Gene-environmental regulation of the postnatal post-mitotic neuronal maturation.

Embryonic neurodevelopment, particularly neural progenitor differentiation into post-mitotic neurons, has been extensively studied. While the number and composition of post-mitotic neurons remain relatively constant from birth to adulthood, the brain undergoes significant postnatal maturation marked by major property changes frequently disrupted in neural diseases. This review first summarizes recent characterizations of the functional and molecular maturation of the postnatal nervous system. We then review regulatory mechanisms controlling the precise gene expression changes crucial for the intricate sequence of maturation events, highlighting experience-dependent versus cell-intrinsic genetic timer mechanisms. Despite significant advances in understanding of the gene-environmental regulation of postnatal neuronal maturation, many aspects remain unknown. The review concludes with our perspective on exciting future research directions in the next decade.

Immune biomarkers predicting bronchiolitis disease severity: A systematic review.

Bronchiolitis is one of the leading causes of hospitalisation in infancy, with highly variable clinical presentations ranging from mild disease safely managed at home to severe disease requiring invasive respiratory support. Identifying immune biomarkers that can predict and stratify this variable disease severity has important implications for clinical prognostication/disposition. A systematic literature search of the databases Embase, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and Wiley Online Library was performed. English language studies that assessed the association between an immune biomarker and bronchiolitis disease severity among children aged less than 24 months were included. 252 distinct biomarkers were identified across 90 studies. A substantial degree of heterogeneity was observed in the bronchiolitis definitions, measures of disease severity, and study designs. 99 biomarkers showed some significant association with disease severity, but only 18 were significant in multiple studies. However, all of these candidate biomarkers had comparable studies that reported conflicting results. Conclusion: The heterogeneity among included studies and the lack of a consistently significant biomarker highlight the need for consensus on bronchiolitis definitions and severity measures, as well as further studies assessing their clinical utility both in isolation and in combination.

Creating an Integrated Coaching Culture in Higher Education.

In higher education, it is a common ask to do more with less while delivering high-quality, holistic service to students. Coaching has been shown to produce significant gains in strengthening self-efficacy, improving GPA, and increasing retention through graduation (Alzen et al., 2021; Capstick et al., 2019; Catchings, 2014; Grover & Furnham, 2016; Losch et al., 2016), therefore making it a logical program to target for growth. To expand the impact of the University of Kentucky's academic coaching program, in 2020, leadership modified the Appreciative Academic Coaching framework (Bradley & Reynolds, 2021) into Integrated Success Coaching with the intent to build a coaching culture across campus. This modification created a two-pronged approach to serving students, faculty, and staff across our campus: (a) training for professionally certified International Coaching Federation (ICF) coaches across six domains, including academic life, career, finances, wellness, leadership, and identity (e.g., First Gen) to directly serve students, and (b) training in foundational coaching skills for faculty, staff, and student leaders to incorporate into their daily practice. The evolution of this coaching model has allowed for holistic support of students and immersive coaching values and practices for faculty, staff, and student leaders that have led to improved retention and better GPA outcomes for students on probation and a culture of coaching care among faculty, staff, and students.

Impact of burnout on empathy.

AIM: Burnout has a damaging effect on both the wellbeing of medical professionals and patients alike. Empathy is an important part of the therapeutic relationship and could be damaged by burnout. We aimed to describe the prevalence of burnout, assess levels of empathy and explore the relationship between burnout and empathy among senior medical officers (SMOs). We hypothesised that there would be a negative correlation between empathy and burnout. METHOD: This was a cross-sectional observational study involving SMOs from a variety of specialities. The focus is on SMOs with relatively prolonged contact times with patients. Email invitations were sent out requesting participation in an electronic survey on the QuestionPro platform. The survey comprised 42 questions enquiring about demographics, empathy (Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy) and burnout (Copenhagen Burnout Inventory). Correlational analyses were performed. RESULTS: Three hundred and fourteen invitations were sent out and 178 responses were received (56.7% response rate). Forty-five percent of SMOs surveyed were experiencing high levels of personal burnout. There was a statistically significant negative correlation between empathy and patient-related burnout (p=0.018). CONCLUSIONS: The results show high levels of personal burnout among SMOs and suggest that empathy reduces as patient-related burnout increases. The nature of this relationship is a complex one, and other contributing variables should be considered.