Understanding the elevated suicide risk of female soldiers during deployments.

BACKGROUND: The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS) has found that the proportional elevation in the US Army enlisted soldier suicide rate during deployment (compared with the never-deployed or previously deployed) is significantly higher among women than men, raising the possibility of gender differences in the adverse psychological effects of deployment. METHOD: Person-month survival models based on a consolidated administrative database for active duty enlisted Regular Army soldiers in 2004-2009 (n = 975,057) were used to characterize the gender × deployment interaction predicting suicide. Four explanatory hypotheses were explored involving the proportion of females in each soldier's occupation, the proportion of same-gender soldiers in each soldier's unit, whether the soldier reported sexual assault victimization in the previous 12 months, and the soldier's pre-deployment history of treated mental/behavioral disorders. RESULTS: The suicide rate of currently deployed women (14.0/100,000 person-years) was 3.1-3.5 times the rates of other (i.e. never-deployed/previously deployed) women. The suicide rate of currently deployed men (22.6/100,000 person-years) was 0.9-1.2 times the rates of other men. The adjusted (for time trends, sociodemographics, and Army career variables) female:male odds ratio comparing the suicide rates of currently deployed v. other women v. men was 2.8 (95% confidence interval 1.1-6.8), became 2.4 after excluding soldiers with Direct Combat Arms occupations, and remained elevated (in the range 1.9-2.8) after adjusting for the hypothesized explanatory variables. CONCLUSIONS: These results are valuable in excluding otherwise plausible hypotheses for the elevated suicide rate of deployed women and point to the importance of expanding future research on the psychological challenges of deployment for women.

Perinatal bisphenol A exposure beginning before gestation enhances allergen sensitization, but not pulmonary inflammation, in adult mice.

Bisphenol A (BPA), a monomer of polycarbonate plastics and epoxide resin, is a high-production-volume chemical implicated in asthma pathogenesis when exposure occurs to the developing fetus. However, few studies have directly examined the effect of in utero and early-life BPA exposure on the pathogenesis of asthma in adulthood. This study examines the influence of perinatal BPA exposure through maternal diet on allergen sensitization and pulmonary inflammation in adult offspring. Two weeks before mating, BALB/c dams were randomly assigned to a control diet or diets containing 50 ng, 50 µg or 50 mg BPA/kg of rodent chow. Dams remained on the assigned diet throughout gestation and lactation until postnatal day (PND) 21 when offspring were weaned onto the control diet. Twelve-week-old offspring were sensitized to ovalbumin (OVA) and subsequently challenged with aerosolized OVA. Sera, splenocytes, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and whole lungs were harvested to assess allergen sensitization and pulmonary inflammation after OVA challenge. Serum anti-OVA IgE levels were increased two-fold in offspring exposed to 50 µg and 50 mg BPA/kg diet, compared with control animals. In addition, production of interleukin-13 and interferon-γ were increased in OVA-stimulated splenocytes recovered from BPA-exposed mice. Pulmonary inflammation, as indicated by total and differential leukocyte counts, cytokines, chemokines and pulmonary histopathology inflammatory scores, however, was either not different or was reduced in offspring exposed to BPA. Although these data suggest that perinatal BPA exposure beginning before gestation enhances allergen sensitization by increasing serum IgE and splenocyte cytokine production, a substantial impact of BPA on OVA-induced pulmonary inflammation in adulthood was not observed.

Patterns of neuropsychological performance in multiple system atrophy compared to sporadic and hereditary olivopontocerebellar atrophy.

Although neuropsychological symptoms are associated with multiple system atrophy (MSA), sporadic olivopontocerebellar atrophy (sOPCA), and dominantly inherited olivopontocerebellar atrophy (dOPCA), the differences between these groups have not been explored. We compared 28 MSA patients on psychiatric rating scales and neuropsychological measures to 67 sOPCA patients, 42 dOPCA patients, and 30 normal controls. Patients with dOPCA, sOPCA, and MSA all exhibited significant deficits on motor-related tasks, as well as relatively mild deficits in cognitive functioning. Patients with MSA had greater neuropsychological dysfunction, particularly in memory and other "higher order" cognitive processes, than patients with either sOPCA or dOPCA.