Publications by authors named "Beattie M"

Article Synopsis
  • - The complex nature of spinal cord injury (SCI) creates challenges for translating research into practical treatments, leading to a need for advanced data science solutions to manage diverse injury data and outcomes.
  • - To address privacy concerns with sensitive data, a Private Data Commons for SCI (PDC-SCI) has been developed, enabling secure, organized data sharing among researchers for collaborative studies.
  • - An example of PDC-SCI in action is demonstrated through the VA Gordon Mansfield SCI Consortium, which integrates various data types to enhance research insights and knowledge discovery in SCI.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The study aimed to compare the motor examinations done by the clinical neurosurgery team with the ISNCSCI assessments, since the latter can be time-consuming and impractical during acute spinal cord injuries.
  • - Researchers analyzed data from the TRACK-SCI registry, which included 72 pairs of motor examinations from 63 patients, and found strong correlations between the two methods, indicating that neurosurgery motor examinations can effectively substitute for ISNCSCI exams.
  • - The results showed a very high agreement between the scores from both types of examinations with low bias, suggesting that clinical neurosurgery evaluations are reliable for assessing neurological function after spinal cord injuries.
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  • Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) poses a significant public health risk, with few prevention methods available.* -
  • Researchers developed a multivalent mRNA-lipid nanoparticle vaccine that stimulates strong immune responses in various animal models, unaffected by gut microbiota changes.* -
  • The vaccine effectively protects mice from severe CDI and enhances the elimination of harmful bacteria from the gut, highlighting mRNA-LNP technology as a potential new treatment avenue.*
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Dobutamine stress cardiac magnetic resonance (dsCMR) has demonstrated value in identifying patients at risk for adverse cardiovascular events in adults with coronary artery disease, but its prognostic value in younger patients is unknown. This study sought to evaluate the relationship between dsCMR results and the risk of subsequent cardiovascular events in children. Patients age < 23 years who underwent dsCMR at Boston Children's Hospital were eligible for inclusion.

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Introduction: Recruitment of care home staff to research studies is recognised as challenging. This was further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated negative media portrayal of care home workers. Social media use has surged since the onset of COVID-19 lockdowns, offering a plausible approach to understanding the barriers to care home research recruitment and gaining insight into public perceptions of care home workers.

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Background: Although many molecules have been investigated as biomarkers for spinal cord injury (SCI) or ischemic stroke, none of them are specifically induced in central nervous system (CNS) neurons following injuries with low baseline expression. However, neuronal injury constitutes a major pathology associated with SCI or stroke and strongly correlates with neurological outcomes. Biomarkers characterized by low baseline expression and specific induction in neurons post-injury are likely to better correlate with injury severity and recovery, demonstrating higher sensitivity and specificity for CNS injuries compared to non-neuronal markers or pan-neuronal markers with constitutive expressions.

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Background: Upper body limitations are a common disability in neurological conditions including stroke and multiple sclerosis. Care of patients with upper body limitations while in bed involves positioning techniques to maximise comfort and independence. The Bed Band is a nurse-led innovation to support people with limited mobility to maintain a comfortable position in bed, thereby promoting comfort and independence with activities of daily living.

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This longitudinal study (N = 1078, 46% boys; 54% girls) examined profiles of loneliness and ostracism during adolescence and their consequences and antecedents. Longitudinal latent profiles analyses identified four distinct profiles: (1) High emotional loneliness (25%), High and increasing social loneliness (15%), High peer exclusion and high social impact (9%) and No peer problems (51%). Subsequent internalizing problems were typical for the High and increasing social loneliness profile and externalizing problems for the High emotional loneliness and High peer exclusion and high social impact profiles.

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Objective: Chronic low back pain places a significant burden on healthcare services and sufferers. Clinical guidelines state that it is a condition that requires self-management. This realist synthesis explores how a mobile app could help people to self-manage chronic low back pain.

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Objective: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of prenatal ultrasound in detecting coarctation of the aorta (CoA).

Methods: An individual participant data meta-analysis was performed to report on the strength of association and diagnostic accuracy of different ultrasound signs in detecting CoA prenatally. MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL were searched for studies published between January 2000 and November 2021.

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Purpose: Poor acoustic windows make interval assessment of systolic function in patients with (Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy) DMD by echocardiography (echo) difficult. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) can be challenging in DMD patients due to study duration and patient discomfort. We developed an abbreviated CMR (aCMR) protocol and hypothesized that aCMR would compare favorably to echo in image quality and clinical utility without significant differences in exam duration, patient satisfaction, and functional measurements.

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Objective: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) following traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) is a significant clinical concern. This study sought to determine the incidence of VTE and hemorrhagic complications among patients with SCI who received low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) within 24 hours of injury or surgery and identify variables that predict VTE using the prospective Transforming Research and Clinical Knowledge in SCI (TRACK-SCI) database.

Methods: The TRACK-SCI database was queried for individuals with traumatic SCI from 2015 to 2022.

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HSV-1 disease is a significant public health burden causing orofacial, genital, cornea, and brain infection. We previously reported that a trivalent HSV-2 gC2, gD2, gE2 nucleoside-modified mRNA-lipid nanoparticle (LNP) vaccine provides excellent protection against vaginal HSV-1 infection in mice. Here, we evaluated whether this HSV-2 gC2, gD2, gE2 vaccine is as effective as a similar HSV-1 mRNA LNP vaccine containing gC1, gD1, and gE1 in the murine lip and genital infection models.

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Purpose: Could the curse of knowledge influence how antagonized we are towards political outgroups? Do we assume others know what we know but still disagree with us? This research investigates how the curse of knowledge may affect us politically, i.e., be a cause of political polarization.

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Article Synopsis
  • Early paralysis after spinal cord injury is due to difficulty activating motor pools past their threshold, while later recovery struggles are linked to poor coordination from abnormal motor activation patterns.
  • The study was conducted on four adult male Rhesus monkeys to observe their EMG activity while performing various tasks before and after a spinal injury, with regular testing throughout a 24-week recovery period.
  • Initial recovery saw increased activation of motor pools compared to pre-injury levels, while later stages showed improved motor task performance, marked by reduced muscle co-contraction and enhanced selective activation.
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Non-human primate (NHP) spinal cord injury experiments exhibit high intersubject variability in biomechanical parameters even when a consistent impact protocol is applied to each subject. Optimizing impact parameters to reduce this variability through experiments is logistically challenging in NHP studies. Finite element models provide a complimentary tool to inform experimental design without the cost and complexity of live animal studies.

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Large animal contusion models of spinal cord injury are an essential precursor to developing and evaluating treatment options for human spinal cord injury. Reducing variability in these experiments has been a recent focus as it increases the sensitivity with which treatment effects can be detected while simultaneously decreasing the number of animals required in a study. Here, we conducted a detailed review to explore if head and neck positioning in a cervical contusion model of spinal cord injury could be a factor impacting the biomechanics of a spinal cord injury, and thus, the resulting outcomes.

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Mass spectrometry is a well-established analytical technique for studying the masses of atoms, molecules, or fragments of molecules. One of the key metrics of mass spectrometers is the limit of detection , the minimum amount of signal from an analyte that can be reliably distinguished from noise. Detection limits have improved greatly over the last 30-40 years to the point that nanogram per litre and even picogram per litre detections are commonly reported.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study focused on understanding the clinical features and outcomes in patients with Noonan syndrome characterized by multiple lentigines and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, observing them over a period from 2002 to 2019.
  • A total of 42 patients were assessed, revealing that 92.7% were free from severe cardiovascular issues one year after diagnosis, though survival rates decreased for those with significant left ventricular wall thickness.
  • The research highlighted three patterns of left ventricular remodeling, with absolute regression being the most frequent, ultimately offering valuable insights for clinicians in risk assessment and management of these patients.
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Article Synopsis
  • - This study utilized the TRACK-SCI database to assess complications and outcomes in elderly patients (≥ 65 years) following spinal cord injuries between 2015 and 2019 at UCSF.
  • - Results revealed a high complication rate, with 100% of patients experiencing at least one complication—averaging about 6.6 each—primarily from cardiovascular and pulmonary issues, and a 10% in-hospital mortality rate.
  • - The use of vasopressors for maintaining blood pressure was prevalent, notably correlating with higher cardiovascular complications, and only a small percentage (7.5%) showed neurological improvement by discharge.
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Efficient in vivo delivery of anti-inflammatory proteins to modulate the microenvironment of an injured spinal cord and promote neuroprotection and functional recovery is a great challenge. Nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (mRNA) has become a promising new modality that can be utilized for the safe and efficient delivery of therapeutic proteins. Here, we used lipid nanoparticle (LNP)-encapsulated human interleukin-10 (hIL-10)-encoding nucleoside-modified mRNA to induce neuroprotection and functional recovery following rat spinal cord contusion injury.

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Human papillomavirus (HPV) infections are linked to at least six different types of cancer. The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) and Department of Pediatrics leaders identified suboptimal rates of HPV vaccinations in rural and medically underserved communities in South Carolina (SC). To address this major public health problem in SC, they received funding from the HealthyMe/HealthySC (HMHSC) program and HCC to create a statewide community engagement-focused HPV Vaccination Van Program in October 2021.

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Objective: A subset of patients with borderline hypoplastic left heart may be candidates for single to biventricular conversion, but long-term morbidity and mortality persist. Prior studies have shown conflicting results regarding the association of preoperative diastolic dysfunction and outcome, and patient selection remains challenging.

Methods: Patients with borderline hypoplastic left heart undergoing biventricular conversion from 2005 to 2017 were included.

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