Lung structural and functional impairments in young children with cystic fibrosis diagnosed following newborn screening - A nationwide observational study.

Background: Non-invasive and sensitive clinical endpoints are needed to monitor onset and progression of early lung disease in children with cystic fibrosis (CF). We compared lung clearance index (LCI), FEV, functional and structural lung magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) outcomes in Swiss children with CF diagnosed following newborn screening.

Methods: Lung function (LCI, FEV) and unsedated functional and structural lung MRI was performed in 79 clinically stable children with CF (3 - 8 years) and 75 age-matched healthy controls.

Predictors of asthma control differ from predictors of asthma attacks in children: The Swiss Paediatric Airway Cohort.

Background: It is unclear if predictors of asthma attacks are the same as those of asthma symptom control in children.

Objective: We evaluated predictors for these two outcomes in a clinical cohort study.

Methods: The Swiss Paediatric Airway Cohort (SPAC) is a multicentre prospective clinical cohort of children referred to paediatric pulmonologists.

Narcoleptic Patients Show Fragmented EEG-Microstructure During Early NREM Sleep.

Narcolepsy is a chronic disorder of the sleep-wake cycle with pathological shifts between sleep stages. These abrupt shifts are induced by a sleep-regulating flip-flop mechanism which is destabilized in narcolepsy without obvious alterations in EEG oscillations. Here, we focus on the question whether the pathology of narcolepsy is reflected in EEG microstate patterns.

EEG microstates of wakefulness and NREM sleep.

EEG-microstates exploit spatio-temporal EEG features to characterize the spontaneous EEG as a sequence of a finite number of quasi-stable scalp potential field maps. So far, EEG-microstates have been studied mainly in wakeful rest and are thought to correspond to functionally relevant brain-states. Four typical microstate maps have been identified and labeled arbitrarily with the letters A, B, C and D.