Allen University

SUMMARYThe corticospinal tract exerts its influence on movement through spinal neurons, which can be divided into types that exhibit distinct functions. However, it remains unknown whether these functional distinctions are reflected in the corticospinal inputs that different types of spinal neurons receive. Using rabies monosynaptic tracing from individual neuron types in the cervical cord and 3D histological reconstruction in mice, we discovered that different types receive inputs distinctly distributed across cortex, and aligned with cell type function. This included a distinct, sparse distribution of direct inputs from cortex onto motor neurons. Coupling rabies tracing with activity measurement during motor behavior revealed different interneuron types receive different input activity patterns, primarily due to the topographical distribution of the corticospinal neurons contacting them. Our results establish that different spinal neuron types get distinct anatomical and functional inputs from the cortex, and reveal functionally relevant homology to primate corticospinal organization.

This work aims mainly to study the controllability of pertussis infection in the presence of waning and natural booster of pertussis immunity and to study their impact on the overall dynamics and disease outcomes. Therefore, an SIVRWS (Susceptible-Infected-Vaccinated-Recovered-Waned-Susceptible) model for pertussis infection spread in a demographically stationary, homogeneous, and fully symmetric mixing population is introduced. The model has been mathematically analyzed, where both equilibrium and stability analyses have been established, and uniform persistence of the model has been shown. The conditions on model parameters that ensure effective control of the infection have been derived. The effects of the interplay between waning and boosting pertussis immunity by re-exposure to Bordetella pertussis and vaccination on the dynamics have been investigated. The analytical results have been numerically confirmed and explained. The analysis reveals that ignoring the natural booster of immunity overestimates the endemic prevalence of the infection. Moreover, ignoring the differential susceptibility between secondary and primary susceptible individuals overestimates the critical vaccination coverage required to eliminate the infection. Moreover, the shorter the period of immunity acquired by either vaccination or experiencing natural infection, the higher the reproduction number and the endemic prevalence of infection, and therefore, the higher the effort needed to eliminate the infection.

Antipoverty policies may hold promise as tools to improve health and reduce mortality rates among low-income Americans. We examined the health effects of the New York City Paycheck Plus randomized controlled trial. Paycheck Plus tests the impact of a potential fourfold increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-income Americans without dependent children. Starting in 2015, Paycheck Plus offered 5,968 study participants a credit of up to $2,000 at tax time (treatment) or the standard credit of about $500 (control). Health-related quality of life and other outcomes for a representative subset of these participants (n = 3,289) were compared to those of a control group thirty-two months after randomization. The intervention had a modest positive effect on employment and earnings, particularly among women. It had no effect on health-related quality of life for the overall sample, but women realized significant improvements.

This study reviewed the content of mobile applications (apps) providing Alzheimer's disease or related dementias (ADRD) information and assessed quality of the apps. Characteristics, content, and technical aspects of 36 apps in the U.S. Google Play Store and App Store were coded, and quality of the apps was evaluated using the Mobile Application Rating Scale. Caregiving (62.1%) and disease management (55.6%) content was frequently provided. Few apps had an app community (8.3%) or a reminder function (8.3%). Overall, quality of the apps was acceptable; apps by health care-related developers had higher quality scores than those by non-health care-related developers. This analysis showed that ADRD-related apps provide a range of content and have potential to benefit caregivers, individuals with ADRD, health care providers, and the general public. Collaboration of ADRD experts and technology experts is needed to provide evidence-based information using effective technical functions that make apps to meet users' needs.

We examined the impact of California's early Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act on the use of payday loans, a form of high-interest borrowing used by low- and middle-income Americans. Using a data set for the period 2009-13 (roughly twenty-four months before and twenty-four months after the 2011-12 Medicaid expansion) that covered the universe of payday loans from five large payday lenders with locations around the United States, we used a difference-in-differences research design to assess the effect of the expansion on payday borrowing, comparing trends in early-expansion counties in California to those in counties nationwide that did not expand early. The early Medicaid expansion was associated with an 11percent reduction in the number of loans taken out each month. It also reduced the number of unique borrowers each month and the amount of payday loan debt. We were unable to determine precisely how and for whom the expansion reduced payday borrowing, since to our knowledge, no data exist that directly link payday lending to insurance status. Nonetheless, our results suggest that Medicaid reduced the demand for high-interest loans and improved the financial health of American families.

In this note, we re-examine the work of Boschet al. from a network point of view. In particular, we employ an extended defintion of Ollivier-Ricci curvature that allows us to study graphs with both positive and negative weights. This is done by utilizing a dual formulation of the Wasserstein 1-metric, allowing us to extend the Earth Mover’s Distance to signed measures. The resulting curvature may be applied study the robustness properties of general networks modelled as weighted graphs. In this note, we apply the theory to elucidate the robustness and therefore possible mechanisms of resistance of estrogen receptor positive breast cancer under PI3K inhibition.