenge the defense with her ball skills and the way she can guard any position and any player out there, said Head Coach Lisa Fortier. We are also in a time in our world where there are a lot of different opinions on many polarizing issues. Yvonne has a strong yet very thoughtful voice, and has been a leader in our discussions since the minute she stepped on campus.

By incorporating what shes learned from playing internationally, Ejim has taken her game to the next level.

With each countrys team bringing a different set of skills, Ejim has learned how to adapt to different styles of playing and incorporate them into her own skill set.

Playing against national teams with a varying range of skillsets from Mali to Japan has taught her a lot about adjusting to respond to the other teams strengths.

I get all of these different types of players from all of these different countries that bring a different style of basketball to the court, which I really like learning to play around, Ejim said.

As a part of Team Canada, Ejim has played against Japan, Mali, Argentina, Czech Republic, Russia, USA and China, among other countries. Her favorite international team to play is France, where they are all playing professionally.

Playing against them defense wise, seeing how they move and stuff like that, Im able to replicate that into how I move offensively and use that to get better at guarding that style, Ejim said.

While COVID-19 has complicated playing internationally, Canadas bubble strategy made it easy and safe to handle the pandemic while traveling abroad. While they didnt have to wear a mask on the court, everywhere beside the court required a mask.

This season, Ejim is excited to play with a different group of girls and get back onto the court.

Ive had a lot of good experiences traveling and meeting new people because of basketball, Ejim said. That kind of stuff makes me fall in love with the game even more.

Her abilities are being noticed more and more. Racking up an impressive awards list, Ejim won Miss Basketball Alberta her junior year of high school. The award was given to the best female athlete in the province.

Last year, she was named the WCC Freshman of the Week after averaging 8.5 points per game on the road at Santa Clara and San Francisco. She was also named to the WCC All-Tournament Team.

In the future, she wants to play professionally overseas, in the WNBA and to be an Olympian.

Yvonne is our teams energizer bunny, said teammate Cierra Walker. She brings energy and competitiveness everyday. [She] can outrun anyone in transition and defend both posts and guards, and works everyday to not just make herself better but also her teammates.

With her competitive spirit and dedication to her goals, Ejim is a name to look out for in the basketball world.

Link:
Meet the queen in the north: Yvonne Ejim continues to reign over - Bulletin

Physiology

USask physical therapy graduate inspired by family – News – University of Saskatchewan – USask News

I knew that (diagnosis) really affected her both emotionally and with the overall quality of life, said Yutuc. My biggest motivation was that I could help people in the same population.

He is set to graduate with a Master of Physical Therapy (MPT) degree from the University of Saskatchewan (USask) at 2021 Fall Convocation on November 10.

By pursuing a degree in physical therapy at USasks School of Rehabilitation Science, Yutuc is also following in the footsteps of his parents, both of whom are in the medical field.

Yutuc became interested in physical therapy while earning his bachelors degree in physiology and pharmacology at USask. He looked into the ways rehabilitation could help individuals with Parkinsons. A career in physical therapy offered the chance to make a positive difference in this area. Yutuc chose USask for his masters program because of the schools research emphasis as well as the inclusive environment.

The thing that got my attention was their focus on research, along with developing the profession and furthering it through evidence-based practice, said Yutuc, noting the schools promotion of health equity and inclusiveness was also a factor. As a minority student, I really wanted to be part of a school that advocated for that. Those are some of the same values that are also important to me.

Health inequity was something he saw during his clinical experiences in urban and rural locations.

When talking to different patients about their progress and experience through the medical system, I found that its harder for people within minority groups to access health care or resources compared to non-minority groups, said Yutuc.

While at the school, Yutuc has been a leader among his peers and an advocate for physical therapy. He served as a representative on both the Physical Therapy Students Society and the MPT admissions committee, helped organize multiple mini-interviews (part of the admissions process until recently), and promoted both the school and the profession to undergraduate students across the university. In addition, Yutuc has helped create connections and community among his classmates during the pandemic.

I was one of the peer leaders for first year students, in a time when the early days of the pandemic kept students from gathering in-person, said Yutuc. The first few months I was able to help organize community events where they could see each other and help each other through schooling, too.

The pandemic has impacted learning for all USask students, including those in physical therapy. Yutuc credits the School of Rehabilitation Science for the ability to shift learning and continue to provide educational opportunities during the pandemic.

The school was really good in being able to transition and adapt to the current (public health) guidelines. Thankfully we were able to go into a hybrid system where we were doing classes online. They gave us the opportunity to do our labs and our clinical skills in person as well, said Yutuc.

He was grateful for the resources instructors and faculty created for Yutuc and his classmates to use at home, acknowledging the extra work faculty put in to provide student resources.

Yutuc is optimistic about his chosen profession and sees multiple possibilities for his career path. He participated in a research project on Parkinsons disease with Dr. Sarah Donkers (PhD), an assistant professor in the school, and can see a future in research.

In terms of my long-term goals, I definitely want to dig into academia and research, he said. Research has bene one of my biggest interests, but also teaching. One of my main goals is to help advocate for the profession itself.

This fall, 926 students are expected to graduate from USask with 939 degrees, diplomas and certificates. These graduates join a century-old community of close to 165,000 alumni worldwide whose contributions are helping to shape our world. Due to the pandemic, in-person ceremonies will not be held. Instead, there are a variety of opportunities to celebrate. Learn more about the celebrations at students.usask.ca/usaskclassof2021.

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USask physical therapy graduate inspired by family - News - University of Saskatchewan - USask News

Physiology

Study shows aberrant changes over time in the brains of people with bipolar disorder – News-Medical.Net

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a debilitating psychiatric disorder characterized by fluctuating periods of depression and mania. Researchers have long suspected that BD may be accompanied by abnormal structural and functional changes in the brain. Small cross-sectional brain imaging studies of people with BD have shown hints at those changes, but the ability to interpret data collected at a single timepoint is limited. Now, a multi-center longitudinal study shows aberrant changes over time in the brains of people with BD. Some changes were specifically associated with more episodes of mania.

The report appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. The study involved a large international multi-center team of more than 70 researchers from the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group.

The ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group report illustrates the power of large-scale multi-center collaboration. Longitudinal neuroimaging studies are extremely challenging to conduct. Here, by combining data from 14 sites, we get one of the clearest pictures we have of the neurotoxic impact of bipolar disorder, particularly manic episodes."

John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry

The researchers gathered magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and detailed clinical data from 307 people with BD and from 925 healthy controls (HC) from 14 clinical sites worldwide. Participants were assessed at two timepoints, ranging from six months to nine years apart.

The most striking finding was that the cortex, the brain's outermost layer, thinned over time to a greater extent in people who experienced more manic episodes. Those who did not have mania showed no cortical thinning or even cortical thickening. The changes were most evident in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), an area associated with executive control and emotion regulation.

"The fact that cortical thinning in patients related to manic episodes stresses the importance of treatment to prevent mood episodes and is important information for psychiatrists," said senior author Mikael Landn, MD, PhD, Professor and Chief Physician at the Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. "Researchers should focus on better understanding the progressive mechanisms at play in bipolar disorder to ultimately improve treatment options."

Compared to HC, people with BD showed a faster enlargement in the brain's ventricles, cavities within the brain that contain cerebrospinal fluid. In cortical areas outside the PFC, BD participants actually showed slower thinning than HC participants.

Lead author Christoph Ab, PhD, Assistant Professor, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, said: "The abnormal ventricle enlargements and importantly the associations between cortical thinning and manic symptoms indicate that bipolar disorder may in fact be a neuroprogressive disorder, which could explain the worsening of bipolar symptoms in some patients."

One possibility to explain why BD patients may have slower thinning of the cortex compared to HC is that lithium, a medication used to treat BD, is known to have neuroprotective effects and could bolster cortical thickness. Regardless, the study provides new clues about the structural effects of BD on the brain over time.

Source:

Journal reference:

Ab, C., et al. (2021) Longitudinal structural brain changes in bipolar disorder: A multicenter neuroimaging study of 1,232 individuals by the ENIGMA Bipolar Disorder Working Group. Biological Psychiatry. doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2021.09.008.

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Study shows aberrant changes over time in the brains of people with bipolar disorder - News-Medical.Net