Publications by authors named "Birmingham E"

Primates can rapidly detect potential predators and modify their behavior based on the level of risk. The gaze direction of predators is one feature that primates can use to assess risk levels: recognition of a predator's direct stare indicates to prey that it has been detected and the level of risk is relatively high. Predation has likely shaped visual attention in primates to quickly assess the level of risk but we know little about the constellation of low-level (e.

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Adolescence is a critical period for brain development in humans and stress exposure during this time can have lasting effects on behavior and brain development. Social isolation and loneliness are particularly salient stressors that lead to detrimental mental health outcomes particularly in females, although most of the preclinical work on social isolation has been done in male animals. Our lab has developed a model of post-weaning adolescent social isolation that leads to increased drug reward sensitivity and altered neuronal structure in limbic brain regions.

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Article Synopsis
  • Cabotegravir plus rilpivirine (CAB + RPV) is an effective long-acting injectable treatment for maintaining HIV-1 virologic suppression, and this analysis looked at its effects based on participants' body mass index (BMI).
  • Data was collected from various trials over periods ranging from 48 to 152 weeks, focusing on virologic outcomes, confirmed failures, and safety across different BMI categories.
  • Results showed similar efficacy and tolerability for CAB + RPV LA in both lower and higher BMI groups, with high rates of HIV-1 RNA suppression and comparable safety profiles.
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Adolescence is a critical period for brain development in humans and stress exposure during this time can have lasting effects on behavior and brain development. Social isolation and loneliness are particularly salient stressors that lead to detrimental mental health outcomes particularly in females, although most of the preclinical work on social isolation has been done in male animals. Our lab has developed a model of post-weaning adolescent social isolation that leads to increased drug reward sensitivity and altered neuronal structure in limbic brain regions.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study examines the safety and outcomes of a long-acting HIV treatment regimen, Cabotegravir (CAB) + Rilpivirine (RPV), focusing on injection site reactions (ISRs) experienced by participants across several trials.
  • - Analysis of injection techniques from healthcare providers revealed that practices such as slow injection speed and bringing the medication to room temperature helped minimize discomfort for patients during the injection process.
  • - Overall, the injections showed good tolerability, with most ISRs being mild to moderate and lasting only a few days, indicating that the CAB + RPV regimen is a viable option for long-term HIV maintenance therapy.
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Misophonia is a condition characterized by an abnormal emotional response to specific sounds, such as eating, breathing, and clock ticking noises. Sound classification for misophonia is an important area of research since it can benefit in the development of interventions and therapies for individuals affected by the condition. In the area of sound classification, deep learning algorithms such as Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have achieved a high accuracy performance and proved their ability in feature extraction and modeling.

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Protein interacting with C kinase 1 (PICK1) is an AMPA receptor binding protein that works in conjunction with glutamate receptor interacting protein (GRIP) to balance the number of GluA2-containing AMPARs in the synapse. In male mice, disrupting PICK1 in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) leads to a decrease in cue-induced cocaine seeking and disrupting GRIP in the mPFC has the opposing effect, consistent with other evidence that removal of GluA2-containing AMPARs potentiates reinstatement. However, PICK1 does not seem to play the same role in female mice, as knockdown of either PICK1 or GRIP in the mPFC leads to similar increases in cue-induced cocaine seeking.

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Background: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) represents a major public health concern, with an ongoing need for new effective treatments. Bedaquiline is an oral diarylquinoline that has shown encouraging treatment success and culture conversion rates in MDR-TB.

Methods: A South Korean patient registry was set up across 19 centres between 2016 and 2018 for the prospective collection of data from patients with MDR-TB who received either a bedaquiline-containing or a non-bedaquiline-containing regimen.

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Background: This retrospective cohort study assessed benefits and risks of bedaquiline treatment in multidrug-resistant-tuberculosis (MDR-TB) combination therapy by evaluating safety, effectiveness, drug utilization and emergence of resistance to bedaquiline.

Methods: Data were extracted from a register of South African drug-resistant-tuberculosis (DR-TB) patients (Electronic DR-TB Register [EDRWeb]) for newly diagnosed patients with MDR-TB (including pre-extensively drug-resistant [XDR]-TB and XDR-TB and excluding rifampicin-mono-resistant [RR]-TB, as these patients are by definition not multidrug-resistant), receiving either a bedaquiline-containing or non-bedaquiline-containing regimen, at 14 sites in South Africa. Total duration of treatment and follow-up was up to 30 months, including 6 months' bedaquiline treatment.

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Article Synopsis
  • Limited data on the effects of cabotegravir + rilpivirine (CAB + RPV) in pregnant women living with HIV showed 25 pregnancies after exposure, with diverse outcomes including 10 live births.
  • The study involved women who had taken CAB + RPV and then transitioned to other antiretroviral medications when they became pregnant, with ongoing monitoring of drug levels post-exposure.
  • Results indicated that drug concentrations during pregnancy were comparable to those in non-pregnant women, but there was one reported case of congenital anomaly among the live births, prompting further investigation into pregnancy safety and outcomes.
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The recommended dosing regimen for bedaquiline (BDQ), consisting of a 2-week loading phase (400 mg/day), followed by a maintenance phase (200 mg three times/week), might pose challenges when treatment is interrupted and needs to be reinitiated. Guidance on BDQ treatment re-initiation is, therefore, needed. This pharmacokinetic-based simulation study aimed to provide recommendations for re-initiating BDQ following treatment interruptions.

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Abdominal pregnancy is a rare but life-threatening variation of ectopic pregnancy that is often treated with laparoscopic management; however, we present a case successfully treated using only minimally invasive techniques. A 36-year-old female G1P0 with a history of infertility is diagnosed with 11-weeks abdominal pregnancy by transvaginal ultrasound. She presented with vaginal bleeding and abdominal pain, and her beta-human chorionic gonadotropin was 53,680 mIU/mL.

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Humans spontaneously attend to faces and eyes. Recent findings, however, suggest that this social attentional biasing may not be driven by the social value of faces but by general factors, like stimulus content, visual context, or task settings. Here, we investigated whether the stimulus content factors of global luminance, featural configuration, and perceived attractiveness may independently drive social attentional biasing.

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Although attention is thought to be spontaneously biased by social cues like faces and eyes, recent data have demonstrated that when extraneous content, context, and task factors are controlled, attentional biasing is abolished in manual responses while still occurring sparingly in oculomotor measures. Here, we investigated how social attentional biasing was affected by face novelty by measuring responses to frequently presented (i.e.

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TMC207-C211 (NCT02354014) is a Phase 2, open-label, multicentre, single-arm study to evaluate pharmacokinetics, safety/tolerability, antimycobacterial activity and dose selection of bedaquiline (BDQ) in children (birth to <18 years) with multidrug-resistant-TB (MDR-TB). Patients received 24 weeks' BDQ with an anti-MDR-TB background regimen (BR), followed by 96 weeks of safety follow-up. Results of the primary analysis are presented based on data up to 24 weeks for Cohort 1 (≥12-<18 years; approved adult tablet at the adult dosage) and Cohort 2 (≥5-<12 years; age-appropriate 20 mg tablet at half the adult dosage).

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Article Synopsis
  • - A phase 3 study called FLAIR evaluated the effectiveness of switching HIV-1 suppressed participants from daily oral medication to long-acting intramuscular injections of cabotegravir plus rilpivirine over 124 weeks.
  • - Participants were randomly assigned to either continue with their standard oral therapy or switch to the long-acting regimen, with the option to choose a four-week oral lead-in before the first injection.
  • - Key outcomes measured included viral load levels, confirmed treatment failures, and overall safety, with results showing the non-inferiority of the new long-acting treatment compared to standard therapy.
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Decreased sound tolerance (DST) is the most common sensory difficulty experienced by autistic individuals. Parents of 88 autistic children and young adults between the ages of 3 and 30 described coping strategies and physical and emotional responses used to deal with distressing sounds, and their impact on daily activities. Loud, sudden, and high-pitched sounds were most commonly endorsed as distressing, most often causing autistic children and young adults to cover their ears or yell, while producing stress, irritation, fear, and anxiety.

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This study examined involuntary capture of attention, overt attention, and stimulus valence and arousal ratings, all factors that can contribute to potential attentional biases to face and train objects in children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In the visual domain, faces are particularly captivating, and are thought to have a 'special status' in the attentional system. Research suggests that similar attentional biases may exist for other objects of expertise (e.

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Unlabelled: The number of autistic students in colleges is growing rapidly. However, their needs are not being met, and graduation rates among this population remain low. This article describes the implementation and evaluation of the Autism Mentorship Initiative (AMI) for autistic undergraduates (mentees), who received 1-on-1 support from upper-level undergraduate or graduate students (mentors) at their university.

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Background: Trisomy 18 or Edwards syndrome is the second most common aneuploidy with a prevalence between 1/3000 and 1/10 000 live births. The syndrome encompasses malformations of the central nervous, cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal, and genitourinary systems. Trisomy 18 carries a poor prognosis with 90% of patients not surviving beyond 1 year of age; however, the current trend toward more aggressive supportive care may prolong survival.

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"Joint action"-the ability to coordinate actions with others-is critical for achieving individual and interpersonal goals and for our collective success as a species. Joint actions require accurate and rapid inferences about others' goals, intentions, and focus of attention, skills that are thought to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Research to date has not investigated joint action abilities in individuals with ASD during real-world social interactions.

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Humans spontaneously attend to social cues like faces and eyes. However, recent data show that this behavior is significantly weakened when visual content, such as luminance and configuration of internal features, as well as visual context, such as background and facial expression, are controlled. Here, we investigated attentional biasing elicited in response to information presented within appropriate background contexts.

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It is commonly accepted that attention is spontaneously biased towards faces and eyes. However, the role of stimulus features and task settings in this finding has not yet been systematically investigated. Here, we tested if faces and facial features bias attention spontaneously when stimulus factors, task properties, response conditions, and eye movements are controlled.

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