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Anisotropic traditional acoustic phonon polariton-enhanced infra-red spectroscopy for individual compound recognition.
© 2020 The Authors. Genes, Chromosomes & Cancer published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.BACKGROUND Dorsal root ganglion stimulation (DRG-S) has emerged as a treatment for complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) of the lower extremities and recent small studies are demonstrating its potential efficacy in pain syndromes that are traditionally considered nociceptive in nature, such as axial low back pain. While improvements in neuromodulation technology have been substantial over the last decade, patients occasionally require additional interventional pain treatments after implantation of DRG-S systems for treatment of pain from other sources. Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of medial branch nerves innervating the facet joints is an accepted therapy for pain arising from the facet joints. METHODS We describe two cases from the same practice where we observed similar phenomena while performing a two-needle monopolar lumbar RFA in patients with a DRG-S system implanted with leads positioned bilaterally at the S1 DRGs. RESULTS Initiation of RFA resulted in motor activation and discomfort in an S1 distribution in the legs in both individual cases. CONCLUSIONS RFA can interfere with implanted DRG-S systems resulting in overstimulation with motor recruitment. Specific anatomical considerations and device settings that may prevent interference are discussed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgement and never do harm to anyone. Blood stained the white coat red, Chinese doctors are going forward with a heavy burden of abiding by Hippocratic Oath. On December 26, 2019, an article entitled "a letter to my late father" was published in The Lancet, which has aroused strong repercussions in Chinese medical circles because this is the first time that The Lancet presents the papers of Chinese scholars in the form of all Chinese. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.PURPOSE To develop an autocalibrated multiband (MB) CAIPIRINHA acquisition scheme with in-plane k-t acceleration enabling multislice three-directional tissue phase mapping in one breath-hold. METHODS A k-t undersampling scheme was integrated into a time-resolved electrocardiographic-triggered autocalibrated MB gradient-echo sequence. The sequence was used to acquire data on 4 healthy volunteers with MB factors of two (MB2) and three (MB3), which were reconstructed using a joint reconstruction algorithm that tackles both k-t and MB acceleration. Forward simulations of the imaging process were used to tune the reconstruction model hyperparameters. Direct comparisons between MB and single-band tissue phase-mapping measurements were performed. RESULTS Simulations showed that the velocities could be accurately reproduced with MB2 k-t (average ± twice the SD of the RMS error of 0.08 ± 0.22 cm/s and velocity peak reduction of 1.03% ± 6.47% compared with fully sampled velocities), whereas acceptable results were obtained with MB3 k-t (RMS error of 0.13 ± 0.58 cm/s and peak reduction of 2.21% ± 13.45%). When applied to tissue phase-mapping data, the proposed technique allowed three-directional velocity encoding to be simultaneously acquired at two/three slices in a single breath-hold of 18 heartbeats. No statistically significant differences were detected between MB2/MB3 k-t and single-band k-t motion traces averaged over the myocardium. Regional differences were found, however, when using the American Heart Association model for segmentation. CONCLUSION An autocalibrated MB k-t acquisition/reconstruction framework is presented that allows three-directional velocity encoding of the myocardial velocities at multiple slices in one breath-hold. © 2020 Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.In cells, the breakdown of arginine to ornithine and ammonium ion plus carbon dioxide is coupled to the generation of metabolic energy in the form of ATP. The arginine breakdown pathway is minimally composed of arginine deiminase, ornithine transcarbamoylase, carbamate kinase, and an arginine/ornithine antiporter; ammonia and carbon dioxide most likely diffuse passively across the membrane. The genes for the enzymes and transporter have been cloned and expressed, and the proteins have been purified from Lactococcus lactis IL1403 and incorporated into lipid vesicles for sustained production of ATP. Here, we study the kinetic parameters and biochemical properties of the individual enzymes and the antiporter, and we determine how the physicochemical conditions, effector composition, and effector concentration affect the enzymes. We report the KM and VMAX values for catalysis and the native oligomeric state of all proteins, and we measured the effect of pathway intermediates, pH, temperature, freeze-thaw cycles, and salts on the activity of the cytosolic enzymes. We also present data on the protein-to-lipid ratio and lipid composition dependence of the antiporter. © 2020 The Authors. The FEBS Journal published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Federation of European Biochemical Societies.Aortopulmonary window (APW) is a rare congenital cardiac condition. A large number of patients with a large APW usually die within 1 year of age. It is extremely rare to find cases of APW surviving till adult age and it is still rare to surgically treat such patients who are incidentally detected in adult age because such subsets of patients invariably have associated pulmonary vascular obstructive disease in advanced stage and thus there is therapeutic dilemma to surgically correct these patients. Although cases of uncorrected AP window presenting in adulthood have been reported but literature on surgically treated AP window in adult populations is limited. We describe case of APW in a 26-year-old male patient who was diagnosed incidentally while suspecting infective endocarditis and was subsequently surgically closed successfully with polytetrafluoroethylene patch after confirming reversibility of pulmonary arterial hypertension which is the key for successful outcome. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.OBJECTIVE To identify whether lifetime cocaine use is a risk factor for conversion from Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) to Bipolar Disorder (BD) in an outpatient sample of adults. METHODS This is a prospective cohort study including 585 subjects aged between 18 and 60 years of age, diagnosed with MDD, as assessed by the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI-Plus) at baseline (2012 - 2015). Subjects were re-assessed a mean of 3 years later (2017 - 2018) for potential conversion to BD assessed by MINI-Plus. Lifetime cocaine use was assessed using the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test. RESULTS In the second wave, we had 117 (20%) losses, and 468 patients were reassessed. The rate of conversion from MDD to BD in 3 years was 12.4% (n=58). A logistic regression analysis showed that the risk for conversion from MDD to BD was 3.41 (1.11 - 10.43, 95% CI) times higher in subjects who reported lifetime cocaine use at baseline as compared to individuals that did not report lifetime cocaine use at baseline, after adjusting for demographic and clinical confounders. selleck kinase inhibitor CONCLUSION These findings showed that lifetime cocaine use is a potential predictor of conversion to BD in a MDD cohort. Further studies are needed to assess the possible underlying mechanisms linking exposure to cocaine to BD conversion. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.When listening to natural speech, our brain activity tracks the slow amplitude modulations of speech, also called the speech envelope. Moreover, recent research has demonstrated that this neural envelope tracking can be affected by top-down processes. The present study was designed to examine if neural envelope tracking is modulated by the effort that a person expends during listening. Five measures were included to quantify listening effort two behavioral measures based on a novel dual-task paradigm, a self-report effort measure and two neural measures related to phase synchronization and alpha power. Electroencephalography responses to sentences, presented at a wide range of subject-specific signal-to-noise ratios, were recorded in thirteen young, normal-hearing adults. A comparison of the five measures revealed different effects of listening effort as a function of speech understanding. Reaction times on the primary task and self-reported effort decreased with increasing speech understanding. In contrast, reaction times on the secondary task and alpha power showed a peak-shaped behavior with highest effort at intermediate speech understanding levels. With regard to neural envelope tracking, we found that the reaction times on the secondary task and self-reported effort explained a small part of the variability in theta-band envelope tracking. Speech understanding was found to strongly modulate neural envelope tracking. More specifically, our results demonstrated a robust increase in envelope tracking with increasing speech understanding. The present study provides new insights in the relations among different effort measures and highlights the potential of neural envelope tracking to objectively measure speech understanding in young, normal-hearing adults. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Serous effusions in cases of lymphoma are a known and expected phenomenon in the late stages of the disease. The frequency is highest in pleural fluid (20-30%), followed by peritoneal and pericardial involvement. (1) Lymphoblastic lymphoma/leukemia is the most frequent culprit to involve serous fluids. We want to bring to the notice of the reader that in most lymphomatous effusion, the diagnosis is already proven/ undergoing treatment, so a detailed workup may not be necessary. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is an important consequence of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH). Astragaloside IV (AS-IV) exerts multiple protective effects in diverse diseases. However, whether AS-IV can attenuate CIH-induced myocardial injury is unclear. In this study, rats exposed to CIH were established and treated with AS-IV for 4 weeks. In vitro, H9C2 cardiomyocytes subjected to CIH exposure were treated with AS-IV for 48 hours. Then the cardiac function, morphology, fibrosis, apoptosis and Ca2+ homeostasis were determined to assess cardiac damage. Results showed that AS-IV attenuated cardiac dysfunction and histological lesions in CIH rats. The increased TUNEL-positive cells and activated apoptotic proteins in CIH rats were reduced by AS-IV. We also noticed that AS-IV reversed the accumulation of Ca2+ and altered expressions of Ca2+ handling proteins (decreases of SERCA2a and RYR2, and increases of p-CaMKII and NCX1) under CIH exposure. Furthermore, CIH-induced reduction of SERCA2a activity was increased by AS-IV in rats. Similar results were also observed in H9C2 cells. Altogether, these findings indicate that AS-IV modulates Ca2+ homeostasis to inhibit apoptosis, protecting against CIH-induced myocardial injury eventually, suggesting it may be a potential agent for cardiac damage of OSAS patients. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH) is a great contributor of OSAS, which is closely associated with cardiovascular diseases. It is necessary for developing a promising drug to attenuate CIH-induced myocardial injury. This work suggests that AS-IV can attenuate myocardial apoptosis and calcium disruption, thus protecting against CIH-induced myocardial injury. It may represent a novel therapeutic for cardiac damage of OSAS. © 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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