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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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13 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2023

Early life stress induces irritable bowel syndrome from childhood to adulthood in mice

Background Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the most common functional gastrointestinal disorder. Traditionally, early life stress (ELS) is predisposed to IBS in adult. However, whether ELS induces IBS in early life remains unclear. Methods Separated cohort studies were conducted in neonatal male pups of C57BL/6 mice by maternal separation (MS) model. MS and non-separation mice were scheduled to be evaluated for prime IBS-phenotypes, including visceral hypersensitivity, intestinal motility, intestinal permeability, and anxiety-like behavior. Ileal contents and fecal samples were collected and analyzed by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and bacterial community analyses. Subcellular structures of intestinal epithelial, such as epithelial tight junctions and mitochondria, were observed under transmission electron microscopy. Results MS induced visceral hypersensitivity and decreased total intestinal transit time from childhood to adulthood. In addition, MS induced intestinal hyperpermeability and anxiety-like behavior from adolescence to adulthood. Besides, MS affected intestinal microbial composition from childhood to adulthood. Moreover, MS disrupted intestinal mitochondrial structure from childhood to adulthood. Conclusion The study showed for the first time that MS induced IBS from early life to adulthood in mice. The disrupted intestinal mitochondrial structure and the significant dysbiosis of intestinal microbiota in early life may contribute to the initiation and progress of IBS from early life to adulthood.

Tao, Enfu↗
NASA NTRS2005

Obesity-related cardiovascular risk factors: intervention recommendations to decrease adolescent obesity

The incidence of adolescent obesity is increasing dramatically in the United States with associated risks of hypertension, adverse lipid profiles, and Type II diabetes. Unless reversed, this trend predicts an epidemic of adult cardiovascular disease. Interventions at home, at school, and in the community are required to empower teens to increase physical activity and to modify eating habits. This article describes assessment for obesity-related health problems as well as scientific guidelines and research-based intervention strategies to decrease obesity in adolescents.

Review↗
DOE OSTI2021

Urban Green Spaces, Greenness Exposure and Species Richness in Residential Environments and Relations with Physical Activity and BMI in Portuguese Adolescents

Environmental factors play an important role in obesity-related behaviors. Evidence indicates significant associations between weight and urban green spaces in adults, but it is not clear whether this relationship applies to adolescents. Therefore, our aim was to determine the associations between urban green spaces, greenness exposure and species richness in residential environments with physical activity and body mass index. Sixty-two adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age answered a self-administered questionnaire, providing information on height, weight, age, sex and home address. Data on socioeconomic deprivation were obtained from the European Index of Deprivation for Small Portuguese Areas. Physical activity levels were assessed using accelerometers. Urban green space counts and the normalized difference vegetation index values were measured using buffers along the roads with distances of 300, 500, 1000 and 1500 m from each participant’s residence. To quantify the species richness, the species richness index was used. Linear regression models were fitted to analyze whether urban green spaces, exposure to green spaces and species richness counts for each distance were associated with physical activity and self-reported body mass index. We did not find significant associations between the independent variables and the probability of overweight or obesity. The relationship between environmental variables, adolescents’ physical activity and body weight seems to be complex and further studies may contribute to better understanding of the topic.

Melo, Juliana (ORCID:0000000301275340)↗
NASA NTRS2002

Perceived orientation in physical and virtual environments: changes in perceived orientation as a function of idiothetic information available

Two experiments examined perceived spatial orientation in a small environment as a function of experiencing that environment under three conditions: real-world, desktop-display (DD), and head-mounted display (HMD). Across the three conditions, participants acquired two targets located on a perimeter surrounding them, and attempted to remember the relative locations of the targets. Subsequently, participants were tested on how accurately and consistently they could point in the remembered direction of a previously seen target. Results showed that participants were significantly more consistent in the real-world and HMD conditions than in the DD condition. Further, it is shown that the advantages observed in the HMD and real-world conditions were not simply due to nonspatial response strategies. These results suggest that the additional idiothetic information afforded in the real-world and HMD conditions is useful for orientation purposes in our presented task domain. Our results are relevant to interface design issues concerning tasks that require spatial search, navigation, and visualization.

NASA Center ARC↗
DOE OSTI2023

Short Sleep Duration: Children’s Mental, Behavioral, and Developmental Disorders and Demographic, Neighborhood, and Family Context in a Nationally Representative Sample, 2016–2019

Many children and adolescents experience insufficient sleep, which poses risks for their short- and long-term health and development. This study examined the concurrent associations of contextual factors, including child, demographic, neighborhood, and family factors, with short sleep duration.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Addressing Parental Vaccine Hesitancy and Other Barriers to Childhood/Adolescent Vaccination Uptake During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

Routine childhood immunizations are proven to be one of the most effective public health interventions at controlling numerous deadly diseases. Therefore, the CDC recommends routine immunizations for children and adolescent populations against vaccine-preventable diseases e.g., tetanus, pertussis, diphtheria, etc. This current review sought to examine barriers to pediatric vaccine uptake behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also explored the implications for parental vaccine hesitancy/delay during an ongoing health crisis and proposed recommendations for increasing vaccine confidence and compliance. Our review determined that the receipt for vaccinations steadily improved in the last decade for both the United States and Tennessee. However, this incremental progress has been forestalled by the COVID-19 pandemic and other barriers i.e. parental vaccine hesitancy, social determinants of health (SDoH) inequalities, etc. which further exacerbate vaccination disparities. Moreover, non-compliance to routine vaccinations could cause an outbreak of diseases, thereby, worsening the ongoing health crisis and already strained health care system. Healthcare providers are uniquely positioned to offer effective recommendations with presumptive languaging to increase vaccination rates, as well as, address parental vaccine hesitancy. Best practices that incorporate healthcare providers’ quality improvement coaching, vaccination reminder recall systems, adherence to standardized safety protocols (physical distancing, hand hygiene practices, etc.), as well as, offer telehealth and outdoor/drive-through/curbside vaccination services, etc. are warranted. Additionally, a concerted effort should be made to utilize public health surveillance systems to collect, analyze, and interpret data, thereby, ensuring the dissemination of timely, accurate health information for effective health policy decision-making e.g., vaccine distribution, etc.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1998

Effects of sleep loss, time of day, and extended mental work on implicit and explicit learning of sequences

Tacit knowledge is part of many professional skills and can be studied experimentally with implicit-learning paradigms. The authors explored the effects of 2 different stressors, loss of sleep and mental fatigue, on implicit learning in a serial-response time (RT) task. In the 1st experiment, 1 night of sleep deprivation was shown to impair implicit but not explicit sequence learning. In the 2nd experiment, no impairment of both types of sequence learning was found after 1.5 hr of mental work. Serial-RT performance, in contrast, suffered from both stressors. These findings suggest that sleep deprivation induces specific risks for automatic, skill-based behavior that are not present in consciously controlled performance.

Learning↗
NASA NTRS2000

Bone Quest - A Space-Based Science and Health Education Unit

This proposal addresses the need for effective and innovative science and health education materials that focus on space bone biology and its implications for bone health on Earth. The focus of these materials, bone biology and health, will increase science knowledge as well as health awareness. Current investigations of the bone loss observed after long-duration space missions provide a link between studies of bone health in space, and studies of osteoporosis, a disease characterized by bone loss and progressive skeletal weakness. The overall goal of this project is to design and develop web-based and print-based materials for high school science students, that will address the following: a) knowledge of normal bone biology and bone biology in a microgravity environment; b) knowledge of osteoporosis; c) knowledge of treatment modalities for space- and Earth-based bone loss; and d} bone-related nutrition knowledge and behavior. To this end, we propose to design and develop a Bone Biology Tutorial which will instruct students about normal bone biology, bone biology in a microgravity environment, osteoporosis - its definition, detection, risk factors, and prevention, treatment modalities for space- and Earth-based bone loss, and the importance of nutrition in bone health. Particular emphasis will be placed on current trends in . adolescent nutrition, and their relationships to bone health. Additionally, we propose to design and develop two interactive nutrition/health ' education activities that will allow students to apply the information provided in the Bone Biology Tutorial. In the first, students will apply constructs provided in the Bone Biology Tutorial to design "Bone Health Plans" for space travelers.

Smith, Scott M.↗
DOE OSTI2023

Engineered bone marrow as a clinically relevant ex vivo model for primary bone cancer research and drug screening

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary malignant bone cancer in children and adolescents. While numerous other cancers now have promising therapeutic advances, treatment options for OS have remained unchanged since the advent of standard chemotherapeutics and offer less than a 25% 5-y survival rate for those with metastatic disease. This dearth of clinical progress underscores a lack of understanding of OS progression and necessitates the study of this disease in an innovative system. Here, we adapt a previously described engineered bone marrow (eBM) construct for use as a three-dimensional platform to study how microenvironmental and immune factors affect OS tumor progression. We form eBM by implanting acellular bone-forming materials in mice and explanting the cellularized constructs after 8 wk for study. We interrogate the influence of the anatomical implantation site on eBM tissue quality, test ex vivo stability under normoxic (5% O 2 ) and standard (21% O 2 ) culture conditions, culture OS cells within these constructs, and compare them to human OS samples. We show that eBM stably recapitulates the composition of native bone marrow. OS cells exhibit differential behavior dependent on metastatic potential when cultured in eBM, thus mimicking in vivo conditions. Furthermore, we highlight the clinical applicability of eBM as a drug-screening platform through doxorubicin treatment and show that eBM confers a protective effect on OS cells that parallel clinical responses. Combined, this work presents eBM as a cellular construct that mimics the complex bone marrow environment that is useful for mechanistic bone cancer research and drug screening.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1999

Cardiac interbeat interval dynamics from childhood to senescence : comparison of conventional and new measures based on fractals and chaos theory

BACKGROUND: New methods of R-R interval variability based on fractal scaling and nonlinear dynamics ("chaos theory") may give new insights into heart rate dynamics. The aims of this study were to (1) systematically characterize and quantify the effects of aging from early childhood to advanced age on 24-hour heart rate dynamics in healthy subjects; (2) compare age-related changes in conventional time- and frequency-domain measures with changes in newly derived measures based on fractal scaling and complexity (chaos) theory; and (3) further test the hypothesis that there is loss of complexity and altered fractal scaling of heart rate dynamics with advanced age. METHODS AND RESULTS: The relationship between age and cardiac interbeat (R-R) interval dynamics from childhood to senescence was studied in 114 healthy subjects (age range, 1 to 82 years) by measurement of the slope, beta, of the power-law regression line (log power-log frequency) of R-R interval variability (10(-4) to 10(-2) Hz), approximate entropy (ApEn), short-term (alpha(1)) and intermediate-term (alpha(2)) fractal scaling exponents obtained by detrended fluctuation analysis, and traditional time- and frequency-domain measures from 24-hour ECG recordings. Compared with young adults (<40 years old, n=29), children (<15 years old, n=27) showed similar complexity (ApEn) and fractal correlation properties (alpha(1), alpha(2), beta) of R-R interval dynamics despite lower spectral and time-domain measures. Progressive loss of complexity (decreased ApEn, r=-0.69, P<0.001) and alterations of long-term fractal-like heart rate behavior (increased alpha(2), r=0.63, decreased beta, r=-0.60, P<0.001 for both) were observed thereafter from middle age (40 to 60 years, n=29) to old age (>60 years, n=29). CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac interbeat interval dynamics change markedly from childhood to old age in healthy subjects. Children show complexity and fractal correlation properties of R-R interval time series comparable to those of young adults, despite lower overall heart rate variability. Healthy aging is associated with R-R interval dynamics showing higher regularity and altered fractal scaling consistent with a loss of complex variability.

NASA Discipline Cardiopulmonary↗
NASA NTRS2001

Contingent attentional capture or delayed allocation of attention?

Under certain circumstances, external stimuli will elicit an involuntary shift of spatial attention, referred to as attentional capture. According to the contingent involuntary orienting account (Folk, Remington, & Johnston, 1992), capture is conditioned by top-down factors that set attention to respond involuntarily to stimulus properties relevant to one's behavioral goals. Evidence for this comes from spatial cuing studies showing that a spatial cuing effect is observed only when cues have goal-relevant properties. Here, we examine alternative, decision-level explanations of the spatial cuing effect that attribute evidence of capture to postpresentation delays in the voluntary allocation of attention, rather than to on-line involuntary shifts in direct response to the cue. In three spatial cuing experiments, delayed-allocation accounts were tested by examining whether items at the cued location were preferentially processed. The experiments provide evidence that costs and benefits in spatial cuing experiments do reflect the on-line capture of attention. The implications of these results for models of attentional control are discussed.

Attention↗
NASA NTRS1995

Simultaneous cerebrovascular and cardiovascular responses during presyncope

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Presyncope, characterized by symptoms and signs indicative of imminent syncope, can be aborted in many situations before loss of consciousness occurs. The plasticity of cerebral autoregulation in healthy humans and its behavior during this syncopal prodrome are unclear, although systemic hemodynamic instability has been suggested as a key factor in the precipitation of syncope. Using lower body negative pressure (LBNP) to simulate central hypovolemia, we previously observed falling mean flow velocities (MFVs) with maintained mean arterial blood pressure (MABP). These findings, and recent reports suggesting increased vascular tone within the cerebral vasculature at presyncope, cannot be explained by the classic static cerebral autoregulation curve; neither can they be totally explained by a recent suggestion of a rightward shift in this curve. METHODS: Four male and five female healthy volunteers were exposed to presyncopal LBNP to evaluate their cerebrovascular and cardiovascular responses by use of continuous acquisition of MFV from the right middle cerebral artery with transcranial Doppler sonography, MABP (Finapres), and heart rate (ECG). RESULTS: At presyncope, MFV dropped on average by 27.3 +/- 14% of its baseline value (P < .05), while MABP remained at 2.0 +/- 27% above its baseline level. Estimated cerebrovascular resistance increased during LBNP. The percentage change from baseline to presyncope in MFV and MABP revealed consistent decreases in MFV before MABP. CONCLUSIONS: Increased estimated cerebrovascular resistance, falling MFV, and constant MABP are evidence of an increase in cerebral vascular tone with falling flow, suggesting a downward shift in the cerebral autoregulation curve. Cerebral vessels may have a differential sensitivity to sympathetic drive or more than one type of sympathetic innervation. Future work to induce dynamic changes in MABP during LBNP may help in assessing the plasticity of the cerebral autoregulation mechanism.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS1999

Relationship of endogenous circadian melatonin and temperature rhythms to self-reported preference for morning or evening activity in young and older people

BACKGROUND: Morningness-eveningness refers to interindividual differences in preferred timing of behavior (i.e., bed and wake times). Older people have earlier wake times and rate themselves as more morning-like than young adults. It has been reported that the phase of circadian rhythms is earlier in morning-types than in evening types, and that older people have earlier phases than young adults. These changes in phase have been considered to be the chronobiological basis of differences in preferred bed and wake times and age-related changes therein. Whether such differences in phase are associated with changes in the phase relationship between endogenous circadian rhythms and the sleep-wake cycle has not been investigated previously. METHODS: We investigated the association between circadian phase, the phase relationship between the sleep-wake cycle and circadian rhythms, and morningness-eveningness, and their interaction with aging. In this circadian rhythm study, 68 young and 40 older subjects participated. RESULTS: Among the young subjects, the phase of the melatonin and core temperature rhythms occurred earlier in morning than in evening types and the interval between circadian phase and usual wake time was longer in morning types. Thus, while evening types woke at a later clock hour than morning types, morning types actually woke at a later circadian phase. Comparing young and older morning types we found that older morning types had an earlier circadian phase and a shorter phase-wake time interval. The shorter phase-waketime interval in older "morning types" is opposite to the change associated with morningness in young people, and is more similar to young evening types. CONCLUSIONS: These findings demonstrate an association between circadian phase, the relationship between the sleep-wake cycle and circadian phase, and morningness-eveningness in young adults. Furthermore, they demonstrate that age-related changes in phase angle cannot be attributed fully to an age-related shift toward morningness. These findings have important implications for understanding individual preferences in sleep-wake timing and age-related changes in the timing of sleep.

Non-NASA Center↗