Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Census Tract Patterns And Contextual Social Determinants Of Health Associated With Covid-19 In A Hispanic Population From South Texas: A Spatiotemporal Perspective, Cici Bauer, Kehe Zhang, Miryoung Lee, Susan Fisher-Hoch, Esmeralda Guajardo, Joseph Mccormick, Isela De La Cerda, Maria E Fernandez, Belinda Reininger

Journal Articles

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown that various social determinants of health (SDOH) may have contributed to the disparities in COVID-19 incidence and mortality among minorities and underserved populations at the county or zip code level.

OBJECTIVE: This analysis was carried out at a granular spatial resolution of census tracts to explore the spatial patterns and contextual SDOH associated with COVID-19 incidence from a Hispanic population mostly consisting of a Mexican American population living in Cameron County, Texas on the border of the United States and Mexico. We performed age-stratified analysis to identify different contributing SDOH and quantify their effects by …

Post-Acquisition Processing Confounds In Brain Volumetric Quantification Of White Matter Hyperintensities, Ahmed A. Bahrani, Omar M. Al-Janabi, Erin L. Abner, Shoshana H. Bardach, Richard J. Kryscio, Donna M. Wilcock, Charles D. Smith, Gregory A. Jicha

Neurology Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Disparate research sites using identical or near-identical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition techniques often produce results that demonstrate significant variability regarding volumetric quantification of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in the aging population. The sources of such variability have not previously been fully explored.

NEW METHOD: 3D FLAIR sequences from a group of randomly selected aged subjects were analyzed to identify sources-of-variability in post-acquisition processing that can be problematic when comparing WMH volumetric data across disparate sites. The methods developed focused on standardizing post-acquisition protocol processing methods to develop a protocol with less than 0.5% inter-rater variance.

RESULTS: A series …

Influence Of Dietary Salt Knowledge, Perceptions, And Beliefs On Consumption Choices After Stroke In Uganda, Martin N. Kaddumukasa, Elly Katabira, Martha Sajatovic, Svetlana Pundik, Mark Kaddumukasa, Larry B. Goldstein

Neurology Faculty Publications

Background

Previous research on Uganda's poststroke population revealed that their level of dietary salt knowledge did not lead to healthier consumption choices.

Purpose

Identify barriers and motivators for healthy dietary behaviors and evaluate the understanding of widely accepted salt regulation mechanisms among poststroke patients in Uganda.

Methods

Convergent parallel mixed methods triangulation design comprised a cross-sectional survey (n = 81) and 8 focus group discussions with 7-10 poststroke participants in each group. We assessed participant characteristics and obtained insights into their salt consumption attitudes, perceptions, and knowledge. Qualitative responses were analyzed using an inductive approach with thematic analytic procedures. Relationships …

Csf Protein Changes Associated With Hippocampal Sclerosis Risk Gene Variants Highlight Impact Of Grn/Pgrn, David W. Fardo, Yuriko Katsumata, John S. K. Kauwe, Yuetiva Deming, Oscar Harari, Carlos Cruchaga, Alzheimer’S Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, Peter T. Nelson

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Objective—Hippocampal sclerosis of aging (HS-Aging) is a common cause of dementia in older adults. We tested the variability in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteins associated with previously identified HS-Aging risk single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).

Methods—Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative cohort (ADNI; n=237) data, combining both multiplexed proteomics CSF and genotype data, were used to assess the association between CSF analytes and risk SNPs in four genes (SNPs): GRN (rs5848), TMEM106B (rs1990622), ABCC9 (rs704180), and KCNMB2 (rs9637454). For controls, non-HS-Aging SNPs in APOE (rs429358/rs7412) and MAPT (rs8070723) were also analyzed against Aβ1-42 and total tau CSF analytes.

Results—The GRN risk …

Cytomegalovirus Serostatus, Inflammation, And Antibody Response To Influenza Vaccination In Older Adults: The Moderating Effect Of Beta Blockade, Rebecca G. Reed, Richard N. Greenberg, Suzanne C. Segerstrom

Psychology Faculty Publications

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) has been implicated as a factor in immunosenescence, including poor antibody response to vaccination and higher immune activation and inflammation. Some people may be more or less vulnerable to the negative effects of CMV. The present investigation tested the effects of beta-blocker use and chronological age on the associations between CMV and immunity in adults aged 60–91 (N=98; 69% CMV seropositive) who were administered the trivalent influenza vaccine for up to 5 years. Peak antibody response, corrected for baseline, and spring (persistent) antibody response, corrected for peak, were assessed, as well as beta-2 microglobulin (β2μ) and interleukin-6 (IL-6). …

New Measures To Capture End Of Life Concerns In Huntington Disease: Meaning And Purpose And Concern With Death And Dying From Hdqlife (A Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System)., N E Carlozzi, N R Downing, M K Mccormack, S G Schilling, J S Perlmutter, E A Hahn, J S Lai, S Frank, K A Quaid, J S Paulsen, D Cella, S M Goodnight, J A Miner, M A Nance

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Faculty Scholarship

PURPOSE: Huntington disease (HD) is an incurable terminal disease. Thus, end of life (EOL) concerns are common in these individuals. A quantitative measure of EOL concerns in HD would enable a better understanding of how these concerns impact health-related quality of life. Therefore, we developed new measures of EOL for use in HD.

METHODS: An EOL item pool of 45 items was field tested in 507 individuals with prodromal or manifest HD. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA, respectively) were conducted to establish unidimensional item pools. Item response theory (IRT) and differential item functioning analyses were applied to …

Category Learning In Older Adulthood: A Study Of The Shepard, Hovland, And Jenkins (1961) Tasks., Rahel Rabi, John Paul Minda

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Shepard, Hovland, and Jenkins (1961) examined the categorization abilities of younger adults using tasks involving single-dimensional rule learning, disjunctive rule learning, and family resemblance learning. The current study examined category learning in older adults using this well-known category set. Older adults, like younger adults, found category tasks with a single relevant dimension the easiest to learn. In contrast to younger adults, older adults found complex disjunctive rule-based categories harder to learn than family resemblance based categories. Disjunctive rule-based category learning appeared to be the most difficult for older adults to learn because this category set placed the heaviest demands on …

Structural Brain Injury In Patients With Disorders Of Consciousness: A Voxel-Based Morphometry Study., Pieter Guldenmund, Andrea Soddu, Katherine Baquero, Audrey Vanhaudenhuyse, Marie-Aurélie Bruno, Olivia Gosseries, Steven Laureys, Francisco Gómez

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

MAIN OBJECTIVE: Disorders of consciousness (DOC; encompassing coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS) and minimally conscious state minus/plus (MCS-/+)) are associated with structural brain injury. The extent of this damage remains poorly understood and merits a detailed examination using novel analysis techniques. Research design/methods and procedures: This study used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) on structural magnetic resonance imaging scans of 61 patients with DOC to examine grey and white matter injury associated with DOC, time spent in DOC, aetiology and diagnosis.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND RESULTS: DOC and time spent in DOC were found to be associated with widespread structural brain injury, …

Incidence, In-Hospital Case-Fatality Rates, And Management Practices In Puerto Ricans Hospitalized With Acute Myocardial Infarction, Juan C. Zevallos, Jorge L. Yarzebski, Juan A. Gonzalez, Hector L. Banchs, Mario Garcia-Palmieri, Hernando Mattei, Jose Ayala, Marijesmar Gonzalez, Vanessa Torres, Iris N. Ramos, Luis R. Pericchi, David A. Torres, Maria C. Gonzalez, Robert J. Goldberg

Jorge L. Yarzebski

OBJECTIVE: There are extremely limited data on minority populations, especially Hispanics, describing the clinical epidemiology of acute coronary disease. The aim of this study is to examine the incidence rate of acute myocardial infarction (AMI), in-hospital case-fatality rate (CFR), and management practices among residents of greater San Juan (Puerto Rico) who were hospitalized with an initial AMI. METHODS: Our trained study staff reviewed and independently validated the medical records of patients who had been hospitalized with possible AMI at any of the twelve hospitals located in greater San Juan during calendar year 2007. RESULTS: The incidence rate (# per 100,000 …

Discrimination Of Mild Cognitive Impairment And Alzheimer's Disease Using Transfer Entropy Measures Of Scalp Eeg, Joseph Mcbride, Xiaopeng Zhao, Nancy Munro, Gregory Jicha, Charles Smith, Yang Jiang

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a neurological condition related to early stages of dementia including Alzheimer's disease (AD). This study investigates the potential of measures of transfer entropy in scalp EEG for effectively discriminating between normal aging, MCI, and AD participants. Resting EEG records from 48 age-matched participants (mean age 75.7 years)-15 normal controls, 16 MCI, and 17 early AD-are examined. The mean temporal delays corresponding to peaks in inter-regional transfer entropy are computed and used as features to discriminate between the three groups of participants. Three-way classification schemes based on binary support vector machine models demonstrate overall discrimination accuracies …

Sugihara Causality Analysis Of Scalp Eeg For Detection Of Early Alzheimer's Disease, Joseph C. Mcbride, Xiaopeng Zhao, Nancy B. Munro, Greg A. Jicha, Frederick A. Schmitt, Richard J. Kryscio, Charles D. Smith, Yang Jiang

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Recently, Sugihara proposed an innovative causality concept, which, in contrast to statistical predictability in Granger sense, characterizes underlying deterministic causation of the system. This work exploits Sugihara causality analysis to develop novel EEG biomarkers for discriminating normal aging from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and early Alzheimer's disease (AD). The hypothesis of this work is that scalp EEG based causality measurements have different distributions for different cognitive groups and hence the causality measurements can be used to distinguish between NC, MCI, and AD participants. The current results are based on 30-channel resting EEG records from 48 age-matched participants (mean age 75.7 …

Systematic Review Of The Use Of Online Questionnaires Of Older Adults, Meegan Remillard, Kathleen Mazor, Sarah Cutrona, Jerry Gurwitz, Jennifer Tjia

Jennifer Tjia

OBJECTIVES: To describe methodological approaches to population targeting and sampling and to summarize limitations of Internet-based questionnaires in older adults.

DESIGN: Systematic literature review.

SETTING: Studies using online questionnaires in older adult populations.

PARTICIPANTS: English-language articles using search terms for geriatric, age 65 and over, Internet survey, online survey, Internet questionnaire, and online questionnaire in PubMed and EBSCO host between 1984 and July 2012. Inclusion criteria were study population mean age 65 and older and use of an online questionnaire for research. Review of 336 abstracts yielded 14 articles for full review by two investigators; 11 articles met inclusion criteria. …

Chess Improves Cancer Caregivers' Burden And Mood: Results Of An Ehealth Rct, Lori L. Dubenske, David H. Gustafson, Kang Namkoong, Robert P. Hawkins, Amy K. Atwood, Roger L. Brown, Ming-Yuan Chih, Fiona Mctavish, Cindy L. Carmack, Mary K. Buss, Ramaswamy Govindan, James F. Cleary

Community & Leadership Development Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE: Informal caregivers (family and friends) of people with cancer are often unprepared for their caregiving role, leading to increased burden or distress. Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System (CHESS) is a Web-based lung cancer information, communication, and coaching system for caregivers. This randomized trial reports the impact on caregiver burden, disruptiveness, and mood of providing caregivers access to CHESS versus the Internet with a list of recommended lung cancer websites.

METHODS: A total of 285 informal caregivers of patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer were randomly assigned to a comparison group that received Internet or a treatment group that …

Practice Effects In A Longitudinal, Multi-Center Alzheimer's Disease Prevention Clinical Trial, Erin L. Abner, Brandon C. Dennis, Melissa J. Mathews, Marta S. Mendiondo, Allison Caban-Holt, Richard J. Kryscio, Frederick A. Schmitt, John J. Crowley

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Practice effects are a known threat to reliability and validity in clinical trials. Few studies have investigated the potential influence of practice on repeated screening measures in longitudinal clinical trials with a focus on dementia prevention. The current study investigates whether practice effects exist on a screening measure commonly used in aging research, the Memory Impairment Screen (MIS).

METHODS: The PREADViSE trial is a clinical intervention study evaluating the efficacy of vitamin E and selenium for Alzheimer's disease prevention. Participants are screened annually for incident dementia with the MIS. Participants with baseline and three consecutive follow-ups who made less …

Elevated Stearoyl-Coa Desaturase In Brains Of Patients With Alzheimer's Disease, Giuseppe Astarita, Kwang-Mook Jung, Vitaly Vasilevko, Nicholas V. Dipatrizio, Sarah K. Martin, David H. Cribbs, Elizabeth Head, Carl W. Cotman, Daniele Piomelli

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

The molecular bases of Alzheimer's disease (AD) remain unclear. We used a lipidomic approach to identify lipid abnormalities in the brains of subjects with AD (N = 37) compared to age-matched controls (N = 17). The analyses revealed statistically detectable elevations in levels of non-esterified monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) and mead acid (20:3n-9) in mid-frontal cortex, temporal cortex and hippocampus of AD patients. Further studies showed that brain mRNAs encoding for isoforms of the rate-limiting enzyme in MUFAs biosynthesis, stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD-1, SCD-5a and SCD-5b), were elevated in subjects with AD. The monounsaturated/saturated fatty acid ratio ('desaturation index')--displayed a strong …

Epigenetic Silencing Of Nucleolar Rrna Genes In Alzheimer's Disease, Maciej Pietrzak, Grzegorz Rempala, Peter T. Nelson, Jing-Juan Zheng, Michal Hetman

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Ribosomal deficits are documented in mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which often represents an early stage Alzheimer's disease (AD), as well as in advanced AD. The nucleolar rRNA genes (rDNA), transcription of which is critical for ribosomal biogenesis, are regulated by epigenetic silencing including promoter CpG methylation.

METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: To assess whether CpG methylation of the rDNA promoter was dysregulated across the AD spectrum, we analyzed brain samples from 10 MCI-, 23 AD-, and, 24 age-matched control individuals using bisulfite mapping. The rDNA promoter became hypermethylated in cerebro-cortical samples from MCI and AD groups. In parietal cortex, the rDNA promoter …

Deficient Liver Biosynthesis Of Docosahexaenoic Acid Correlates With Cognitive Impairment In Alzheimer's Disease, Giuseppe Astarita, Kwang-Mook Jung, Nicole C. Berchtold, Vinh Q. Nguyen, Daniel L. Gillen, Elizabeth Head, Carl W. Cotman, Daniele Piomelli

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

Reduced brain levels of docosahexaenoic acid (C22:6n-3), a neurotrophic and neuroprotective fatty acid, may contribute to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease. Here, we investigated whether the liver enzyme system that provides docosahexaenoic acid to the brain is dysfunctional in this disease. Docosahexaenoic acid levels were reduced in temporal cortex, mid-frontal cortex and cerebellum of subjects with Alzheimer's disease, compared to control subjects (P = 0.007). Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores positively correlated with docosahexaenoic/α-linolenic ratios in temporal cortex (P = 0.005) and mid-frontal cortex (P = 0.018), but not cerebellum. Similarly, liver docosahexaenoic acid content was lower in Alzheimer's …