Belongingness is a Mediating Factor Between Religious Service Attendance and Reduced Psychological Distress During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study aimed to test whether pre-pandemic religious service attendance relates to both lesser impact from the COVID-19 pandemic and lower levels of psychological distress among a sample of 645 American adults across nine US regions. A second aim was to test whether belongingness mediated these relationships. First, it was expected that more frequent pre-pandemic religious service attendance relates to belongingness, which mediates the religious service attendance and psychological distress association. Second, it was expected that people who felt greater belongingness also experienced less perceived impact from the pandemic. Results from a path model supported these hypotheses. This is among the first studies to provide empirical evidence for religion's association with psychological distress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Dynamic stabilization in the PU1-GATA1 circuit using a model with time-dependent kinetic change.

The PU.1 and GATA1 genes play an important role in the differentiation of blood stem cells. The protein levels expressed by these genes are thought to be regulated by a self-excitatory feedback loop for each gene and a cross-inhibitory feedback loop between the two genes. A mathematical model that captures the dynamical interaction between these two genes reveals that constant levels of self-excitation and cross-inhibition allow the most self-exciting or cross-inhibiting gene to dominate the system. However, since biological systems rarely exist in an unchanging equilibrium, we modeled this gene circuit using discrete time-dependent changes in the parameters in lieu of steady state parameters. These time-dependent parameters lead to new phenomena, including the development of new limit cycles and basins of attraction. These phenomena are not present in models using constant parameter values. Our findings suggest that even small perturbations in the PU.1 and GATA1 feedback loops may substantially alter the gene expression and therefore the cell phenotype. These time-dependent parameter models may also have implications for other gene systems and provide new ways to understand the mechanisms of cellular differentiation.