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Mental Strain Tied to Negative Feelings

Recent studies have revealed that mental demand is linked with stress and other forms of affective loss, underlining the importance of implementing positive incentive and task design.

Mental Strain Tied to Negative Feelings


United States: People who evoke the cliché hand-on-forehead gesture and say that a difficult problem is giving them a headache are not exaggerating, a new meta-analysis reveals, as reported by HealthDay.

Researchers said in a study published Aug. 5 in Psychological Bulletin that mental effort seems to cause negative emotions in many contexts.

Indeed, increased mental effort was associated with feelings of frustration, irritation, stress, or annoyance, data revealed.

Key Findings from the Research

“Our findings show that mental effort feels unpleasant across a wide variations of populations and tasks,” said senior researcher Erik Bijleveld, an associate professor of psychology with Radboud University in the Netherlands.

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Implications for Professionals

“This is important for professionals, such as engineers and educators, to keep in mind when designing tasks, tools, interfaces, apps, materials or instructions,” Bijleveld added in a university news release. “When people are required to exert substantial mental effort, you need to make sure to support or reward them for their effort.” 

For the review, the authors looked at 170 articles that were posted between 2019 and 2020, encompassing 4,670 participants.

Various people participated in the study, such as healthcare professionals, military personnel, athletic/non-athletic individuals, and college students. They represented 29 countries.

The studies included over 350 various cognitive exercises, ranging from using a new device and being lost in a new environment to rehearsing a golf stroke or participating in a virtual reality simulation.

The results found from both experiments indicate that human mental work can lead to uncomfortable feelings, according to the researchers.

Global Perspectives on Mental Effort

However, the relationship between intensive mental effort and perceived positive or negative affect depends on regions and was less expressed in Asian countries than in Europe or North America, as the rate of studied individuals showed.

This may mean that learning history could be a possible antecedent for mental exertion, meaning that how it affects a person depends on the learning history, researchers added.

High school students in Asia spend more time in academics than students in Europe or North America, and so they pointed out that Asians might have preconditioned themselves to bear more mentally tough work at an earlier age.

Another point that researchers have found rather fascinating is that while mentally demanding activities are not always enjoyable, people pursue them anyway.

“For example, why do millions of people play chess?” Bijleveld said. “People may learn that exerting mental effort in some specific activities is likely to lead to reward. If the benefits of chess outweigh the costs, people may choose to play chess and even self-report that they enjoy chess.”

“Yet, when people choose to pursue mentally effortful activities, this should not be taken as an indication that they enjoy mental effort, per se,” he added. “Perhaps people choose mentally effortful activities despite the effort, not because of it.”

Managers and teachers should bear this in mind whenever they are urging others to get down to business on challenging assignments, as said Bijleveld, as reported by HealthDay.

“On the surface, this seems to work well: Employees and students often opt for mentally challenging activities,” Bijleveld said. “From this, you may be tempted to conclude that employees and students tend to enjoy thinking hard. Our results suggest that this conclusion would be false: In general, people dislike mental effort.”

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Malaria Drug Struggles to Protect Children Under 5 

Malaria Drug Struggles to Protect Children Under 5. Credit | Adobe Stock

United States: Malaria transmitted through the use of mosquitoes is lethal; over 600,000 individuals pass on every year, most of them below age five. 

Now, there are reports suggesting that it is developing resistance to artemisinin, which is the most common drug being used in attempts to extend these young lives, as reported by HealthDay. 

Artemisinin Resistance Detected in Severe Malaria Cases  

“This is the first study from Africa showing that children with malaria and clear signs of severe disease are experiencing at least partial resistance to artemisinin,” said study co-author Dr. Chandy John, who directs Indiana University’s Ryan White Center for Infectious Diseases and Global Health, in Indianapolis. 

“It’s also the first study showing a high rate of African children with severe malaria experiencing a subsequent malaria episode with the same strain within 28 days of standard treatment with artesunate, a derivative of artemisinin, and an artemisinin combination therapy [ACT],” John added. 

The researchers said in the meeting news release that the artemisinin therapies that began two decades ago have transformed malaria treatment. 

History of Artemisinin as a Malaria Breakthrough 

A microscopic parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, had become immune to normal drugs, while artemisinin provided a prompt solution to the disease. 

Resistance Genes Linked to Southeast Asian Strains Found 

However, by 2008, there were indications that P. falciparum was also developing resistance to the new drug. Partial resistance was evident in Cambodia, and by 2013, the complete ineffectiveness of the drug artemisinin on affected patients was noticed. 

A partial resistance to artemisinin was detected in the new study in 11 of a sample of 100 Ugandan children who received treatment, according to John et al. Many of the time, it also took much longer to achieve the treatment duration required to ‘wash’ children off the parasite. 

The children were between 6 Months and 12 years, and all were admitted with what was termed as ‘Complicated malaria’. This is malaria with features of possible severe manifestation such as anemia or meningitis. 

Also, nine under-five children with malaria reportedly cured by chloroquine were re-infected within a month of treatment, and ten more children in a similar age bracket with a similar malaria diagnosis reportedly cured by artemisinin also relapsed, implying that, indeed, artemisinin was not efficient in eradicating the parasite out of the body. 

All of the children did get well in the end. However, tests in the laboratory showed that 10 of the samples had P. falciparum that possessed resistance genes similar to those shown in resistant strains from Southeast Asia, the investigators added. 

This is the first time that the researchers have observed the two in African children with severe malaria, the team said. 

Combination Therapies Also Show Limited Effectiveness  

Lumefantrine was also administered to many of the children as with a second-class antimalarial that is not artemisinin-based. However, 68% of the children who have received the two-drug combination therapy experienced a relapse of their disease, and this raises the possibility that the malaria parasite is also becoming resistant to lumefantrine, as reported by HealthDay. 

“The fact that we started seeing evidence of drug resistance before we even started specifically looking for it is a troubling sign,” John noted. “We were further surprised that, after we turned our focus to resistance, we also ended up finding patients who had recurrence after we thought they had been cured.” 

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Next Step for mRNA: From Injections to Inhalers 

Next Step for mRNA: From Injections to Inhalers

United States: Most people do not like the idea of being injected with medicines for treatment or vaccination, so researchers are looking for ways of delivering medicines like those based on the mRNA of the coronavirus in the form of aerosols for inhalation. A new paper released today, 13th November, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society outlines significant advances toward developing inhalable mRNA drugs. Scientists report that their enhanced lipid-polymer nanoparticles can encapsulate mRNA in a recoverable conformation for nebulization and then discharge it in aerosol droplets to the lungs of mice, as reported by scitechdaily.com. 

Challenges in mRNA Delivery 

mRNA medicines are based on the fact that after the administration of a specific mRNA, the cells produce a protein that could potentially cure or prevent certain diseases, including respiratory-related diseases. However, these proteins are highly unstable and cannot directly enter cells, which is something they need. Using lipid nanoparticles – small fatty balls that act as ‘messenger bags,’ scientists ensure that mRNA safely reaches the lung cells. 

However, the early formulations of these lipid nanoparticles were not suitable for inhaled application since the particles aggregated or grew in size when aerosolized. Prior attempts to address this problem have incorporated polymers such as polyethylene glycol into the lipids forming the particles. This approach was not as stable and reliable enough as required for nebulized delivery of the aerosol. 

Innovative Solution With Zwitterionic Polymers 

Now, Daniel Anderson, Allen Jiang, Sushil Lathwal, and other co-authors suggested that it might be possible to use another type of polymer, a zwitterionic polymer, with positive and negative repeating units to form the mRNA-containing lipid nanoparticles that can be nebulized – to turn the liquid into a mist. 

The researchers synthesized a variety of lipid nanoparticles out of four ingredients: A phospholipid, cholesterol, an ionizable lipid, and lipids of different lengths conjugated to zwitterionic polymers of different lengths. Preliminary experiments showed that, among all the formulated lipid nanoparticles, those with high mRNA encapsidation capability and encapsidation efficiency remained non-aggregate and stable in size before and after misting. 

Metho: Effective mRNA Delivery in Animal Trials 

Next, in animal studies, the authors found that the formulation of lower cholesterol lipid nanoparticle NPs with zwitterionic polymers was ideal for aerosolization. If used when transporting an mRNA encoding a luminescent protein, this nanoparticle yielded the greatest level of luminescence within the animals’ lungs and a consistent protein distribution in the tissues, which indicated that it was the most effective at delivering inhaled mRNA. 

Promising Results in Animal Studies 

When three airborne doses of the optimal nanoparticle were delivered to the mice over the course of two weeks, the luminescent expression of the protein was sustained, while no signs of pulmonary inflammation were detected. The delivery method also worked in mice with a mucus layer in the bronchi, which was intended to mimic people with cystic fibrosis, as reported by scitechdaily.com. 

Collectively, the researchers claim that this series of outcomes confirms the feasibility of airborne mRNA delivery using zwitterionic polymers in lipid nanoparticles. In the next stage, they said they would like to try it in animals of a larger size. 

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Green Mediterranean Diet May Slow Brain Aging 

Green Mediterranean Diet May Slow Brain Aging

United States: Neurodegeneration or the progressive loss of neurons and reduction in the volume of the human brain is known to be an age-related characteristic that can lead to such issues as dementia and other neurologic disorders. Thus, while aging itself is inevitable, new findings from the eighteen months diet trial suggest that with certain modifications to our lifestyles and diets, we can help slow the process of aging in our brain, as reported by scitechdaily.com. 

A recent study carried out by the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in co-operation with the DIRECT PLUS Brain MRI trial has revealed information regarding how the patient’s blood glucose levels can influence the health of their brains. 

Brain Age vs. Chronological Age 

The results of MRI analysis of the brain, and specifically the estimate of the volume of the hippocampus and the surface area of the lateral ventricles, can indicate the biological age of a person’s brain, which often differs from the individual’s chronological age. Whereas ‘chronological age’ is akin to the number of years, ‘brain age’ refers to the reality of the brain. 

Other changes include the progressive loss of volume and size in specific parts of the brain, which are also used as indicators of aging, and this includes the hippocampus being smaller and the lateral ventricles getting larger with age. It is possible to have a younger or an older brain relative to the calendar age of the person. A lower figure implies a younger brain and a healthier brain, while a higher number may mean that the brain is aging faster and, therefore, will experience a form of cognitive decline earlier. 

Green Mediterranean Diet May Slow Brain Aging. Credit | Getty Images
Green Mediterranean Diet May Slow Brain Aging. Credit | Getty Images

The recent study was published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and the researchers involved were an interdisciplinary team of scientists, including members from Ben-Gurion University, Harvard University, Leipzig University, and others. The study was led by Dafna Pachter, a Ph.D. student at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel, and supervised by Prof Iris Shai with the help of several international colleagues. 

A study conducted two years back revealed that both the MED and the green-MED diets actually reduced age-related cerebral atrophy by about 50% in a period of 18 months. 

In the present work, the authors intended to investigate how the process of deceleration of brain atrophy is achieved. 

HbA1c, as an indicator of long-term blood glucose levels, was decreased together with substantial positive changes in the volume of distinct brain areas typically prone to age-related atrophy. Performing the voxel-wise analysis of the brain MRI outcomes, it was revealed that the deviations in the thalamus, caudate nucleus, and the cerebellum had a tendency to be larger if patient’s HbA1c level was lower in the blood, which was important for patient’s cognition or thought process and motor and proprioceptive control. These findings indicate that better control of glycemia may be one of the key approaches useful in mitigating age-related changes in the brain. 

A recent diet called ‘Green Mediterranean’ has potential. 

Previous studies have found the green Mediterranean (Green-Med) diet helpful in enhancing better blood sugar management. High polyphenol food content of the Green-Med diet, originating from Mankai and green tea, and low red and processed meat consumption. 

The present research builds upon this relationship by indicating that the Green-Med diet may not only be beneficial to metabolic health but also have an impact on the structural and functional integrity of the brain. 

DIRECT PLUS Trial 

DIRECT PLUS was one of the largest and longest MRIs of the brain that had been carried out before, including about 300 individuals who were divided into three groups that were concerned with dietary habits. CSR longitudinal assessment of whole-brain MRI measures was obtained at baseline and at the end of the 18-month trial. 

The researchers employed Hippocampal Occupancy (HOC), which is an index of brain age – a risk factor for dementia in the future. HOC usually declines with the increased age of the patient. As expected, some participants had a cognition that was younger or older than their age. 

In this study, the authors employed NeuroQuant, a fully automated technique approved by the FDA, to quantify and segment the MRI-derived brain data. This work was conceived to determine whether better glycemic control and certain foods may act as protective agents against brain aging. The obtained data suggested that the extent of brain aging is reduced to a greater degree in participants who were able to achieve normalization of their blood glucose levels. More specifically, those who drank larger portions of green tea and Mankai duckweed shakes exhibited the greatest enhancement both in their blood glucose levels, as well as in their cerebral function. 

The Key to a Younger Brain Age? 

The study’s lead researcher, Prof. Iris Shai, from Ben-Gurion University, an adjunct professor at Harvard University, and an Honorary Professor at Leipzig University, explains, “Maintaining low blood sugar levels, even within the normal range, shows promise for preserving a younger brain, especially when combined with a healthy diet and regular physical activity. Specifically, polyphenols found in plant-based foods may cross the blood-brain barrier and help reduce brain inflammation, which is crucial for memory.” 

Dafna Pachter, a Ph.D. student and the first author of the paper, adds, “This trial offers a safe approach to potentially slow down our brain aging—by adopting the components of a green Mediterranean diet.” 

A Route Map to Tackle Cognitive Impairment Associated with Aging 

In this study, glycemic control and slower brain aging are directly connected to dietary changes with special emphasis on the Green-Med diet. More studies will be necessary to elucidate the processes underlying this effect, but these results point to a way of decreasing the risk of age-related cognitive decline through a few dietary changes, as reported by scitechdaily.com. 

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