Across all associations, effect sizes were generally small. Overall, results support that inquiring about sexual partners may have utility in evaluating risk for muscularity-oriented attitudes and behaviors among cisgender gay men. Future work will need to replicate these findings, particularly in more diverse samples.Despite high levels of body dissatisfaction and an increasing drive for muscularity among Brazilian women, most of the existing literature on muscle dysmorphia focuses on men and has mainly been conducted in Western and English-speaking regions. As a result, one of the most widely used assessment tools for symptoms of the disorder, the Muscle Dysmorphic Disorder Inventory (MDDI), has not yet been evaluated in Brazilian women-an at-risk population. In the present study, we perform a psychometric evaluation of the Brazilian Portuguese translation of the MDDI in a sample of 515 women. We evaluated the factor structure using a two-step, split-sample exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic approach, which supported the original three-factor structure of the measure. Additionally, we found good internal consistency, convergent validity, and test-retest reliability of the measure. Collectively, these results support the use of the measure in Brazilian women and provide a foundation to expand the literature in this population.Western culture is a decidedly anti-fat culture. Thus fat people are subjected to weight stigma and confront discrimination in virtually every facet of their lives. As a result, fat people often develop a self-concept that includes the stigmatized social identity. Weight stigma is also a traumatic experience that disrupts fat people's embodiment by diminishing feelings of attunement to and appreciation for their bodies. Therefore, healing from the trauma of weight stigma may involve developing a more positive fat identity through a process of fat embodiment. Fat embodiment may improve fat people's well-being by bolstering the integrity of the self, supporting efforts to resist public stigma and heal internalized stigma. In our analysis of embodied approaches to resistance and healing, we draw on social and clinical psychology and the works of public fat scholars and activists. We describe methods of fat embodiment like embracing bodily needs, engaging with fat-positive perspectives, connecting with fat community, and embracing desire and sensual pleasure. Ultimately, we conclude that transforming a negative fat identity into a positive identity through fat embodiment can support the pursuit of justice for fat bodies, connect fat people to their bodily needs and sensations, and support increased self-care and bodily fulfillment.Most body image studies assess only linear relations between predictors and outcome variables, relying on techniques such as multiple Linear Regression. These predictor variables are often validated multi-item measures that aggregate individual items into a single scale. The advent of machine learning has made it possible to apply Nonlinear Regression algorithms-such as Random Forest and Deep Neural Networks-to identify potentially complex linear and nonlinear connections between a multitude of predictors (e.g., all individual items from a scale) and outcome (output) variables. Using a national dataset, we tested the extent to which these techniques allowed us to explain a greater share of the variance in body-image outcomes (adjusted R2) than possible with Linear Regression. We examined how well the connections between body dissatisfaction and dieting behavior could be predicted from demographic factors and measures derived from objectification theory and the tripartite-influence model. In this particular case, although Random Forest analyses sometimes provided greater predictive power than Linear Regression models, the advantages were small. More generally, however, this paper demonstrates how body image researchers might harness the power of machine learning techniques to identify previously undiscovered relations among body image variables.Despite substantial literature surrounding how people process and perceive faces, there is very little research investigating how people evaluate their own faces. We examined how gender, body mass, race, age, and sexual orientation were linked to people's satisfaction with the appearance of their eyes, nose, facial shape, and face overall among 11,620 adults recruited via Mechanical Turk. Most people mostly or definitely agreed they were happy with their facial appearance. There were notable racial differences, with Asian participants tending to report greater dissatisfaction. For example, only 66% of Asian women and 60% of Asian men mostly or definitely agreed that they were happy with the appearance of their eyes, which was lower than other racial groups. BMI and age were not strongly associated with face satisfaction. Sexual minority men were less satisfied than heterosexual men. About one in four gay and bisexual men, compared to only one in seven heterosexual men, reported dissatisfaction with their overall facial appearance. Men and women with poorer face image engaged in more appearance surveillance, more strongly internalized the thin-ideal, and perceived stronger sociocultural pressures from peers, parents, and media. The current study highlights important sociocultural and demographic factors tied to poorer face image.Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a rare but well-described neurological disorder characterised by an acute self-limited episode of dense anterograde amnesia with retrograde amnesia of variable extent. Although the clinical phenomenology, neuropsychology, neuroimaging, prognosis, and precipitating and predisposing factors of TGA are well described, the pathogenesis is not currently understood. Existing proposals - epileptic seizure, stroke or transient ischaemic attack, migraine aura - all have shortcomings. Based on a computational neural network model of mnemonic function, a new model of TGA pathogenesis is suggested, along with potential mechanisms, thus generating a potentially testable hypothesis of TGA pathogenesis. Based on the intrinsic neuronal circuitry of the hippocampal formation, specifically the rich CA3 recurrent collateral projections which have previously been characterised as a global autoassociative attractor network, a model of TGA is developed in which loss of fault tolerance, a property of attractor networks, results in catastrophic rather than graceful degradation. Excessive positive feedback through the CA3 recurrent collaterals produces runaway neural firing, with infinite gain in the short CA3 feedback loops, resulting in a singularity or discontinuity manifest as failure of synaptic transmission. https://www.selleckchem.com/products/itacnosertib.html In terms of the energy landscape, the system flips to a shallower, low firing rate, basin of attraction. At the mechanistic level, spreading depolarization is suggested to underpin these changes. These considerations permit the construction of a hypothesis of TGA pathogenesis which may have testable, falsifiable, predictions.Sphingolipids (SLs) are one of the three major lipid classes in all eukaryotic cells. They function as structural molecules of membranes and can also act as highly active signaling molecules. SL biosynthesis is mainly occurring at the endoplasmic reticulum and the Golgi apparatus. However, SL intermediates are also generated at other organelles such as the plasma membrane and the lysosome. SL biosynthesis is therefore highly compartmentalized. Maintaining SL levels is necessary for the function of multiple trafficking pathways. One major challenge is to decipher the complex regulatory networks controlling SL biosynthesis, the coordination of vesicular and non-vesicular SL transport as well as their role in trafficking. Recent investigations have shed new light on the regulation of SL biosynthesis. Here, we review how SL biosynthesis is coordinated, how SLs are transported and how their levels affect trafficking pathways. Finally, we discuss recently developed methods to study SL metabolism with spatio-temporal resolution.
Eustachian tube dysfunction is believed to be involved in the pathogenesis of many middle ear diseases including chronic suppurative otitis media. We aimed to describe a simple and reliable animal model of Eustachian Tube obstruction to further research into middle ear disorders.

Prospective cohort study in animals.

University laboratory.

30 mice C57Bl/6J (n=15) and CBA/CaJ (n=15) aged 6-8 weeks received transtympanic Eustachian tube occlusion on left ear trough an acute tympanic membrane perforation using thermoplastic latex used in dental procedures (gutta percha). Control mice (n=6) received tympanic membrane perforation only. At two and four weeks, the mice were observed for signs of Eustachian tube dysfunction and compared to control ears. ET dysfunction was defined as presence of effusion in the middle ear.

100% (n=30) of the treated ears had otoscopic signs of Eustachian tube dysfunction at two weeks and the endpoint time of four weeks, compared to 0% in control mice (0/6). Temporary head tilt lasting up to 2 days were observed in 3 mice (10%). No other potential adverse events were recorded. No bacterial growth was determined in the middle ear fluid.

We describe a technically easy and reliable method for Eustachian tube occlusion in mice with an excellent success rate and minimal morbidity.
We describe a technically easy and reliable method for Eustachian tube occlusion in mice with an excellent success rate and minimal morbidity.Housing deprivation is a key determinant of the capacity to prevent infection and to recover from a disease because poor housing prevents adequate sheltering during a quarantine. We analyze the degree of housing deprivation faced by households in European countries when COVID-19 lockdown measures were enacted. To do so, we propose a synthetic measure that includes more dimensions than the official Eurostat indicator of severe housing deprivation. We use a fuzzy set approach to measure housing deprivation so that, unlike traditional deprivation approaches, based on a dichotomous variable, we can identify different degrees of housing deprivation for each household in the population. We find similar orderings of housing deprivation dimensions by country with the highest degree of deprivation in the living space dimension and the lowest one in the standard housing or technology deprivation dimension. Nonetheless, housing deprivation levels differ across countries, with Eastern European households being significantly more housing deprived than the rest when the lockdown began. This result shows that the effects of the lockdown on social well-being have not affected all Europeans equally and emphasizes the need for government measures that promote decent housing.Global debates about vaccines as a key element of pandemic response and future preparedness in the era of Covid-19 currently focus on questions of supply, with attention to global injustice in vaccine distribution and African countries as rightful beneficiaries of international de-regulation and financing initiatives such as COVAX. At the same time, vaccine demand and uptake are seen to be threatened by hesitancy, often attributed to an increasingly globalised anti-vaxx movement and its propagation of misinformation and conspiracy, now reaching African populations through a social media 'infodemic'. Underplayed in these debates are the socio-political contexts through which vaccine technologies enter and are interpreted within African settings, and the crucial intersections between supply and demand. We explore these through a 'vaccine anxieties' framework attending to both desires for and worries about vaccines, as shaped by bodily, societal and wider political understandings and experiences. This provides an analytical lens to organise and interpret ethnographic and narrative accounts in local and national settings in Uganda and Sierra Leone, and their (dis)connections with global debates and geopolitics.