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Purpose: Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) has been diagnosed in 91.7% of retired United States National Football League (NFL) players at postmortem. There is no treatment or cure for CTE. Most living former NFL athletes with probable CTE suffer from obesity and its comorbidities. Our previous reviews document the improvement in cognition following metabolic/bariatric surgery (MBS) (e.g., gastric bypass, sleeve gastrectomy). These operations might reduce microglial maladaptive states, thereby attenuating neurodegeneration and CTE-like neurocognitive impairment. The study evaluated former NFL players' views on metabolic surgery in relation to reduction of obesity and CTE risk., Materials and Methods: An online multiple-choice questionnaire (30 items, 125 response options, 10-min completion) developed in the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) system was sent to 1,014 athletes screened in 2017-2022 by the Living Heart Foundation., Results: From 2/2022 to 7/2023, of 700 surveys opened, 72 (10.3%) of the retired players responded. Mean age was 61.6 ± 12.6 years; 45.0% had the disease of obesity with a mean BMI 35.5 ± 4.6 kg/m 2 . Thirty-three percent reported ≥ 2 obesity-related comorbidities; 40.3% memory-related TBI symptoms; 66.7% ≥ 1 cognitive symptom; 85.0% believed MBS was safe and effective but were unlikely to elect MBS for weight management. Yet, 57.0% of the entire cohort, and 68.8% of players with obesity were more likely to elect MBS if it could also reduce CTE risk., Conclusions: Results of the study bode well for future research recruitment. Most surveyed retired NFL players with obesity believed MBS to be effective and would be more likely to undergo MBS if it also reduced CTE risk., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

The management of climate-resilient grassland systems is important for stable livestock fodder production. In the face of climate change, maintaining productivity while minimizing yield variance of grassland systems is increasingly challenging. To achieve climate-resilient and stable productivity of grasslands, a better understanding of the climatic drivers of long-term trends in yield variance and its dependence on agronomic inputs is required. Based on the Park Grass Experiment at Rothamsted (UK), we report for the first time the long-term trends in yield variance of grassland (1965-2018) in plots given different fertilizer and lime applications, with contrasting productivity and plant species diversity. We implemented a statistical model that allowed yield variance to be determined independently of yield level. Environmental abiotic covariates were included in a novel criss-cross regression approach to determine climatic drivers of yield variance and its dependence on agronomic management. Our findings highlight that sufficient liming and moderate fertilization can reduce yield variance while maintaining productivity and limiting loss of plant species diversity. Plots receiving the highest rate of nitrogen fertilizer or farmyard manure had the highest yield but were also more responsive to environmental variability and had less plant species diversity. We identified the days of water stress from March to October and temperature from July to August as the two main climatic drivers, explaining approximately one-third of the observed yield variance. These drivers helped explain consistent unimodal trends in yield variance-with a peak in approximately 1995, after which variance declined. Here, for the first time, we provide a novel statistical framework and a unique long-term dataset for understanding the trends in yield variance of managed grassland. The application of the criss-cross regression approach in other long-term agro-ecological trials could help identify climatic drivers of production risk and to derive agronomic strategies for improving the climate resilience of cropping systems., Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13593-023-00885-w., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© The Author(s) 2023.)

Background: Older adults are at a greater risk for contracting and experiencing severe illness from COVID-19 and may be further affected by pandemic-related precautions (e.g., social distancing and isolation in quarantine). However, the longitudinal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on older adults is unclear. The current study examines changes in health behaviors, psychosocial factors, and cognitive functioning in a large sample of older adults using a pre-pandemic baseline and longitudinal follow-up throughout 9 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: One hundred and eighty-nine older adults (ages 65-89) were recruited from a multisite clinical trial to complete additional virtual assessments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mixed effects models evaluated changes in health behaviors, psychosocial factors, and cognitive functioning during the pandemic compared to a pre-pandemic baseline and over the course of the pandemic (i.e., comparing the first and last COVID-19 timepoints). Results: Compared to their pre-pandemic baseline, during the pandemic, older adults reported worsened sleep quality, perceived physical health and functioning, mental health, slight increases in depression and apathy symptoms, reduced social engagement/perceived social support, but demonstrated better performance on objective cognitive tasks of attention and working memory. Throughout the course of the pandemic, these older adults reported continued worsening of perceived physical health and function, fewer depression symptoms, and they demonstrated improved cognitive performance. It is important to note that changes on self-report mood measures and cognitive performance were relatively small regarding clinical significance. Education largely served as a protective factor, such that greater years of education was generally associated with better outcomes across domains. Conclusions: The present study provides insights into the longitudinal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on health behaviors, psychosocial factors, and cognitive functioning in a population disproportionately affected by the virus. Replicating this study design in a demographically representative older adult sample is warranted to further inform intervention strategies targeting older adults negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Hausman, Dai, O’Shea, Dominguez, Fillingim, Calfee, Carballo, Hernandez, Perryman, Kraft, Evangelista, Van Etten, Smith, Bharadwaj, Song, Porges, DeKosky, Hishaw, Marsiske, Cohen, Alexander, Wu and Woods.)