The development and use of an 8-point, equal-appearing interval scale to describe penetration and aspiration events are described. Scores are determined primarily by the depth to which material passes in the airway and by whether or not material entering the airway is expelled. Intra- and interjudge reliability have been established. Clinical and scientific uses of the scale are discussed.

While swallowing pressures remain similar across the life span, overall pressure reserve declines with age. The implications are: (a) older people may be working harder to produce adequate swallowing pressures, and (b) age-related illness may put geriatric patients at higher risk for dysphagia, thus further complicating recovery.

Accidental loss of food or liquids into the airway while eating or drinking is perhaps the most clinically significant consequence of dysphagia. Although videofluoroscopic recording of swallowing is the current gold standard for identifying and determining remediation for aspiration, results are generally described in descriptive terms, thus limiting information and lending to errors of interpretation. We previously published an 8-point scale to quantitate selected aspects of penetration and aspiration conveying depth of airway invasion and whether or not material entering the airway is expelled (Rosenbek et al., 1996, Dysphagia 11:93-98). The present study defines the distribution of the Penetration-Aspiration Scale scores in healthy normal subjects of different genders and ages. The scale was also used with two groups of patients known to have significant dysphagia relative to stroke or head and neck cancer. Significant differences found among groups are discussed.

The present study had two purposes. The first was to provide variability data on objectively measured durational parameters of swallowing as accomplished by dysphagic patients secondary to stroke. The second was to examine the short-term effects of thermal application on these same durational measures. The study employed a cross-over design with each dysphagic stroke subject swallowing 10 times in both untreated and treated conditions. Two findings emerged: (1) swallowing durations in the 22 dysphagic stroke subjects were highly variable within and across subjects and have distributions that were nonnormal with nonhomogeneous variances; (2) thermal application reduced duration of stage transition (DST) and total swallow duration (TSD). Implications of these findings are discussed.

Gastrointestinal (GI) problems constitute an important comorbidity in many patients with autism. Multiple mutations in the neuroligin family of synaptic adhesion molecules are implicated in autism, however whether they are expressed and impact GI function via changes in the enteric nervous system is unknown. We report the GI symptoms of two brothers with autism and an R451C mutation in Nlgn3 encoding the synaptic adhesion protein, neuroligin‐3. We confirm the presence of an array of synaptic genes in the murine GI tract and investigate the impact of impaired synaptic protein expression in mice carrying the human neuroligin‐3 R451C missense mutation (NL3 R451C ). Assessing in vivo gut dysfunction, we report faster small intestinal transit in NL3 R451C compared to wild‐type mice. Using an ex vivo colonic motility assay, we show increased sensitivity to GABA A receptor modulation in NL3 R451C mice, a well‐established Central Nervous System (CNS) feature associated with this mutation. We further show increased numbers of small intestine myenteric neurons in NL3 R451C mice. Although we observed altered sensitivity to GABA A receptor modulators in the colon, there was no change in colonic neuronal numbers including the number of GABA‐immunoreactive myenteric neurons. We further identified altered fecal microbial communities in NL3 R451C mice. These results suggest that the R451C mutation affects small intestinal and colonic function and alter neuronal numbers in the small intestine as well as impact fecal microbes. Our findings identify a novel GI phenotype associated with the R451C mutation and highlight NL3 R451C mice as a useful preclinical model of GI dysfunction in autism. Autism Res 2019, 12: 1043–1056 . © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Lay Summary People with autism commonly experience gastrointestinal problems, however the cause is unknown. We report gut symptoms in patients with the autism‐associated R451C mutation encoding the neuroligin‐3 protein. We show that many of the genes implicated in autism are expressed in mouse gut. The neuroligin‐3 R451C mutation alters the enteric nervous system, causes gastrointestinal dysfunction, and disrupts gut microbe populations in mice. Gut dysfunction in autism could be due to mutations that affect neuronal communication.

Ecological theory suggests that habitat disturbance differentially influences distributions of habitat generalist and specialist species. While well-established for macroorganisms, this theory has rarely been explored for microorganisms. Here we tested these principles in permeable (sandy) sediments, ecosystems with much spatiotemporal variation in resource availability and physicochemical conditions. Microbial community composition and function were profiled in intertidal and subtidal sediments using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and metagenomics, yielding 135 metagenome-assembled genomes. Community composition and metabolic traits modestly varied with sediment depth and sampling date. Several taxa were highly abundant and prevalent in all samples, including within the orders Woeseiales and Flavobacteriales, and classified as habitat generalists; genome reconstructions indicate these taxa are highly metabolically flexible facultative anaerobes and adapt to resource variability by using different electron donors and acceptors. In contrast, obligately anaerobic taxa such as sulfate reducers and candidate lineage MBNT15 were less abundant overall and only thrived in more stable deeper sediments. We substantiated these findings by measuring three metabolic processes in these sediments; whereas the habitat generalist-associated processes of sulfide oxidation and fermentation occurred rapidly at all depths, the specialist-associated process of sulfate reduction was restricted to deeper sediments. A manipulative experiment also confirmed habitat generalists outcompete specialist taxa during simulated habitat disturbance. Together, these findings show metabolically flexible habitat generalists become dominant in highly dynamic environments, whereas metabolically constrained specialists are restricted to narrower niches. Thus, an ecological theory describing distribution patterns for macroorganisms likely extends to microorganisms. Such findings have broad ecological and biogeochemical ramifications.

Foetus sterility until parturition is under debate due to reports of microorganisms in the foetal environment and meconium. Sufficient controls to overcome sample contamination and provide direct evidence of microorganism viability in the pre-rectal gastrointestinal tract (GIT) have been lacking. We conducted molecular and culture-based analyses to investigate the presence of a microbiome in the foetal GIT of calves at 5, 6 and 7 months gestation, while controlling for contamination. The 5 components of the GIT (ruminal fluid, ruminal tissue, caecal fluid, caecal tissue and meconium) and amniotic fluid were found to contain a pioneer microbiome of distinct bacterial and archaeal communities. Bacterial and archaeal richness varied between GIT components. The dominant bacterial phyla in amniotic fluid differed to those in ruminal and caecal fluids and meconium. The lowest bacterial and archaeal abundances were associated with ruminal tissues. Viable bacteria unique to the ruminal fluids, which were not found in the controls from 5, 6 and 7 months gestation, were cultured, subcultured, sequenced and identified. We report that the foetal GIT is not sterile but is spatially colonised before birth by a pioneer microbiome.

Understanding how biotic and abiotic factors govern the assembly of rhizosphere-microbial communities is a long-standing goal in microbial ecology. In phytoremediation research, where plants are used to remediate heavy metal-contaminated soils, a deeper understanding of rhizosphere-microbial ecology is needed to fully exploit the potential of microbial-assisted phytoremediation. This study investigated whether Grime's competitor/stress-tolerator/ruderal (CSR) theory could be used to describe the impact of cadmium (Cd) and the presence of a Cd-accumulating plant, Carpobrotus rossii (Haw.) Schwantes, on the assembly of soil-bacterial communities using Illumina 16S rRNA profiling and the predictive metagenomic-profiling program, PICRUSt. Using predictions based on CSR theory, we hypothesized that Cd and the presence of a rhizosphere would affect community assembly. We predicted that the additional resource availability in the rhizosphere would enrich for competitive life strategists, while the presence of Cd would select for stress-tolerators. Traits identified as competitive followed CSR predictions, discriminating between rhizosphere and bulk-soil communities whilst stress-tolerance traits increased with Cd dose, but only in bulk-soil communities. These findings suggest that a bacterium's competitive attributes are critical to its ability to occupy and proliferate in a Cd-contaminated rhizosphere. Ruderal traits, which relate to community re-colonization potential, were synergistically decreased by the presence of the rhizosphere and Cd dose. Taken together this microcosm study suggests that the CSR theory is broadly applicable to microbial communities. Further work toward developing a simplified and robust strategy for microbial CSR classification will provide an ecologically meaningful framework to interpret community-level changes across a range of biomes.