The relevance of rich club regions for functional outcome post-stroke is enhanced in women.

This study aimed to investigate the influence of stroke lesions in predefined highly interconnected (rich-club) brain regions on functional outcome post-stroke, determine their spatial specificity and explore the effects of biological sex on their relevance. We analyzed MRI data recorded at index stroke and ~3-months modified Rankin Scale (mRS) data from patients with acute ischemic stroke enrolled in the multisite MRI-GENIE study. Spatially normalized structural stroke lesions were parcellated into 108 atlas-defined bilateral (sub)cortical brain regions.

Deep profiling of multiple ischemic lesions in a large, multi-center cohort: Frequency, spatial distribution, and associations to clinical characteristics.

Background Purpose: A substantial number of patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) experience multiple acute lesions (MAL). We here aimed to scrutinize MAL in a large radiologically deep-phenotyped cohort.

Materials And Methods: Analyses relied upon imaging and clinical data from the international MRI-GENIE study.

Gut microbiome in neuropsychiatric disorders.

Background: Neuropsychiatric disorders are a significant cause of death and disability worldwide. The mechanisms underlying these disorders include a constellation of structural, infectious, immunological, metabolic, and genetic etiologies. Advances in next-generation sequencing techniques have demonstrated that the composition of the enteric microbiome is dynamic and plays a pivotal role in host homeostasis and several diseases.

Sex-specific lesion pattern of functional outcomes after stroke.

Stroke represents a considerable burden of disease for both men and women. However, a growing body of literature suggests clinically relevant sex differences in the underlying causes, presentations and outcomes of acute ischaemic stroke. In a recent study, we reported sex divergences in lesion topographies: specific to women, acute stroke severity was linked to lesions in the left-hemispheric posterior circulation.

Excessive White Matter Hyperintensity Increases Susceptibility to Poor Functional Outcomes After Acute Ischemic Stroke.

To personalize the prognostication of post-stroke outcome using MRI-detected cerebrovascular pathology, we sought to investigate the association between the excessive white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden unaccounted for by the traditional stroke risk profile of individual patients and their long-term functional outcomes after a stroke. We included 890 patients who survived after an acute ischemic stroke from the MRI-Genetics Interface Exploration (MRI-GENIE) study, for whom data on vascular risk factors (VRFs), including age, sex, atrial fibrillation, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, coronary artery disease, smoking, prior stroke history, as well as acute stroke severity, 3- to-6-month modified Rankin Scale score (mRS), WMH, and brain volumes, were available. We defined the unaccounted WMH (uWMH) burden modeling of expected WMH burden based on the VRF profile of each individual patient.

MRI Radiomic Signature of White Matter Hyperintensities Is Associated With Clinical Phenotypes.

Objective: Neuroimaging measurements of brain structural integrity are thought to be surrogates for brain health, but precise assessments require dedicated advanced image acquisitions. By means of quantitatively describing conventional images, radiomic analyses hold potential for evaluating brain health. We sought to: (1) evaluate radiomics to assess brain structural integrity by predicting white matter hyperintensities burdens (WMH) and (2) uncover associations between predictive radiomic features and clinical phenotypes.

Can sexual transmission support the enzootic cycle of Trypanosoma cruzi?

Background: Trypanosoma cruzi circulates in sylvatic habitats, mainly through blood-feeding triatomines, although other routes also contribute to its dispersion. Sexual transmission of T. cruzi is an understudied topic, especially among wild mammals.

Sexual transmission of American trypanosomiasis in humans: a new potential pandemic route for Chagas parasites.

Background: The Trypanosoma cruzi infection endemic in Latin America has now spread to several countries across four continents; this endemic involves triatomine vector-free protists. We hypothesised that the sexual transmission of T. cruzi contributes to the ongoing spread of Chagas disease.

Sexual transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi in murine model.

Trypanosoma cruzi is mainly transmitted by blood-sucking triatomines, but other routes also have epidemiological importance, such as blood transfusion and congenital transmission. Although the possibility of sexual transmission of T. cruzi has been suggested since its discovery, few studies have been published on this subject.

Inhibition of autoimmune Chagas-like heart disease by bone marrow transplantation.

Background: Infection with the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi manifests in mammals as Chagas heart disease. The treatment available for chagasic cardiomyopathy is unsatisfactory.

Methods/principal Findings: To study the disease pathology and its inhibition, we employed a syngeneic chicken model refractory to T.

Interactome: Smart hematophagous triatomine salivary gland molecules counteract human hemostasis during meal acquisition.

Human populations are constantly plagued by hematophagous insects' bites, in particular the triatomine insects that are vectors of the Trypanosoma cruzi agent in Chagas disease. The pharmacologically-active molecules present in the salivary glands of hematophagous insects are injected into the human skin to initiate acquisition of blood meals. Sets of vasodilators, anti-platelet aggregators, anti-coagulants, immunogenic polypeptides, anesthetics, odorants, antibiotics, and detoxifying molecules have been disclosed with the aid of proteomics and recombinant cDNA techniques.

Pathogenesis of chagas' disease: parasite persistence and autoimmunity.

Acute Trypanosoma cruzi infections can be asymptomatic, but chronically infected individuals can die of Chagas' disease. The transfer of the parasite mitochondrial kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) minicircle to the genome of chagasic patients can explain the pathogenesis of the disease; in cases of Chagas' disease with evident cardiomyopathy, the kDNA minicircles integrate mainly into retrotransposons at several chromosomes, but the minicircles are also detected in coding regions of genes that regulate cell growth, differentiation, and immune responses. An accurate evaluation of the role played by the genotype alterations in the autoimmune rejection of self-tissues in Chagas' disease is achieved with the cross-kingdom chicken model system, which is refractory to T.

Trypanosoma cruzi in the chicken model: Chagas-like heart disease in the absence of parasitism.

Background: The administration of anti-trypanosome nitroderivatives curtails Trypanosoma cruzi infection in Chagas disease patients, but does not prevent destructive lesions in the heart. This observation suggests that an effective treatment for the disease requires understanding its pathogenesis.

Methodology/principal Findings: To understand the origin of clinical manifestations of the heart disease we used a chicken model system in which infection can be initiated in the egg, but parasite persistence is precluded.

Inheritance of DNA transferred from American trypanosomes to human hosts.

Interspecies DNA transfer is a major biological process leading to the accumulation of mutations inherited by sexual reproduction among eukaryotes. Lateral DNA transfer events and their inheritance has been challenging to document. In this study we modified a thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR by using additional targeted primers, along with Southern blots, fluorescence techniques, and bioinformatics, to identify lateral DNA transfer events from parasite to host.