Oxytocin (OT) modulates adult mammalian sexual behavior, sperm production and transport, and steroidogenesis; however, the consequences of developmental manipulations of oxytocin have received little attention. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether neonatal exposure to OT, an oxytocin antagonist (OTA), saline (SAL), or handling (HAN)-only would have long-term effects on reproductive potential in male prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster). Adult males were observed for 24 h with a sexually receptive female and sexual behavior was recorded. Females were subsequently lavaged and smears were examined for sperm. Reproductive parameters including motility of epididymal sperm, testis weight, and plasma androgen levels were in the normal range. OT-treated males that did not mate within the first 30 min did not mate at all, and in comparison to controls, a higher proportion of those OT-treated and OTA-treated males that did mate did not transfer sperm to the females. OTA-treated males also had significantly higher testicular sperm concentrations than HAN-only males, and significantly lower epididymal sperm concentrations. These differences suggest that in males, developmental manipulations of OT may have the potential to influence the subsequent expression of sexual behavior and sperm transport.

Objective

To describe the development and implementation of virtual vascular surgery rotations among 6 integrated vascular surgery programs.

Design

A collaborative teleconference retrospectively discussing 6 independently developed virtual vascular surgery rotations to make a framework for future use.

Setting

University of California Davis initiated a joint teleconference among the various integrated vascular surgery programs.

Participants

Vascular surgery faculty and residents from 6 programs participated in the teleconferences and drafting of a framework for building a virtual vascular surgery rotation.

Results

Four specific domains were identified in discussing the framework to build a virtual vascular surgery rotation: planning, development, curriculum, and feedback. Each domain has specific aspects in making a virtual rotation that has applicability to other surgical rotations that seek to do the same.

Conclusion

Virtual vascular surgery rotations are feasible and important; these electives can be established and implemented successfully with appropriate planning and consideration. This work hopes to help programs navigate this new space in education by making it more transparent and highlighting potential pitfalls.

Background

In June 2020, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a virtual workshop focused on integrating the science of aging and environmental health research. The concurrent COVID-19 pandemic and national attention on racism exposed shortcomings in the environmental research field's conceptualization and methodological use of race, which have subsequently hindered the ability of research to address racial health disparities. By the workshop's conclusion, the authors deduced that the utility of environmental aging biomarkers-aging biomarkers shown to be specifically influenced by environmental exposures-would be greatly diminished if these biomarkers are developed absent of considerations of broader societal factors-like structural racism-that impinge on racial health equity.

Objectives

The authors reached a post-workshop consensus recommendation: To advance racial health equity, a "compound" exposome approach should be widely adopted in environmental aging biomarker research. We present this recommendation here.

Discussion

The authors believe that without explicit considerations of racial health equity, people in most need of the benefits afforded by a better understanding of the relationships between exposures and aging will be the least likely to receive them because biomarkers may not encompass cumulative impacts from their unique social and environmental stressors. Employing an exposome approach that allows for more comprehensive exposure-disease pathway characterization across broad domains, including the social exposome and neighborhood factors, is the first step. Exposome-centered study designs must then be supported with efforts aimed at increasing the recruitment and retention of racially diverse study populations and researchers and further "compounded" with strategies directed at improving the use and interpretation of race throughout the publication and dissemination process. This compound exposome approach maximizes the ability of our science to identify environmental aging biomarkers that explicate racial disparities in health and best positions the environmental research community to contribute to the elimination of racial health disparities. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP8392.