Notes

Influence of irregular hypoxia upon individual general responses while sleeping.
Trait anxiety is considered a susceptible factor for stress-related disorders, and is characterized by abnormal brain activity and connectivity in the regions related to emotional processing (e.g., the amygdala). However, only a few studies have examined the static and dynamic changes of functional connectivity in trait anxiety.

We compared the resting-state static and dynamic functional connectivity (sFC/dFC) in individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA, n = 257) and low trait anxiety (LTA, n = 264) using bilateral amygdala subregions as the seeds, that is, the centromedial amygdala (CMA), basolateral amygdala (BLA), and superficial amygdala (SFA).

The CMA, BLA, and SFA all showed reduced sFC with the executive control network (ECN) and anomalous dFC with the default mode network (DMN) in individuals with HTA. The CMA only showed reduced sFC with the ECN and reduced dFC with the DMN in individuals with HTA. The BLA showed reduced sFC with the salience network (mainly in the anterior and median cingulate), and increased dFC between the BLA and the DMN in individuals with HTA compared to those with LTA. Notably, HTA showed widespread anomalous functional connectivity in the SFA, including the visual network, mainly in the calcarine fissure, limbic system (olfactory cortex), and basal ganglia (putamen).

The anomalous sFC and dFC in individuals with HTA may reflect altered mechanisms in prefrontal control, salient stimuli processing, and amygdaloidal responsivity to potential threats, leading to alterations in associative, attentional, interpretative, and regulating processes that sustain a threat-related processing bias in HTA individuals.
The anomalous sFC and dFC in individuals with HTA may reflect altered mechanisms in prefrontal control, salient stimuli processing, and amygdaloidal responsivity to potential threats, leading to alterations in associative, attentional, interpretative, and regulating processes that sustain a threat-related processing bias in HTA individuals.
While MR enterography allows detection of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), the findings continue to be of limited use in guiding treatment-medication vs. surgery.

To test the feasibility of MR elastography of the gut in healthy volunteers and IBD patients.

Prospective pilot.

Forty subjects (healthy volunteers n=20, 37 ± 14 years, 10 women; IBD patients n=20 (ulcerative colitis n=9, Crohn's disease n=11), 41 ± 15 years, 11 women).

Multifrequency MR elastography using a single-shot spin-echo echo planar imaging sequence at 1.5 T with drive frequencies of 40, 50, 60, and 70 Hz.

Maps of shear-wave speed (SWS, in m/s) and loss angle (φ, in rad), representing stiffness and solid-fluid behavior, respectively, were generated using tomoelastography data processing. Histopathological analysis of surgical specimens was used as reference standard in patients.

Unpaired t-test, one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey post hoc analysis, Pearson's correlation coefficient and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with 95%-confidence interval (CI). click here Significance level of 5%.

MR elastography was feasible in all 40 subjects (100% technical success rate). SWS and φ were significantly increased in IBD by 21% and 20% (IBD 1.45 ± 0.14 m/s and 0.78 ± 0.12 rad; healthy volunteers 1.20 ± 0.14 m/s and 0.65 ± 0.06 rad), whereas no significant differences were found between ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease (P=0.74 and 0.90, respectively). In a preliminary assessment, a high diagnostic accuracy in detecting IBD was suggested by an AUC of 0.90 (CI 0.81-0.96) for SWS and 0.84 (CI 0.71-0.95) for φ.

In this pilot study, our results demonstrated the feasibility of MR elastography of the gut and showed an excellent diagnostic performance in predicting IBD.

1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY Stage 1.
1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY Stage 1.
T1, T2, and T1ρ might be potential biomarkers for assessing liver fibrosis. However, few studies reported the value of them in different animal models.

To investigate and compare the performances of T1, T2, and T1ρ for noninvasively staging liver fibrosis in bile duct ligation (BDL) or carbon tetrachloride (CCl
) model.

Prospective animal model.

Liver fibrosis was induced by BDL or injection of CCl
in 120 rats.

11.7T, T1 mapping with 10 repetition times, T2 mapping with 32 echo times, and T1ρ with 10 spin-lock times.

T1, T2, and T1ρ were measured and correlated with liver fibrosis stages, as well as the degree of inflammation, steatosis, iron deposition, and the expression of cytokeratin 19. The discriminative performance of T1, T2, and T1ρ for staging liver fibrosis was compared.

One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Spearman's correlation analysis, factorial design ANOVA, and receiver operating characteristic curves (P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant).

T1, T2, and T1ρ (BDL rho=0.73, 0.85, 0.68; CCl
rho=0.80, 0.29, 0.61) were significantly correlated with liver fibrosis stages, while there was no significant difference in T2 among stage F0-F4 in the CCl
model (P=0.204). The area under the curves (AUCs) range of T1, T2, and T1ρ for predicting ≥F1, ≥F2, ≥F3, and F4 were 0.76-0.95, 0.89-0.98, and 0.80-0.94 in the CCl
model. For the CCl
model, the AUCs range of T1, T2, and T1ρ for predicting ≥F1, ≥F2, ≥F3, and F4 were 0.83-0.95, 0.61-0.74, and 0.73-0.89, respectively. T2 had significantly higher AUC in the BDL model than CCl
model for diagnosing liver fibrosis.

The most sensitive and accurate method for staging liver fibrosis appeared to be T1 in our animal models followed by T1ρ. T2 may not be suitable for evaluating liver fibrosis.

1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE 2.
1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY STAGE 2.
To understand the impact of professional stressors on nurses' and other health care providers' professional quality of life and moral distress as they cared for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Health care providers caring for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic are at increased risk of decreased professional quality of life and increased moral distress.

A convergent mixed-methods design and snowball sampling was used to collect survey data (n = 171) and semi-structured interviews (n = 23) among health care providers working in the inpatient setting.

Perceived lack of support from executive leadership, access to personal protective equipment and constantly changing guidelines led to decreased professional quality of life and increased moral distress among health care providers.

Findings from this study indicate that shared governance, disaster management training and enhanced communication may assist executive leadership to reduce the likelihood of decreased professional quality of life and increased moral distress in front line health care providers.
Homepage: https://www.selleckchem.com/products/apd334.html