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Research

Play Active physical activity policy intervention and implementation support in early childhood education and care: results from a pragmatic cluster randomised trial

Policy interventions to increase physical activity in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services are effective in increasing physical activity among young children. However, a large proportion of ECEC services do not have nor implement a physical activity policy.

Research

Reliability of the Commonly Used and Newly-Developed Autism Measures

The aim of the present study was to compare scale and conditional reliability derived from item response theory analyses among the most commonly used, as well as several newly developed, observation, interview, and parent-report autism instruments.

Research

Nature Connection: Providing a Pathway from Personal to Planetary Health

The vast and growing challenges for human health and all life on Earth require urgent and deep structural changes to the way in which we live. Broken relationships with nature are at the core of both the modern health crisis and the erosion of planetary health. A declining connection to nature has been implicated in the exploitative attitudes that underpin the degradation of both physical and social environments and almost all aspects of personal physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Research

Maternal diet modulates the infant microbiome and intestinal Flt3L necessary for dendritic cell development and immunity to respiratory infection

Poor maternal diet during pregnancy is a risk factor for severe lower respiratory infections in the offspring, but the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we demonstrate that in mice a maternal low-fiber diet led to enhanced LRI severity in infants because of delayed plasmacytoid dendritic cell recruitment and perturbation of regulatory T cell expansion in the lungs.

Research

Clinical Trials in the Brain Tumour Population: Challenges and Strategies for the Future

This review identifies challenges and barriers to successful development of drugs in neuro-oncology trials at the preclinical, clinical and translational stages that we believe has contributed to poor outcomes for patients over the last 30 years.

Research

Surgery for rheumatic heart disease in the Northern Territory, Australia, 1997-2016: what have we gained?

Between 1964 and 1996, the 10-year survival of patients having valve replacement surgery for rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in the Northern Territory, Australia, was 68%. As medical care has evolved since then, this study aimed to determine whether there has been a corresponding improvement in survival.

Research

Individual-Level Risk and Resilience Factors Associated with Mental Health in Siblings of Individuals with Neurodevelopmental Conditions: A Network Analysis

Siblings of individuals with neurodevelopmental conditions (NDCs) are exposed to unique family environments and experience a range of psychosocial risk and resilience factors.

Research

Multi-ancestry genome-wide association analyses improve resolution of genes and pathways influencing lung function and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk

Lung-function impairment underlies chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and predicts mortality. In the largest multi-ancestry genome-wide association meta-analysis of lung function to date, comprising 580,869 participants, we identified 1,020 independent association signals implicating 559 genes supported by ≥2 criteria from a systematic variant-to-gene mapping framework. These genes were enriched in 29 pathways. Individual variants showed heterogeneity across ancestries, age and smoking groups, and collectively as a genetic risk score showed strong association with COPD across ancestry groups.

Research

Harnessing neuroplasticity to improve motor performance in infants with cerebral palsy: A study protocol for the GAME randomised controlled trial

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common physical disability of childhood worldwide. Historically the diagnosis was made between 12 and 24 months, meaning data about effective early interventions to improve motor outcomes are scant. In high-income countries, two in three children will walk. This evaluator-blinded randomised controlled trial will investigate the efficacy of an early and sustained Goals-Activity-Motor Enrichment approach to improve motor and cognitive skills in infants with suspected or confirmed CP.

Research

Identification of subgroups of children in the Australian Autism Biobank using latent class analysis

The identification of reproducible subtypes within autistic populations is a priority research area in the context of neurodevelopment, to pave the way for identification of biomarkers and targeted treatment recommendations. Few previous studies have considered medical comorbidity alongside behavioural, cognitive, and psychiatric data in subgrouping analyses.