Integrative Physiology

Seminar to tackle misconceptions, highlight benefits of protein

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 22:11:03 +0000

Seminar to tackle misconceptions, highlight benefits of protein Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/18/2024 - 15:11

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder nutritionist Nicole Stob will discuss this vital macronutrient during the Jan. 29 Let’s ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Well seminar

Are you getting enough protein in your diet?

If you are like most Americans, you probably are—but then again, it’s understandable if you don’t know for sure, according to Nicole Stob, a nutritionist and assistant teaching professor in the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology.

“What I find is that a lot of students, or just people in general, think they are not consuming enough protein, when, in fact, if they are consuming meat, it’s actually pretty easy to get enough in your diet,” she says.

Stob will share insights regarding the benefits of protein, the types of protein, the ideal protein intake for special populations, and some misconceptions about protein during her upcoming Let’s ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Well seminar, “Protein: Is it for me? Pro tip: It’s for everyone.”

Nicole Stob, a nutritionist and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder assistant teaching professor of integrative physiology, will discuss the importance of protein during a Jan. 29 Let's ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Well presentation.

The seminar is scheduled as a Zoom presentation starting at 1 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 29. The event is free, but registration is required.

The Let’s ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Well speaker series are offered with ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ staff, students and interested community members in mind. The series is an offshoot of Be Well, a wellness initiative launched by the College of Arts and Sciences.

In her presentation, Stob says she will emphasize why protein is important, beyond simply building or maintaining muscle mass.

“I think the average person probably doesn’t realize how much protein does in the body,” she says. “Most people think about protein as it relates to muscles; building muscle mass or maintaining muscle mass, but that’s just one of the things it does in the body. It’s part of the immune system and it’s part of everything else in the body as well.”

Recommended daily protein

The recommended daily protein consumption for individuals depends upon several factors, including their age and how active they are, Stob says. For average American adults, who tend to be fairly sedentary, nutritionists recommended 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. For someone in that category who weighs 70 kilograms (roughly 154 pounds), for example, the suggested daily protein intake would be about 56 grams.

Given that one 3-ounce hamburger (about the size of a deck of playing cards) has about 25 grams of protein, Stob says it’s not hard for the average American to meet their recommended protein intake.

“Again, a lot of people who think they are not getting enough protein probably are. That’s probably the biggest misconception when it comes to protein.” she says. “Like with many things in nutrition, the answers aren’t always immediately clear because there’s just so much misinformation out there.”

When most people think of protein, Stob says, they tend to think of animal-based foods, such as meat, poultry and eggs, but there are plenty of plant-based foods offering healthy protein as well.

“Protein is found in both animal- and plant-based foods. The difference is that animal-based ones tend to be better absorbed. It gives you more amino acids, the building blocks of proteins,” Stob explains. “But you can get protein from plants, too. So, someone who is a vegetarian or vegan isn’t out of luck; it is possible to get enough protein and maintain a healthy diet.”

For those who opt for a vegetarian or vegan diet, Stob says she generally recommends they eat plant-based foods rich in protein, such as soy, peas, legumes and beans.

“I’m always telling the college kids, when they go to Chipotle, ‘Get extra beans on your bowl,’ because they have a good amount of protein and they’re a great source of fiber, too. They are a great food and really underrated, if you ask me.”

A whole-person approach

In her presentation, Stob says she will spend a bit of time talking about how certain groups require extra protein.

I think the average person probably doesn’t realize how much protein does in the body. Most people think about protein as it relates to muscles; building muscle mass or maintaining muscle mass, but that’s just one of the things it does in the body. It’s part of the immune system and it’s part of everything else in the body as well.”

“Because Boulder is such an active community, I will talk about how athletes need more protein,” she says. “I will also talk about aging and the importance of consuming enough protein as we age. The loss of muscle mass due to aging is a real thing, so it’s important to give your body the building blocks it needs, including protein, to stay healthy.”

In recent years, the paleo (aka “Cave Man”) and Atkins diets that emphasize eating proteins and eliminating carbohydrates have found favor with a certain portion of the population.

For her part, Stob says she emphasizes to her students that there is no one diet that is right for every individual.

“Some people do really well on something like the paleo diet. For others, without carbohydrates, they just can’t function; they don’t have enough energy,” she says. “Everyone is different.”

Stob adds that the choices people make about their nutrition need to done in the context of maintaining a good, healthy lifestyle.

“Taking a whole-person approach to health involves realizing we need to take a look at physical activity, nutrition and mental health,” she says. “Nutrition is such an integral part of wellness and a healthy lifestyle. If that gets ignored, it’s a problem.”

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder nutritionist Nicole Stob will discuss this vital macronutrient during the Jan. 29 Let’s ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Well seminar.

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Monique LeBourgeois, pioneering sleep researcher, dies

Anonymous — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 20:51:46 +0000

Monique LeBourgeois, pioneering sleep researcher, dies Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/04/2024 - 13:51

She helped answer questions about sleep disruptions in children, knowledge that has been helpful to parents

Monique LeBourgeois, associate professor of integrative physiology at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and an expert on sleep and circadian physiology in children, died on Nov. 28, 2023. She was 54.

LeBourgeois’ colleagues and friends were “devastated by her premature passing,” Marissa Ehringer, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder chair and professor of integrative physiology, said in a statement. “Monique was an exceptional scientist, teacher, mentor and person who will be greatly missed by many in our department and across campus.”

In addition to the personal loss, Ehringer noted the loss to science: “Her innovative research pioneered methods for assessing circadian rhythms and sleep measures in toddlers in the home environment.”

In 2018, for example, the LeBourgeois Sleep and Development Lab found that dimming the lights in the hours before bedtime can help children fall asleep. Specifically, the lab found, exposing preschoolers to an hour of bright light before bedtime almost completely shuts down their production of melatonin, a sleep-promoting hormone.

Further, exposure to bright light just before bedtime suppressed the production of melatonin for at least 50 minutes after lights were turned off. The study was the first to assess the hormonal impact nighttime light exposure can have on young children.

Monique was an exceptional scientist, teacher, mentor and person who will be greatly missed by many in our department and across campus. ... Her innovative research pioneered methods for assessing circadian rhythms and sleep measures in toddlers in the home environment.”

“Light is our brain clock's primary timekeeper,” LeBourgeois explained at the time. “We know younger individuals have larger pupils, and their lenses are more transparent. This heightened sensitivity to light may make them even more susceptible to dysregulation of sleep and the circadian clock.”

LeBourgeois and her colleagues also shed new light on the biological, neurological and environmental effects of light and electronic screen time on children.

In her research, LeBourgeois developed creative, groundbreaking techniques to rigorously conduct circadian and sleep research in the home environment, including performing salivary melatonin and high-density EEG/polysomnography assessments on toddlers.

LeBourgeois earned her BS in psychology in 1995 from the University of Southern Mississippi. Under the mentorship of John Harsh, a scientist who was investigating sleep disturbance in childhood, she later earned her MS in counseling psychology, MS in experimental psychology and PhD in experimental psychology, at the University of Southern Mississippi.

She did postdoctoral research at Brown Medical School, under the mentorship of Mary Carskadon, professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. There, LeBourgeois’ interest in measurement of sleep homeostasis and circadian rhythms blossomed, and she began to apply these concepts and measures to evaluate the developmental aspects of sleep behavior regulation in young children.

LeBourgeois had an “outstanding way of working with families and kids and maintaining their engagement throughout longitudinal studies,” Carskadon said.

In 2010, the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology recruited her to join the faculty as a tenure-track professor. She conducted longitudinal studies examining the development of Process C and Process S (two components of a sleep regulation concept) across early childhood, as well as researching the sensitivity of the developing circadian system to light exposure.

LeBourgeois was successful in securing external research funding and received continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health since 2001. She engaged in collaborative research, where she created opportunities, generously lent her expertise, and shared her passion for developmental sleep and circadian science, colleagues said.

Beyond her scientific accomplishments, LeBourgeois devoted much of her academic life to mentorship, always asking trainees, “What do you want your life to look like?”

She invested time, energy, trust and love into helping trainees to successfully achieve their goals. Recognizing the mentorship she received, she sought to sustain it by creating the Mary A. Carskadon Sleep and Circadian Summer Research Fellowship in 2017.

This annual fellowship provided enriching and unique opportunities for students to receive hands-on research experiences, form relationships with families in the community and develop basic professional skills. Many of her trainees have gone on to successful careers in professions including biomedical research, health care, science policy and industry.

She published nearly 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and had another 10 in progress or under review at the time of her death. Among the recognitions she received were the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Young Investigator Award in 2003, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine/Pfizer Scholars Grants in Sleep Medicine Award in 2005, and a College Scholar Award from ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder in 2022.

Last year, she was named a Health Research Accelerator Fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

Her pivotal research advanced our understanding of sleep and circadian physiology in early childhood.

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Your brain remembers what your fingers used to do

Anonymous — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 14:50:58 +0000

Your brain remembers what your fingers used to do Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/02/2023 - 08:50

Rachel Sauer

New ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder research demonstrates that, with practice, older adults can regain manual dexterity that may have seemed lost

Despite what ads for wrinkle cream would have us believe, there’s no magic reversal for aging. As the years pass, a certain amount of change is inevitable but not, it turns out, inexorable.

Fingers that feel less nimble in doing the normal tasks of life—buttoning a shirt, writing a list—are not doomed to stay that way, new research shows. It also demonstrates that, to some extent, age is just a number.

Researchers in the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology—first author Sajjad Daneshgar and Taylor Tvrdy, both PhD students, and Professor Roger Enoka—worked with more than two dozen study participants ages 60 to 83 to understand whether manual dexterity can improve with time.

Sajjad Daneshgar, a PhD student in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology, conducted research that found manual dexterity can improve with practice in older age.

Over six sessions, participants completed a pegboard exercise multiple times, and after the sixth session, data showed that the average time it took to complete the pegboard had decreased for all participants.

“We saw that in older adults, training can improve hand function to a level it was at in middle age,” Daneshgar says. “In a way, practicing helped them go back a decade or two. Most people believe that aging has many negative challenges in terms of function in the hands, but this study shows that what you achieved in the past can really help you as you get older.”

Simple puzzle, complex process

For the study, Daneshgar and his research colleagues recruited right-handed older adults with no history of neurological disease. After an initial familiarization session and evaluation session, participants completed a grooved pegboard test 25 times in each of six sessions.

The test required participants to fit small, keyhole-shaped metal pegs into 25 holes on a board as quickly as possible. The keyholes had different orientations on the board, so participants not only had to manipulate the pegs with their fingers to get them situated correctly, but then fit them correctly.

“At first glance, this looks like a simple puzzle or game, but it’s actually a very complex process,” Daneshgar says. “Your mind is controlling your physical function—and we’re doing a lot more studies on this physical function and what’s going on in the muscles, in the nervous system—and we’re seeing that cognition of the mind, how you learn things, is connected to the muscles and how dexterous you are.”

For example, one of the study participants was a 67-year-old woman who played the piano in her youth. While the average time to complete the pegboard was between 40 and 50 seconds, she could do it in 36—a time faster than some of the researchers could achieve.

“Even though she wasn’t regularly playing the piano during the study, that tells us that perhaps the memory your brain has of controlling those muscles still exists,” Daneshgar says. “Some activities that people do—playing a musical instrument, rock climbing—can be very beneficial for manual dexterity, and even if they’re done earlier in life, the brain may remember controlling those muscles.”

During the research, study participants fit small, keyhole-shaped metal pegs into 25 holes on a board as quickly as possible.

Practice leads to improvement

However, those who reach their later years without a longtime history of guitar-playing or bouldering shouldn’t despair. Wherever study participants started at baseline—even if their initial times for completing the pegboard were comparatively slow—each saw improvement in their times by the sixth session.

“Manual dexterity can be improved by the brain,” Daneshgar says. “It’s not just at the level of the fingers. Signals from the brain are controlling function and practicing aids learning. This study shows that, as far as function in the limbs and hands, learning in terms of muscle training never ends. Whatever level you’re at, you can go back to this training and practicing to see improvement in function.”

Another important outcome from the research is demonstrating that categorizing people’s performance based on chronological age during their later years may not be the best way to understand manual dexterity.

“Whatever you learned in the past is going to be a main player in performance in older age,” Daneshgar says. “Of course, not all people in older age are going to have the same performance, but people who had better practice in the past can, in older age, practice and get to a place where they perform better than middle-age adults.

“But we also showed that practice helps everybody. It doesn’t matter if you have particular experience earlier in life, practice helps all people to do better with no exception.”

Manual dexterity is one of the National Institutes of Health Toolbox biomarkers of neurological health and motor function across the span of life. Daneshgar notes that the research demonstrates manual dexterity is not something that must inevitably worsen over time. With practice, the brain can remember what the fingers once did.

“Manual dexterity relates to our ability to button a shirt or hold a pen,” Daneshgar says. “These are the activities of daily life that we want to be able to do throughout our lives, and they’re abilities that we don’t need to lose.”

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New ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder research demonstrates that, with practice, older adults can regain manual dexterity that may have seemed lost.

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Could focused breathing be a key to better health?

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 19:52:30 +0000

Could focused breathing be a key to better health? Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/17/2023 - 13:52

Pam Moore

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder researchers Daniel Craighead, Douglas Seals and their team are studying the effects of a specialized breathing exercise on older adults’ blood pressure, brain health, cognition and fitness

Although the health benefits of exercise are well known, less than 40% of older and midlife Americans meet recommended aerobic activity guidelines. But what if you could improve your health without getting out of your chair—and it took only 10 minutes a day?

High-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training (IMST) may be the ticket, according to recently published research from the Integrative Physiology of Aging Laboratory, which is led by ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Distinguished Professor Douglas Seals, in the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology.

Researchers found that participants who engaged in IMST, a type of breathing exercise designed to strengthen the diaphragm and accessory breathing muscles, appeared to show improvements across multiple health measures, including blood pressure, exercise tolerance, cognition and the functioning of blood vessels in the brain.

How the study was done

IMST is a form of respiratory muscle training that lets you inhale against high resistance by breathing through a device that vaguely resembles a vacuum attachment. “The breath is rapid and intense and feels a bit like sucking up a thick milkshake,” says Daniel Craighhead, an assistant research professor of integrative physiology and the study’s lead investigator.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder researcher Daniel Craighead and his colleagues found that high-resistance inspiratory muscle strength training may support improvements in multiple health measures, including blood pressure.

All subjects in the randomized, double-blind study were generally healthy men and postmenopausal women, at least 50 years old, classified as having elevated blood pressure (systolic blood pressure of at least 120 mmHg) and on average met minimum physical activity guidelines.

The experimental group performed high-resistance IMST, while the control group used a sham, low-resistance device. Both groups performed a specific protocol for five to 10 minutes per day, six days per week, for six weeks.

While the control group saw no significant health changes, the experimental group showed improvements in blood pressure, aerobic fitness, cognitive abilities and brain-blood-vessel health.

Potential health benefits

On average, subjects’ systolic blood pressure decreased by nine points within six weeks, says Craighead. Given that high blood pressure is a risk factor for many health issues, including cardiac arrest, stroke, dementia and cancer, these preliminary findings justify more research, which Craighead is now spearheading.

Subjects also increased their capacity for aerobic exercise, a metric associated with positive health outcomes including longevity, quality of life and lower risks of stroke, heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

At the beginning and the end of the study, subjects were asked to walk on a treadmill with a gradually increasing incline until they could no longer tolerate the activity. Although their VO2 max, or their maximum ability to consume oxygen, didn’t change, subjects walked an average of 12% longer on the second trial—a significant improvement.

There were “really strong improvements” in the quality of the blood vessels in subjects’ brains as well. “Starting in midlife, the health of our brain blood vessels starts to decline. How rapidly and intensely that happens can impact our future risk for mild cognitive impairment and dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease,” says Craighead.

And while it’s too soon to say definitively that IMST could delay or prevent the onset of dementia, “it’s at least a promising early finding,” he says.

Meanwhile, researchers observed significant improvements in subjects’ executive functioning, or the ability to plan ahead, focus attention and switch between multiple tasks. And “executive function is one of the areas [of cognitive function] that declines most rapidly with dementia,” says Craighead.

So what does this mean?

If you’re tempted to trade your exercise routine for IMST, Craighead has advice: Don’t. “While it seems to have similar effects to exercise when it comes to blood pressure and other health measures, unfortunately we didn’t see changes in things like cholesterol levels, blood sugar or bone density—all things we know exercise improves.”

That said, if you’re not currently exercising, IMST is a low-impact, time-efficient way to improve your health that has no known serious side effects. While some subjects initially reported neck strain and lightheadedness, those issues resolved and were not significant enough to cause anyone to quit the study, says Craighead. However, he and his research colleagues do recommend that everyone check with their physician before starting IMST because it might not be 100% safe for everyone.

This technique can be helpful for those with health conditions that make it impossible to meet the recommended physical activity guidelines, Craighead suggests.

Those exercising at higher levels may benefit from IMST, too. “I think the data is strong enough to say, if you’re a serious athlete, you might as well add it. And if you don’t benefit from it, you’re likely not doing any harm,” says Craighead. “Say you’re a runner. It’s not going to fatigue your legs or increase your risk of injury, and it’s time efficient.”

While the data suggest that IMST might improve health, cognition and athletic performance, Craighead isn’t calling it a magic bullet. It’s too soon to make any sweeping statements about the IMST’s potential, according to Craighead. Still, he says, “The initial results are really exciting.”

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Vast majority of students were up for the mask

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 18:54:27 +0000

Vast majority of students were up for the mask Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/23/2023 - 11:54

Doug McPherson

Study finds those on ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and CSU campuses showed high levels of mask use and positive attitudes about masks during pandemic

The vast majority of students at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s top universities and 52 other schools nationwide wore face masks properly in 2021, indicating that students understood masks’ effectiveness, that students knew masking helped them take more classes in person, and that students care about the health of others, researchers have found.

A new study from the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ State University (CSU) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that more than 90% of people on ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and CSU campuses wore masks correctly amid the pandemic during spring 2021.The study, titled, "High rates of observed face mask use at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ universities align with students’ opinions about masking and support the safety and viability of in-person higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic," was published this month by BMC Public Health, a peer-reviewed journal focused on public health.

Specifically, researchers found that 91.7%, 93.4%, and 90.8% of people observed at indoor locations on campuses wore masks correctly at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, CSU and across 52 other schoolsnationally, respectively. Researchers also found that 92.9% of respondents at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and 89.8% at CSU believed that wearing masks can protect the health of others.

Top of page: Music students practiced safe COVID-safe protocols in Don McKinnney’s wind symphony class by wearing masks with slits cut through at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder College of Music. The implemented protocols for the performance students were being refined and studied by Shelly Miller, a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder mechanical engineering professor who specializes in indoor air quality and aerosol and particulate transmission, and her team of researchers. Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ. Above: (Left) Tanya Alderete is an assistant professor focused on the relationships between obesity, metabolic disease, enivironmental exposures, and the gut microbiome. (Center) Molly Gutilla, assistant professor, is an expert in public health research and practice. (Right) Kevin Clark, an M.S. graduate student, studies health, healthcare, sleep, tech, wearables and sensors.

Both ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ universities saw their largest surges in COVID-19 cases in the fall of 2020, with markedly lower-case counts during the mask observation window of eight weeks in the spring of 2021.

“The study supports the idea that masks are an effective, low-cost measure to reduce disease transmission and establishes masking as a viable way to reduce respiratory disease transmission on college campuses,” says Tanya Alderete, assistant professor in the Department of Integrative Physiology at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and a principal investigator of the project.

“We also learned that students strongly prefer in-person education to remote, and masking behaviors were supportive of this preference.”

Molly Gutilla, a faculty member at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ School of Public Health at CSU and a principal investigator, agrees with Alderete and adds, “The majority of students care about the health of their community, and they were willing to practice and promote actions to protect campus health.”

Gutilla adds, “Operating a university during the pandemic emphasized something we’ve always known, yet was brought to the forefront. That is, that our campus communities must be safe and healthy to meet our mission of teaching, learning and conducting research. Using data to make decisions was essential to keeping campuses open and functioning as best as possible during the pandemic.”

Alderete, who holds an adjunct faculty position at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ School of Public Health, says when she learned Gutilla was a principal investigator at CSU, they decided to partner in the study. “As a result, we were able to identify complementary data sources that were available on both campuses, including student surveys and COVID testing data,” Alderete says.

The study was part of the CDC’s effort to measure mask use on U.S. campuses, called the mask adherence and surveillance at colleges and universities project (MASŷ��ڱ��ƵP!). From Feb. 15 through April 11, 2021, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder made 2,808 observations, CSU had 3,225 observations, andat the 52 other institutes of higher education there were 100,353 observations spanning 21 states and the District of Columbia.

We were able to see that our findings were consistent across two campuses—with generally similar rates of mask use and student belief in masking to reduce COVID transmission.”

Kevin Clark, a graduate research assistant in the Department of Integrative Physiology and lead author of the study, says the collaboration between ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and CSU “strengthened the generalizability” of the findings on both campuses.

“Instead of presenting either of our campuses as an individual location where we observed mask use and reported student opinions, we were able to see that our findings were consistent across two campuses—with generally similar rates of mask use and student belief in masking to reduce COVID transmission,” Clark says.

He also praised the leadership of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s COVID Scientific Committee for its help in conducting surveys to gather student opinions and in incorporating testing data into the project.

“I gained a tremendous appreciation for the number of different people and resources at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and CSU that were dedicated to monitoring COVID and creating policies and practices for keeping campuses safe,” Clark says.

“I was very impressed by the scale and accuracy of the saliva-based surveillance testing program that ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder had developed and deployed, running hundreds of thousands of surveillance tests. This technology was promptly shared with CSU to use on their campus. We also were surprised to learn how similar masking behaviors and opinions were between ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ and CSU.”

Study finds those on ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and CSU campuses showed high levels of mask use and positive attitudes about masks during pandemic.

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‘Sleep Fairies’ complete a successful summer fellowship

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 23:25:12 +0000

‘Sleep Fairies’ complete a successful summer fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/16/2022 - 16:25

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s Sleep and Development Lab’s summer fellowship provides hands-on training for undergrads while furthering research for the university

By Bradley Worrell

This past summer, 21 University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder undergraduate students earned what could only be described as an unusual job title: Sleep Fairy.

It’s a designation the students received during the intensive 15-week Mary A. Carskadon (MAC) Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Summer Fellowship, which is sponsored by ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s Sleep and Development Lab with funding from the National Institutes of Health and Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program student grants.

The fellowship had undergraduates working in small teams in the homes of children ages 3 through 5, conducting research on sleep and the circadian clock in early childhood development. That research bonded the undergraduates with their young subjects, who easily adopt the playful nickname for the researchers, according to Monique LeBourgeois, director of the Sleep and Development Lab and an associate professor of integrative physiology.

“The kids love calling us sleep fairies,” she says, describing it as a term of affection used by the child participants and their parents for the undergraduate researchers, who would spend days in the children’s homes as part of the data-collection process.

At the top of the page: Grad student Sachi Wong (left) and Lauren Hartstein, a postdoctoral researcher with the Sleep and Development Lab, are pictured in the home of two young children acting as test subjects. Above: Participants in the 15-week Mary A. Carskadon (MAC) Sleep and Circadian Rhythms Summer Fellowship are pictured here. Pictured from left to right are: (back row) Grace Zinser, Shelby Stowe, Jamie Siebring, Karolina Jasiak, Brandon Hiraki, Natalie Berrum-Ramirez, Morgan Matous, Saphie Potts, Wendoleen Acevedo and Aiden Kboudi; (middle row) Lauren Hartstein, Katie Wright, Jessica Bourgan, Jacy Dille, Sydney Pemberton, Sarah Powell, Taylor Dutton, Maddie Thorud and Trace Jablin; (front row) Jonah Wilson, Kevin Carter, Alexis Jaggi, Sophie Choubai, Sydney Mintalar, Leen Abbas and Sachi Wong (photo courtesy of Sleep and Development Lab).

But while the interactions between the students and child participants were deliberately lighthearted, with the student researchers making games out of their data collection efforts to entice the cooperation of their young subjects, LeBourgeois says the experience offers valuable, hands-on, real-world research experience for the undergraduate students.

Sophie Choubai, who participated in the summer fellowship after finishing her undergraduate degree in May, describes the experience as invaluable as she pursues her master’s degree. Her career goal is to become a research professor.

“My time in the summer fellowship was invaluable,” she says. “Starting off with no research experience under my belt, I was able to gain hands-on experience with data collection in the field, which later inspired me to pursue the graduate program. … Learning how to conduct research, as well as gaining a greater understanding of the physiology and mechanisms behind sleep and circadian rhythms, were instrumental in my decision to further pursue academia and helped me to expand my studies in integrative physiology.”

Maddie Thorud, who is working toward a career as a physician’s assistant, describes her experience in the summer fellowship in similar terms.

“The fellowship, for me, was one of my first health care research, science-related experiences during my time as a ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ student,” she says. “There were a lot of close experiences dealing with these kids and their families in their homes, which is something that is definitely needed in a health-care setting. So, for me, not only did it show me that I want to do something in the future, where I’m working with patients and helping, but I also got to see what real research was like.”

The study involved creating dim light conditions within a child’s home for three days. On the first and third evening of the in-home assessment, the child remained in dim light and on the second morning the child was exposed to light for one hour starting at their usual waketime. Saliva samples were taken frequently during both evenings and in the morning to measure the hormone melatonin.

The research work often proved challenging, according to Thorud.

“We (student researchers) are working together as a team to collect these challenging study samples, and we ask a lot of the kids that we’re collecting data from,” she says. “They are in the dark, they are a bit sleep restricted, and they have to chew on these dry cotton swabs. But our team was really creative and made it fun for the kids.”

“And these are children ages 3 to 5 years old. They are little guys, and we are asking them to do things that, even for adults, are very challenging,” adds LeBourgeois.

Each team was assigned to work certain days of the week—not always Monday through Friday, but often Saturday and Sunday—in research protocols that involve unusual schedules (early shifts may start at 5 a.m. and late shifts may end at midnight).

My time in the summer fellowship was invaluable.

Because of the varied hours of the sleep observation project, and because of other time demands of the intensive 15-week fellowship, LeBourgeois says ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder student researchers were not allowed to work outside jobs or to take other classes.

In return for their efforts, student researchers receive a summer stipend of $4,000.

Fellowship bigger and better than ever

After a two-year hiatus because of COVID-19, this past summer marked the successful return of the summer fellowship.

LeBourgeois says re-starting the fellowship after a hiatus took some effort, for which she credits her core team, which includes newly minted grad students Leen Abbas and Choubai, PhD student Sachi Wong, lab manager Jonah Wilson, plus Lauren Hartstein, a postdoctoral researcher with the Sleep and Development Lab.

The fellowship has grown over its short, three-year existence, from 10 fellowship participants in its first year, to 15 in its second year, to 21 this past summer, thanks in part to additional grant funding, according to LeBourgeois. In its first year, more than 100 students applied for the fellowship, and interest in the fellowship has only grown since then, she adds.

This photo from 2019 shows members of the Sleep and Development Lab core team. Pictured here from left to right are: (back row) Georgia Reis, Monique LeBourgeois, Taylor Teske, Allie Coy and Dan Lee; (middle row) Trace Jablin, Annie Waddle and Liam Canty; (front row) Lauren Hartstein, Elise Shalowitz, Sachi Wong and Jonah Wilson (photo courtesy of Sleep and Development Lab).

During this past summer’s fellowship, it was possible to conduct two sleep research projects, compared to one in each of the prior fellowships thanks to additional funding and student researchers, LeBourgeois says.

While the data collected with the children on the effects of light on the biological clock are an important part of the fellowship, that work represents just a portion of the entire summer.

Hartstein, who oversaw the day-to-day lab operations of the summer fellowship, says the undergraduates had additional responsibilities that include participating in community events to recruit children and families for future research studies and attending weekly meetings during the fellowship to discuss how the research is progressing and to review relevant scientific articles.

Additionally, at the end of the summer fellowship, the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder student researchers attend a retreat at YMCA of the Rockies in Granby, Colo., where they presented papers on what they learned from their research and had the opportunity to interact with faculty, scientific writers and junior investigators who could talk about their experiences as researchers as well as their career paths, which is always of interest to the student researchers, according to LeBourgeois.

“I always say that it’s part research conference and a little bit of summer camp, because it’s also a fun bonding experience,” Hartstein says. “It’s just a nice way for everybody in the team to come together at the end of the fellowship.”

At the retreat, some of the presentations given by the students have been so good that invited researchers and others couldn’t believe they were made by undergraduates, LeBourgeois says.

Thorud says she was impressed by the amount of personal development that happened among her fellow undergraduates during the 15-week fellowship this past summer.

“One of the most profound changes (relates to) accountability. They are freshmen, sophomores or juniors in college, and for a lot of them, this might be their first real job,” she says. “This is an opportunity for them to dip their toes into research and academia, but it’s also a job at the end of the day, where we need for them to be certain places on time and show responsibility. Even over the course of 15 weeks of the fellowship, so many of them progressed in the areas of responsibility and accountability.”

LeBourgeois concurs with that assessment.

“For me, it’s just a remarkable process to see these undergrads develop from the start of the fellowship to the end,” she says. “I’ve had many students tell me this was one of the most important experiences of their undergraduate career and that they gained many new insights both professionally and personally because of it.”

If you are interested in gifting funds to support undergraduate research experiences at the Sleep and Development Lab at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, visit their website and click on Make a Donation.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s Sleep and Development Lab’s summer fellowship provides hands-on training for undergrads while furthering research for the university.

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College names five teaching professors of distinction

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 16:33:18 +0000

College names five teaching professors of distinction Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/16/2022 - 10:33

These faculty are being recognized for their outstanding records in teaching, service and leadership

Five non-tenure-track faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder have been named teaching professors of distinction, the college has announced.

These teaching professors, who range from historians to biologists, are being recognized with the college’s highest honor for their exemplary teaching and participation in the university community. They were chosen by their peers and confirmed by previous teaching professors of distinction.

This year’s winners are:

Christy Fillman, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology (MCDB)
Pamela Harvey, MCDB
Ruth Heisler, integrative physiology
John Keller, astrophysical and planetary sciences and Fiske Planetarium
David Paradis, history

“Professors Fillman, Harvey, Heisler, Keller and Paradis all exemplify faculty who are not only devoted to their students and learning, but who are constantly exploring new ways to reach their students,” said Bud Coleman, the college’s associate dean of faculty affairs and initiatives.

“The College of Arts and Sciences is proud of our faculty, and we want to reward and acknowledge excellence in Teaching. ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder is a Tier 1 Research Institution that also embraces the ideal of being Tier 1 in Teaching.”

Fillman received her PhD in MCDB at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, where her research focused on proteins involved in mRNA degradation. She began teaching in MCDB in fall 2007 and is a member of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s SEA-PHAGES Program, which aims to get undergraduates interested in the biological sciences through hands-on learning opportunities.

Fillman teaches the Phage Genomics Lab, which provides students with an authentic research experience early in their college careers and the Introduction to Genetics course, which is required of all MCDB majors. To enhance student understanding of core concepts in genetics, she has developed and implemented many active-learning and group problem-solving activities.

As the departmental coordinator for Learning Assistant Program since 2017, she helps faculty implement peer academic support in large introductory courses furthering the academic goals of the MCDB department to incorporate active learning as an essential element in the curriculum.

Harvey joined the MCDB faculty in 2014. She completed a PhD in Neuroscience at Tufts University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2009 before doing a postdoc with Leslie Leinwand at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder. Since joining the faculty, she has co-developed and teaches several lower- and upper-division course-based undergraduate research experiences (ŷ��ڱ��ƵREs) as well as a course that provides pedagogical training to undergraduate teaching assistants in these ŷ��ڱ��ƵREs.

In addition to teaching, Harvey oversees an undergraduate research lab where students engage in year-long independent study projects that focus on understanding the genetic basis of complex adult-onset neurological diseases.

Heisler is a teaching professor of distinction in the Department of Integrative Physiology with a strong interest in science education and promoting student success. Since joining the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder faculty in 1996, Heisler has been actively involved in teaching and designing curricula for a variety of courses and served as the department’s associate chair of undergraduate affairs from 2017 to 2021.

Her greatest contributions were steering the department through the many challenges of offering a complete curriculum during COVID semesters that supported both faculty and student needs; and undertaking a multi-year effort to update the integrative physiology curriculum to better support the interests of the growing number of majors and provide a more streamlined path to graduation.

Heisler has received the BFA Faculty Recognition Award and ASSETT Award of Excellence as an Outstanding Teacher for Technology. She is co-author of several educational books, manuals and programs. In her free time, she enjoys traveling with anyone who will join, good food with friends, and just hanging out with her husband and two teenage sons.

Keller is the director of Fiske Planetarium and a teaching professor of distinction in astrophysical and planetary sciences. Keller is a planetary scientist with research interests in occultations, astronomy education and teacher preparation. He is PI and Co-PI for multiple NASA and National Science Foundation-funded projects to get people interested and involved in space science.

Previously, Keller was professor emeritus from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he directed the Center for Engineering, Science, and Mathematics Education and ran the STEM Teacher and Researcher (STAR) Program, which provides paid summer research experiences at national labs for aspiring science and math teachers.

After obtaining a BS in Biology and an MA in Education from Stanford University, Keller taught high school science in the Bay Area for five years. He completed an MS in Astrophysics from the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ and his PhD in Planetary Science at the University of Arizona where he worked for the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission.

Born into a large family in Kentucky, Paradis had the opportunity to work in a variety of environments, including a pig farm, a monastery, a salt factory and various businesses as a software engineer. He was grateful for the opportunities that his family afforded him and felt a strong urge to give back at a young age.

By the age of 30, he decided to leave the software industry and to embrace a career in higher education. Teaching was always more than a job for him. It satisfied something deep inside him, Paradis said, and for that opportunity, he’s grateful to his family, colleagues, mentors and students.

These faculty are being recognized for their outstanding records in teaching, service and leadership.

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How pollution changes a baby’s gut, and why it matters

Anonymous — Fri, 02 Sep 2022 14:00:05 +0000

How pollution changes a baby’s gut, and why it matters Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/02/2022 - 08:00

A first-of-its kind study by ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder researchers finds that exposure to air pollution in infancy impacts a child's developing gut microbiome in ways that boost risk of allergies, obesity and diabetes and may influence brain development.

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Major gift to enhance diversity of life-science researchers

Anonymous — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 21:56:40 +0000

Major gift to enhance diversity of life-science researchers Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/17/2022 - 15:56

With support from the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, six life-science scholars gain support during their first two years of PhD work, beginning this fall

Six life science scholars will embark on their PhD studies and contribute their unique cultural experiences to the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus this fall through a nearly $1.9 million gift to the university from the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, the foundation has announced.

The foundation is a California-based organization whose mission is “to support science-based research striving for the advancement of a healthy and sustainable future for humans.”

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s incoming Curci Scholars, five of whom are women and five of whom are international students, will enter graduate programs in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, biochemistry, psychology and neuroscience or integrative physiology.

Six incoming life-science scholars are, top row, from left: Angie Liu, Emily Prevost, Emily Yeo; bottom row: Hope Townsend, Joshiah Peters, Sophie Breunig.

The gift will ultimately support 12 graduate students through the first two years of their PhD education “with the hope of increasing the percentages of gender diversity and international students at the university pursuing a PhD in the life sciences,” according to the gift agreement.

Through the gift, the university aims to award two-thirds of the scholarships to international students and half to increase gender diversity in the life sciences. The second cohort of six Curci Scholars will be awarded beginning in 2023.

“We are deeply grateful for the generosity and foresight of the Curci Foundation. It is an honor and a joy to partner with them to significantly expand the opportunities for women and international students to earn a doctoral degree in life sciences at a top-tier research institution,” said James W.C. White, acting dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

“Our graduate research programs in the life sciences are excellent and perform critically important work that makes life better for all of us. The Curci Scholarship will enhance the diversity, international prominence and human impact of these programs.”

Lee Niswander, professor and chair of the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, concurred, saying that the university’s life-science departments are “thrilled” to partner with the Curci Foundation to enrich and expand the university’s graduate programs.

She added: “The Curci scholarship has already fundamentally enhanced our recruitment of exceptional international and gender diverse scholars, and our world-known research laboratories will provide rich experiences for these scholars in cutting-edge life science research. We are extremely grateful to the Curci Foundation for their generous support.”

The foundation’s gift to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder is one of six made to elite institutions in the United States, the others being the University of Utah, the University of California, Berkeley, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco and the University of Washington.

Header image courtesy of Institute of Cognitive Science’s Intermountain Neuroimaging Consortium

With support from the Shurl and Kay Curci Foundation, six life-science scholars gain support during their first two years of PhD work, beginning this fall.

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A trailblazer in the science of slumber

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Jun 2022 21:59:03 +0000

A trailblazer in the science of slumber Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/03/2022 - 15:59

Lisa Marshall

Integrative physiology Professor Ken Wright is breaking new ground in the burgeoning field of sleep research and bringing his students along for the ride, all of which has won him the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award

Ken Wright was a research fellow studying sleep and circadian rhythm at Harvard Medical School in the late ‘90s when he read a paper that set his career on a groundbreaking new path.

“At the time, people assumed that sleep was strictly by the brain and for the brain,” recalls Wright, now a professor of distinction in the Department of Integrative Physiology at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder.

The seminal paper, by University of Chicago Professor Eve Van Cauter, suggested for the first time that sleep disruption could do far more than make us feel groggy and confused: It could also disrupt hormones, potentially fueling diseases like obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Wright saw an opening.

In June, the Sleep Research Society will honor Integrative physiology Professor Ken Wright for his work as both a mentor to university students and a messenger to the public about the power of sleep.

“I could see that this field was about to explode,” he recalls.

Two decades later, Wright has worked with undergraduate and graduate students to publish more than 140 papers elucidating how sleep, and lack thereof, affect everything from our appetite to how we metabolize fat and sugar to which microorganisms live inside our guts. His myriad human studies, conducted in the Sleep and Chronobiology Lab on campus, have shed light on what people can and shouldn’t do to try to normalize their internal body clock.

And his team’s discoveries are now paving the way toward a future in which, along with having their blood tested for cholesterol levels at the doctor’s office, patients might also get a test assessing whether they are natural night owls or morning larks and personalized prescriptions for how to better time their lives.

In June, the Sleep Research Society will honor Wright with its Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award for excellence in education, acknowledging his work as both a mentor to university students and a messenger to the public about the power of sleep.

“I don’t know anyone who has as much on his plate as he does, but he still makes time to mentor his students and really thrives on seeing them succeed,” said Cammie Mitchell (IPHY ’21) who did her undergraduate honors thesis in Wright’s lab and intends to go to medical school.

The risk of all-nighters and the power of camping

For his research, Wright collaborates with colleagues at the Anschutz Medical campus for a host of unusual experiments in which subjects’ meals, light exposure, activity and sleep patterns are tightly controlled – sometimes for several days.

One study, published in PNAS in 2018, showed that pulling an all-nighter just once—as we do when we work a night shift, fly internationally or stay up studying—can disrupt levels and time- of-day patterns of more than 100 proteins in the blood, including those that influence blood sugar, energy metabolism and immune function.

Another found that burning the candle all week and trying to “catch up on sleep” on the weekend not only doesn’t work well, but could actually worsen metabolic health in some ways.

The good news, particularly for Coloradans with access to great wilderness locales: Wright’s research shows that one easy way to recalibrate an off-kilter body clock, or circadian rhythm, is to go camping. It found that volunteers who hit the woods for a week in the summer were exposed to far more light by day and far less light by night than usual. When they returned to civilization, their internal clocks had shifted, with the sleep promoting hormone melatonin kicking in nearly two hours earlier at night and waning earlier in the morning, prompting them to wake up earlier and more refreshed.

“Living in our modern environments can significantly delay our circadian timing, and late circadian timing is associated with many health consequences,” Wright said. “But our research showed as little as a weekend camping trip can reset it.”

Wright notes that people’s natural circadian rhythm, or “chronotype” varies, with some naturally rising earlier and going to sleep earlier, while others tend to stay up later, and others falling somewhere in between. Emerging research suggests that timing our activity, meals and even medications around these differing ebbs and flows could lead to better health. But unlike with cholesterol and hormones, there is no blood test for chronotype yet.

Ken Wright receiving his award from at the SLEEP 2022 Conference.

He and his students are working on that too.

“If we want to be able to fix the timing of a person’s circadian rhythm, we need to know what that timing is,” said Wright. “Right now, we do not have an easy way to do that, but our research shows it can be done.”

Paying it forward

Christopher Depner worked with Wright on numerous studies as a postdoctoral fellow at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder and credits him with inspiring him to chart a similar career course.

He’s now an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the University of Utah, has his own lab and is “paying it forward” with his own students.

“The research environment Ken has created there provides truly unique opportunities to gain hands-on experience conducting large-scale clinical research,” said Depner. “There are truly only a few places in the world where students have such an opportunity.”

In addition to educating his students, Wright also makes a point of speaking publicly and with media regularly about what he and his colleagues are learning.

“We know now that insufficient sleep contributes to all the major health problems, from obesity and Type 2 diabetes to heart disease, cancer and neurodegenerative disorders. But the reality is, not everyone is going to read our papers,” he says. “I think we have a responsibility as scientists to help educate the public about what we are finding out.”

Wright will receive his award at the SLEEP 2022 Conference June 4 to 8 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Professor Ken Wright is breaking new ground in the burgeoning field of sleep research and bringing his students along for the ride. He has won the Mary A. Carskadon Outstanding Educator Award.

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