Search

Aim: This study investigated the pulmonary function test of fish mongers in Port Harcourt metropolis. Study Design: Cross-sectional study Place and Time of Study: Port Harcourt, Rivers state, Nigeria. January 2021 – July 2021. Method: A comparative assessment of 100 subjects were carried out in the course of this study with 50 been the fish mongers and the other 50 non fish mongers. The Forced expiratory volume (FEV), the force vital capacity (FVC), the FEV1/ FVC Ratio among fish mongers and non-fish mongers were determined. Results: The mean ages of both categories of the subjects indicated 39 years for fishmongers and 20.89 for non-fishmongers. This study found out that there were elevated levels of systolic and diastolic blood pressures in the fishmonger subjects compared to their non-fishmonger. The FVC, FEV1 and FEV6 mean values were found to be non-significantly reduced in the fishmonger group compared to their counterparts. Conclusion: These findings suggest that it is important that fishmongers and their likes be more conscious to their predisposition to the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. As occupation predisposes them to negative impact on their lung health, and, subsequently, on cardiovascular health following constant exposure to smoke and physical inactivity.

Aim: The study was carried out to assess the knowledge, attitude, and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among undergraduate students in a tertiary institution in Southern Nigeria. Study Design: Cross-sectional study Place and Duration of Study: Rivers State University, June, 2022 Method: A validated self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information on the knowledge, attitude, and uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine among 410 undergraduate students. The data collected was analyzed with the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) v25 software at a 95% confidence interval. Results: The study showed that only 16.5% of the students indicated willingness to take the COVID-19 vaccine, while 95.1% had a good knowledge of COVID-19. It was also observed that 75.1% of the students had good knowledge of the COVID-19 vaccine, while only 50.7% of the students had good/positive attitude to the COVID-19 vaccine and 49.3% of the students had a poor attitude to the COVID-19 vaccine. Regression analysis showed that Male gender was 1.5 times (95% C.I; 0.8 – 2.6) more likely to take the vaccine, while persons that had a comfortable income level were 1.6 times (95% C.I; 0.9 – 2.7) more likely to take the vaccine. It was also observed that good knowledge of COVID-19 was significantly associated with the willingness to take the vaccine (Chi-square = 6.80, p = 0.009). The findings of the study showed that the high level of good knowledge of COVID-19 did not correspond with the willingness to take the vaccine among the students. Conclusion: The poor attitude towards the vaccine is relatively high among the students, making it imperative for an improved awareness on the vaccine safety and efficacy among undergraduate students to improve vaccine coverage and reach some sort of herd immunity for the COVID-19 viral infection in the country

In December 2020, The North Thames Learning Disabilities Special Interest Group (SIG) met over video to discuss how Clinical Psychologists and aspiring psychologists experience, manage and combat racism in their work. This paper focuses on two presentations from the day by Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership. The first presentation focused on the barriers faced by people with Learning Disabilities (PWLD) to understand racism and receive support as victims or perpetrators. The talk identified a clear need for further accessible resources about racism and strategies to unlearn racism that go beyond cultural appreciation. The second presentation focused on the experiences of a black and a brown undergraduate psychologist joining an all-white LD psychology team in October 2020. Live semi-structured interviews were completed, informed by Whyte’s (2019) concept of robust vulnerability. The purpose was to explore different perspectives and experiences around what anti-racism means and what work that needs to be done by clinical psychologists individually and as a collective. It is the responsibility of the profession to not only diversify but ensure the needs of victims of racism are put before white discomfort and that black and ethnic minorities are not burdened with implementing anti-racist practices.Easy read summaryThe Learning Disabilities Special Interest Group (SIG) met over video in December 2020. The group talked about how racism affects the Learning Disabilities (LD) community. Racism is the unfair treatment of people based on their skin colour.This paper talks about two presentations from the day by Islington Learning Disabilities Partnership (ILDP). The first presentation was about support for people with learning disabilities. People are not always given support to cope with racism or to understand how to stop it.The second presentation was about anti-racism. Anti-racism means doing things to understand and fight racism. A black and a brown female student psychologist talked about their experiences in a team with all white psychologists. They interviewed two white psychologists about what they know and do to be anti-racist. They then interviewed each other about their experiences. They said that talking about racism helps people to cope with it and to stop it.

Purpose: The aim of the study is to ascertain the relationship between undergraduate nursing students' age and their level of assertive behaviour. Assertiveness is communicating and expressing your thoughts, feelings, and opinions in a way that makes your views and needs clearly understood by others, without putting down their thoughts, feelings, or opinions. Assertiveness is the ability to express our thoughts and feelings openly in an Honest, Appropriate, Respectful and Direct way. Methodology: The participants were students of 2nd - 5th levels at the Department of Nursing, University of Port Harcourt with a total of 205 participants. The study was a cross sectional descriptive survey design with an adapted structured questionnaire using Rathus Assertiveness schedule instrument with a four point Likert scale of strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree and Strongly Disagree. All statistical analysis was performed using statistical package for social Science (SPSS). Findings: The findings revealed an increased in assertiveness level with students in the 5lh and 4th levels of study being more assertive than the lower levels of study. Age and gender of students did not have any influence on their assertive behaviour. Chi-square Test of independence was the inferential statistics used to test the hypotheses on whether significant relationships existed between student nurses’ level of assertiveness and their age, gender and year of study with the level of significant 0-05. Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that all Nurses should be exposed to assertiveness training so that they can mentor/coach students and it also recommended that assertive behaviour should be included in the curriculum of nursing programme.

Duplication ofPMP22causes Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease type 1A (CMT1A) and is known to disrupt the lipid metabolism in myelinating Schwann cells by unknown mechanisms. By using two CMT1A mouse models overexpressing humanPMP22, we discovered thatPMP22dose-dependently downregulates genes that are involved in lipid and cholesterol metabolism. Lipidomic analysis on CMT1A mouse sciatic nerves confirmed lipid metabolic abnormalities primarily associated with cholesterol and sphingolipids. We observed similar lipidomic profiles and downregulation of genes associated with lipid metabolism in human CMT1A patient induced pluripotent stem cell-derived Schwann cell precursors (iPSC-SCPs). We confirmed these findings by demonstrating altered lipid raft dynamics and plasma membrane fluidity in CMT1A iPSC-SCPs. Additionally, we identified impaired cholesterol incorporation in the plasma membrane due to altered lipid storage homeostasis in CMT1A iPSC-SCPs, which could be modulated by changing the lipid composition of the cell culture medium. These findings suggest that PMP22 plays a role in regulating the lipid composition of the plasma membrane and lipid storage homeostasis. Targeting lipid metabolism may hold promise as a potential treatment for CMT1A patients.Graphical abstractHighlightsPMP22copy number causes a dose-dependent suppression of cholesterol and lipid biosynthesis in peripheral nerves of CMT1A miceLipid composition is altered in the sciatic nerves of CMT1A mice and in the membranes of patient derived iPSC-SCPs, with a significant reduction in sphingolipidsCMT1A iPSC-SCPs show decreased plasma membrane lipids required for regulating lipid raft dynamics, membrane fluidity, and membrane orderLipid storage misregulation is key in the pathogenesis of CMT1A

Aggregation of the RNA-binding protein, TDP-43, is the unifying hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and frontotemporal dementia. TDP-43-related neurodegeneration involves multiple changes to normal physiological TDP-43, which undergoes nuclear depletion, cytoplasmic mislocalisation, post-translational modification, and aberrant liquid–liquid phase separation, preceding inclusion formation. Along with toxic cytoplasmic aggregation, concurrent depletion and dysfunction of normal nuclear TDP-43 in cells with TDP-43 pathology is likely a key potentiator of neurodegeneration, but is not well understood. To define processes driving TDP-43 dysfunction, we used CRISPR/Cas9-mediated fluorescent tagging to investigate how disease-associated stressors and pathological TDP-43 alter abundance, localisation, self-assembly, aggregation, solubility, and mobility dynamics of normal nuclear TDP-43 over time in live cells. Oxidative stress stimulated liquid–liquid phase separation of endogenous TDP-43 into droplet-like puncta, or spherical shell-like anisosomes. Further, nuclear RNA-binding-ablated or acetylation-mimicking TDP-43 readily sequestered and depleted free normal nuclear TDP-43 into dynamic anisosomes, in which recruited endogenous TDP-43 proteins remained soluble and highly mobile. Large, phosphorylated inclusions formed by nuclear or cytoplasmic aggregation-prone TDP-43 mutants also caused sequestration, but rendered endogenous TDP-43 immobile and insoluble, indicating pathological transition. These findings suggest that RNA-binding deficiency and post-translational modifications including acetylation exacerbate TDP-43 aggregation and dysfunction by driving sequestration, mislocalisation, and depletion of normal nuclear TDP-43 in neurodegenerative diseases.

SummaryGeneral anesthetics disrupt brain network dynamics through multiple pathways, predominately through post-synaptic potentiation of GABAAR and pre-synaptic inhibition of neuroexocytosis. Common clinical general anesthetic drugs, such as propofol and isoflurane, have been shown to interact and interfere with a core component of the exocytic release machinery, Syntaxin1A, to cause impaired neurotransmitter release. Recent in vitro studies however suggest that these drugs to not affect all synapse subtypes equally. We investigated the role of Syntaxin1A in multiple neurotransmitter systems under isoflurane general anesthesia in the adultDrosophilabrain using live-cell super resolution microscopy and optogenetic readouts of exocytosis. We found that effects of isoflurane anesthesia were neuron specific and only impaired Syntaxin1A activity in excitatory neurons at cholinergic synapses, but not inhibitory GABAergic or glutamatergic neurons. These results indicate that general anesthetics could work by producing successive bouts of inhibition across the brain, by reducing neuroexocytosis from excitatory neurons specifically as well as silencing arousal systems through GABAAR potentiation.

SUMMARYMunc18-interacting proteins (Mints) are multi-domain adaptors that regulate neuronal membrane trafficking, signalling and neurotransmission. Mint1 and Mint2 are highly expressed in the brain and play overlapping roles in the regulation of synaptic vesicle fusion required for neurotransmitter release by interacting with the essential synaptic protein Munc18-1. The mechanism by which Mint1 mediates the interaction of Munc18-1 with Syntaxin1a (Sx1a) to control formation of the fusogenic SNARE complex and facilitate neurotransmission remains unclear. Here, we have studied both the specific interactions of the neuronal Mint proteins with Munc18-1 as well as their wider interactome. Using biochemical and biophysical binding approaches we identify a short acidicα-helical motif (AHM) within Mint1 and Mint2 that is necessary and sufficient for specific binding to Munc18-1.In silicomodelling of this interaction with AlphaFold2 and extensive validation by structure-based mutagenesis showed that the AHM in Mint forms anα-helical structure that binds a conserved surface on Munc18-1 domain3b. In Munc18-1/2 double knockout cells we show that mutating the Mint-binding site significantly reduces the ability of Munc18-1 re-expression to rescue exocytosis. Although Munc18-1 can interact with Mint and Sx1a proteins simultaneously we find they have mutually reduced affinities, suggesting an allosteric coupling between the two proteins. Using AlphaFold2 we then examined the entire cellular network of putative interactions governed by the Mint scaffolds. Although this suggests many proposed binders do not associate directly with Mints, our analyses provide a structural model for their assembly with a variety of known and novel regulatory and cargo proteins including ARF3/ARF4 small GTPases, and the AP3 clathrin adaptor complex. Validation of Mint1 interaction with a new predicted binder TJAP1 provides experimental support that AlphaFold2 can correctly predict interactions across large-scale datasets. Overall, our data provides insights into the diversity of interactions mediated by the Mint family and shows that Mints may help facilitate a key trigger point in SNARE complex assembly and vesicle fusion.

Malaria parasitaemia has remained an issue of public health concern. The coexistence of malaria and pregnancy is more burdensome with high mortality and other devastating effects on maternal and child health. This cross-sectional study carried out was focused on the impact of malaria among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in General Hospital, Bori and Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital, Port Harcourt. Four hundred women were involved in this study of which two hundred each from a facility. Pregnant women with pyrexia of unknown origin, HIV and those on anti-malarial drugs were excluded. Simple random sampling technique was used. Primary and secondary data sources were used including the use of a self-structured questionnaire comprising socio-demographic variables and items about gestation and pregnancy history. Statistical analysis involved the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 25 for descriptive and inferential statistics – Chi Square at 0.05 level of significance. Laboratory investigation was according to the recommended standard analytical method for malaria parasite examination. Five milliliters (5mls) of blood was obtained from each subject by venepuncture into EDTA bottles. The samples were used to assay for malaria parasite determination using the Giemsa staining technique. Result revealed that pregnant women in the first trimester had the highest prevalence of malaria; BMSH (43.9%) and GHB (45.5%). Preventive safe practices are recommended including the use of insecticide treated nets, vector control methods and others. Diagnosis and treatment should be done timely especially in the first trimester.