Introduction: Resistance training improves muscle strength and induces myofiber hypertrophy in young males and females with blunted responses occurring in older adults. These adaptations are partially due to the function of muscle stem cells (MuSCs) and fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs). It remains unknown whether middle-aged males and females respond similarly to resistance training with protein supplementation, specifically at the cellular level. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential sex-specific responses of middle-aged males and females to whole-body resistance training. Methods: Middle-aged adults (N=28), 40-64 years, participated in a 10-week progressive, whole-body resistance training intervention coupled with protein supplementation. Muscle biopsies were collected from the vastus lateralis and stained for fibre morphology, MuSCs, and FAPs. Results: Both sexes increased type II fibre cross-sectional area with training. Myonuclear content, myonuclear domain size, and MuSC content were not altered with training in either sex. Both males and females altered FAP content with training. Interestingly, the change in MuSCs and both FAPs were correlated in males but not females (both P<0.05). It was concluded that there were no sex-specific responses to resistance training in middle-aged males and females; however, MuSCs and FAPs appear to be correlated in males but not females.

Not a lot of research has been done on the middle age years despite this being a pivotal time for adults. Women at this stage of their lives undergo many changes such as perimenopause to complete menopause, having to take care of aging parents, and losing a spouse. Additionally, women tend to seek other women for help and support and form a community that is bound by common concerns and experiences. This qualitative case study explored how a group of middle-aged women experienced life changing events and how their faith and community enabled them to overcome the challenges those incidents brought to their lives. This study also looked into other factors that contributed to their being able to confront and overcome the challenges from those experiences . Thirteen women from one faith community in Manila, Philippines were interviewed individually to find answers to the following research questions: 1. How do middle-aged women describe the life-changing event they have experienced? 2. What approach(es) do middle-aged women take when they are undergoing a life changing event so they can cope with the situation they are experiencing? 3. In what ways does the faith community help the women in the group cope with the life changing event? 4. What other factors may influence these women’s ability to copy with the life changing events they face? Another five women from a different faith community were engaged in a focus group discussion to corroborate the following findings from the individual interviews: 1. Unanticipated events were often challenging and devastating and had a major impact on the lives of these middle-aged women. Additionally, those events did not happen in isolation but, rather, led to other events that were even more lifechanging. 2. When confronted with an unexpected, life-changing event, these middle-aged women were faced with a myriad of feelings and emotions that they examined, evaluated and shared with people they trusted. They also handled their own situation by seeking help from others. 3. Support was a critical element in the ability of these middle-aged women to confront and overcome a devastating transition event. Their faith community offered various types of support during most of the events. 4. The faith of middle-aged women was a significant factor in confronting and overcoming those unexpected events. The women believed their faith made them stronger and made them determined to prevail over the circumstances of the event. This study concluded the following: 1. Middle-aged women go through a variety of highly impactful transitions and their reactions to the event vary from one woman to another depending on the context in which it occurs and the impact on the woman’s life. The manner in which a woman in this age range adapts to the transition event will predict how they are able to cope with the impact of the event on their lives. 2. Support provided by the network built by a woman over her lifetime is essential in confronting and overcoming challenges posed by a transition event. Support can come in different forms and is appreciated by the women. That support enables them to confront, overcome and adapt to the transition event. 3. The women’s religious beliefs are critical to recovery and growth of these middle-aged women and sustain them as they are adapting to their transition events.

Despite widespread agreement about the importance of stress for health and well-being, scholars disagree about the types of variables that matter most. On one side, some argue that stress reactivity depends mostly on person-level variables, such as personality, while others contend that stress reactivity depends mostly on situation-level variables, for example chronicity. Researchers from a more integrative perspective assert that stress reactivity depends on an idiosyncratic interaction between person-level and stressor-level variables, for example the finding that lonely people are especially reactive to interpersonal tension. My dissertation reconciles these perspectives by leveraging crossed random effect modeling to determine the percent of stress reactivity attributable to each of these types of variables; the person, the situation, and the person-by-situation interaction. In Study 1, 368 undergraduate college students reacted to 60 unique situations in the context of normal daily life on two separate occasions. In Study 2, 955 adults from the Midlife in the U.S. study self-reported their reactivity to stressful situations encountered on each of eight days. Results from both studies suggest that these three types of variables account for the bulk, at least 70%, of stress reactivity in daily life. Moreover, all three types of variables emerged as important, as each factor contributed at least 20% of the overall variability in stress reactivity. Interestingly, both studies also found that situation-level variables mattered relatively more than the other two types of variables. I discuss these findings in relation to stress theory, stress-reduction interventions, and methodological innovations.

No description available.

This study developed and tested a model of midlife women's attainments, commitments and satisfactions under differing conditions of marriage and parenthood. The model proposed that life satisfaction for women is a function of three sets of influences: (1) adult status attainments, (2) home and work commitments, and (3) home and work satisfactions. These three sets of influences, in turn, are a function of three predetermined and correlated conditions: (1) health, (2) early childhood status and (3) educational attainment. The model was developed using data from a cohort of midlife women drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households. The model was then tested on subsamples from that cohort using LISREL 7. Tests of the model revealed both similarities and differences in the processes of attainment of life satisfaction for all midlife women, for those with and without husbands, and for those with and without children. In tests of the individual models, health and satisfaction with one's role at home were the primary factors influencing life satisfaction for women. Work commitment was also a significant, and negative, predictor. Tests of the model across stacked groups, however, failed to clarify specific structural differences due to marital or parental status. For women with and without husbands, differences in both the measurement and structural models across the groups were found to be statistically insignificant. For women with and without children, however, cross-group comparisons revealed significant differences in the measurement and structural models. Because of measurement differences, however, even statistically significant structural differences could not be considered meaningful estimates of variance in patterns of influence across the groups. This study provides only a beginning toward understanding the complex relations among midlife women's attainments, commitments and satisfactions. The proposed model fits the data better for women with husbands and for women without children than for other individually or jointly tested samples. Family formation appears to influence the process of attainments, commitments and satisfactions, but additional research is needed to continue to unravel the complexities of interrelationship. Yet, preliminary conclusions remind counselors and policymakers that traditional conceptions of status attainments are not the only considerations for career or life planning for women. / Ph. D.

Research on midlife women provided evidence of negative perceptions of and reactions to aging and its accompanying physiological and emotional changes. Previous investigations revealed a plethora of information about midlife physiological changes, but provided little other information pertinent to understanding perceptions of body image among middle-aged women. The purpose of this study was to examine a neglected population, middle-aged women, using an in-depth concept of body image. Interviews were conducted with 40 randomly selected middle-aged women ranging in age from 35-55 years. The body image survey consisted of instruments to assess the following concepts: physiological changes; body appearance; dissatisfactions and satisfactions about health, fitness, and physical appearance; others' appraisals of health, fitness, and physical appearance; and self-esteem. The conclusive finding from the multiple regression analysis was that there were no significant relationships between body image and self-esteem among middle-aged women. / M.S.

No / BACKGROUND: Alopecia causes widespread psychological distress, but is relatively poorly controlled. The development of new treatments is hampered by the lack of suitable human hair follicle models. Although intermediate and vellus hair follicles are the main clinical targets for pharmacological therapy, terminal hair follicles are more frequently studied as smaller hair follicles are more difficult to obtain. OBJECTIVES: This investigation was designed to quantify in vivo morphological and in vitro behavioural differences in organ culture between matched intermediate and terminal hair follicles, in order to develop a new clinically relevant model system. METHODS: Microdissected terminal and intermediate hair follicles, from the same individuals, were analysed morphometrically (250 follicles; five individuals), or observed and measured over 9 days of organ culture (210 follicles; six individuals). RESULTS: Intermediate hair follicles were less pigmented and smaller, penetrating less below the skin surface (mean +/- SEM) (2.59 +/- 0.07 vs. 3.52 +/- 0.10 mm; P = 0.02), with smaller fibre (0.03 +/- 0.002 vs. 0.07 +/- 0.002 mm), connective tissue sheath (0.24 +/- 0.01 mm vs. 0.33 +/- 0.01 mm), bulb (0.19 +/- 0.01 vs. 0.31 +/- 0.01 mm) and dermal papilla (0.06 +/- 0.002 vs. 0.12 +/- 0.01 mm) diameters (P < 0.001). Intermediate hair follicle bulbs appeared 'tubular', unlike their 'bulbous' terminal follicle counterparts. In organ culture they also grew more slowly (0.044 +/- 0.002 vs. 0.067 +/- 0.003 mm per day; P < 0.001), remained in anagen longer (84 +/- 0.03% vs. 74 +/- 0.03% at day 9; P = 0.012) and produced less hair fibre (0.36 +/- 0.02 vs. 0.50 +/- 0.03 mm; P < 0.001) than terminal follicles. CONCLUSIONS: Smaller intermediate hair follicles showed major morphological differences from terminal follicles in vivo and retained significant, biologically relevant differences in vitro in organ culture. Therefore, intermediate hair follicles offer a novel, exciting, more clinically relevant, albeit technically difficult, model for future investigations into hair growth. This should be particularly important for developing new therapies.

No / The parallel processing of information forms an important organisational principle of the primate visual system. Here we describe experiments which use a novel chromatic-achromatic temporal compound stimulus to simultaneously identify colour and luminance specific signals in the human electroretinogram (ERG). Luminance and chromatic components are separated in the stimulus; the luminance modulation has twice the temporal frequency of the chromatic modulation. ERGs were recorded from four trichromatic and two dichromatic subjects (1 deuteranope and 1 protanope). At isoluminance, the fundamental (first harmonic) response was elicited by the chromatic component in the stimulus. The trichromatic ERGs possessed low-pass temporal tuning characteristics, reflecting the activity of parvocellular post-receptoral mechanisms. There was very little first harmonic response in the dichromats' ERGs. The second harmonic response was elicited by the luminance modulation in the compound stimulus and showed, in all subjects, band-pass temporal tuning characteristic of magnocellular activity. Thus it is possible to concurrently elicit ERG responses from the human retina which reflect processing in both chromatic and luminance pathways. As well as providing a clear demonstration of the parallel nature of chromatic and luminance processing in the human retina, the differences that exist between ERGs from trichromatic and dichromatic subjects point to the existence of interactions between afferent post-receptoral pathways that are in operation from the earliest stages of visual processing.

No / OBJECTIVES: Performance on neuropsychological tests can be influenced by non-cognitive factors, including deliberate underperformance, stress, the need to fulfil a sick role, depression, un-cooperativeness, fatigue and unhappiness with the evaluative situation. Tests to detect suboptimal effort are becoming widely used in clinical practice and are based on their reported insensitivity to cognitive dysfunction. A diagnosis of dementia has life-changing implications for an individual of working age. It is therefore crucial that clinicians can be confident they have obtained a valid estimate of current cognitive functioning. This study aimed to establish whether mood or cognitive functioning adversely influenced performance on symptom validity tests (SVTs) in individuals with working age dementia, who were judged to be using full effort. METHOD: Forty-two participants with dementia diagnosed before the age of 65 completed measures of emotional and cognitive functioning and six SVTs. RESULTS: There were no significant correlations between emotional functioning and measures of effort. However, cognitive functioning, in particular new learning, was significantly related to SVT performance. Participants with mild dementia performed significantly better on all six SVTs than those with moderate/severe dementia. The results also suggest that the SVTs are not equally sensitive to cognitive dysfunction. Rey's Dot Counting Test (DCT) (times criterion) achieved 100% specificity, and was the only test passed by every participant. CONCLUSION: Rey's DCT is the only SVT that can be recommended for use in those under 65 years with possible dementia at this time until further validation studies are undertaken.

The influence of demographic factors, work schedule flexibility, job satisfaction, job involvement, job seeking self-efficacy, certainty of retirement plans, familial and marital satisfaction, and attitude toward retirement on older workers' decision to fully retire, continue career employment, or participate in bridge employment was examined in this study.