Temporal Order Research Articles

Structural brain morphology in young adult women who have been choked/strangled during sex: A whole-brain surface morphometry study.

Being choked/strangled during partnered sex is an emerging sexual behavior, particularly prevalent among young adult women. Using a multiparameter morphometric imaging approach, we aimed to characterize neuroanatomical differences between young adult women (18-30 years old) who were exposed to frequent sexual choking and their choking naïve controls. This cross-sectional study consisted of two groups (choking [≥4 times in the past 30 days] vs. choking-naïve group). Participants who reported being choked four or more times during sex in the past 30 days were enrolled in the choking group, whereas those without were assigned to the choking naïve group. High-resolution anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were analyzed using both volumetric features (cortical thickness) and geometric features (fractal dimensionality, gyrification, sulcal depth). Forty-one participants (choking n=20; choking-naïve n=21) contributed to the final analysis. The choking group showed significantly increased cortical thickness across multiple regions (e.g., fusiform, lateral occipital, lingual gyri) compared to the choking-naïve group. Widespread reductions of the gyrification were observed in the choking group as opposed to the choking-naïve group. However, there was no group difference in sulcal depth. The fractal dimensionality showed bi-directional results, where the choking group exhibited increased dimensionality in areas including the postcentral gyrus, insula, and fusiform, whereas decreased dimensionality was observed in the bilateral superior frontal gyrus and pericalcarine cortex. These data in cortical morphology suggest that sexual choking events may be associated with neuroanatomical alteration. A longitudinal study with multimodal assessment is needed to better understand the temporal ordering of sexual choking and neurological outcomes.

The Lipid Phosphate Phosphatase Wunen Promotes Eggshell Formation and Is Essential for Fertility in Drosophila.

The eggshell that surrounds insect eggs acts as a barrier, protecting against biotic factors and desiccation. The eggshell is a multi-layered structure which is synthesised by the somatic follicle cells that surround the developing oocyte. Although the temporal order of expression of the protein eggshell components goes someway to explaining how the different layers are built up, but how the precise three-dimensional structure is achieved and how lipid components responsible for desiccation resistance are incorporated are poorly understood. In this paper, we demonstrate that wunen, which encodes a lipid phosphate phosphatase, is necessary for fertility in Drosophila females. Compared to sibling controls, females null for wunen lay fewer eggs which subsequently collapse such that no larvae emerge. We show that this is due to a requirement for wunen in the ovarian follicle cells which is needed to produce an ordered and functional eggshell. Knockdown of a septate junction component also results in collapsed eggs, supporting the idea that similar to its role in embryonic tracheal development, Wunen in follicle cells also promotes septate junction function.

Recency memory is altered in cocaine-withdrawn adolescent rats: Implication of cortical mTOR signaling

In humans, cocaine abuse during adolescence poses a significant risk for developing cognitive deficits later in life. Among the regions responsible for cognitive processes, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) modulates temporal order information via mechanisms involving the mammalian-target of rapamycin (mTOR)-mediated pathway and protein synthesis regulation. Accordingly, our goal was to study the effect of repeated cocaine exposure during both adolescence and adulthood on temporal memory by studying the mTOR pathway in the mPFC. Adolescent or adult rats underwent repeated cocaine injections for 15 days and, after two weeks of withdrawal, engaged in the temporal order object recognition (TOOR) test.We found that repeated cocaine exposure during adolescence impaired TOOR performance, while control or adult-treated animals showed no impairments. Moreover, activation of the mTOR-S6-eEF2 pathway following the TOOR test was diminished only in the adolescent cocaine-treated group. Notably, inhibition of the mTOR-mediated pathway by rapamycin injection impaired TOOR performance in naïve adolescent and adult animals, revealing this pathway to be a critical component in regulating recency memory.Our data indicate that withdrawal from cocaine exposure impairs recency memory via the dysregulation of protein translation mechanisms, but only when cocaine is administered during adolescence.

Attentive spatial-temporal contrastive learning for self-supervised video representation

Most existing self-supervised works learn video representation by using a single pretext task. A single pretext task, providing single supervision from unlabeled data, may neglect to describe the difference between spatial features and temporal features. The similar spatial features and temporal features may hinder distinguishing between two similar videos with different class labels. In this paper, we propose an attentive spatial–temporal contrastive learning network (ASTCNet), which learns self-attention spatial–temporal features by contrastive learning between multiple spatial and temporal pretext tasks. The spatial features are learned by multiple spatial pretext tasks, including spatial rotation, and spatial jigsaw. Each spatial feature is enhanced with spatial self-attention by learning the relation between patches. The temporal features are learned by multiple temporal pretext tasks, including temporal order, and temporal pace. Each temporal feature is enhanced with temporal self-attention by learning the relation between frames, and is enhanced by feeding the optical flow features into a motion module. To separate the spatial feature and the temporal feature learned in one video, we represent the video as different features for each pretext task, and design pretext task-based contrastive loss. The pretext task-based contrastive loss encourages the different pretext tasks to learn dissimilar features, and encourages the same pretext task to learn similar features. The pretext task-based contrastive loss can learn the discriminative features for each pretext task in one video. The experiments show that our method achieves state-of-the-art performance for self-supervised action recognition on the UCF101 dataset and the HMDB51 dataset.

The Natural Sequence in Which Subclinical Inflamed Joint Tissues Subside or Progress to Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Study of Serial MRIs in the TREAT EARLIER Trial.

The natural trajectory of clinical arthritis progression at the tissue level remains elusive. We hypothesized that subclinical inflammation in different joint tissues (synovitis, tenosynovitis, osteitis) increases in a distinct temporal order in patients with clinically suspect arthralgia (CSA) who develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and subsides in a different sequence when CSA spontaneously resolves. We studied 185 serial magnetic resonance images (MRIs) from CSA patients with subclinical joint inflammation from the placebo arm of the TREAT EARLIER trial: 52 MRIs from 21 RA progressors (MRIs conducted at 1 year before, at 4 months before, and upon RA development), and 133 MRIs from 35 patients with spontaneous resolution of pain (MRIs conducted at baseline and at 4, 12, and 24 months). MRIs were scored for osteitis, synovitis, and tenosynovitis. We used cross-lagged models to evaluate 2 types of time patterns between pairs of inflamed tissues: a simultaneous pattern (coinciding changes) and a subsequent pattern (inflammatory changes in 1 tissue preceding changes in another tissue). In patients who developed RA, synovitis, tenosynovitis, and osteitis increased simultaneously. Increasing osteitis occurred in the final 4 months before RA diagnosis, following incremental tenosynovitis and synovitis changes during the 1 year to 4 months before diagnosis (P < 0.01). In anti-citrullinated protein antibody (ACPA)-positive and ACPA-negative patients who progressed to RA, osteitis increased just before RA development. In patients with pain resolution, simultaneous decreases in synovitis, tenosynovitis, and osteitis occurred, with tenosynovitis decreasing in the first 4 months after CSA onset preceding decreasing synovitis and osteitis during 4-12 months (P = 0.02 and P < 0.01). We identified natural sequences of subclinical inflammation in different joint tissues, which deepens our understanding of clinical arthritis and RA development. During RA progression, increasing osteitis followed previous increases in tenosynovitis and synovitis. During pain resolution, tenosynovitis decreased first, followed by decreasing synovitis and osteitis.

Perceived timing of postural instability onset

BackgroundThis study investigates the perceived onset of postural instability, a critical aspect of balance. Prior research using Temporal Order Judgment (TOJ) tasks revealed that postural perturbations must occur significantly earlier than an auditory reference stimulus for individuals to perceive them as simultaneous. However, there are methodological concerns with this previous work, particularly an unbalanced stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) distribution. Research questionDoes the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) between postural perturbation onset and an auditory reference stimulus differ between SOA distributions unequally (distribution 1) and equally (distribution 2) distributed around true simultaneity (0 ms)? MethodsA repeated measures design was employed, presenting two different SOA distributions to 10 participants using a TOJ task during both distribution 1 (88 trials) and distribution 2 (72 trials) SOA distributions. Paired t-tests were used to determine if there was a significant difference between the PSS of distribution 1 and 2. One-sample t-tests were also performed on the PSS values of both conditions in comparison to 0 ms (defined as true simultaneity) to determine if perceptual responses were delayed. ResultsDistribution 1 led to a perceived delay of postural instability onset by 20.34 ms, while distribution 2 resulted in a perceived delay of the auditory stimulus of 3.52 ms. However, neither condition was significantly different from each other nor from true simultaneity. SignificanceThese findings suggest that the perception of postural instability onset is not slow, contrary to previous beliefs, and emphasize the importance of controlling methodological parameters when examining sensory cues. This understanding will help inform falls prevention strategies.

Spatial attention modulates auditory dominance in audiovisual order judgment.

Auditory dominance in audiovisual temporal order judgment is shown here to be modulated by exogenous orienting of attention to a spatial cue independent of the cue modality. The visual stimulus has to lead the auditory one further in advance for cued relative to uncued locations in order for the two to be perceived simultaneously, possibly suggesting an inhibitory function of spatial attention on temporal processing.

Revisit the causal inference between organizational commitment and job satisfaction: A meta-analysis disentangling its sources of inconsistencies.

Existing theories and studies have exclusively focused on the direct temporal ordering of organizational commitment (OC) and job satisfaction (JS). However, their ordering varies highly across empirical studies. It is unclear whether such high variation is caused by statistical artifacts (i.e., spurious variation) or substantive moderators (i.e., true variation). Therefore, to disentangle artificial and substantial sources of this variation, we adopted traditional and full information meta-analytic structural equation modeling based on 71 independent samples (N = 16,698) with panel designs. After correcting for statistical artifacts, there was moderate heterogeneity in the lagged effects of OC and JS, suggesting that their ordering was not direct or simple but moderated by other variables. Further, the conceptualizations and/or measurements of OC and JS, time lag, and the timing of the investigation (e.g., newcomers vs. nonnewcomers) moderated their ordering. Finally, different specifications of the ordering between OC and JS resulted in differential cross-lagged relationships among JS, OC, and turnover intentions (k = 31, N = 6,876). Our meta-analysis provides new insights into the conceptualizations and/or measurements of OC and JS, adds some theoretical clarification to the dissenting theories by incorporating the time element, nuanced differences in the OC conceptualizations and the timing of the investigation, and raises concern over theory and research informed by studies overlooking alternative orderings of JS and OC. Looking forward, we suggest several promising future directions for explaining the heterogeneous cross-lagged relationships between OC and JS. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Novel analytical technique to find diversity of solitary wave solutions for Wazwaz-Benjamin-Bona Mahony equations of fractional order

The newly modified Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equations in three dimensions are examined in the current work through the use of conformable fractional derivatives to incorporate spatial and temporal fractional order derivatives. With the aid of the Wolfram Mathematica software, a variety of solutions, including hyperbolic and periodic function solutions, are created. The information was gathered to evaluate how well the proposed novel (G’/G2)-expansion method could compute exact solutions of the WBBM equations that could be applied to the implementation of the nonlinear water model in the ocean and coastal engineering. Table 1 shows a comparison between the recently discovered solutions and those that have previously been reported in the literature. There are some visual representations of the solutions.

A validation of the Dutch version of the Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ-NL).

Individuals build a narrative identity through the construction of an internalised, unfolding life story based on significant autobiographical memories. The current study validated a Dutch version of the Awareness of Narrative Identity Questionnaire (ANIQ-NL), which assesses how aware individuals are of having a narrative identity as well as their perception of the global coherence within their autobiographical memories, specifically, in terms of temporal ordering, causal connections and thematic integration. The questionnaire was administered to 541 adults (65.1% female, Mage = 34.09, SDage = 15.04, age range = 18-75). The results of a confirmatory factor analysis provided evidence for a four-factor structure, consisting of awareness and the three coherence subscales. The factor loadings of the items varied between .67 and .96. Moreover, the ANIQ-NL subscales showed good to excellent internal consistency, with Cronbach's alphas ranging from .86 to .96. Furthermore, higher levels of perceived autobiographical memory coherence were found to be significantly correlated to lower levels of depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms. The ANIQ-NL was determined to be a valid and reliable tool to measure narrative identity awareness and perceived narrative coherence. Future research could utilise the ANIQ-NL to further investigate the role of narrative identity in psychological well-being.

Multiple memory systems for efficient temporal order memory.

We report distinct contributions of multiple memory systems to the retrieval of the temporal order of events. The neural dynamics related to the retrieval of movie scenes revealed that recalling the temporal order of close events elevates hippocampal theta power, like that observed for recalling close spatial relationships. In contrast, recalling far events increases beta power in the orbitofrontal cortex, reflecting recall based on the overall movie structure.

Audio-Visual Contrastive Learning with Temporal Self-Supervision

We propose a self-supervised learning approach for videos that learns representations of both the RGB frames and the accompanying audio without human supervision. In contrast to images that capture the static scene appearance, videos also contain sound and temporal scene dynamics. To leverage the temporal and aural dimension inherent to videos, our method extends temporal self-supervision to the audio-visual setting and integrates it with multi-modal contrastive objectives. As temporal self-supervision, we pose playback speed and direction recognition in both modalities and propose intra- and inter-modal temporal ordering tasks. Furthermore, we design a novel contrastive objective in which the usual pairs are supplemented with additional sample-dependent positives and negatives sampled from the evolving feature space. In our model, we apply such losses among video clips and between videos and their temporally corresponding audio clips. We verify our model design in extensive ablation experiments and evaluate the video and audio representations in transfer experiments to action recognition and retrieval on UCF101 and HMBD51, audio classification on ESC50, and robust video fingerprinting on VGG-Sound, with state-of-the-art results.

Within-family linkages between parental monitoring and adolescents externalizing problems with autonomy support as a moderator.

Parents' monitoring efforts are thought to be effective in reducing children's future externalizing problems. Empirical evidence for this claim, however, is limited, as only few studies have unraveled the temporal ordering of these constructs. The present six-wave longitudinal study contributed to the existing literature by examining within-family linkages between monitoring efforts (behavioral control and solicitation) and adolescents' externalizing behaviors while controlling for between-family differences. In addition, it was assessed whether these associations differed when using child versus parent reports, differed for less versus more autonomy-supportive parents, and differed for fathers' versus mothers' monitoring efforts. Longitudinal data (six annual waves) of 497 adolescents (56.9% boys, Mage at T1 = 13.03, SD = 0.46), their mothers (N = 495, Mage at T1 = 44.41, SD = 4.45), and their fathers (N = 446, Mage at T1 = 46.74, SD = 5.10) of the Dutch study Research on Adolescent Development and Relationships (RADAR) were used. Results showed no evidence for the claim that parents' monitoring efforts predict future externalizing problems. In contrast, we found some evidence for the idea that parents' monitoring efforts change in reaction to changes in externalizing problems; when adolescents reported higher levels of externalizing problems than usual in 1 year, this predicted less behavioral control from mothers in the next year. Linkages between monitoring efforts and externalizing problems did not differ between less or more autonomy-supportive parents. Overall, our findings suggest that monitoring efforts are not effective, but also not damaging, in relation to adolescents' externalizing problems.

P-445 Prevalence of medically assisted reproduction use and its social and demographic determinants - findings from a German representative survey

Abstract Study question What percentage of people use types medically assisted reproduction (MAR) in Germany? Is MAR use unequally distributed by social categories and stage of treatment? Summary answer The lifetime prevalence of MAR use in Germany is 11.4%. Treatment use varies by social categories and stage of treatment. What is known already Increasing postponement of births to higher ages in most European countries contributes to higher risk of infertility and seeking assisted reproductive technologies (ART) or broader MAR. Studies indicate several non-medical factors associated with MAR use. Demographic and socio-economic factors, reproductive history, and attitudes are associated with MAR use. Country context is crucial for understanding MAR use patterns because access and reimbursement schemes differ widely among nations. Retrospective and longitudinal studies suggest the benefit of conceptualizing MAR use as a sequential process. The social and demographic determinants of MAR use differ across treatment stages. Study design, size, duration This study uses pre-release data from the first wave of the newly established FReDA panel survey (Family Research and Demographic Analysis), a large-scale representative survey of German residents 18 to 49 years. Information on infertility and MAR use was included in sub-wave W1A, therefore most of the data come from wave W1A, and other sub-waves as needed. We will present results from the official data release at the conference. Participants/materials, setting, methods For the lifetime indicator of MAR use participants were categorized into the highest category that they indicated: (0) no treatment, (1) see a doctor, (2) receiving medication only, (3) MAR services (insemination, operations, In-Vitro-Fertilisation, Intracytoplasmatic Sperm Injection). A Brant test shows that the parallel regression assumption for ordinal regression is not met. The less restrictive partial proportional odds model is estimated, allowing coefficients for gender, age, parity, and ever infertile to vary across stages. Main results and the role of chance The sample consists of 15,263 persons. The lifetime-prevalence of any MAR use is 11.4%. 3% saw a doctor, 3.1% had medication only and 5.2% used further MAR services. Women are more likely than men to use MAR at all stages. Those 30-34 years have the highest odds when comparing no treatment to seeing a doctor or higher treatment categories, and when it comes to being in the treatment category of receiving medication or higher. The odds for being in the highest treatment category increase from youngest ( &amp;lt; =29 years) to oldest (45+ years) age group. Having children increases the odds of seeing a doctor or higher treatment category, but not the odds for being in any higher treatment category. Having ever experienced infertility is a strong predictor of MAR use at all stages. Coefficients of the following variables are the same across treatment categories. Having ever been married increases MAR use considerably. The odds of help-seeking are lower in suburban areas compared to cities. Those who evaluate their economic situation as good are more likely to use MAR. Positive child orientation of both partners increases MAR use. Migration background, religion, education, and subjective health are not linked to MAR use. Limitations, reasons for caution Characteristics of individuals are based on self-reports that cannot be validated externally. Use of a lifetime-indicator of MAR use could imply that temporal order of explanatory variables and the outcome are inconclusive No further information on duration of infertility, diagnosis, and the timing of help-seeking was available. Wider implications of the findings Seeking MAR is a multifaceted process influenced by many social and demographic factors. The use of lower levels of services prior to the use of more invasive services such as ART is common. More studies should focus on MAR, not just ART, to understand inequities in use. Trial registration number not applicable

Two-dimensional loading in vehicle routing problem with release and due dates

In this paper, we study a two-dimensional vehicle loading and routing problem in which customer orders with deadlines become available for dispatch as per their release dates. The objective is to minimize the sum of transportation, inventory, and tardiness costs while respecting various loading and routing constraints. This scenario allows us to study various tradeoffs that tend to arise due to temporal order aggregation across release dates. We thereby propose an integrated mathematical formulation to simultaneously model both the routing and loading requirements of the problem at hand. Specifically, as the problem is NP-hard, we propose a scatter search-based heuristic approach to solve large-size instances. Further, its performance is enhanced using problem-specific procedures and strategic oscillation approaches. Additionally, the numerical experiments illustrate the influence of cost structures on both the optimal loading configurations along with the optimal routes. Importantly, our experiments also suggest that the proposed scatter search method can produce good-quality solutions in less time.

The transposed word effect is consistent with serial word recognition and varies with reading speed

The scientific study of reading has long been animated by questions of parallel vs. serial processing. Do readers recognize words serially, adding each one sequentially to a representation of the sentence structure? One fascinating phenomenon to emerge from this research is the transposed word effect: when asked to judge whether sentences are grammatical, readers often fail to notice grammatical errors caused by transposing two words. This effect could be evidence that readers recognize multiple words in parallel. Here we provide converging evidence that the transposed word effect is also consistent with serial processing because it occurs robustly when the words in each sentence are presented serially. We further investigated how the effect relates to individual differences in reading speed, to gaze fixation patterns, and to differences in difficulty across sentences. In a pretest, we first measured the natural English reading rate of 37 participants, which varied widely. In a subsequent grammatical decision task, we presented grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in two modes: one with all words presented simultaneously, and the other with single words presented sequentially at each participant’s natural rate. Unlike prior studies that used a fixed sequential presentation rate, we found that the magnitude of the transposed word effect was at least as strong in the sequential presentation mode as in the simultaneous mode, for both error rates and response times. Moreover, faster readers were more likely to miss transpositions of words presented sequentially. We argue that these data favor a “noisy channel” model of comprehension in which skilled readers rely on prior knowledge to rapidly infer the meaning of sentences, allowing for apparent errors in spatial or temporal order, even when the individual words are recognized one at a time.

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Ion Transport through Protein Nanochannels in Peritoneal Dialysis.

In recent decades, the development of dialysis techniques has greatly improved the survival rate of renal failure patients, and peritoneal dialysis is gradually showing dominance over hemodialysis. This method relies on the abundant membrane proteins in the peritoneum, avoiding the use of artificial semipermeable membranes, and the ion fluid transport is partly controlled by the protein nanochannels. Hence, this study investigated ion transport in these nanochannels by using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and an MD Monte Carlo (MDMC) algorithm for a generalized protein nanochannel model and a saline fluid environment. The spatial distribution of ions was determined via MD simulations, and it agreed with that modeled via the MDMC method; the effects of simulation duration and external electronic fields were also explored to validate the MDMC algorithm. The specific atomic sequence within a nanochannel was visualized, which was the rare transport state during the ion transport process. The residence time was assessed through both methods to represent the involved dynamic process, and its values showed the temporal sequential order of different components in the nanochannel as follows: H2O > Na+ > Cl-. The accurate prediction using the MDMC method of the spatial and temporal properties proves its suitability to handle ion transport problems in protein nanochannels.

Necroptosis executioner MLKL plays pivotal roles in agonist-induced platelet prothrombotic responses and lytic cell death in a temporal order.

Necroptosis is a form of programmed cell death executed by receptor-interacting serine/threonine protein kinase 1 (RIPK1), RIPK3, and mixed lineage kinase domain-like (MLKL). Platelets are circulating cells that play central roles in haemostasis and pathological thrombosis. In this study we demonstrate seminal contribution of MLKL in transformation of agonist-stimulated platelets to active haemostatic units progressing eventually to necrotic death on a temporal scale, thus attributing a yet unrecognized fundamental role to MLKL in platelet biology. Physiological agonists like thrombin instigated phosphorylation and subsequent oligomerization of MLKL in platelets in a RIPK3-independent but phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/AKT-dependent manner. Inhibition of MLKL significantly curbed agonist-induced haemostatic responses in platelets that included platelet aggregation, integrin activation, granule secretion, procoagulant surface generation, rise in intracellular calcium, shedding of extracellular vesicles, platelet-leukocyte interactions and thrombus formation under arterial shear. MLKL inhibition, too, prompted impairment in mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and aerobic glycolysis in stimulated platelets, accompanied with disruption in mitochondrial transmembrane potential, augmented proton leak and drop in both mitochondrial calcium as well as ROS. These findings underscore the key role of MLKL in sustaining OXPHOS and aerobic glycolysis that underlie energy-intensive platelet activation responses. Prolonged exposure to thrombin provoked oligomerization and translocation of MLKL to plasma membranes forming focal clusters that led to progressive membrane permeabilization and decline in platelet viability, which was prevented by inhibitors of PI3K/MLKL. In summary, MLKL plays vital role in transitioning of stimulated platelets from relatively quiescent cells to functionally/metabolically active prothrombotic units and their ensuing progression to necroptotic death.

Adult mice with noise-induced hearing loss exhibited temporal ordering memory deficits accompanied by microglia-associated neuroplastic changes in the medial prefrontal cortex

Acquired peripheral hearing loss in midlife is considered the primary modifiable risk factor for dementia, while the underlying pathological mechanism remains poorly understood. Excessive noise exposure is the most common cause of acquired peripheral hearing loss in modern society. This study was designed to investigate the impact of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) on cognition, with a focus on the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), a brain region that is involved in both auditory and cognitive processes and is highly affected in patients with cognitive impairment. Adult C57BL/6 J mice were randomly assigned to a control group and seven noise groups: 0HPN, 12HPN, 1DPN, 3DPN, 7DPN, 14DPN, and 28DPN, which were exposed to broadband noise at a 123 dB sound pressure level (SPL) for 2 h and sacrificed immediately (0 h), 12 h, or 1, 3, 7, 14, or 28 days post-noise exposure (HPN, DPN), respectively. Hearing assessment, behavioral tests, and neuromorphological studies in the mPFC were performed in control and 28DPN mice. All experimental animals were included in the time-course analysis of serum corticosterone (CORT) levels and mPFC microglial morphology. The results illustrated that noise exposure induced early-onset transient serum CORT elevation and permanent moderate-to-severe hearing loss in mice. 28DPN mice, in which permanent NIHL has been verified, exhibited impaired performance in temporal order object recognition tasks concomitant with reduced structural complexity of mPFC pyramidal neurons. The time-course immunohistochemical analysis in the mPFC revealed significantly higher morphological microglial activation at 14 and 28 DPN, preceded by a remarkably higher amount of microglial engulfed postsynaptic marker PSD95 at 7 DPN. Additionally, lipid accumulation in microglia was observed in 7DPN, 14DPN and 28DPN mice, suggesting a driving role of lipid handling deficits following excessive phagocytosis of synaptic elements in delayed and sustained microglial abnormalities. These findings provide fundamentally novel information concerning mPFC-related cognitive impairment in mice with NIHL and empirical evidence suggesting the involvement of microglial malfunction in the mPFC neurodegenerative consequences of NIHL.

Temporal order of diagnosis between gambling disorder and substance use disorders: Longitudinal results from the Norwegian Patient Registry

IntroductionPrevious research has established co-occurrence between substance use disorders (SUDs) and gambling disorder (GD). Less well understood is the temporal sequencing of onset between these disorders, and in particular whether SUD is a risk factor for GD. The present study examined the temporal order between registered diagnoses of SUD and GD, stratified by sex. MethodsA study with a longitudinal design using objective registry data drawn from the Norwegian Patient Registry was carried out. Among the patients with a registered diagnosis of GD between 2008 and 2018 (N = 5,131; males = 81.8%), those (who in addition) had a registered diagnosis of any SUD (n = 1,196; males = 82.1%) were included. The measures included a registered diagnosis using the ICD-10 of both GD (code F63.0) and SUDs (codes F10-F19) by a health care professional. Binomial tests were used to identify the temporal order between SUD(s) and GD. Co-occurring cases (i.e., cases diagnosed within the same month) were removed in the main analyses. ResultsResults showed a significant directional path from SUD to GD but no support for the reversed path (i.e., from GD to SUD). This finding was similar overall for (i) both males and females, (ii) when different SUDs (alcohol, cannabis, sedatives, and polysubstance) were examined individually, and (iii) when specifying a 12-month time-lag between diagnoses. ConclusionsThe findings suggest that experiencing SUD(s) is a risk marker for GD given the temporal precedence observed for patients in specialised healthcare services seeking treatment. These results should be considered alongside screening and prevention efforts for GD.