Impact of Daily Choral Singing and Creative Writing Activities on the Cognitive Development of Second-, Third-, and Fourth-Grade French Children from Low Socioeconomic Backgrounds.

In France, around one-fifth of children have reading difficulties, and school results are highly dependent on their socio-economic status. In this context, the need for alternative and innovative teaching techniques holds importance, and more artistic approaches are promising. The aim of this study was to assess the impact of a daily choral singing or creative writing practice on the cognitive and linguistic development of French children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Rhythmic training, literacy, and graphomotor skills in kindergarteners.

Introduction: The aim of this manuscript is twofold: first, to investigate the relationship between rhythmic, phonological and graphomotor skills in kindergarten children; and second, to evaluate the possible impact of rhythmic training on the two other skills.

Methods: To that end, we selected a sample of 78 children in Québec. Forty-two children received rhythmic training (experimental group) and 34 arts training (active control group) during the same period (10 weeks).

Understanding and modifying Fabry disease: Rationale and design of a pivotal Phase 3 study and results from a patient-reported outcome validation study.

The use of available treatments for Fabry disease (FD) (including enzyme replacement therapy [ERT]) may be restricted by their limited symptom improvement and mode of administration. Lucerastat is currently being investigated in the MODIFY study as oral substrate reduction therapy for the treatment of FD. By reducing the net globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) load in tissues, lucerastat has disease-modifying potential to improve symptoms and delay disease progression.

Effects of Psychoacoustic Training on the Pre-Attentive Processing of Harmonic Sounds and Syllables.

Purpose: This article aimed at investigating the neural underpinnings of music-to-language transfer effects at the pre-attentive level of processing.

Method: We conducted a longitudinal experiment with a test-training-retest procedure. Nonmusician adults were trained either on frequency (experimental group) or on intensity (control group) of harmonic tones using methods from psychophysics.

Synchronization of acquisition devices in neuroimaging: An application using co-registration of eye movements and electroencephalography.

Interest in applications for the simultaneous acquisition of data from different devices is growing. In neuroscience for example, co-registration complements and overcomes some of the shortcomings of individual methods. However, precise synchronization of the different data streams involved is required before joint data analysis.

Music Training Positively Influences the Preattentive Perception of Voice Onset Time in Children with Dyslexia: A Longitudinal Study.

Previous results showed a positive influence of music training on linguistic abilities at both attentive and preattentive levels. Here, we investigate whether six months of active music training is more efficient than painting training to improve the preattentive processing of phonological parameters based on durations that are often impaired in children with developmental dyslexia (DD). Results were also compared to a control group of Typically Developing (TD) children matched on reading age.

Behavioral and electrophysiological investigation of speech perception deficits in silence, noise and envelope conditions in developmental dyslexia.

The present study investigated whether children with developmental dyslexia showed specific deficits in the perception of three phonetic features (voicing, place, and manner of articulation) in optimal (silence) and degraded listening conditions (envelope-coded speech versus noise), using both standard behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Performance of children with dyslexia was compared to that of younger typically developing children who were matched in terms of reading age. Results showed no significant group differences in response accuracy except for the reception of place-of-articulation in noise.

An Eye Fixation-Related Potential Study in Two Reading Tasks: Reading to Memorize and Reading to Make a Decision.

We investigated how two different reading tasks, namely reading to memorize [Read & Memorize (RM)] and reading to decide whether a text was relevant to a given topic [Read & Decide (RD)], modulated both eye movements (EM) and brain activity. To this end, we set up an ecological paradigm using the eye fixation-related potentials (EFRP) technique, in which participants freely moved their eyes to process short paragraphs, while their electroencephalography (EEG) activity was recorded in synchronization with their EM. A general linear model was used to estimate at best EFRP, taking account of the overlap between adjacent potentials, and more precisely with the potential elicited at text onset, as well as saccadic potentials.

Efficacy and Safety of Selexipag in Adults With Raynaud's Phenomenon Secondary to Systemic Sclerosis: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Phase II Study.

Objective: To determine the effect of selexipag, an oral, selective IP prostacyclin receptor agonist, on the frequency of attacks of Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc).

Methods: Patients with SSc-related RP were randomized 1:1 to placebo (n = 38) or selexipag (n = 36) in individualized doses (maximum of 1,600 μg twice daily) during a 3-week titration period. The primary end point was the weekly average number of RP attacks during the study maintenance period, analyzed using a Bayesian approach with a negative binomial model adjusted for baseline number of RP attacks.

Selexipag for the Treatment of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.

Background: In a phase 2 trial, selexipag, an oral selective IP prostacyclin-receptor agonist, was shown to be beneficial in the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension.

Methods: In this event-driven, phase 3, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we randomly assigned 1156 patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension to receive placebo or selexipag in individualized doses (maximum dose, 1600 μg twice daily). Patients were eligible for enrollment if they were not receiving treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension or if they were receiving a stable dose of an endothelin-receptor antagonist, a phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitor, or both.

Conceptual priming for realistic auditory scenes and for auditory words.

Two experiments were conducted using both behavioral and Event-Related brain Potentials methods to examine conceptual priming effects for realistic auditory scenes and for auditory words. Prime and target sounds were presented in four stimulus combinations: Sound-Sound, Word-Sound, Sound-Word and Word-Word. Within each combination, targets were conceptually related to the prime, unrelated or ambiguous.

Decision-making in information seeking on texts: an eye-fixation-related potentials investigation.

Reading on a web page is known to be not linear and people need to make fast decisions about whether they have to stop or not reading. In such context, reading, and decision-making processes are intertwined and this experiment attempts to separate them through electrophysiological patterns provided by the Eye-Fixation-Related Potentials technique (EFRPs). We conducted an experiment in which EFRPs were recorded while participants read blocks of text that were semantically highly related, moderately related, and unrelated to a given goal.

Randomised trial of clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage undergoing surgical clipping (CONSCIOUS-2).

We report here results of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study ( http://www.ClinicalTrials.gov , NCT00558311) that investigated the effect of clazosentan (5 mg/h, n = 768) or placebo (n = 389) administered for up to 14 days in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) repaired by surgical clipping.

Randomized trial of clazosentan in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage undergoing endovascular coiling.

Background And Purpose: Clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, has been shown to reduce vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). CONSCIOUS-3 assessed whether clazosentan reduced vasospasm-related morbidity and all-cause mortality postaSAH secured by endovascular coiling.

Methods: This double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III trial randomized patients with aSAH secured by endovascular coiling to ≤ 14 days intravenous clazosentan (5 or 15 mg/h) or placebo.

Neurohormonal activation in acute heart failure: results from VERITAS.

Objectives: Recent heart failure studies have suggested that inflammatory and immune system activation are associated with increased levels of cytokines, chemokines and inflammatory proteins during acutely decompensated heart failure. The objectives of this substudy were to evaluate the role of neurohormonal and inflammatory activation in the pathogenesis and outcome of acute heart failure (AHF) and the correlation between biomarker levels and clinical outcomes.

Methods: Serum levels of B-type natriuretic peptide-32 (BNP-32), endothelin-1 (ET-1), norepinephrine, troponins I and T, C-reactive protein (CRP), von Willebrand factor, plasminogen activator inhibitor-1, interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) were measured at baseline, 24 and 48 h and 7 and 30 days in 112 patients with AHF recruited to the Value of Endothelin Receptor Inhibition with Tezosentan in Acute Heart Failure Study neurohormonal substudy.

Clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage undergoing surgical clipping: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial (CONSCIOUS-2).

Background: Clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, significantly and dose-dependently reduced angiographic vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (aSAH). We investigated whether clazosentan reduced vasospasm-related morbidity and all-cause mortality.

Methods: In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 study, we randomly assigned patients with aSAH secured by surgical clipping to clazosentan (5 mg/h, n=768) or placebo (n=389) for up to 14 days (27 countries, 102 sites, inpatient and outpatient settings) using an interactive web response system.

Preventing vasospasm improves outcome after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage: rationale and design of CONSCIOUS-2 and CONSCIOUS-3 trials.

Cerebral vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is a frequent but unpredictable complication associated with poor outcome. Current vasospasm therapies are suboptimal; new therapies are needed. Clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, has shown promise in phase 2 studies, and two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trials (CONSCIOUS-2 and CONSCIOUS-3) are underway to further investigate its impact on vasospasm-related outcome after aSAH.

Early worsening heart failure in patients admitted for acute heart failure: time course, hemodynamic predictors, and outcome.

Background: The most common outcome currently assessed in acute heart failure trials (AHF) is dyspnea improvement. Worsening hear failure (WHF) is a new outcome measure that incorporates failure to improve or recurrent symptoms of AHF requiring rescue intravenous therapy, mechanical circulatory or ventilatory support, or readmission because of AHF, occurring within 30 days of AHF admission.

Methods And Results: Retrospective data analysis of 120 patients with AHF requiring hemodynamic monitoring who enrolled in the placebo arm of 2 prospective randomized studies.

Clazosentan to overcome neurological ischemia and infarction occurring after subarachnoid hemorrhage (CONSCIOUS-1): randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2 dose-finding trial.

Background And Purpose: This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-finding study assessed efficacy and safety of 1, 5, and 15 mg/h intravenous clazosentan, an endothelin receptor antagonist, in preventing vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Methods: Patients (n=413) were randomized to placebo or clazosentan beginning within 56 hours and continued up to 14 days after initiation of treatment. The primary end point was moderate or severe angiographic vasospasm based on centrally read, blinded evaluation of digital subtraction angiography at baseline and 7 to 11 days postsubarachnoid hemorrhage.

Effects of tezosentan on symptoms and clinical outcomes in patients with acute heart failure: the VERITAS randomized controlled trials.

Context: Plasma concentrations of the vasoconstrictor peptide endothelin-1 are increased in patients with heart failure, and higher concentrations are associated with worse outcomes. Tezosentan is an intravenous short-acting endothelin receptor antagonist that has favorable hemodynamic actions in heart failure.

Objective: To determine if tezosentan improves outcomes in patients with acute heart failure.

Echocardiographic ejection fraction in patients with acute heart failure: correlations with hemodynamic, clinical, and neurohormonal measures and short-term outcome.

Background: Although echocardiographic ejection fraction (EF) is frequently used for the estimation of left ventricular contractility in patients with acute heart failure, its exact role and correlations with clinical, hemodynamic, and neurohormonal variables of cardiac contractility is not known.

Methods: Patients (343) with acute heart failure, enrolled into two prospective placebo-controlled hemodynamic studies of tezosentan, and in whom EF was available at baseline, were included. Outcome was evaluated in a subset of 94 patients who were enrolled in the placebo arms of the studies.

Tezosentan in patients with acute heart failure: design of the Value of Endothelin Receptor Inhibition with Tezosentan in Acute heart failure Study (VERITAS).

Background: Endothelin 1 is a potent endogenous vasoconstrictor neurohormone, and endothelin 1 plasma concentrations predict adverse outcomes in patients with acute heart failure (AHF). Tezosentan, an intravenous endothelin receptor antagonist, improved hemodynamics in patients with AHF; however, its effects on morbidity and mortality have not been evaluated.

Methods: The VERITAS program consists of 2 identical, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, concurrently conducted trials (VERITAS-1 and VERITAS-2), performed in 150 centers in Europe, Israel, Australia, and North America.

The hemodynamic and neurohormonal effects of low doses of tezosentan (an endothelin A/B receptor antagonist) in patients with acute heart failure.

Background: In previous studies (the RITZ project), tezosentan, an intravenous (i.v.)-balanced dual endothelin (ET-A/B) antagonist, in doses of 50 and 100 mg/h, improved the hemodynamics but not the clinical outcome of patients with acute heart failure (AHF).