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Evidence for spinal disinhibition as a pain-generating mechanism in fibromyalgia syndrome
Get PDFIntroduction: Pain phenomenology in patients with fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) shows considerable overlap with neuropathic pain. Altered neural processing leading to symptoms of neuropathic pain can occur at the level of the spinal cord, and 1 potential mechanism is spinal disinhibition. A biomarker of spinal disinhibition is impaired H-reflex rate-dependent depression (HRDD). Objectives: This study investigated whether patients with FMS exhibit evidence of spinal disinhibition. Methods: Thirty-one individuals with FMS and 20 healthy volunteers underwent testing of Hoffman reflex including HRDD, along with assessment of clinical signs and symptoms, pressure pain thresholds, temporal summation of pain (wind-up), and conditioned pain modulation (CPM). Small nerve fibre structure was quantified using intraepidermal nerve fibre density and corneal confocal microscopy. Results: Patients with FMS had significantly impaired HRDD at 1 Hz (P = 0.026) and 3 Hz (P = 0.011) and greater wind-up ratio (P = 0.008) compared with healthy controls. Patients with the most impaired HRDD also had the most inefficient CPM but HRDD was not associated with wind-up. Both HRDD and CPM were most impaired in patients with a shorter duration of disease. Conclusion: We demonstrate for the first time that people with FMS show evidence of spinal disinhibition, which is most dominant in shorter duration of disease and may represent a putative mechanism of pain generation in FMS. Identifying people with impairment of central pain processing at an early stage may provide opportunities for targeted mechanistically directed interventions. Longitudinal studies are warranted to tease out the precise contribution of these mechanisms
Sole-Zine Volumes 02-07 exhibited at the FTC FutureScan5: Conscious Communities Conference
Get PDFFUTURESCAN 5 Sole-Zine Abstract - Kayla Owen & Paul Owen
Sneakers, trainers, kicks, webs, strides, soles, creps, beaters, trabs or trainees, whatever you call your footwear, there is a particular tribe who are obsessive about their footwear...
Sneaker enthusiasts are attached to their possessions unlike any other sub-culture. Obsession, Style, and Place is an ongoing project intended to highlight specific sub-groups who live significantly for sneakers. From the birth of the Terrace Casual, the unique seekers and the under-represented sectors born out of this culture. Emphasising this much-loved fashion area gives rise to the tribes and cohesive socio-groups who define and are defined by values and tensions around status, belonging and the need for individuality.
This research offers new insight from stories from the terraces, provides opportunity to view rare, original, and vintage sneakers that informed the birth of the Casuals in Liverpool, UK. To those who subscribe to the pimping up of their sneakers and those not yet heavily featured. Early and emerging research regarding the under-representation of ‘Restorers, Convertors and Customisers’ within the Sneakerhead community. Including the shortage of stories being told in terms of Menswear, it’s past, present, and future status contextualises and places the subject within arenas for larger debate, thus raising awareness, and bridging gaps within the field
Hanif Kureishi: Fundamentalism and Multiculturalism from Part IV - 1975–Present
Get PDFThis chapter explores the work of Hanif Kureishi and, in particular, his 1995 novel The Black Album. Set in London in 1989, the novel engages with the fall of the Berlin Wall, with terrorism, and, most prominently, with the Rushdie Affair. It stages debates around religion, free speech, and cultural identity. Kureishi conceives of multiculturalism as premised on a vibrant exchange of ideas, and in The Black Album he portrays Islamism – and, by extension, fundamentalism of any kind – as a pseudo-idea which can only constitute a threat to, and never a part of, an effective multiculturalism. However, this chapter identifies a key paradox in The Black Album: it implores readers to treat ideas seriously, and yet there is very little serious treatment of particular ideas in the novel itself. As such, Kureishi’s novel is far more invested in the idea of ideas than in any particular body of them
Investigating Pre-Loved Luxury Fashion Consumption: Evidence from the Chinese Consumers
No full textThis thesis investigates the burgeoning market of pre-loved luxury fashion in China, exploring the motivations and preferences of Chinese consumers. The research is propelled by the noticeable shift towards sustainable consumption and the growing appeal of unique, high-quality pre-owned luxury items. The study addresses a gap in existing literature, which predominantly focuses on Western markets and employs qualitative methodologies. By adopting a mixed methods approach, combining both quantitative surveys (n=438) and qualitative interviews (n=21), the research aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the factors driving consumer behaviour in this sector. The quantitative component measured broader trends and correlations in consumer attitudes and behaviours, while the qualitative component offered rich contextual insights into the nuanced and subjective aspects of consumer motivations. The study offers several theoretical implications for understanding pre-loved luxury fashion consumption in the Chinese context, particularly as an emerging market, including an expanded understanding of consumer behaviour and the integration of sustainability into luxury consumption. Specifically, it addresses the lack of conceptual clarity in the literature by elucidating the relationships and conceptual linkages among pre-owned second-hand luxury, vintage luxury, and collectors’ luxury. Additionally, it expands the understanding of consumer motivations and channel preferences in the Chinese market by presenting a comprehensive framework that incorporates economic (fair price, resale value, good value for money), functional (uniqueness, originality, quality & condition, authenticity, practicality, brand service), individual (hedonic & recreational, treasure hunting, nostalgic pleasure, collection behaviour, aesthetics & design, need-based), and social (conspicuousness, sustainability & ethics, job-related needs, brand influence) motivations. The study highlights the importance of a multiple-channel retail strategy, aligning with consumer expectations for seamless online and offline shopping experiences to enhance customer trust and satisfaction. Additionally, this study sheds light on not-purchase motives, such as concerns about product authenticity, emphasising the need for robust verification processes to ensure genuine products. The research also examines post-purchase satisfaction, stressing the importance of overcoming purchase barriers and enhancing satisfaction to foster consumer retention and loyalty. Overall, this study provides a holistic view of pre-loved luxury fashion consumption, bridging gaps in the existing literature and informing future research and business practices in this evolving market segment
‘I Don't Want to Do the Gender Division, but …’: A Gendered Linguistic Ideological Perspective in Talk About Schoolchildren's Writing in England
No full textThis article explores how education stakeholders in England represent primary school writing attainment along the axis of gender in the context of literacy concerns after the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a combination of corpus-based and qualitative critical discourse analyses, it shows how gendered linguistic ideological practices are reproduced in education stakeholders’ talk about children's writing. The findings reveal that while traditional gender-gap ideologies have not consistently been supported by research on children's writing since the early 2000s, they seem to still be broadly conaturalized in stakeholders’ discourses. Crucially, this conaturalization seems to be unconscious: Those interviewed seem to resist hegemonic gender stereotypes on writing attainment yet at the same time they tend to (re)produce normative gendered discourses that reify hegemonic masculine and feminine norms and perpetuate, at the practical level, inequalities in their appraisal of primary schoolchildren's writing
‘Safe Together’. A reflection of a therapeutic art programme for children impacted by parental imprisonment
Get PDFThis article reflects on ‘Safe Together’, an 8-week therapeutic art programme for children impacted by parental imprisonment. Eleven children participated (7–13 years). There were multiple aims; (1) upskilling the children as artists and providing them with tools to create art at home; (2) inviting them to use art to self-sooth; (3) providing a safe-space to discuss experiences of parental imprisonment; (4) inviting them to share their work in an exhibition, (5) creating legacy resources illustrated with their artwork. Resources were created to increase awareness about parental imprisonment, and support other children with lived experience in the form of an illustrated booklet. A thematic evaluation was embedded throughout the programme to gather qualitative feedback about the children's experiences of parental imprisonment and creating art-work. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid Model was the central theoretical framework used to consider likely enablers of success in this programme. Children also completed a pre- and post-strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ), and parent/caregiver comments were collected to further an understanding of the wider impact of the sessions. Notably, the art exhibition planned to celebrate the cumulation of this programme was cancelled as it coincided with the first UK National Lockdown due to COVID 19. This article reflects on the adjustments made in light of this. In sum, ‘Safe Together’ was considered a useful means for these children to express themselves; unintentionally, the programme also provided a source of support as they entered into lockdown. This article offers recommendations to those considering offering therapeutic art programmes for children with adverse childhood experiences
Functional network topology in drug resistant and well-controlled idiopathic generalized epilepsy: a resting state functional MRI study
Get PDFDespite an increasing number of drug treatment options for people with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), drug resistance remains a significant issue and the mechanisms underlying it remain poorly understood. Previous studies have largely focused on potential cellular or genetic explanations for drug resistance. However, epilepsy is understood to be a network disorder and there is a growing body of literature suggesting altered topology of large-scale resting networks in people with epilepsy compared with controls. We hypothesize that network alterations may also play a role in seizure control. The aim of this study was to compare resting state functional network structure between well-controlled IGE (WC-IGE), drug resistant IGE (DR-IGE) and healthy controls. Thirty-three participants with IGE (10 with WC-IGE and 23 with DR-IGE) and 34 controls were included. Resting state functional MRI networks were constructed using the Functional Connectivity Toolbox (CONN). Global graph theoretic network measures of average node strength (an equivalent measure to mean degree in a network that is fully connected), node strength distribution variance, characteristic path length, average clustering coefficient, small-world index and average betweenness centrality were computed. Graphs were constructed separately for positively weighted connections and for absolute values. Individual nodal values of strength and betweenness centrality were also measured and 'hub nodes' were compared between groups. Outcome measures were assessed across the three groups and between both groups with IGE and controls. The IGE group as a whole had a higher average node strength, characteristic path length and average betweenness centrality. There were no clear differences between groups according to seizure control. Outcome metrics were sensitive to whether negatively correlated connections were included in network construction. There were no clear differences in the location of 'hub nodes' between groups. The results suggest that, irrespective of seizure control, IGE interictal network topology is more regular and has a higher global connectivity compared to controls, with no alteration in hub node locations. These alterations may produce a resting state network that is more vulnerable to transitioning to the seizure state. It is possible that the lack of apparent influence of seizure control on network topology is limited by challenges in classifying drug response. It is also demonstrated that network topological features are influenced by the sign of connectivity weights and therefore future methodological work is warranted to account for anticorrelations in graph theoretic studies
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