A network analysis of disordered eating symptoms, big-five personality traits, and psychological distress in Chinese adults.

OBJECTIVE: Previous studies have revealed associations between disordered eating symptoms, big-five personality traits, and psychological distress. However, limited research has explored these relationships as a network, including their interconnections, and even less has done so in non-Western populations. We employed network analysis to investigate the co-occurrence of disordered eating symptoms, big-five personality traits, and psychological distress in Chinese adults. METHOD: A sample of 500 Chinese adults (256 men) completed measures assessing big-five personality traits, psychological distress, and disordered eating symptoms. The network of personality traits, psychological distress, and disordered eating symptoms was estimated, including its central and bridge nodes. RESULTS: The central nodes in the network were the facets of openness (like adventure), extraversion (like going to social and recreational parties), and disordered eating symptoms (dissatisfaction with body weight or shape). Moreover, certain facets of neuroticism (always worrying something bad will happen), psychological distress (feeling worthless), and an inverse facet of extraversion (bored by parties with lots of people) were identified as essential bridge nodes in maintaining the structure of the network. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that personality traits (e.g., openness and extraversion) and body dissatisfaction are important in maintaining the network in a community sample of Chinese adults. While future replication is needed, findings from this study suggest that individuals with negative self-thinking, predisposed neuroticism, and extraversion may be at risk of developing disordered eating symptoms. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE: The present study contributes to existing knowledge by employing a network perspective to examine the associations between disordered eating symptoms, big-five personality traits, and psychological distress in a Chinese adult community sample. The identified facets of neuroticism and extraversion and symptoms of psychological distress may be worthy of targeting in the prevention and treatment of disordered eating in the Chinese context.

Motivation states to move, be physically active and sedentary vary like circadian rhythms and are associated with affect and arousal.

Introduction: Motivation to be physically active and sedentary is a transient state that varies in response to previous behavior. It is not known: (a) if motivational states vary from morning to evening, (b) if they are related to feeling states (arousal/hedonic tone), and (c) whether they predict current behavior and intentions. The primary purpose of this study was to determine if motivation states vary across the day and in what pattern. Thirty adults from the United States were recruited from Amazon MTurk. Methods: Participants completed 6 identical online surveys each day for 8 days beginning after waking and every 2-3 h thereafter until bedtime. Participants completed: (a) the CRAVE scale (Right now version) to measure motivation states for Move and Rest, (b) Feeling Scale, (c) Felt Arousal Scale, and (d) surveys about current movement behavior (e.g., currently sitting, standing, laying down) and intentions for exercise and sleep. Of these, 21 participants (mean age 37.7 y; 52.4% female) had complete and valid data. Results: Visual inspection of data determined that: a) motivation states varied widely across the day, and b) most participants had a single wave cycle each day. Hierarchical linear modelling revealed that there were significant linear and quadratic time trends for both Move and Rest. Move peaked near 1500 h when Rest was at its nadir. Cosinor analysis determined that the functional waveform was circadian for Move for 81% of participants and 62% for Rest. Pleasure/displeasure and arousal independently predicted motivation states (all p's < .001), but arousal had an association twice as large. Eating, exercise and sleep behaviors, especially those over 2 h before assessment, predicted current motivation states. Move-motivation predicted current body position (e.g., laying down, sitting, walking) and intentions for exercise and sleep more consistently than rest, with the strongest prediction of behaviors planned for the next 30 min. Discussion: While these data must be replicated with a larger sample, results suggest that motivation states to be active or sedentary have a circadian waveform for most people and influence future behavioral intentions. These novel results highlight the need to rethink the traditional approaches typically utilized to increase physical activity levels.

The effect of low-carbon transportation pilot policy on carbon performance: evidence from China.

In 2011, aiming to achieve sustainable development in the transportation sector, the Chinese government started a pilot policy of low-carbon transportation system (LCTS). Based on the panel data for 280 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2017, we first measure carbon efficiency by using the SBM-DEA model, and identify the direct and spatial spillover effects of LCTS on carbon efficiency and carbon intensity by adopting a spatial difference-in-differences approach (SDID). The results indicate that LCTS construction not only enhances local carbon performance but also has a significant spatial spillover effect in neighboring cities. The results are still valid after a series of robustness tests. The mechanism analysis reveals that LCTS can elevate carbon performance by improving energy efficiency, green innovation, and developing public transit. The direct and indirect effects of LCTS on carbon performance show more pronounced effects in megalopolis and eastern region. This paper provides reliable empirical evidence for the effect of LCTS on carbon performance, which is conducive to deepening the understanding of carbon emissions and has a high reference value for the rational formulation of carbon reduction policies.

Appetitive traits and body mass index in Chinese adolescents: An 18-month longitudinal study with latent growth curve analyses.

A longitudinal approach with Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LGCM) was adopted to explore the trajectories of appetitive traits corresponding to BMI in Chinese adolescents. Within a large sample of adolescents (N = 2566, 45.9% boys) aged from 11 to 17 years (M = 13.80, SD = 1.56) at the baseline survey, our results indicated that appetitive traits of emotional overeating, food fussiness, and hunger increased significantly over time while enjoyment of food decreased over time. Slowness in eating and satiety responsiveness significantly increased in girls, while emotional undereating significantly decreased in boys. Moreover, the growth parameters of emotional undereating and satiety responsiveness were significantly and negatively related to BMI in girls. Our findings evidence that certain appetitive traits could change over time in adolescence and these changes relate to weight status. Gender differences are suggested in the design of future intervention and treatment of overweight/obesity in Chinese adolescents.

Exploring the bidirectional relationships between night eating, loss of control eating, and sleep quality in Chinese adolescents: A four-wave cross-lagged study.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the bidirectional relationships between sleep quality, loss of control (LOC) eating, and night eating in Chinese adolescents using longitudinal data over an 18-month study period. METHOD: Four-waves of data measurement (Waves 1-4), at 6-month intervals, were conducted with 2566 adolescents aged 11-17 years at baseline. A set of questionnaires were used to assess night eating, LOC eating, and sleep quality at each wave of data collection. Cross-lagged models were applied to analyze the bidirectional relationships between night eating, LOC eating, and sleep quality. RESULTS: Results indicated that higher night eating scores consistently predicted poorer sleep quality and higher LOC eating scores at Waves 1, 2, and 3. Furthermore, poorer sleep quality predicted higher night eating scores at Wave 1 and Wave 3, and higher LOC eating scores predicted higher night eating scores at Wave 1 and Wave 2. DISCUSSION: These findings highlight that night eating, LOC eating, and sleep quality were interrelated across time in Chinese adolescents. Improving sleep quality and reducing LOC eating might be promising in the prevention of night eating in adolescents. Similarly, reducing night eating might be promising in improving sleep quality and reducing LOC eating in adolescents. PUBLIC SIGNIFICANCE: This study explored the bidirectional relationship between night eating, LOC eating, and sleep quality in Chinese adolescents using cross-lagged models. Findings indicate bidirectional relationships between these variables and highlight the potential utility in incorporating sleep, LOC eating, and night eating interventions in eating pathology prevention designs for adolescents.

A new approach to constructing confidence intervals for population means based on small samples.

This paper presents a new approach to constructing the confidence interval for the mean value of a population when the distribution is unknown and the sample size is small, called the Percentile Data Construction Method (PDCM). A simulation was conducted to compare the performance of the PDCM confidence interval with those generated by the Percentile Bootstrap (PB) and Normal Theory (NT) methods. Both the convergence probability and average interval width criterion are considered when seeking to find the best interval. The results show that the PDCM outperforms both the PB and NT methods when the sample size is less than 30 or a large population variance exists.

Construct comprehensive indicators through a signal extraction approach for predicting housing price crises.

In this paper, a novel early warning system that has usually been applied to predict the financial stress events is established to predict the likelihood of housing price crises in China. To achieve this goal, a signal extraction approach is used to monitor the evolution of a number of economic indicators that tend to exhibit the abnormal behaviors. 13 economic variables were selected as the individual indicators, and constructed as the four comprehensive indicators. Our empirical work shows that the early warning system for urban housing price crises is suitable for China's four province-level municipalities. The in-sample forecasting results indicate the reliability of the early warning system for urban housing price crises. By studying the out-of-sample forecasting results, the likelihood of housing price crises for the four cities can be effectively predicted. We construct a novel weighted average comprehensive indicator, which performs better than the three others in terms of overall performance across all of the criteria considered in. It is shown that the extended system is more flexible in decision making than the traditional early warning system.

Potential Microbiological Risk Factors Associated With Periodontitis and Periodontal Health Disparities.

Periodontitis disproportionately affects different racial and ethnic populations. In this study, we used qPCR to determine and compare oral microbial profiles in dental plaque samples from 191 periodontitis patients of different ethnic/racial backgrounds. We also obtained the periodontal parameters of these patients retrospectively using axiUm and performed statistical analysis using SAS 9.4. We found that in this patient cohort, neighborhood median incomes were significantly higher among Caucasians Americans (CAs) than among African Americans (AAs) and Hispanic Americans (HAs). Levels of total bacteria and Porphyromonas gingivalis, a keystone periodontal pathogen, were not evenly distributed among the three groups. We confirmed our previous findings that Streptococcus cristatus reduces P. gingivalis virulence potential and likely serves as a beneficial bacterium. We also showed the ratio of S. cristatus to P. gingivalis to be significantly higher in CAs than in HAs and AAs. Our results suggest that higher levels of P. gingivalis and lower ratios of S. cristatus to P. gingivalis may contribute to periodontal health disparities.

Validation of the Chinese Version of the Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire and the Mediating Role of Body Image Flexibility in the Relationship Between Body Dissatisfaction and Psychological Distress.

The psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Body Image Acceptance and Action Questionnaire (C-BI-AAQ) and its short form (C-BI-AAQ-5) were examined with a sample of Chinese undergraduates (n =1,068, 52.6% female). The factor structure, measurement reliability, measurement invariance across gender, and latent gender mean difference of the two scales were explored. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to examine the factor structure of the C-BI-AAQ and the C-BI-AAQ-5. The original one-factor structure was replicated for both the C-BI-AAQ and the C-BI-AAQ-5. Both the C-BI-AAQ and C-BI-AAQ-5 showed good internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity (e.g., relationship patterns in the expected directions with theoretically similar psychological flexibility, and with theoretically dissimilar body dissatisfaction, and psychological distress). The C-BI-AAQ-5 was shown to be equivalent to the C-BI-AAQ. Furthermore, strict measurement invariance across gender was confirmed for both the C-BI-AAQ and C-BI-AAQ-5, and latent mean difference tests showed that men had higher levels of body image flexibility than women. Thus, both the C-BI-AAQ and C-BI-AAQ-5 appear to be psychometrically sound instruments for use in the Chinese young adult population. In addition, body image flexibility measured by both the C-BI-AAQ and the C-BI-AAQ-5 fully mediated the relationship between body dissatisfaction and psychological distress.

MEN1 Tumor Suppressor Gene is Required for Long-term Memory Formation in an Aversive Operant Conditioning Model of Lymnaea stagnalis.

Activity-dependent transcription factors critically coordinate the gene expression program underlying memory formation. The tumor suppressor gene, MEN1, encodes a ubiquitously expressed transcription regulator required for synaptogenesis and synaptic plasticity in invertebrate and vertebrate central neurons. In this study, we investigated the role of MEN1 in long-term memory (LTM) formation in an aversive operant conditioning paradigm in the freshwater pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis (L. stagnalis). We demonstrated that LTM formation is associated with an increased expression of MEN1 coinciding with an up-regulation of creb1 gene expression. In vivo knockdown of MEN1 prevented LTM formation and conditioning-induced changes in neuronal activity in the identified pacemaker neuron RPeD1. Our findings suggest the involvement of a new pathway in LTM consolidation that requires MEN1-mediated gene regulation.

NALCN: a regulator of pacemaker activity.

Pacemaker cells play a fundamental role in generating or regulating many essential biological rhythms. Spontaneous pacemaker activity is dependent on the function of an array of ion channels expressed in these cells. Recent characterization of a Na(+) leak channel (NALCN) has linked to its role in conducting the background Na(+) current that depolarizes resting membrane properties of pacemaker neurons. NALCN, along with Unc79 and Unc80, forms a protein complex that is involved in regulating intrinsic membrane and synaptic activities. In this review, we will discuss the current understanding of NALCN channel physiology and its role in regulating cell excitability and pacemaker activity.

Caltubin, a novel molluscan tubulin-interacting protein, promotes axonal growth and attenuates axonal degeneration of rodent neurons.

Axotomized central neurons of most invertebrate species demonstrate a strong regenerative capacity, and as such may provide valuable molecular insights and new tools to promote axonal regeneration in injured mammalian neurons. In this study, we identified a novel molluscan protein, caltubin, ubiquitously expressed in central neurons of Lymnaea stagnalis and locally synthesized in regenerating neurites. Reduction of caltubin levels by gene silencing inhibits the outgrowth and regenerative ability of adult Lymnaea neurons and decreases local α- and ß-tubulin levels in neurites. Caltubin binds to α- and/or ß-tubulin in both Lymnaea and rodent neurons. Expression of caltubin in PC12 cells and mouse cortical neurons promotes NGF-induced axonal outgrowth and attenuates axonal retraction after injury. This is the first study illustrating that a xenoprotein can enhance outgrowth and prevent degeneration of injured mammalian neurons. These results may open up new avenues in molecular repair strategies through the insertion of molecular components of invertebrate regenerative pathways into mammalian neurons.

A sodium leak current regulates pacemaker activity of adult central pattern generator neurons in Lymnaea stagnalis.

The resting membrane potential of the pacemaker neurons is one of the essential mechanisms underlying rhythm generation. In this study, we described the biophysical properties of an uncharacterized channel (U-type channel) and investigated the role of the channel in the rhythmic activity of a respiratory pacemaker neuron and the respiratory behaviour in adult freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis. Our results show that the channel conducts an inward leak current carried by Na(+) (I(Leak-Na)). The I(Leak-Na) contributed to the resting membrane potential and was required for maintaining rhythmic action potential bursting activity of the identified pacemaker RPeD1 neurons. Partial knockdown of the U-type channel suppressed the aerial respiratory behaviour of the adult snail in vivo. These findings identified the Na(+) leak conductance via the U-type channel, likely a NALCN-like channel, as one of the fundamental mechanisms regulating rhythm activity of pacemaker neurons and respiratory behaviour in adult animals.

Multifaceted role of heat shock protein 70 in neurons.

Heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) plays important roles in neural protection from stress by assisting cellular protein folding. In this review we discuss the current understanding of inducible and constitutive Hsp70 in maintaining and protecting neuronal synaptic function under normal and stressed conditions.