Kainate receptors regulate synaptic integrity and plasticity by forming a complex with synaptic organizers in the cerebellum.

Kainate (KA)-type glutamate receptors (KARs) are implicated in various neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders through their ionotropic and metabotropic actions. However, compared to AMPA- and NMDA-type receptor functions, many aspects of KAR biology remain incompletely understood. Our study demonstrates an important role of KARs in organizing climbing fiber (CF)-Purkinje cell (PC) synapses and synaptic plasticity in the cerebellum, independently of their ion channel or metabotropic functions.

The burden of non-SARS-CoV2 viral lower respiratory tract infections in hospitalized children in Barcelona (Spain): A long-term, clinical, epidemiologic and economic study.

Background: Viral lower respiratory tract infections (LRTI) are the leading cause of hospitalization in children. In Catalonia (Spain), information is scarce about the burden of viral LRTIs in paediatric hospitalizations. The aim of this study is to describe epidemiological, clinical, virological and economic features of paediatric hospitalizations due to viral LRTI.

Comparing the first and second waves of COVID-19 in a tertiary university hospital in Barcelona.

Background: Hospitals have constituted the limiting resource of the healthcare systems for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic progressed, knowledge of the disease improved, and healthcare systems were expected to be more adapted to provide a more efficient response. The objective of this research was to compare the flow of COVID-19 patients in emergency rooms and hospital wards, between the pandemic's first and second waves at the University Hospital of Vall d'Hebron (Barcelona, Spain), and to compare the profiles, severity and mortality of COVID-19 patients between the two waves.

Cost analysis of the enhanced recovery after surgery protocol applied in advanced ovarian cancer: A secondary outcome of the PROFAST trial.

Introduction: A randomised trial implementing Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) for high complexity advanced ovarian cancer (AOC) surgery (PROFAST) demonstrated a reduction of median length of stay and hospital readmissions when compared to patients managed conventionally. One secondary objective was to determine if an ERAS pathway in the perioperative management of advanced ovarian cancer patients led to cost savings.

Material And Methods: Secondary objective of a prospective randomised trial of patients with suspected or diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer allocated to conventional or ERAS perioperative management, carried out at a referral centre from June 2014 to March 2018.

Audiovisual adaptation is expressed in spatial and decisional codes.

The brain adapts dynamically to the changing sensory statistics of its environment. Recent research has started to delineate the neural circuitries and representations that support this cross-sensory plasticity. Combining psychophysics and model-based representational fMRI and EEG we characterized how the adult human brain adapts to misaligned audiovisual signals.

Transforming a public university hospital and its area of influence into a comprehensive resource in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Introduction And Objectives: The outbreak of COVID-19 has overwhelmed healthcare systems all over the world. The aim of this article is to describe the process of transforming the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, the second largest hospital in Spain, into a COVID-19 centre coordinating response to the pandemic in its reference area.

Materials And Methods: The study draws on the experience of the authors in transforming the hospital into a comprehensive resource in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Differential Auditory and Visual Phase-Locking Are Observed during Audio-Visual Benefit and Silent Lip-Reading for Speech Perception.

Speech perception in noisy environments is enhanced by seeing facial movements of communication partners. However, the neural mechanisms by which audio and visual speech are combined are not fully understood. We explore MEG phase-locking to auditory and visual signals in MEG recordings from 14 human participants (6 females, 8 males) that reported words from single spoken sentences.

Serological response to vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

Objective: To study the serological response (SR) and tolerability of COVID-19 vaccine in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and its relation with IBD treatment and type of vaccine.

Methods: Observational, cross-sectional study in patients with IBD vaccinated against COVID-19 without known previous infection. SR was analyzed by the determination of IgG antibodies against the S1 subunit.

Hepatic Encephalopathy-Associated Cerebral Vasculopathy in Acute-on-Chronic Liver Failure: Alterations on Endothelial Factor Release and Influence on Cerebrovascular Function.

The acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a syndrome characterized by liver decompensation, hepatic encephalopathy (HE) and high mortality. We aimed to determine the mechanisms implicated in the development of HE-associated cerebral vasculopathy in a microsurgical liver cholestasis (MHC) model of ACLF. Microsurgical liver cholestasis was induced by ligating and extracting the common bile duct and four bile ducts.

Withdrawal of hospital outpatient treatments in severe diseases due to unacceptable toxicity: A retrospective study from the register of patients and treatments.

Aim: To retrospectively analyse hospital outpatient treatment (HOT) withdrawal due to unacceptable toxicity at our hospital. Information regarding unacceptable toxicity leading to treatment withdrawal was recorded.

Methods: HOT interruptions because of unacceptable toxicity were identified from the Register of Patients and Treatments (RPT) (January 2014 to December 2017).

Metabolism in Acute-On-Chronic Liver Failure: The Solution More than the Problem.

Chronic inflammatory liver disease with an acute deterioration of liver function is named acute-on-chronic inflammation and could be regulated by the metabolic impairments related to the liver dysfunction. In this way, the experimental cholestasis model is excellent for studying metabolism in both types of inflammatory responses. Along the evolution of this model, the rats develop biliary fibrosis and an acute-on-chronic decompensation.

The Lymphatic Headmaster of the Mast Cell-Related Splanchnic Inflammation in Portal Hypertension.

Portal hypertension is a common complication of liver disease, either acute or chronic. Consequently, in chronic liver disease, such as the hypertensive mesenteric venous pathology, the coexisting inflammatory response is classically characterized by the splanchnic blood circulation. However, a vascular lymphatic pathology is produced simultaneously with the splanchnic arterio-venous impairments.

Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Liver Regeneration in Liver Failure: From Experimental Models to Clinical Trials.

The liver centralizes the systemic metabolism and thus controls and modulates the functions of the central and peripheral nervous systems, the immune system, and the endocrine system. In addition, the liver intervenes between the splanchnic and systemic venous circulation, determining an abdominal portal circulatory system. The liver displays a powerful regenerative potential that rebuilds the parenchyma after an injury.

Acute-on-chronic liver disease enhances phenylephrine-induced endothelial nitric oxide release in rat mesenteric resistance arteries through enhanced PKA, PI3K/AKT and cGMP signalling pathways.

Acute-on-chronic liver disease is a clinical syndrome characterized by decompensated liver fibrosis, portal hypertension and splanchnic hyperdynamic circulation. We aimed to determine whether the alpha-1 agonist phenylephrine (Phe) facilitates endothelial nitric oxide (NO) release by mesenteric resistance arteries (MRA) in rats subjected to an experimental microsurgical obstructive liver cholestasis model (LC). Sham-operated (SO) and LC rats were maintained for eight postoperative weeks.

The value of manure - Manure as co-product in life cycle assessment.

Livestock production is important for food security, nutrition, and landscape maintenance, but it is associated with several environmental impacts. To assess the risk and benefits arising from livestock production, transparent and robust indicators are required, such as those offered by life cycle assessment. A central question in such approaches is how environmental burden is allocated to livestock products and to manure that is re-used for agricultural production.

To integrate or not to integrate: Temporal dynamics of hierarchical Bayesian causal inference.

To form a percept of the environment, the brain needs to solve the binding problem-inferring whether signals come from a common cause and are integrated or come from independent causes and are segregated. Behaviourally, humans solve this problem near-optimally as predicted by Bayesian causal inference; but the neural mechanisms remain unclear. Combining Bayesian modelling, electroencephalography (EEG), and multivariate decoding in an audiovisual spatial localisation task, we show that the brain accomplishes Bayesian causal inference by dynamically encoding multiple spatial estimates.

Mast cell-mediated splanchnic cholestatic inflammation.

Introduction: Splanchnic mast cells increase in chronic liver and in acute-on-chronic liver diseases. We administered Ketotifen, a mast cell stabilizer, and measured the mast cells in the splanchnic organs of cholestatic rats.

Material And Methods: These groups were studied: sham-operated rats (S; n = 15), untreated microsurgical cholestasic rats (C; n = 20) and rats treated with Ketotifen: early (SK-e; n = 20 and CKe; n = 18), and late (SK-l; n = 15 and CK-l; n = 14).

Targeted single-cell electroporation loading of Ca indicators in the mature hemicochlea preparation.

Ca is an important intracellular messenger and regulator in both physiological and pathophysiological mechanisms in the hearing organ. Investigation of cellular Ca homeostasis in the mature cochlea is hampered by the special anatomy and high vulnerability of the organ. A quick, straightforward and reliable Ca imaging method with high spatial and temporal resolution in the mature organ of Corti is missing.

Portal hypertension: The desperate search for the placenta.

We propose that the circulatory impairments produced, in both portal hypertension and liver cirrhosis, to a certain degree resemble those characterizing prenatal life in the fetus. In fact, the left-right circulatory syndrome is common in cirrhotic patients and in the fetus. Thus, in patients with portal hypertension and chronic liver failure, the re-expression of a blood circulation comparable to fetal circulation is associated with the development of similar amniotic functions, i.

Carcinogenesis: the cancer cell-mast cell connection.

Background: In mammals, inflammation is required for wound repair and tumorigenesis. However, the events that lead to inflammation, particularly in non-healing wounds and cancer, are only partly understood.

Findings: Mast cells, due to their great plasticity, could orchestrate the inflammatory responses inducing the expression of extraembryonic programs of normal and pathological tissue formation.

Hepatic encephalopathy: Sometimes more portal than hepatic.

Hepatic encephalopathy is a severe complication of both chronic and acute liver diseases. The term hepatic encephalopathy stems from the belief that hepatic insufficiency is its fundamental etiopathogenic factor. However, most clinical cases show liver failure along with mesenteric venous portal hypertension.

Invisible Flashes Alter Perceived Sound Location.

Information integration across the senses is fundamental for effective interactions with our environment. The extent to which signals from different senses can interact in the absence of awareness is controversial. Combining the spatial ventriloquist illusion and dynamic continuous flash suppression (dCFS), we investigated in a series of two experiments whether visual signals that observers do not consciously perceive can influence spatial perception of sounds.

[Social and clinical determinants of the use of health services in women with breast cancer (Cohort DAMA)].

Objective: To describe and analyse the factors associated with the use of health services (emergency departments, admissions and primary care) in women survivors of breast cancer diagnosed or treated in four university hospitals of Barcelona (Spain) between 2003 and 2013, within the framework of the Cohort DAMA project.

Method: Descriptive design nested in a mixed cohort (Cohort Dama). We obtained sociodemographic information and information on the use of health services through a questionnaire, and on the tumour from the clinical history.

Increased Grik4 Gene Dosage Causes Imbalanced Circuit Output and Human Disease-Related Behaviors.

Altered glutamatergic neurotransmission is thought to contribute to mental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. Copy-number variation in genes associated with glutamatergic synapses represents a source of genetic variability, possibly underlying neurological and mental disease susceptibility. The GRIK4 gene encodes a high-affinity kainate receptor subunit of essentially unknown function, although de novo duplication of the 11q23.