Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2019View details →

Innovation and Active Aging in digital environment dataset

Dataset corresponding to a 785 cases from Madrid province, a representative sample of people from 65 to 80 years old made by telephone survey during March, 2019. Please, use v2. Fixed typos and errors Research Project funded by UCM-Santander grant (PR26/16-8B)

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2020View details →

The motivation for citizens' involvement in life sciences research is predicted by age and gender

Data for publication The motivation for citizens’ involvement in life sciences research is predicted by age and gender

opencc-by-4.0Apr 2020View details →

Dataset for "Metabolic rate and oxygen radical levels increase but radical generation rate decreases with male age in Drosophila melanogaster sperm"

Metabolic rate, H2O2 level, and ROS production data for D. melanogaster sperm and gut tissue

Data from: Transcriptome analysis reveals nutrition‐ and age‐related patterns of gene expression in the fat body of pre‐overwintering bumble bee queens

Many diapausing insects undergo a nutrient storage period prior to their entry into diapause. Bumble bee queens diapause as adults in the winter preceding their spring nest initiation period. Before diapause, they sequester glycogen and lipids, which they metabolize during the overwintering period. We used RNA sequencing to examine how age and nectar diet (specifically, the concentration of sucrose in nectar) impact gene expression in the pre-overwintering bumble bee queen fat body, the "liver-like" organ in insects with broad functions related to nutrient storage and metabolism. We found that diet on its own, and in combination with age, impacts the expression of genes involved in detoxification. Age was also a strong driver of gene expression, especially at earlier ages (up to 3 days). In addition to these molecular correlates of diet and age, we also found a putative molecular signature of diapause entry or preparation in adult queens in the oldest age group (12 days) fed the most sucrose-rich diet, based on comparisons between our data set and another transcriptome data set from bumble bee queens. This transcriptomic pattern suggests that preparation for (or entry into) diapause might be in part mediated by nutritional state in bumble bee queens. Collectively, these findings show that there are molecular processes in the fat body that are responsive to sucrose levels in the diet and/or associated with age-related maturational changes. A better understanding of these processes may shed light on important aspects of bumble bee biology, such as queen responses to nutritional and other forms of stress, and the factors that regulate their entrance into diapause.

openother-openJul 2020View details →

Stand age rather than soil moisture gradient dominantly regulates the compromise between plant growth and water use of Eucalyptus urophylla in hilly South China

These files contain the clinate data, the morphology characteristics, soil water content and tree normalized transpiration  collected in our studied site.

Data from: Does facial hair greying in chimpanzees provide a salient progressive cue of aging?

The greying of human head hair is arguably the most salient marker of human aging. In wild mammal populations, greying can change with life history or environmental factors (e.g., sexual maturity in silverback gorillas). Yet, whether humans are unique in our pattern of age-related hair depigmentation is unclear. We examined the relationship between pigmentation loss in facial hair (greying) to age, population, and sex in wild and captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). Digital facial photographs representing three chimpanzee populations (N=145; ages 1–60 years) were scored for hair greying on a scale of one [~100% pigmented] to six [~0% pigmented]. Our data suggest that chimpanzee head and facial hair generally greys with age prior to mid-life (~30 years old), but afterwards, greying ceases to increase incrementally. Our results highlight that chimpanzee pigmentation likely exhibits substantial variation between populations, and that both 'grey' and pigmented phenotypes exist across various age classes. Thus, chimpanzee facial hair greying is unlikely a progressive indicator of age beyond mid-life, and thus facial greying in chimpanzees seems different from the pattern observed in humans. Whether this reflects neutral differences in senescence, or potential differences in selection pressures (e.g. related to conspecific communication), is unclear and worthy of more detailed examination across populations and taxa.

Data from: Biomass–density relationships of plant communities deviate from the self‐thinning rule due to age structure and abiotic stress

A pertinent debate in plant ecology centers around the generality of the self-thinning rule. However, studies focused on highly simplified settings such as even-aged monospecific populations or optimal conditions. This neglects the fact that most natural communities, to which the classical self-thinning slope is often applied, are age-structured, composed of multiple species and exposed to various types of abiotic stress. With the help of an individual-based model, we relax these simplified assumptions and systematically test for changes in the biomass–density relationships of uneven-aged, functionally diverse plant communities across a complete stress gradient, using excessive to insufficient soil water as a case study. We show that frequent recruitment, which resulted in an uneven-aged community, and stress intensity caused predictable changes in the entire biomass–density trajectory. Increasing stress resulted in steeper (more negative) slopes and increased the intercept in the classical self-thinning section irrespective of excessive or insufficient soil water as a stress type. Recruitment steepened the slope, too and enabled a novel section in the biomass–density trajectory. This novel section represented a quasi-steady state of the density-dependent dynamics of new generations which occurred locally within patches of recruitment. At the community level, the slope of the biomass–density relationship at quasi-steady state had a significantly flatter slope of −1.1 under optimal soil water conditions. Functional diversity showed little impact on density-dependent mortality. Namely, it resulted in an earlier onset of mortality but not in changes in the values of the slope and intercept. We conclude that the classical −3/2 slope is not useful to describe the biomass–density relationship in natural and semi-natural plant communities. The magnitude and direction of variation in the slope are related to the age–structure and abiotic stress intensity in the plant community.

opencc-zeroJul 2020View details →

Data from: Social effects on age-related and sex-specific immune cell profiles in a wild mammal

Evidence for age-related changes in innate and adaptive immune responses is increasing in wild populations. Such changes have been linked to fitness, and knowledge of the factors driving immune response variation is important for understanding the evolution of immunity. Age-related changes in immune profiles may be due to factors such as immune system development, sex-specific behaviour and responses to environmental conditions. Social environments may also contribute to variation in immunological responses, for example, through transmission of pathogens and stress arising from resource and mate competition. Yet, the impact of the social environment on age-related changes in immune cell profiles is currently understudied in the wild. Here, we tested the relationship between leukocyte cell composition (proportion of neutrophils and lymphocytes [innate and adaptive immunity, respectively] that were lymphocytes) and age, sex, and group size in a wild population of European badgers (Meles meles). We found that the proportion of lymphocytes in early-life was greater in males in smaller groups compared to larger groups, but with a faster age-related decline in smaller groups. In contrast, the proportion of lymphocytes in females was not significantly related to age or group size. Our results provide evidence of sex-specific age-related changes in immune cell profiles in a wild mammal, which are influenced by the social environment.

Data from: Cognition at age 70: life course predictors and associations with brain pathologies

Objective: To investigate predictors of performance on a range of cognitive measures including the Preclinical Alzheimer Cognitive Composite (PACC) and test for associations between cognition and dementia biomarkers in Insight 46, a sub-study of the MRC National Survey of Health and Development. Methods: 502 individuals born in the same week in 1946 underwent cognitive assessment at age 69-71 years, including an adapted version of the PACC and a test of non-verbal reasoning. Performance was characterised with respect to sex, childhood cognitive ability, education and socioeconomic position (SEP). In a sub-sample of 406 cognitively-normal participants, associations were investigated between cognition and β-amyloid (Aβ) positivity (determined from Aβ-PET imaging), whole brain volumes, white matter hyperintensity volumes (WMHV), and APOE-ε4. Results: Childhood cognitive ability was strongly associated with cognitive scores including the PACC more than 60 years later, and there were independent effects of education and SEP. Sex differences were observed on every PACC sub-test. In cognitively-normal participants, Aβ-positivity and WMHV were independently associated with lower PACC scores, and Aβ-positivity was associated with poorer non-verbal reasoning. Aβ-positivity and WMHV were not associated with sex, childhood cognitive ability, education or SEP. Normative data for 339 cognitively-normal Aβ-negative participants are provided. Conclusions: This study adds to emerging evidence that subtle cognitive differences associated with Aβ deposition are detectable in older adults, at an age when dementia prevalence is very low. The independent associations of childhood cognitive ability, education and SEP with cognitive performance aged 70 have implications for interpretation of cognitive data in later life.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

DNA methylation profiling and genomic analysis in 20 children with short stature who were born small-for-gestational age

Purpose: In a significant proportion of children born small-for-gestational age (SGA) with failure of catch-up growth, the etiology of short stature remains unclear after routine diagnostic work-up. We wanted to investigate if extensive analysis of the (epi)genome can unravel the cause of growth failure in a significant portion of these children. Patients and Methods: Twenty SGA children treated with growth hormone (GH) because of short stature were selected from the BELGROW database of the Belgian Society for Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology for exome sequencing, SNP array and genome-wide methylation analysis to identify the (epi)genetic cause. First year response to GH was compared to the response of SGA patients in the KIGS database. Results: We identified (likely) pathogenic variants in 4 children (from 3 families) using exome sequencing and found pathogenic CNV in 2 probands using SNP array. In a child harboring a NSD1-containing microduplication, we identified a DNA methylation signature that is opposite to the genome-wide DNA methylation signature of Sotos syndrome. Moreover, we observed multi-locus imprinting disturbances in two children in whom no other genomic alteration could be identified. Five out of 6 children with a genetic diagnosis had an "above average" response to GH. Conclusions: The study indicates that a more advanced approach with deep genotyping can unravel unexpected (epi)genomic alterations in SGA children with persistent growth failure. Most SGA children with a genetic diagnosis had a good response to GH treatment.

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

The diversity of maternal-age effects upon pre-adult survival across animal species

Maternal senescence is the detrimental effect of increased maternal age on offspring performance. Despite much recent interest given to describing this phenomenon, its distribution across animal species is poorly understood. A review of the published literature finds that maternal age affects pre-adult survival in 252 of 272 populations (93%) representing 97 animal species. Age effects tended to be deleterious in invertebrates and mammals, including humans, confirming the presence of senescence. However, bird species were a conspicuous exception, as pre-adult survival tended to increase with maternal age in surveyed populations. In all groups, maternal-age effects became more negative in older mothers. Invertebrates senesced faster than vertebrates, and humans aged faster than non-human mammals. Within invertebrates, lepidopterans demonstrated the most extreme rates of maternal-effect senescence. Among the surveyed studies, phylogeny, life history and environment (e.g. laboratory versus wild populations) were tightly associated; this made it difficult to make confident inferences regarding the causes of diversity for the phenomenon. However, we provide some testable suggestions, and we observe that some differences appear to be consistent with predictions from evolutionary theory. We discuss how future work may help clarify ultimate and proximate causes for this diversity.

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

Data from: Oxidative stress in the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE): role of aging, and DJ-1

High levels of oxidative radicals generated by daily light exposure and high metabolic rate suggest that the antioxidant machinery of the retina and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is crucial for their survival. DJ-1 is a redox-sensitive protein that has been shown to have neuroprotective function in the brain in Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we analyzed the role of DJ-1 in the retina during oxidative stress and aging. We induced low-level oxidative stress in young (3-month-old) and old (15-month-old) C57BL/6J (WT) and DJ-1 knockout (KO) mice and evaluated effects in the RPE and retina. Absence of DJ-1 resulted in increased retinal dysfunction in response to low levels of oxidative stress. Our findings suggest that loss of DJ-1 affects the RPE antioxidant machinery, rendering it unable to combat and neutralize low-level oxidative stress, irrespective of age. Moreover, they draw a parallel to the retinal degeneration observed in AMD, where the occurrence of genetic variants may leave the retina and RPE unable to fight sustained, low-levels of oxidative stress.

opencc-zeroAug 2020View details →

Data from: Ageing and senescence across reproductive traits and survival in superb fairy-wrens (Malurus cyaneus)

Why do senescence rates of fitness-related traits often vary dramatically? By considering the full ageing trajectories of multiple traits we can better understand how a species' life-history shapes the evolution of senescence within a population. Here, we examined age-related changes in sex-specific survival, reproduction, and several components of reproduction using a long-term study of a cooperatively-breeding songbird, the superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus). We compared ageing patterns between traits by estimating standardized rates of maturation, the age of onset of senescence, and rates of senescence, while controlling for confounding factors reflecting individual variability in life-history. We found striking differences in ageing and senescence patterns between survival and reproduction, as well as between reproductive traits. In both sexes, survival started to decline from maturity onwards. In contrast, all reproductive traits showed improvements into early adulthood, and many showed little or no evidence of senescence. In females, despite senescence in clutch size, number of offspring surviving to independence did not decline in late life, possibly due to improvements in maternal care with age. Superb fairy-wrens have exceptionally high levels of extra-group paternity, and male extra-group reproductive success showed much greater changes with age than did within-group reproductive success, suggesting that male reproductive ageing is driven by sexual selection. We discuss how the superb fairy-wrens' complex life history may contribute to the disparate ageing patterns across different traits.

Coordination in parental effort decreases with age in a long-lived seabird

Biparental care is widespread in avian species. Individuals may match the contribution of their partner, resulting in equal parental effort, or may exploit their partner, to minimise their own investment. These two hypotheses have received much theoretical and empirical attention in short-lived species, that change mates between seasons. However, in species with persistent pair bonds, where divorce rate is low and costly, selective pressures are different, as partners share the value of future reproduction. In such species, coordination has been suggested to be adaptive and to increase early in life, as a consequence of the importance of mate familiarity. However, as birds age, an increase in re-pairing probability occurs in parallel to a decline in their survival probability. At the point when partners no longer share future reproductive success, exploitation of a partner could become adaptive, reducing selection for coordinated effort. As such, we suggest that coordination in parental effort will decline with age in long-lived species. Using incubation bout duration data, estimated from salt-water immersion bio-loggers, deployed on black-browed albatrosses (Thalassarche melanophris), we examined the correlation in incubation bout durations for sequential bouts, as a measure of coordination. Our results show that coordination is highest in inexperienced pairs (early in reproductive life) and declines throughout the lifetime of birds. This suggests that both cooperation, indicated by coordinated effort, and conflict over care occurs in this species. We find no change in bout duration with increasing breeding experience, and hence no support for the hypothesis that aging leads to changes in individual incubation behaviour. This is, to our knowledge, the first study to demonstrate strong coordination in parental care when pairs share future reproductive success, but a decline in coordination with age, as sexual conflict increases.

Data from: Age-based changes in kairomone response mediate task partitioning in stingless bee soldiers (Tetragonisca angustula)

Collective defense is one of the most ubiquitous behaviors performed by social groups. Because of its importance, complex societies may engage a set of defensive specialists, with physical and/or neurological attributes tuned for defense against specific invaders. These strategies must be balanced, however, with the need to flexibly respond to different threat levels and sources. Insect societies rely heavily on olfaction for detecting and communicating in the context of defense. We therefore asked whether threat detection via olfaction is specialized towards invader-specific cues and how this may be integrated into defense task specialization. Colonies of the stingless bee, Tetragonisca angustula, deploy a morphologically distinct sub-caste of larger-bodied workers (soldiers) for colony defense. These soldiers transition between two different guarding tasks as they age, progressing from guarding in a hovering position near the nest entrance to guarding in a standing position on the nest entrance tube. Hovering and standing guards intercept different types of invaders: primarily heterospecific versus conspecific, respectively. We asked whether hovering and standing guarding behaviors were modulated by differential sensitivity to invader-associated olfactory stimuli; then we compared their responses to these cues to those of smaller workers that perform predominantly non-defense tasks. We exposed bees under both field and lab conditions to citral, a kairomone produced by an obligate heterospecific nest robber, primarily intercepted by hovering guards. Consistent with their roles, hovering guards were more likely to move towards citral than were either standing guards or small-bodied bees within a Y-maze. We also presented guards at field nests with dummies of conspecific versus heterospecific invader types, varying whether they included citral odors. Standing guards were more responsive to conspecific intruder scenarios than hovering guards, but heterospecific response differed by presence of citral. Standing and hovering guards responded in similar proportions when citral was absent, but the addition of citral produced a marginally non-significant reduction in standing guard participation. Our results potentially demonstrate differentiated cue-specific responses that correspond to morphological task specialization and age polyethism in these eusocial societies.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2020View details →

data set related to article Linking Sleep to Externalizing Behavioral Difficulties: A Longitudinal Psychometric Survey in a Cohort of Italian School-Age Children

<pre>This record contains raw data related to article Linking Sleep to Externalizing Behavioral Difficulties: A Longitudinal Psychometric Survey in a Cohort of Italian School-Age Children</pre>

Loss of the glucocorticoid receptor causes accelerated reproductive aging in female zebrafish

Reproductive decline in mid-adult females isstablished phenotype of the aging process. Stress and the rise in glucocorticoids (GCs) accelerate reproductive aging, but little is known about the mechanisms involved. During stress, GCs activate the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a ubiquitously expressed, ligand-bound transcription factor, to elicit physiological changes for restoring homeostasis. Here we tested the hypothesis that GC-GR signalling is essential for accelerating reproductive aging. To test this, we used a ubiquitous GR knockout (GRKO) zebrafish, which is inherently hypercortisolemic, to delineate the role of high cortisol and GR signalling on reproductive aging. The loss of GR led to premature reproductive aging, including high frequency of typical and atypical follicular atresia in vitellogenic oocytes, including yolk liquefaction and large inflammatory infiltrates. The reduction in oocyte quality was also associated with a decline in ovarian tert expression in the adult GRKO fish compared to the early-adult GRKO and adult wildtype zebrafish. Accelerated reproductive aging also impacted the progeny, including lower breeding success, fecundity, egg fertilization rate, and delayed somitogenesis and embryo survival in the adult GRKO fish. We adduce that GR signalling is essential for prolonging the reproductive life span and improving the egg quality and embryo viability in zebrafish.

opencc-zeroOct 2020View details →

Estimation of environmental, genetic and parental age at conception effects on telomere length in a wild mammal

Understanding individual variation in fitness-related traits requires separating the environmental and genetic determinants. Telomeres are protective caps at the ends of chromosomes that are thought to be a biomarker of senescence as their length predicts mortality risk and reflect the physiological consequences of environmental conditions. The relative contribution of genetic and environmental factors to individual variation in telomere length is however unclear, yet important for understanding its evolutionary dynamics. In particular, the evidence for transgenerational effects, in terms of parental age at conception, on telomere length is mixed. Here, we investigate the heritability of telomere length, using the 'animal model', and parental age at conception effects on offspring telomere length in a wild population of European badgers (Meles meles). While we found no heritability of telomere length and low evolvability (<0.001), our power to detect heritability was low and a repeatability of 2% across individual lifetimes provides a low upper limit to ordinary narrow-sense heritability. However, year (25%) and cohort (3%) explained greater proportions of the phenotypic variance in telomere length. There was no support for cross-sectional or within-individual parental age at conception effects on offspring telomere length. Our results indicate a lack of transgenerational effects through parental age at conception and a low potential for evolutionary change in telomere length in this population. Instead, we provide evidence that individual variation in telomere length is largely driven by environmental variation in this wild mammal.

Quantitative analysis of optical coherence tomography for neovascular age-related macular degeneration using deep learning

Purpose: To apply a deep learning algorithm for automated, objective, and comprehensive quantification of optical coherence tomography (OCT) scans to a large real-world dataset of eyes with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and make the raw segmentation output data openly available for further research. Design: Retrospective analysis of OCT images from the Moorfields Eye Hospital AMD Database. Participants: 2473 first-treated eyes and another 493 second-treated eyes that commenced therapy for neovascular AMD between June 2012 and June 2017. Methods: A deep learning algorithm was used to segment all baseline OCT scans. Volumes were calculated for segmented features such as neurosensory retina (NSR), drusen, intraretinal fluid (IRF), subretinal fluid (SRF), subretinal hyperreflective material (SHRM), retinal pigment epithelium (RPE), hyperreflective foci (HRF), fibrovascular pigment epithelium detachment(fvPED), and serous PED (sPED). Analyses included comparisons between first and second eyes, by visual acuity (VA) and by race/ethnicity, and correlations between volumes. Main outcome measures: Volumes of segmented features (mm3), central subfield thickness (CST). Results: In first-treated eyes, the majority had both IRF and SRF (54.7%). First-treated eyes had greater volumes for all segmented tissues, with the exception of drusen, which was greater in second-treated eyes. In first-treated eyes, older age was associated with lower volumes for RPE, SRF, NSR and sPED; in second-treated eyes, older age was associated with lower volumes of NSR, RPE, sPED, fvPED and SRF. Eyes from black individuals had higher SRF, RPE and serous PED volumes, compared with other ethnic groups. Greater volumes of the vast majority of features were associated with worse VA. Conclusion: We report the results of large scale automated quantification of a novel range of baseline features in neovascular AMD. Major differences between first and second-treated eyes, with increasing age, and between ethnicities are highlighted. In the coming years, enhanced, automated OCT segmentation may assist personalization of real-world care, and the detection of novel structure-function correlations. These data will be made publicly available for replication and future investigation by the AMD research community.

Data from: Ten-year survival trends of neovascular age-related macular degeneration at first presentation

Background: To describe 10-year trends in visual outcomes, anatomical outcomes, and treatment burden of patients receiving anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). Methods: Retrospective cohort study of treatment-naïve, first-affected eyes with nAMD started on ranibizumab before January 1, 2009. The primary outcome was time to best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) falling ≤ 35 Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) letters after initiating anti-VEGF therapy. Secondary outcomes included time to BCVA reaching ≥ 70 letters; proportion of eyes with BCVA ≥ 70 and ≤ 35 letters at 10 years; mean trend of BCVA and central retinal thickness (CRT) over 10 years; and mean number of injections. Results: For our cohort of 103 patients, Kaplan-Meier analyses demonstrated median time to BCVA reaching ≤35 and ≥70 letters were 37.8 (95% CI 22.2-65.1) and 8.3 (95% CI 4.8-20.9) months after commencing anti-VEGF therapy, respectively. At the final follow-up, BCVA was ≤35 letters and ≥70 letters in 41.1% and 21%, respectively, in first-affected eyes, whilst this was the case for 5.4% and 48.2%, respectively, in a patient's better-seeing eye. Mean injection number was 37.0 ± 24.2 per eye and 53.6 ± 30.1 at patient-level (63.1% of patients required injections in both eyes). Conclusions: The chronicity of nAMD disease and its management highlights the importance of long-term visual prognosis. Our analyses suggest that one in five patients will retain good vision (BCVA ≥70 ETDRS letters) in the first-affected eye at 10 years after starting anti-VEGF treatment; yet one in two patients will have good vision in their better-seeing eye. Moreover, our data suggest that early treatment of nAMD is associated with better visual outcomes.