Inter-tissue differences in fatty acid incorporation as a result of dietary oil manipulation in Port Jackson sharks (Heterodontus portusjacksoni).

Fatty acid profile analysis is a tool for dietary investigation that may complement traditional stomach contents analysis. While recent studies have shown that the liver of sharks fed different diets have differing fatty acid profiles, the degree to which diet is reflected in shark blood serum and muscle tissue is still poorly understood. An 18-week controlled feeding experiment was undertaken using captive Port Jackson sharks (Heterodontus portusjacksoni).

ICA-based artefact removal and accelerated fMRI acquisition for improved resting state network imaging.

The identification of resting state networks (RSNs) and the quantification of their functional connectivity in resting-state fMRI (rfMRI) are seriously hindered by the presence of artefacts, many of which overlap spatially or spectrally with RSNs. Moreover, recent developments in fMRI acquisition yield data with higher spatial and temporal resolutions, but may increase artefacts both spatially and/or temporally. Hence the correct identification and removal of non-neural fluctuations is crucial, especially in accelerated acquisitions.

Hemolytic uremic syndrome in a 65-Year-old male linked to a very unusual type of stx2e- and eae-harboring O51:H49 shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli.

We report on a 65-year-old male patient with a Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli O51:H49 gastrointestinal infection and sepsis associated with hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) with a fatal outcome. The strains isolated harbored stx2e and eae, a very unusual and new virulence profile for an HUS-associated enterohemorrhagic E. coli.

Automatic denoising of functional MRI data: combining independent component analysis and hierarchical fusion of classifiers.

Many sources of fluctuation contribute to the fMRI signal, and this makes identifying the effects that are truly related to the underlying neuronal activity difficult. Independent component analysis (ICA) - one of the most widely used techniques for the exploratory analysis of fMRI data - has shown to be a powerful technique in identifying various sources of neuronally-related and artefactual fluctuation in fMRI data (both with the application of external stimuli and with the subject "at rest"). ICA decomposes fMRI data into patterns of activity (a set of spatial maps and their corresponding time series) that are statistically independent and add linearly to explain voxel-wise time series.

Psychometric Properties of the Survey of Workplace Intimidation Instrument.

Background And Purpose: The purpose of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the Survey of Workplace Intimidation (SWI), including content and construct validity, factor structure, and internal consistency.

Methods: A cross-sectional, descriptive study design was used for this study. The final sample consisted of 237 labor and delivery nurses who completed the SWI and the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI).

ICA model order selection of task co-activation networks.

Independent component analysis (ICA) has become a widely used method for extracting functional networks in the brain during rest and task. Historically, preferred ICA dimensionality has widely varied within the neuroimaging community, but typically varies between 20 and 100 components. This can be problematic when comparing results across multiple studies because of the impact ICA dimensionality has on the topology of its resultant components.

Resting state FMRI research in child psychiatric disorders.

Concurring with the shift from linking functions to specific brain areas towards studying network integration, resting state FMRI (R-FMRI) has become an important tool for delineating the functional network architecture of the brain. Fueled by straightforward data collection, R-FMRI analysis methods as well as studies reporting on R-FMRI have flourished, and already impact research on child- and adolescent psychiatric disorders. Here, we review R-FMRI analysis techniques and outline current methodological debates.

Altered striatal and pallidal connectivity in cervical dystonia.

Cervical dystonia is a neurological movement disorder characterized by involuntary, abnormal movements of the head and neck. Injecting the overactive muscles with botulinum toxin is the gold standard treatment, supported by good evidence (Delnooz and van de Warrenburg in Ther Adv Neurol Disord 5:221-240, 2012). Current views on its pathophysiology support a role for the basal ganglia, although there are probably more widespread abnormalities in brain networks in which the basal ganglia are important nodes.

Functional connectomics from resting-state fMRI.

Spontaneous fluctuations in activity in different parts of the brain can be used to study functional brain networks. We review the use of resting-state functional MRI (rfMRI) for the purpose of mapping the macroscopic functional connectome. After describing MRI acquisition and image-processing methods commonly used to generate data in a form amenable to connectomics network analysis, we discuss different approaches for estimating network structure from that data.

Faculty perception of bullying in schools of nursing.

This article is a report of a study conducted to determine the prevalence of bullying among faculty members in schools or colleges of nursing. The issue of bullying of nursing faculty in the academic setting is of interest in terms of recruitment, retention, job satisfaction, and the overall quality of the work environment. This cross-sectional, descriptive study of faculty in three northeastern states of the United States was carried out in 2010.

The Quest for EEG Power Band Correlation with ICA Derived fMRI Resting State Networks.

The neuronal underpinnings of blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) resting state networks (RSNs) are still unclear. To investigate the underlying mechanisms, specifically the relation to the electrophysiological signal, we used simultaneous recordings of electroencephalography (EEG) and fMRI during eyes open resting state (RS). Earlier studies using the EEG signal as independent variable show inconclusive results, possibly due to variability in the temporal correlations between RSNs and power in the low EEG frequency bands, as recently reported (Goncalves et al.

Resting-state fMRI in the Human Connectome Project.

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI) allows one to study functional connectivity in the brain by acquiring fMRI data while subjects lie inactive in the MRI scanner, and taking advantage of the fact that functionally related brain regions spontaneously co-activate. rfMRI is one of the two primary data modalities being acquired for the Human Connectome Project (the other being diffusion MRI). A key objective is to generate a detailed in vivo mapping of functional connectivity in a large cohort of healthy adults (over 1000 subjects), and to make these datasets freely available for use by the neuroimaging community.

Effects of an electric field on white sharks: in situ testing of an electric deterrent.

Elasmobranchs can detect minute electromagnetic fields, <1 nV cm(-1), using their ampullae of Lorenzini. Behavioural responses to electric fields have been investigated in various species, sometimes with the aim to develop shark deterrents to improve human safety. The present study tested the effects of the Shark Shield Freedom7™ electric deterrent on (1) the behaviour of 18 white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) near a static bait, and (2) the rates of attacks on a towed seal decoy.

Task-free functional MRI in cervical dystonia reveals multi-network changes that partially normalize with botulinum toxin.

Cervical dystonia is characterized by involuntary, abnormal movements and postures of the head and neck. Current views on its pathophysiology, such as faulty sensorimotor integration and impaired motor planning, are largely based on studies of focal hand dystonia. Using resting state fMRI, we explored whether cervical dystonia patients have altered functional brain connectivity compared to healthy controls, by investigating 10 resting state networks.

An Investigation of RSN Frequency Spectra Using Ultra-Fast Generalized Inverse Imaging.

With the advancements in MRI hardware, pulse sequences and reconstruction techniques, many low TR sequences are becoming more and more popular within the functional MRI (fMRI) community. In this study, we have investigated the spectral characteristics of resting state networks (RSNs) with a newly introduced ultra fast fMRI technique, called generalized inverse imaging (GIN). The high temporal resolution of GIN (TR = 50 ms) enables to sample cardiac signals without aliasing into a separate frequency band from the BOLD fluctuations.

Differential and distributed effects of dopamine neuromodulations on resting-state network connectivity.

Dopaminergic medications, used to treat neurochemical pathology and resultant symptoms in neuropsychiatric disorders, are of mixed efficacy and regularly associated with behavioural side effects. The possibility that dopamine exerts both linear and nonlinear ('inverted U-shaped') effects on cognitive neurocircuitry may explain this outcome variability. However, it has proven to be difficult to characterise neural manifestations of psychopharmacological effects in humans.

Allergies in high-risk schoolchildren after early intervention with cow's milk protein hydrolysates: 10-year results from the German Infant Nutritional Intervention (GINI) study.

Background: The long-term effect of nutritional intervention with hydrolysate infant formulas on allergic manifestations in high-risk children is uncertain.

Objective: We sought to investigate the effect of hydrolysate infant formulas on allergic phenotypes in children with family history of allergies at school age.

Methods: We analyzed data from participants of the prospective German Infant Nutritional Intervention study after 10 years of follow-up.

[New spirometric reference values for children and adolescents in Germany considering height and non-linear age effects: the LUNOKID-study].

Background: Comparing children's lung function with reference values is important for diagnosing respiratory diseases. The values by Zapletal et al., commonly used nowadays, are not appropriate for the current stage of children's development.

Experimental evaluation of fatty acid profiles as a technique to determine dietary composition in benthic elasmobranchs.

Fatty acid (FA) analysis is a tool for dietary investigation that complements traditional stomach content analyses. Controlled feeding experiments were used to determine the extent to which the FA composition of diet is reflected in the liver and muscle tissue of the Port Jackson shark Heterodontus portusjacksoni. Over 10 wk, two groups of sharks were fed prawns or squid, which have distinct FA profiles.

Spatial heterogeneity of the relation between resting-state connectivity and blood flow: an important consideration for pharmacological studies.

Resting state fMRI (RSfMRI) and arterial spin labeling (ASL) provide the field of pharmacological Neuroimaging tool for investigating states of brain activity in terms of functional connectivity or cerebral blood flow (CBF). Functional connectivity reflects the degree of synchrony or correlation of spontaneous fluctuations--mostly in the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal--across brain networks; but CBF reflects mean delivery of arterial blood to the brain tissue over time. The BOLD and CBF signals are linked to common neurovascular and hemodynamic mechanisms that necessitate increased oxygen transportation to the site of neuronal activation; however, the scale and the sources of variation in static CBF and spatiotemporal BOLD correlations are likely different.

Silodosin inhibits noradrenaline-activated transcription factors Elk1 and SRF in human prostate smooth muscle.

Background: The transcription factors Elk1 and serum response factor (SRF) are central regulators of cell cycle and phenotype in various cell types. Elk1 is activated by phosphorylation (serine-383), while activation of SRF requires its co-factor, myocardin. Activation of Elk1 and SRF results in binding to specific DNA sequences in promoter regions, and may be induced by adrenergic receptor activation in different organs.

A brain network processing the age of faces.

Age is one of the most salient aspects in faces and of fundamental cognitive and social relevance. Although face processing has been studied extensively, brain regions responsive to age have yet to be localized. Using evocative face morphs and fMRI, we segregate two areas extending beyond the previously established face-sensitive core network, centered on the inferior temporal sulci and angular gyri bilaterally, both of which process changes of facial age.

Functional segmentation of the hippocampus in the healthy human brain and in Alzheimer's disease.

In this study we segment the hippocampus according to functional connectivity assessed from resting state functional magnetic resonance images in healthy subjects and in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). We recorded the resting FMRI signal from 16 patients and 22 controls. We used seed-based functional correlation analyses to calculate partial correlations of all voxels in the hippocampus relative to characteristic regional signal changes in the thalamus, the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), while controlling for ventricular CSF and white matter signals.

Bayesian inference of structural brain networks.

Structural brain networks are used to model white-matter connectivity between spatially segregated brain regions. The presence, location and orientation of these white matter tracts can be derived using diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in combination with probabilistic tractography. Unfortunately, as of yet, none of the existing approaches provide an undisputed way of inferring brain networks from the streamline distributions which tractography produces.

Motor outcome and allodynia are largely unaffected by novel olfactory ensheathing cell grafts to repair low-thoracic lesion gaps in the adult rat spinal cord.

Olfactory ensheathing cells (OEC) are a promising graftable cell population for improving functional outcomes after experimental spinal cord injury. However only few studies have focused on experimental models with large cavitations, which require bridging substrates to transfer and maintain the donor cells within the lesion site. Here, a state-of-the-art collagen-based multi-channeled three dimensional scaffold was used to deliver olfactory ensheathing cells to 2 mm long unilateral low-thoracic hemisection cavities.