A mutation associated with resistance to synthetic pyrethroids is widespread in US populations of the tropical lineage of Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l.

The brown dog tick, Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu lato (s.l.), is an important vector for Rickettsia rickettsii, causative agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Current public health prevention and control efforts to protect people involve preventing tick infestations on domestic animals and in and around houses. Primary prevention tools rely on acaricides, often synthetic pyrethroids (SPs); resistance to this chemical class is widespread in ticks and other arthropods. Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l. is a complex that likely contains multiple unique species and although the distribution of this complex is global, there are differences in morphology, ecology, and perhaps vector competence among these major lineages. Two major lineages within Rh. sanguineus s.l., commonly referred to as temperate and tropical, have been documented from multiple locations in North America, but are thought to occupy different ecological niches. To evaluate potential acaricide resistance and better define the distributions of the tropical and temperate lineages throughout the US and in northern Mexico, we employed a highly multiplexed amplicon sequencing approach to characterize sequence diversity at: 1) three loci within the voltage-gated sodium channel (VGSC) gene, which contains numerous genetic mutations associated with resistance to SPs; 2) a region of the gamma-aminobutyric acid-gated chloride channel gene (GABA-Cl) containing several mutations associated with dieldrin/fipronil resistance in other species; and 3) three mitochondrial genes (COI, 12S, and 16S). We utilized a geographically diverse set of Rh sanguineus s.l. collected from domestic pets in the US in 2013 and a smaller set of ticks collected from canines in Baja California, Mexico in 2021. We determined that a single nucleotide polymorphism (T2134C) in domain III segment 6 of the VGSC, which has previously been associated with SP resistance in Rh. sanguineus s.l., was widespread and abundant in tropical lineage ticks (>50 %) but absent from the temperate lineage, suggesting that resistance to SPs may be common in the tropical lineage. We found evidence of multiple copies of GABA-Cl in ticks from both lineages, with some copies containing mutations associated with fipronil resistance in other species, but the effects of these patterns on fipronil resistance in Rh. sanguineus s.l. are currently unknown. The tropical lineage was abundant and geographically widespread, accounting for 79 % of analyzed ticks and present at 13/14 collection sites. The temperate and tropical lineages co-occurred in four US states, and as far north as New York. None of the ticks we examined were positive for Rickettsia rickettsii or Rickettsia massiliae.

AAST grade of liver injury is not the single most important consideration in decision making for liver trauma.

BACKGROUND: The liver is one of the most injured organs in both blunt and penetrating trauma. The aim of this study was to identify whether the AAST liver injury grade is predictive of need for intervention, risk of complications and mortality in our patient population, and whether this differs between blunt and penetrating-trauma mechanisms. METHODS: Retrospective review of all liver injuries from a single high-volume metropolitan trauma centre in South Africa from December 2012 to January 2022. Inclusion criteria were all adults who had sustained traumatic liver injury. Patients were excluded if they were under 15 years of age or had died prior to operation or assessment. Statistical analysis was undertaken using both univariate and multivariate models. RESULTS: 709 patients were included, of which 351 sustained penetrating and 358 blunt trauma. Only 24.3 % of blunt compared to 76.4 % of penetrating trauma patients underwent laparotomy (p< 0.001). In blunt trauma, increasing AAST grade correlated directly with rates of laparotomy with an odds ratio of 1.7 (p < 0.001). In penetrating trauma, there was no statistical significance between increasing AAST grade and the rate of laparotomy. The rate of bile leak was 4.5 % (32/709) and of rebleed was 0.7 % (5/709). Five patients underwent ERCP and endoscopic sphincterotomy for bile leak, and three required angio-embolization for rebleeding. Increasing AAST grades were significantly associated with the odds of bile leak in both blunt and penetrating trauma. There was a statistically significant increase in the odds of a rebleed with increasing AAST grade in penetrating trauma. Five patients rebled, of which three died. Seven patients developed hepatic necrosis. Seventy-six patients died (10 %). There were 34/358 (9 %) deaths in the blunt cohort and 42 /351 (11 %) deaths in the penetrating trauma cohort. CONCLUSION: AAST grade in isolation is not a good predictor of the need for operation in hepatic trauma. Increasing AAST grade was not found to correlate with increased risk of mortality for both blunt and penetrating hepatic trauma. In both blunt and penetrating trauma, increasing AAST grade is significantly associated with increased bile leak. The need for ERCP and endoscopic sphincterotomy to manage bile leak in our setting is low. Similarly, the rate of rebleeding and of angioembolization was low.

Tackle Risk Factors for Head Injury Assessments (HIAs) in Sub-Elite Rugby League and Recommendations for Prevention: Head Contacts from Upright Tackles Increase the HIA Risk to Both Ball Carrier and Tackler.

BACKGROUND: The rugby league tackle has been identified as the game event with the greatest propensity for a clinically diagnosed concussion. This study aims to replicate the work conducted in professional rugby league and rugby union by examining Head Injury Assessment (HIA) events to determine the associated tackle characteristics that increase concussion risk in sub-elite rugby league players. This comparison between competition levels is important due to the less developed physiological and tackle proficiency characteristics of sub-elite rugby league players and the fewer resources available for an on-field diagnosis, compared to the elite level of the sport. RESULTS: Tackles resulting in Head Injury Assessments (HIAs, n = 131) and 2,088 tackles that did not result in a head injury were identified and coded from one season of the 2019 Queensland Cup. The body position of both ball carrier and tackler, tackle height, and body contact areas were evaluated. The propensity for tacklers to undergo a head injury assessment was 1.49 HIAs per 1,000 tackles, equating to a 2.5-fold higher risk than that of the ball carrier (0.59 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). The risk for an HIA was 2.75-fold greater when the tackler was upright (2.89 HIAs per 1,000 tackles) compared to a bent-at-the-waist tackler (1.05 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). The greatest risk for the tackler and ball carrier sustaining an HIA occurred when the tackle height was high, with head-to-head contact having the greatest propensity for an HIA (44.37 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). HIA risk was also greater for both players when the ball carrier did not employ an evasion strategy (3.73 HIAs per 1,000 tackles). CONCLUSIONS: The study replicates results from research in elite rugby league and rugby union. A combination of higher head contact/proximity and upright body position significantly increase an HIA risk. Tackler head position and ball carrier evasion behaviours also affect risk, suggesting that injury prevention strategies designed to reduce tackle height and improve tackle technique by focusing on head position, body position, and in a novel finding, ball carrier evasion, may reduce head injury risk in sub-elite rugby league players.

Applying the Consensus Criteria for Traumatic Encephalopathy Syndrome Retrospectively to Case Studies of Boxers from the 20th Century.

There are no validated diagnostic criteria for traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES). During the early and middle 20th century, TES was described as a clinical condition that was experienced by some high-exposure boxers-and it was believed to reflect chronic traumatic brain injury. Consensus criteria for the diagnosis of TES were published in 2021. We applied the consensus criteria for TES retrospectively to cases of chronic brain damage in boxers described in articles published in the 20th century that were obtained from narrative and systematic reviews. The sample included 157 boxers identified in 21 articles published between 1929 and 1999. Two authors reviewed each case description and coded the criteria for TES. For the core clinical features, cognitive impairment was noted in 63.1%, and in 28.7% of cases the person's cognitive functioning appeared to be broadly normal. Neurobehavioral dysregulation was present in 25.5%. One third (34.4%) were identified as progressive, 30.6% were not progressive, and the course could not be clearly determined in 35.0%. In total, 29.9% met the TES consensus criteria, 28.0% did not, and 42.0% had insufficient information to make a diagnostic determination. TES, in the 20th century, was described as a neurological condition, not a psychiatric disorder-and this supports the decision of the 2021 consensus group to remove primary and secondary psychiatric diagnoses from being a core diagnostic feature. Future research is needed to determine whether, or the extent to which, cognitive impairment or neurobehavioral dysregulation described as characterizing TES are associated with chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathological change.

Observation of the Fermionic Joule-Thomson Effect.

We report the first observation of the quantum Joule-Thomson (JT) effect in ideal and unitary Fermi gases. We study the temperature dynamics of these systems while they undergo an energy-per-particle conserving rarefaction. For scale-invariant systems, whose equations of state satisfy the relation U∝PV, this rarefaction conserves the specific enthalpy, which makes it thermodynamically equivalent to a JT throttling process. We observe JT heating in an ideal Fermi gas, a direct consequence of Pauli blocking. In a unitary Fermi gas, we observe that the JT heating is marginal in the temperature range 0.2≲T/T_{F}≲0.8 as the repulsive quantum-statistical effect is lessened by the attractive interparticle interactions.

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathologic change in former Australian rugby players.

AIMS: We applied the 2021 consensus criteria for both chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathological change and traumatic encephalopathy syndrome in a small case series of six former elite-level Australian rugby code players. METHODS: Neuropathological assessment of these cases was carried out at the Sydney and Victorian Brain Banks. Clinical data were collected via clinical interviews and health questionnaires completed by the participants and/or their next of kin, and neuropsychological testing was conducted with participants who were capable of completing this testing. RESULTS: All cases exhibited progressive cognitive impairment during life. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathological change was identified in four out of the six cases. However, coexisting neuropathologies were common, with limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy and ageing-related tau astrogliopathy seen in all cases, intermediate or high Alzheimer's disease neuropathological change seen in four cases and hippocampal sclerosis seen in two of the six cases. CONCLUSION: The presence of multiple neuropathologies in these cases complicates clinical diagnostic efforts for traumatic encephalopathy syndrome. It will be important for further clinicopathological studies on larger groups to report all neuropathological comorbidities found in cases diagnosed with either chronic traumatic encephalopathy neuropathological change and/or traumatic encephalopathy syndrome.

Basolateral amygdala parvalbumin interneurons coordinate oscillations to drive reward behaviors.

The basolateral amygdala (BLA) mediates both fear and reward learning.1,2 Previous work has shown that parvalbumin (PV) interneurons in the BLA contribute to BLA oscillatory states integral to fear expression.3,4,5,6,7 However, despite it being critical to our understanding of reward behaviors, it is unknown whether BLA oscillatory states and PV interneurons similarly contribute to reward processing. Local field potentials in the BLA were collected as male and female mice consumed sucrose reward, where prominent changes in the beta band (15-30 Hz) emerged with reward experience. During consumption of one water bottle during a two-water-bottle choice test, rhythmic optogenetic stimulation of BLA PVs produced a robust bottle preference, showing that PVs can sufficiently drive reward seeking. Finally, to demonstrate that PV activity is necessary for reward value use, PVs were chemogenetically inhibited following outcome devaluation, rendering mice incapable of using updated reward representations to guide their behavior. Taken together, these experiments provide novel information about the physiological signatures of reward while highlighting BLA PV interneuron contributions to behaviors that are BLA dependent. This work builds upon established knowledge of PV involvement in fear expression and provides evidence that PV orchestration of unique BLA network states is involved in both learning types.

Incidence of surgically treated chronic subdural hematoma after head injury with normal initial computed tomography.

PURPOSE: The objective was to determine the incidence of surgically treated chronic subdural hematoma (cSDH) within six months after head trauma in a consecutive series of head injury patients with a normal initial computed tomography (CT). METHODS: A total of 1941 adult patients with head injuries who underwent head CT within 48 h after injury and were treated at the Tampere University Hospital's emergency department were retrospectively evaluated from medical records (median age = 59 years, IQR = 39-79 years, males = 58%, patients using antithrombotic medication = 26%). Patients with no signs of acute traumatic intracranial pathology or any type of subdural collection on initial head CT were regarded as CT negative (n = 1573, 81%). RESULTS: Two (n = 2) of the 1573 CT negative patients received surgical treatment for cSDH. Consequently, the incidence of surgically treated cSDH after a normal initial head CT during a six-month follow-up was 0.13%. Both patients sustained mild traumatic brain injuries initially. One of the two patients was on antithrombotic medication (warfarin) at the time of trauma, hence incidence of surgically treated cSDH among patients with antithrombotic medication in CT negative patients (n = 376, 23.9%) was 0.27%. Additionally, within CT negative patients, one subdural hygroma was operated shortly after trauma. CONCLUSION: The extremely low incidence of surgically treated cSDH after a normal initial head CT, even in patients on antithrombotic medication, supports the notion that routine follow-up imaging after an initial normal head CT is not indicated to exclude the development of cSDH. Additionally, our findings support the concept of cSDH not being a purely head trauma-related disease.

Interkingdom interactions shape the fungal microbiome of mosquitoes.

BACKGROUND: The mosquito microbiome is an important modulator of vector competence and vectoral capacity. Unlike the extensively studied bacterial microbiome, fungal communities in the mosquito microbiome (the mycobiome) remain largely unexplored. To work towards getting an improved understanding of the fungi associated with mosquitoes, we sequenced the mycobiome of three field-collected and laboratory-reared mosquito species (Aedes albopictus, Aedes aegypti, and Culex quinquefasciatus). RESULTS: Our analysis showed both environment and host species were contributing to the diversity of the fungal microbiome of mosquitoes. When comparing species, Ae. albopictus possessed a higher number of diverse fungal taxa than Cx. quinquefasciatus, while strikingly less than 1% of reads from Ae. aegypti samples were fungal. Fungal reads from Ae. aegypti were < 1% even after inhibiting host amplification using a PNA blocker, indicating that this species lacked a significant fungal microbiome that was amplified using this sequencing approach. Using a mono-association mosquito infection model, we confirmed that mosquito-derived fungal isolates colonize Aedes mosquitoes and support growth and development at comparable rates to their bacterial counterparts. Strikingly, native bacterial taxa isolated from mosquitoes impeded the colonization of symbiotic fungi in Ae. aegypti suggesting interkingdom interactions shape fungal microbiome communities. CONCLUSION: Collectively, this study adds to our understanding of the fungal microbiome of different mosquito species, that these fungal microbes support growth and development, and highlights that microbial interactions underpin fungal colonization of these medically relevent species.

Recovery After Sport-Related Concussion in Collegiate Athletes With Self-Reported Pre-Injury Migraines.

Pre-injury migraines might be a risk factor for prolonged recovery after sport-related concussion (SRC). We sought to examine whether a pre-injury history of migraines is associated with worse recovery following SRC in collegiate athletes. Data were collected through a prospective concussion surveillance system in 11 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division III college athletic programs between September 2014 and March 2020. Our primary independent variable, pre-injury migraines, were self-reported by the athletes. Between those with and without migraines, the outcomes of days to return-to-learn (RTL) without academic accommodations and return-to-play (RTP) were compared using Mann-Whitney U tests. Each athlete's RTL and RTP status was dichotomized (i.e., returned vs. not returned) at various time points for RTL (i.e., 7/14/21/28 days) and RTP (i.e., 14/21/28/56 days). Chi-squared tests were performed to compare the proportions of RTL and RTP status between groups. Multivariable regressions analyzed potential predictors of RTL and RTP adjusting for age, gender, prior concussions, other health conditions, and symptom severity. Of 1409 athletes with an SRC, 111 (7.9%) had a pre-injury history of migraines. Compared with those without migraines, those with migraines had longer median (interquartile range [IQR]) days to RTL (migraines = 7.0 [3.0-12.3] vs. no migraines = 5.0 [2.0-10.0], U = 53,590.5, p = 0.022). No differences were found in RTP between the two groups (migraines = 16.0 [10.0-33.0] vs. nχo migraines 15.0 [11.0-23.0], U = 38,545.0, p = 0.408). Regarding RTL, significantly lower proportions of athletes in the migraine group had fully RTL, without accommodations, at ≤14 days (77.5% vs. 85.2%, χ2 = 4.33, p = 0.037), ≤21 days (85.3% vs. 93.0%, χ2 = 7.99, p = 0.005), and ≤28 days (88.2% vs. 95.6%, χ2 = 10.60, p = 0.001). Regarding RTP, a significantly lower proportion of athletes in the migraine group RTP at ≤28 days (72.0% vs. 82.7%, χ2 = 5.40, p = 0.020) and ≤56 days (84.0% vs. 93.0%, χ2 = 8.19, p = 0.004). In a multivariable model predicting RTL that was adjusted for age, gender, acute concussion symptoms, and other health variables (e.g., attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [ADHD], history of mental health difficulties), pre-injury history of migraine was associated with longer RTL (ß = 0.06, p = 0.030). In a multivariable model predicting RTP, pre-injury history of migraine was not associated with RTP (ß = 0.04, p = 0.192). In collegiate athletes, pre-injury migraine history was independently associated with longer RTL but not RTP. When comparing the proportions of those with successful RTP by days, significantly lower proportions of those with migraines showed successful RTP at ≤28 days and ≤56 days. Futures studies should study the generalizability of our findings in other school levels.

A perspective on the impacts of microplastics on mosquito biology and their vectorial capacity.

Microplastics (plastic particles <5 mm) permeate aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and constitute a hazard to animal life. Although much research has been conducted on the effects of microplastics on marine and benthic organisms, less consideration has been given to insects, especially those adapted to urban environments. Here, we provide a perspective on the potential consequences of exposure to microplastics within typical larval habitat on mosquito biology. Mosquitoes represent an ideal organism in which to explore the biological effects of microplastics on terrestrial insects, not least because of their importance as an infectious disease vector. Drawing on evidence from other organisms and knowledge of the mosquito life cycle, we summarise some of the more plausible impacts of microplastics including physiological, ecotoxicological and immunological responses. We conclude that although there remains little experimental evidence demonstrating any adverse effect on mosquito biology or pathogen transmission, significant knowledge gaps remain, and there is now a need to quantify the effects that microplastic pollution could have on such an important disease vector.

Adverse childhood experiences are associated with perceived cognitive difficulties among high school students in the United States.

Objective: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with mental health and cognitive problems, and mental health problems are associated with perceived cognitive difficulties among adolescents. The unique contribution of ACEs to cognitive difficulties after adjusting for poor mental health is not well understood and represents the purpose of this study. Methods: The Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey was conducted in 2021 with high school students in the United States. Cognitive difficulty was assessed with: 'Because of a physical, mental, or emotional problem, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?' Four ACEs were examined: sexual violence (lifetime and past 12 months), parental emotional abuse, and parental physical abuse. Students were asked about feeling sad or hopeless (past year), considering suicide (past year), and having poor mental health (past month). Binary logistic regressions examined the association between ACEs and cognitive problems, adjusting for mental health. Results: Participants were 6,945 students. Students reporting poor mental health were very likely to endorse difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions (girls = 81% and boys = 67%). Cognitive difficulty was uncommon among students who denied poor mental health (girls = 17% and boys = 12%). For boys [p < 0.001; R2 = 0.22] and girls [p < 0.001; R2 = 0.31], after adjusting for mental health problems, independent predictors of cognitive difficulties included parental verbal abuse and physical abuse. For girls, lifetime forced sexual intercourse and sexual violence during the past year were also independently associated. Conclusion: ACEs are associated with perceived cognitive difficulty in both adolescent girls and boys, even after adjusting for poor mental health.

Treatment of chronic symptoms following mild traumatic brain injury with transcranial LED: a sham run-in pilot study of photobiomodulation therapy.

PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: We evaluated whether photobiomodulation with red/near infrared light applied transcranially via light emitting diodes (LED) was associated with reduced symptoms and improved cognitive functioning in patients with chronic symptoms following mild traumatic brain injury. RESEARCH DESIGN: Participants (3 men, 6 women; 22-61 years-old) underwent a 6-week intervention involving 18 40-minute transcranial LED treatment sessions. METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Reliable change indices were calculated for 10 neuropsychological test scores and 3 self-report questionnaires of subjective cognition, post-concussion symptoms, and depression at baseline and following treatment. Questionnaires were also administered after 2-week sham and at 1-month and 2-month follow-ups. MAIN OUTCOME AND RESULTS: Only 2 participants improved on neuropsychological testing. On questionnaires, 4 reported improved cognition, 5 reported improved post-concussion symptoms, and 3 reported improved depression. Significant improvement in 2 or more domains was reported by 4 participants and mostly maintained at both follow-ups. CONCLUSIONS: Most participants did not improve on neuropsychological testing. A minority self-reported improvement in symptoms, potentially explained by the intervention, psychiatric medication changes, placebo effects, or other factors. Selecting participants with different clinical characteristics, and dosing and delivery system changes, may produce different results. A study design accounting for placebo effects appears warranted in future trials.

Test-Retest Reliability and Reliable Change on the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery.

OBJECTIVE: Researchers and practitioners can detect cognitive improvement or decline within a single examinee by applying a reliable change methodology. This study examined reliable change through test-retest data from the English-language National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognition Battery (NIHTB-CB) normative sample. METHOD: Participants included adults (n = 138; age: M ± SD = 54.8 ± 20.0, range: 18-85; 51.4% men; 68.1% White) who completed test-retest assessments about a week apart on five fluid cognition tests, providing raw scores, age-adjusted standard scores (SS), and demographic-adjusted T-scores (T). RESULTS: The Fluid Cognition Composite (SS: ICC = 0.87; T-score: ICC = 0.84) and the five fluid cognition tests had good test-retest reliability (SS: ICC range = 0.66-0.85; T-score: ICC range = 0.64-0.86). The lower and upper bounds of 70%, 80%, and 90% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated around change scores, which serve as cutoffs for determining reliable change. Using T-scores, 90% CI, and adjustment for practice effects, 32.3% declined on one or more tests, 9.7% declined on two or more tests, 36.6% improved on one or more tests, and 5.4% improved on two or more tests. CONCLUSIONS: It was common for participants to show reliable change on at least one test score, but not two or more test scores. Per an 80% CI, test-retest difference scores beyond these cutoffs would indicate reliable change: Dimensional Change Card Sort (SS ≥ 14/T ≥ 10), Flanker (SS ≥ 12/T ≥ 8), List Sorting (SS ≥ 14/T ≥ 10), Picture Sequence Memory (SS ≥ 19/T ≥ 13), Pattern Comparison (SS ≥ 11/T ≥ 8), and Fluid Cognition Composite (SS ≥ 10/T ≥ 7). The reliable change cutoffs could be applied in research or practice to detect within-person change in fluid cognition at the individual level.

Widespread Pesticide Distribution in the European Atmosphere Questions their Degradability in Air.

Risk assessment of pesticide impacts on remote ecosystems makes use of model-estimated degradation in air. Recent studies suggest these degradation rates to be overestimated, questioning current pesticide regulation. Here, we investigated the concentrations of 76 pesticides in Europe at 29 rural, coastal, mountain, and polar sites during the agricultural application season. Overall, 58 pesticides were observed in the European atmosphere. Low spatial variation of 7 pesticides suggests continental-scale atmospheric dispersal. Based on concentrations in free tropospheric air and at Arctic sites, 22 pesticides were identified to be prone to long-range atmospheric transport, which included 15 substances approved for agricultural use in Europe and 7 banned ones. Comparison between concentrations at remote sites and those found at pesticide source areas suggests long atmospheric lifetimes of atrazine, cyprodinil, spiroxamine, tebuconazole, terbuthylazine, and thiacloprid. In general, our findings suggest that atmospheric transport and persistence of pesticides have been underestimated and that their risk assessment needs to be improved.

Increasing prevalence of hot drought across western North America since the 16th century.

Across western North America (WNA), 20th-21st century anthropogenic warming has increased the prevalence and severity of concurrent drought and heat events, also termed hot droughts. However, the lack of independent spatial reconstructions of both soil moisture and temperature limits the potential to identify these events in the past and to place them in a long-term context. We develop the Western North American Temperature Atlas (WNATA), a data-independent 0.5° gridded reconstruction of summer maximum temperatures back to the 16th century. Our evaluation of the WNATA with existing hydroclimate reconstructions reveals an increasing association between maximum temperature and drought severity in recent decades, relative to the past five centuries. The synthesis of these paleo-reconstructions indicates that the amplification of the modern WNA megadrought by increased temperatures and the frequency and spatial extent of compound hot and dry conditions in the 21st century are likely unprecedented since at least the 16th century.

Social Determinants of Health and Perceived Cognitive Difficulties in High School Students in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted the Adolescent Behavior and Experiences Survey (ABES) to examine disruption and adversity during the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined the association between social determinants of health (SDoH) and cognitive problems attributed to physical or mental health problems among high school students. METHOD: The ABES was an online survey. Perceived cognitive problems were assessed with the question: "Because of a physical, mental, or emotional problem, do you have serious difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions?" A SDoH index was created by summing endorsements to 12 variables. RESULTS: Participants were 6,992 students, age 14-18, with 3,294 boys (47%) and 3,698 girls (53%). Many adolescents reported experiencing cognitive problems (i.e., 45%), with girls (56%) more likely to report cognitive difficulties than boys (33%) [χ2(1) = 392.55, p < 0.001]. Having poor mental health was strongly associated with cognitive problems in both girls [81%, χ2(1, 3680) = 650.20, p < 0.001] and boys [67%, χ2(1, 3267) = 418.69, p < 0.001]. There was a positive, linear association between the number of SDoH experienced and reporting cognitive problems. Binary logistic regressions were used to identify predictors of cognitive difficulty for both boys and girls (e.g., being bullied electronically, experiencing food insecurity during the pandemic, being treated unfairly because of their race or ethnicity, and being in a physical fight). CONCLUSIONS: A strikingly high proportion of adolescents reported experiencing problems with their cognitive functioning. After adjusting for current mental health problems, several SDoH remained associated with adolescents' reported cognitive difficulties, including experiencing racism, bullying, parental job loss, and food insecurity.

The prevalence and correlates of scores falling below ImPACT embedded validity indicators among adolescent student athletes.

Objective: Valid performance on preseason baseline neurocognitive testing is essential for accurate comparison between preseason and post-concussion test results. Immediate Post-Concussion and Cognitive Testing (ImPACT) is commonly used to measure baseline neurocognitive function in athletes. We examined the prevalence of invalid performance on ImPACT baseline testing and identified correlates of invalid performance. Method: The sample included 66,998 adolescents (ages 14-18, M = 15.51 years, SD = 1.22) who completed ImPACT baseline tests between 2009 and 2019. Invalid performance was determined by the embedded validity indicators (EVI). Associations between invalid performance, demographic characteristics, and health conditions were assessed using chi-square tests and odds ratios (ORs). Results: Overall, 7.2% of adolescents had baseline tests identified as invalid by one or more of the EVIs. Individual validity indicators classified between 0.5% and 3.7% tests as invalid. Higher frequencies of invalid scores were observed among youth with neurodevelopmental, academic, and medical conditions. Youth who reported having learning disabilities (n = 3126), receiving special education (n = 3563), or problems with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; n = 5104) obtained invalid baselines at frequencies of 16.4%, 16.0%, and 11.1%, respectively. Moreover, youth who reported receiving treatment for a substance use disorder (n = 311) or epilepsy (n = 718) obtained invalid baselines at frequencies of 17.0% and 11.1%, respectively. Conclusions: The base rate of invalid performance on ImPACT's EVIs was approximately 7%, consistent with prior research. Adolescents self-reporting neurodevelopmental conditions, academic difficulties, or a history of treatment for medical conditions obtained invalid baseline tests at higher frequencies. More research is needed to better understand invalid scores in youth with pre-existing conditions.

Aedes aegypti gut transcriptomes respond differently to microbiome transplants from field-caught or laboratory-reared mosquitoes.

The mosquito microbiome is critical for host development and plays a major role in many aspects of mosquito biology. While the microbiome is commonly dominated by a small number of genera, there is considerable variation in composition among mosquito species, life stages, and geography. How the host controls and is affected by this variation is unclear. Using microbiome transplant experiments, we asked whether there were differences in transcriptional responses when mosquitoes of different species were used as microbiome donors. We used microbiomes from four different donor species spanning the phylogenetic breadth of the Culicidae, collected either from the laboratory or the field. We found that when recipients received a microbiome from a donor reared in the laboratory, the response was remarkably similar regardless of donor species. However, when the donor had been collected from the field, many more genes were differentially expressed. We also found that while the transplant procedure did have some effect on the host transcriptome, this is likely to have had a limited effect on mosquito fitness. Overall, our results highlight the possibility that variation in mosquito microbiome communities is associated with variability in host-microbiome interactions and further demonstrate the utility of the microbiome transplantation technique for investigating host-microbe interactions in mosquitoes.