Health Access, Health Promotion, and Health Self-Management: Barriers When Building Comprehensive Ageing Communities.

A new intervention model for promoting healthy ageing grounded on integrated value-based care was developed and tested in the city of Valencia (Spain). Its implementation raised relevant barriers for older adults in their access to health, health promotion, and health self-management linked with their health and digital literacy. This new intervention model included several aspects. On the one hand, researchers together with older adults and their informal caregivers participating in the study, designed personalized care plans, based on older adults' specific needs, to be implemented with the support of a digital solution. On the other hand, researchers and health and social professionals implemented a series of workshops in different locations of the city to encourage a sense of community among participants, reinforcing their trust in the new care model and increasing their adherence. Social activities were at the core of the workshops to understand older people's interaction with the health and social services provided in the neighborhood. Qualitative and quantitative methods were combined to extract information from older participants on how to engage them as active actors of their health and understand their values and preferences. In the present manuscript, we focus on the qualitative results, which show that after a post-pandemic situation, they were more concerned about social isolation and desired face-to-face contact with their professional care team; however, feelings of loneliness and/or sadness were not considered among the reasons to visit health professionals. Some of the conclusions revealed that the use of technology as a supportive tool is well received but with a stress on its role as "supportive", and not replacing the close contact with healthcare professionals. Professionals recognized the benefits of this new approach but required more time and incentives to dedicate the effort needed. The main aim of this study was to present these barriers related to health access, health promotion, and health self-management, as well as the actions developed to face them.

Prenatal activity from thalamic neurons governs the emergence of functional cortical maps in mice.

The mammalian brain's somatosensory cortex is a topographic map of the body's sensory experience. In mice, cortical barrels reflect whisker input. We asked whether these cortical structures require sensory input to develop or are driven by intrinsic activity. Thalamocortical columns, connecting the thalamus to the cortex, emerge before sensory input and concur with calcium waves in the embryonic thalamus. We show that the columnar organization of the thalamocortical somatotopic map exists in the mouse embryo before sensory input, thus linking spontaneous embryonic thalamic activity to somatosensory map formation. Without thalamic calcium waves, cortical circuits become hyperexcitable, columnar and barrel organization does not emerge, and the somatosensory map lacks anatomical and functional structure. Thus, a self-organized protomap in the embryonic thalamus drives the functional assembly of murine thalamocortical sensory circuits.