When veterinarianCynthia Ottowas in Manhattan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks helping support the search and rescue dogs, she heard rumors about the possible impact on the dogs long-term health.

I was at Ground Zero and I would hear people make comments like, Did you hear that half of the dogs that responded to the bombing in Oklahoma City died of X, Y, or Z? Or theyd say dogs responding to 9/11 had died, she recalls. It was really disconcerting.

It also underscored to her the importance of collecting rigorous data on the health of dogs deployed to disaster sites. An initiative that launched in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks did just that, and this week, 19 years later, Otto and colleagues findings offer reassurance. Dogs that participated in search-and-rescue efforts following 9/11 lived a similar length of time, on average, compared to a control group of search-and-rescue dogs and outlived their breed-average life spans. There was also no discernible difference in the dogs cause of death.

Honestly this was not what we expected; its surprising and wonderful, says Otto, director of theSchool of Veterinary MedicinesWorking Dog Center, who shared the findings in theJournal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

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While postmortem results showed that dogs that deployed after the 9/11 attacks had more particulate material in their lungs upon their death, it seems this exposure didnt cause serious problems for the animals in life. The most common cause of death were age-related conditions, such as arthritis and cancer, similar to the control group.

During and in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 response, Otto and colleagues reached out to handlers to recruit search-and-rescue dogs into a longitudinal study that would track their health, longevity, and cause of death. They recruited 95 dogs that had worked at the World Trade Center, Fresh Kills Landfill, or Pentagon disaster sites. As a control group, they also included in the study 55 search-and-rescue dogs that had not deployed to 9/11.

As part of being involved, the dogs received annual medical examinations, including chest X-rays and blood work. When the dogs died, the researchers paid for the handlers to have veterinarians collect samples of various organ tissues and send them for analysis at Michigan State University. Forty-four of the 9/11 dogs and 19 of the control group dogs underwent postmortems. For most of the other dogs in the study, the research team obtained information on cause of death from medical records or the handlers themselves.

While the team had expected to see respiratory problems in the exposed dogsconditions that have been reported by human first responders to 9/11they did not.

We anticipated that the dogs would be the canary in the coal mine for the human first responders since dogs age faster than humans and didnt have any of the protective equipment during the response, Otto says. But we didnt see a lot that was concerning.

In fact, the median age at death for 9/11 dogs was about the same as the control group: 12.8 compared to 12.7 years. The most common cause of death for the dogs that deployed was degenerative causestypically euthanasia due to severe arthritisfollowed closely by cancer, though the risk of cancer was about the same as in control group dogs.

Otto and her colleagues have ideas for why the foreign particulate matter found in some of the dogs lungs did not translate to ill health, though they emphasize that theyre speculations, not yet based in data.

For the pulmonary effects, its somewhat easier to explain because dogs have a really good filtering system, Otto says. Their lungs are differentthey dont get asthma, for exampleso it seems like there is something about their lungs thats more tolerant than in humans.

She notes that working dogs tend to be extremely physically fit compared to pet dogs, perhaps counteracting any ill effects of the deployment conditions on health. But working dog handlers and trainers can always do more to focus on fitness and conditioning, especially because doing so could slow the progression of arthritis, a disease which played a role in the death of many dogs in the study.

We know when people stop moving, they gain weight and that puts them at a higher risk of arthritis, and arthritis makes it painful to move, so its a vicious cycle, she says. The same can be true of dogs.

The mind-body connection may also help explain the difference between humans and dogs and the longevity of the working dogs, Otto says, as dogs dont necessary worry and experience the same type of stress in the wake of a disaster.

These dogs have an incredible relationship with their partners, Otto says. They have a purpose and a job and the mental stimulation of training. My guess is that makes a difference, too.

Ottos coauthors were Elizabeth Hare and Kathleen M. Kelsey from the Penn Vet Working Dog Center and John P. Buchweitz and Scott D. Fitzgerald from the College of Veterinary Medicine at Michigan State University.

Article used with permission of University of Pennsylvania

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Tracking the Working Dogs of 9/11 - The Bark

UT Dallas researchers used diffusion tensor imaging, which indicates the directionality of water diffusion in the brain, to examine how white matter connections lose integrity. These frontostriatal tracts are shown moving anterior to posterior (green), left to right (red) and superior to inferior (blue).

As the human brain ages, the neural circuits that allow its different parts to communicate with each other gradually wear down, even in healthy adults.

Scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas are using imaging techniques to investigate this process to understand better how it relates to cognitive decline in healthy individuals across the lifespan.

Were trying to figure out whats breaking down in the brain that yields this cognitive decline as we get older, even if were healthy, said Dr. Kristen Kennedy, associate professor of psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and in UTDallas Center for Vital Longevity. Everything we do in our lab is adding pieces to that puzzle.

In a study published online June 7 and in the October issue of Neurobiology of Aging, principal investigator Kennedy and her colleagues describe how they used a pair of imaging techniques to tie the degradation of circuitry in one region of the brain to reduced efficiency in executive functions. The study included 169 healthy human subjects between the ages of 20 and 94.

On a basic level, the brain consists of regions of gray matter that are interconnected by white matter. Composed primarily of neuronal cell bodies, gray matter is the center of activity, from higher learning and memory to sensory reception and muscular responses. White matter consists mainly of myelinated axons, the part of neurons that relay signals to and from gray matter regions.

This research shows that you dont ramp up the output of your gray matter regions as well when youre older. One reason is that the white matter connections have degraded. The electrical transmission between neurons is not as intact.

Dr. Kristen Kennedy, associate professor of psychology in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and in UTDallas Center for Vital Longevity

Dr. Christina Webb, lead author of the study and a research associate in Kennedys lab, said that the evolving research on white matter shows that its ability to propagate signals strongly affects cognition and higher-order processing.

More and more, research shows us that the structure of the brain affects its function, especially in terms of aging and white matter, she said. In earlier work, weve shown this effect more broadly across white matter networks. Here, were tying it more specifically to the frontostriatal white matter networks, which we know are linked to higher-order executive function.

Kennedy said that when the brain is confronted with a challenging task, it has to ramp up its activity, and that the amount needed changes across the lifespan.

This research shows that you dont ramp up the output of your gray matter regions as well when youre older, she said. One reason is that the white matter connections have degraded. The electrical transmission between neurons is not as intact.

The research team used two different imaging techniques to examine how white matter connections lose integrity, as well as how this affects cognition in people of different ages.

One of the techniques, diffusion tensor imaging, measures the directionality of water diffusion in the brain. Webb compared the ideal performance to water moving through a straw.

If the water is constrained on this path, this represents faster information processing, she said. If water is very diffuse, flowing freely, that can slow down communication efficiency between neurons. So were measuring the effectiveness of structural connectivity.

The scientists combined this insight with functional MRI (fMRI), which Kennedy described as a dynamic, moment-to-moment look at what the brain is doing in real time.

While the other scans are structural, the fMRI scans taken while subjects are performing a task allow us to see what resources the brain is using by tracking blood-oxygen levels, she said.

More and more, research shows us that the structure of the brain affects its function, especially in terms of aging and white matter. In earlier work, weve shown this effect more broadly across white matter networks. Here, were tying it more specifically to the frontostriatal white matter networks, which we know are linked to higher-order executive function.

Dr. Christina Webb, lead author of the study and a research associate in the Kennedy Neuroimaging of Aging and Cognition Lab

With these two sets of metrics, the researchers could predict cognitive performance and then compare expectations to how the subjects actually performed.

While this doesnt examine causality, this technique can be used to test hypotheses, which are based on our knowledge of how we think the brain works, Kennedy said. Our theory is that age directly degrades the white matter, and this in turn results in a failure of the gray matter to fully ramp up. The result is a detrimental effect on cognition.

Kennedys work is part of a trend toward studying healthy neurological aging as much as pathological conditions, which were much more thoroughly studied through the end of the 20th century.

Theres been an increasing feeling that it can only help us so much to understand these handful of diseases versus understanding how people ideally age, she said. That baseline is needed to better understand, by comparison, any disease.

The researchers have continued to collect new data from the studys cohort since the original measurements were obtained four years ago. They plan to address some of the larger questions of aging via a forthcoming longitudinal study, which will compare data from the same people at two different points in time.

Maybe we can capitalize on seeing whats happening very early, when everyones healthy and normal, and determine when that changes, or to help define a path toward pathology, Webb said. We see differences early in the lifespan with this group. Seeing whats happening early in the lifespan, and with the longitudinal data coming in, will hopefully help us determine if these people are already on different paths.

Additional contributors to the study included Dr. Karen Rodrigue, associate professor of psychology, and cognition and neuroscience doctoral student David Hoagey. This work was supported in part by National Institute on Aging grants 5R00AG036848-05, 5R00AG036818 and 5R01AG056535-04.

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Study Explores How Changes in Healthy Brain Structure Affect Cognition - University of Texas at Dallas

Cancer driver genes are those with mutations that are essential for tumour development and spread. Led by ICREA researcher Patrick Aloy, scientists from the Structural Bioinformatics and Network Biology (SBNB) Laboratory at IRB Barcelona have developed a computational pipeline that predicts tumour response to different cancer treatments. This system is based on the identification of complex response markers derived from the patterns of co-occurrence between cancer driver genes carrying mutations. It has been tested experimentally and with data from breast cancer patients and has achieved 66% accuracy in the prediction of these responses.

Given their key role in tumour development, cancer driver genes have been widely studied in recent decades. Knowledge of which of these genes are affected in a specific tumour can help to identify the most appropriate therapeutic strategy for that patient, in an approach known as precision medicine. For the first time, researchers from the SBNB Lab propose the co-occurrence (or lack thereof) of alterations in two or more cancer driver genes as a key factor in predicting the response to a certain treatment.

"The sum of two or more cancer driver genes affected by mutations leads to the formation of a complex network of biomarkers, alters the molecular profile of the tumour and affects its response to treatments," says Aloy. "Through this work, we see that studying cancer driver genes as a whole, analysing the different combinations, can bring about a great advance towards precision medicine," he adds.

From bioinformatics to experimental and clinical analysis.

Although there are a lot of data on cancer genomes, less information is available on the outcome of therapeutic interventions in patients. The researchers started from a public database that collects information on the effect of multiple treatments on the growth of human tumours that have been implanted in a mouse model. Based on these data, they selected 53 treatments (or combinations of treatments) and compared the molecular profiles of tumours that responded to each treatment and those that did not.

"After developing our computational model, we validated it experimentally in human tumours implanted in mice," says Ldia Mateo, postdoctoral researcher at the SBNB Lab and first author of the study. "We were able to predict the outcome of the therapy in 12 of the 14 case studies, well above the power of approved biomarkers to predict drug response," she adds. The researchers also validated the algorithm with treatment response data from patients with breast cancer.

The work, which has been published inGenome Medicine, was carried out in collaboration with the Vall d'Hebron Oncology Institute (VHIO) and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), thereby allowing the predictive system to be applied to the analysis of clinical trial results.

Reference: Mateo L, Duran-Frigola M, Gris-Oliver A, et al.Personalized cancer therapy prioritization based on driver alteration co-occurrence patterns. Genome Med, 2020;12(78). doi: 10.1186/s13073-020-00774-x

This article has been republished from the following materials. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

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System Developed To Predict Tumor Response to Different Treatments - Technology Networks

What happens when a major city allows the coronavirus to rage unchecked?

If the Brazilian city of Manaus is any answer, it means about two-thirds of the population could get infected and one person in 500 could die before the epidemic winds down.

During May, as the virus spread rapidly in Manaus, the equatorial capital of the state of Amazonas, dire reports described overwhelmed hospitals and freshly dug graves. Demand for coffins ran at four to five times figures for the previous year. But since hitting a peak four months ago, new coronavirus cases and deaths in the city of 1.8 million have undergone a rapid and unexplained decline.

Now a group of researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom say they know whyso many people got infected that the virus is running out of hosts.

In a report posted to the preprint server medRxiv, a group led by Ester Sabino, of the Institute of Tropical Medicine at the University of So Paulo, says it tested banked blood for antibodies to the virus and estimates that between 44 and 66% of the population of Manaus has been infected since the city detected its first case in March.

From what we learned this is probably the highest prevalence in the world, Sabino said in a phone interview. Deaths have dropped very rapidly, and what were saying is that its related.

In the US, President Donald Trump has attracted ridicule for saying the virus will go away on its own. His comments may be a reference to the fact that if enough people get vaccinated or infected by a virus and develop antibodies to fight it off, so-called herd immunity starts to build in the population: As more people gain immunity, it becomes harder for the virus to infect new people and continue its spread.

Thats exactly whats happening in Manaus, the authors believe. Although nonpharmaceutical interventions, plus a change in population behavior, may have helped to limit SARS-CoV-2 transmission in Manaus, the unusually high infection rate suggests that herd immunity played a significant role in determining the size of the epidemic, they wrote.

The Amazon region has seen the virus at its worst, with people dying at home and infections hitting indigenous groups. However, by mid-August, the Washington Post was documenting a sudden turnaround in Manaus. From a peak of 79 deaths on one day in May, the rate in the city is down to two or three a day in September, according to its health department.

It remains unclear why the virus spread so quickly in Manaus, where mobility data shows people did begin social distancing in March. Sabino and her colleagues think the outbreak may have been accelerated by dense housing, poor water supplies, and crowding on boats that serve as local transportation.

According to the authors, the infection fatality rate in Manaus was about 0.28%, or one death in every 350 people infected by the virus. Considering that not everyone has caught the virus in Manaus, the city-wide covid-19 death rate would be between one in 500 and one in 800 people overall.

Florian Krammer, an immunologist at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, says it was expected that some regions would reach levels of immunity high enough to interrupt local outbreaks, but that such events should be considered public health failures, not successes.

Community immunity via natural infection is not a strategy, its a sign that government failed to control an outbreak and is paying for that in lives lost, Krammer tweeted.

Other cities should be cautious about drawing conclusions from Manaus since, among other factors, it has a fairly young population. Just 6% of citizens there are over 60, according to Brazils Institute of Geography and Statistics. In New York City, that figure is around 16% and for the US overall, its 20%. Elderly people have a much, much higher risk of dying if they catch the virus than younger people.

The Brazilian figures do suggest just how many people in one place could get infected as the virus spreadsa concept known as the attack rate. Were two-thirds of the US population to be infected, the virus could easily claim more than 500,000 American lives, mostly among the elderly. Thats in line with early projections for worst-case scenarios and with recent events on the ground. The US today surpassed the grim record of more than 200,000 deaths attributed to the virus. Tens of thousands of people are still being infected daily.

In Brazil, Sabinos team was well placed to study the trajectory of the pandemic because the group was previously involved with checking blood donations for transmissible pathogens. Since Brazilian blood banks retain samples of donated blood, they were able to go back and look for coronavirus antibodies at several points in timea technique known as serial sampling.

Very few people have the capacity to do serial sampling, but in Brazil its mandatory to save samples, so we could, says Sabino. During the month of June, a high of 40% of new blood donors were positive for coronavirus antibodies, though the number has decreased since then as antibodies tend to wane over time.

Gabriela Gomes, a mathematical modeler at the University of Strathclyde, says the new report finds that twice as many people in Manaus had coronavirus antibodies as a previous study had suggested; there could be ongoing discussion among immunologists over which finding is more accurate. Sabino says her team used an improved antibody test developed by Abbott Laboratories for their analysis, which she says is more sensitive than the test used for the earlier study and misses fewer cases.

Going forward, the Amazonian capital could now help public health officials better understand how long immunity to covid-19 lasts and how often the virus reinfects people. The blood survey clearly showed that with time, peoples antibodies become harder to detect. That could mean individual immunity to the virus is not permanent. Manaus may act as a sentinel to determine the longevity of population immunity and frequency of reinfections, the authors wrote in their preprint.

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A city in Brazil where covid-19 ran amok may be a sentinel for the rest of the world - MIT Technology Review

Don't underestimate the power of walking. Despite it being low-impact and not that intense compared to other cardio workouts like running or HIIT, the benefits are far from ordinary.

"One of the biggest misconceptions about walking is that its not an effective weight loss tool and that it requires a lot of time and effort for minimal results," says Keri Peterson, MD. But the truth is walking can actually help you lose weight, among several other major life perks. And you can start reaping the benefits with just 30 minutes a day, she adds.

But walking isnt just good for weight loss alone. "Research finds that walking regularly reduces the risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease," Dr. Peterson says.

To get in on those gains, though, is going to take more than your typical, one foot in front of the other. "Many of us get into what I call a walking rut," says Michele Stanten, an ACE-certified fitness instructor, walking coach, and author of The Walking Solution. We get lulled into the same, everyday stride and don't realize that even a brisk walk around the block can do your health some good.

Even better? Try to walk on terrain with hills to vary the incline and pick up your pace on and off throughout your walk, Dr. Peterson says. This will add intensity to the workout, and you want a mix of high and low intensity and that'll help increase your cardio fitness.

If you're still on the fence about walking and how good it is for you, here are 10 benefits of walking that are backed by science and experts. The sooner you get to walking (in some arch-supported sneaks, of course!), the faster you can start enjoying these major life perks.

Feeling a little glum lately? Lace up your shoes and get moving. Walking for an hour a day can reduce your risk of depression, according to a 2019 JAMA Psychiatry study. Researchers actually saw a 26-percent decrease in odds of developing depression with increased physical activity, like walking. "Intentionally moving your body in more gentle ways throughout the daylike walking, stretching, taking the stairs, doing the dishescan still add up in good ways for your mood," study author Karmel Choi told Harvard Health.

The next time you're stuck in a mental rut for ideas, sign off social media and take a stroll around the block. Going for a walk can actually increase creativity levels, according to a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Researchers observed 176 students performing a series of tasks while seated versus while walking. And they found that walking could amp up a person's creative output by 60 (!!) percent.

Walking at a brisk pace that engages your arms (yes, arm pumping is good!), will recruit several upper and lower body muscles to help you burn calories, Dr. Peterson explains. "If you're able to vary your pace with more intense intervals of inclined or rapid walking to elevate your heart rate, you will also increase the calories burned," she says. You want to aim for 15,000 steps per day, seven days a week, if weight loss is one of your fitness goals, Hannah Davis, CSCS, previously told Women's Health.

According to a 2018 observational study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology analyzing over 90,000 participants, walking at least 40 minutes two or three times a week (average or brisk pace!) was associated with a reduced risk of developing heart failure in postmenopausal women.

Don't just rely on weighted exercises alone to build muscle, strengthen, and tone. As with running, you can build muscle while walking, especially if you weren't a big walker before or if you vary your speed, incline (so head for those hills!), or resistance (think: ankle weights) to up the intensity. . "Walking engages plenty of leg muscles," Peterson says. This includes those in your thighs, glutes, calves, and hammies.

If you're already on the cusp of diabetes and looking for way to reduce your chances of being diagnosed, go for a brisk walk. In a 2016 study out of Duke University, researchers compared participants with prediabetes as they walked briskly or jogged 13.8 miles a week for 6 months. Walking actually showed nearly six times greater improvement in the participant's glucose tolerance, compared to those who jogged.

Haven't caught enough Zzz's lately? Taking a walk might help you have a better night's sleep. In a small, observational study published in Sleep Health, research showed that adults who increased the time they spent walking during the day slept better at night. And those who averaged the most steps throughout the duration of the study, reported significantly better sleep than those who walked the least.

This one might come as a surprise, but walking can actually give your immune system an extra hand, which could prove to be useful this cold and flu season. Peterson nods to a 2011 study published in the British Journal Of Sports Medicine, which showed that among the 1,000 participants studied, those who walked at least 20 minutes a day, five days a week, had 43-percent fewer sick days than those who exercised once a week or less. And those who did get sick were sick over a shorter period of timeand their symptoms were milder.

Better still, more recent research supports walkings immunity boosting benefits. A 2018 study in BMC Public Health found that the risk of having one or more episodes of the common cold was reduced by 26 percent for adults who walked at least three times a week.

But speed matters. Brisk walkers can actually live longer, according to a 2019 Mayo Clinic Proceedings study. Researchers recorded self-reported walking speeds and body mass indexes (BMI) of over 400,000 participants and followed up with them for almost seven years. There were over 12,800 deaths during this time and they used this data to estimate the life expectancy of the cohort. They were able to determine that despite BMI, those who reported themselves as brisk walkers had increased longevity, compared to those who identified as slower walkers (8788 years expectancy versus 7285 years).

To top that, the study also showed that brisk-walking women (those who walked over 4 mph) could have a 15-year life expectancy boost over those who walked at less than 3 mph. And the increase for men could reach up to 20 years. So grab your partner and start walking together.

If you're a late-night snacker (*raises hand*), then you'll be particularly swayed by these walking benefits. A 15-minute brisk walk, instead of being sedentary, could reduce your craving for sugary snacks per a 2015 PLOS One study.

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10 Benefits Of Walking, Plus Health Perks And Tips From Experts - Women's Health