Spatial skills are a strong predictor of achievement and pursuit of employment in STEM fields. However, some individuals experience anxiety arising from situations that require performing spatial tasks in an evaluative context, and as a result, may avoid spatial related mental activities and exposure to spatially relevant experiences. We sought to generate and validate an instrument capable of reliably measuring individual differences in experiences of spatial anxiety. We developed a spatial anxiety data-driven approach, wherein an exploratory factor analysis was conducted within the framework for different types of spatial skills outlined by Uttal et al. (2013; https:// doi.org/10.1037/a0028446). In Study 1, factor analyses revealed that items loaded on three factors that corresponded well with some of the most common spatial abilities that have been discussed in the broader literature: navigation, mental-manipulation and imagery. The three subscales were high in internal reliability and between-scale selectivity. Study 2 then established that external validity was good for the navigation and manipulation subscales: higher anxiety ratings uniquely predicted lower objective performance and lower attitude/ability ratings on established measures within the respective subdomains. External validity was acceptable for the imagery subscale, uniquely predicting lower attitude/ability ratings on an established spatial imagery questionnaire. The overall result is an empirically validated Spatial Anxiety scale for use with adults that also respects the multifaceted nature of spatial processing. This questionnaire has the potential to provide a more comprehensive screening tool for spatial anxiety, and is a step toward identifying potential barriers to STEM education.
Mother's milk provides building blocks necessary for infant development and growth postnatally. Minerals in milk are particularly important for infant skeletal development and may reflect maternal characteristics that are associated with the capacity to synthesize milk and sex-specific developmental priorities of the infant. Using a large sample of mother-infant dyads assigned to the outdoor breeding colony at the California National Primate Research Center (N=104), we investigated the relationship of milk calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) concentrations and the ratio of Ca/P to maternal and infant characteristics and to other milk variables. Ca and P are largely associated with casein micelles, and as expected, both Ca and P were positively correlated with protein concentrations in milk. Neither Ca nor P concentrations were associated with maternal parity. Mothers rearing daughters tended to produce higher mean Ca concentration in milk, and consequently a higher Ca/P ratio, than did mothers rearing sons, even though protein concentration was not elevated. These results suggest that the Ca/P ratio in rhesus milk may have been under separate selective pressure from protein content to facilitate the accelerated rate of skeletal calcification that has been observed in female Macaca mulatta infants.
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfated form, DHEA-S, peak in young adulthood and then decrease dramatically with age. However, there is extensive variation in this age-related hormone decline, suggesting an early decrement may be associated with lower vitality and be prognostic of poor health in old age. To determine whether DHEA-S and DHEA are correlated with physical indices of vitality, hormone levels were analyzed with respect to clinical health histories, physical functioning including grip strength, gait speed and repetitive standing, and self-reported chronic pain. The participants (N = 1,214) were 35-86 years of age from a nationally representative survey, Midlife Development in the United States. DHEA-S and DHEA below age-expected levels were associated with more chronic illness conditions and self-reported persistent pain and pain sensitivity upon manual palpation. Additionally, lower DHEA-S and DHEA correlated with poorer performance on tests of physical functioning by middle age suggesting a more precipitous decline is already indicative of reduced vigor and physical strength. When considered with respect to age- and gender-typical norms, larger decrements in DHEA-S and DHEA may be causally related to the loss of physical vitality. Conversely, when hormone secretion is sustained in older adults, it conveys reduced risk for the physical weakness and ailments that precede frailty.
Maternal recall of stress during pregnancy was associated with lower iron stores at birth. High cord blood ZnPP/H, reflecting low erythrocyte iron, was correlated with the likelihood of stage 1 iron deficiency at 1 year, when rapid growth can deplete storage iron in breastfed infants.
Objectives: Gut bacteria play an essential role during infancy and are strongly influenced by the mode of birth and feeding. A primate model was used to investigate the benefits of exposure to the mother or conversely the negative impact of early nursery rearing on microbial colonization. Method: Rectal swabs were obtained from rhesus macaques born vaginally and mother-reared (MR, N = 35) or delivered primarily via cesarean-section and human-reared (HR, N = 19). Microbiome composition was determined by rRNA gene amplicon sequencing at 2, 4, and 8 weeks of age and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) orthologs used to assess influences on functional metabolic pathways in the gut. Growth trajectories and incidence of diarrheic symptoms were evaluated. Results: The microbial community structure was different between MR and HR infants with respect to phylogeny and abundance at all 3 ages. When examining dominant phyla, HR infants had a higher Firmicutes-to-Bacteroidetes ratio. At the genus level, breast milk-dependent commensal taxa and adult-typical genera were more abundant in MR infants. This difference resulted in a corresponding shift in the predicted metabolic effects, specifically for microbial genes associated with metabolism and immune function. HR infants had faster growth trajectories (P < 0.001), but more diarrheic symptoms by 6 months postnatal (P = 0.008). Conclusions: MR infants acquired adult-typical microbiota more quickly, and had higher levels of several beneficial commensal taxa. Cesarean-delivered and formula-fed infants had different developmental trajectories of bacterial colonization. Establishment of the gut microbiome was associated with an infant's growth trajectory, and implicated in the subsequent vulnerability to Campylobacter infections associated with diarrhea in infant monkeys.
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