Publications by authors named "Bruggemann J"

Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) are used worldwide to assess cryptic diversity, especially on coral reefs. They were developed as standardised tools, yet conditions of deployment, such as immersion duration and/or deployment and retrieval seasons, vary among studies. Here we studied temporal and seasonal variability in coral reef cryptic communities sampled with 15 ARMS on a single coral reef slope site at Reunion Island, Southwest Indian Ocean.

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Scientific advances in environmental data coverage and machine learning algorithms have improved the ability to make large-scale predictions where data are missing. These advances allowed us to develop a spatially resolved proxy for predicting numbers of tropical nearshore marine taxa. A diverse marine environmental spatial database was used to model numbers of taxa from ∼1000 field sites, and the predictions were applied to all 7039 6.

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  • Previous research has indicated that the innate immune system, particularly through Toll-like receptors (TLRs), may play a role in schizophrenia (SZ), with TLRs reacting to pathogens like bacteria and viruses.
  • A study comparing TLR levels in white blood cells of 86 SZ patients and 77 healthy controls found higher TLR4 and TLR8 levels and lower TLR3 levels in those with SZ, suggesting enhanced immune activation.
  • The study also revealed a link between TLR levels and the thickness of the cingulate gyrus, implying that bacterial influences might be more significant than viral ones in SZ, contributing to changes in brain structure.
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  • The study explores the structural brain differences in individuals with schizophrenia compared to healthy controls, focusing on various brain metrics like cortical thickness and subcortical volume using a large international dataset.
  • Results show that people with schizophrenia have greater variability in brain structure, particularly in the frontotemporal regions, suggesting distinct subtypes of the disorder may exist.
  • The findings highlight the significance of understanding brain structure variability to improve knowledge of schizophrenia and help identify potential biomarkers for the illness.
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Two-dimensional infrared (2D-IR) spectroscopy is a powerful experimental method for probing the structure and dynamics of proteins in aqueous solution. So far, most experimental studies have focused on the amide I vibrations, for which empirical vibrational exciton models provide a means of interpreting such experiments. However, such models are largely lacking for other regions of the vibrational spectrum.

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Research Question: Hyperinsulinemia and elevated estrogen levels are known risk factors for endometrial cancer (EC) development and are associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), insulin resistance, among others. Metformin, an insulin-sensitizing drug, displays anti-tumor effects in cancer patients, including EC, but the mechanism of action is still not completely understood. In the present study, the effects of metformin on gene and protein expression were investigated in pre- and postmenopausal EC models in order to identify candidates that are potentially involved in the drug's anti-cancer mechanism.

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  • The study looked at how the brain's left and right sides might differ in people with schizophrenia compared to those without it, using brain scans from over 5,000 patients and 6,000 control subjects.
  • Researchers found that people with schizophrenia had slightly thinner areas in the left side of their brains, especially in certain regions, compared to those without the disorder.
  • The differences in brain structure might be linked to how schizophrenia affects brain functions, like language, but more research is needed to understand why they happen.
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Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) are artificial mini-reefs designed for standardized sampling of sessile and small motile cryptobenthic organisms. ARMS are also effective for collecting small cryptobenthic fishes, such as the combtooth blennies of the genus . Recent studies discovered several species endemic to islands or archipelagos, in spite of the generally broad distributions of tropical and subtropical blennies.

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Computational protocols for the simulation of two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) spectroscopy usually rely on vibrational exciton models which require an empirical parameterization. Here, we present an efficient quantum-chemical protocol for predicting static 2D IR spectra that does not require any empirical parameters. For the calculation of anharmonic vibrational energy levels and transition dipole moments, we employ the localized-mode vibrational self-consistent field (L-VSCF)/vibrational configuration interaction (L-VCI) approach previously established for (linear) anharmonic theoretical vibrational spectroscopy [P.

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  • Schizophrenia can make the brain age faster, leading to more cognitive problems and health issues.
  • A study looked at brain scans of 2,803 people with schizophrenia and 2,598 healthy people to see how much older their brains looked compared to their actual ages.
  • The results showed that people with schizophrenia had brains that looked about 3.55 years older than they should be, but this wasn’t linked to how long they had the illness or how severe their symptoms were.
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  • The study examines the differences in the morphology of the human cerebral cortex across various psychiatric disorders, suggesting that early growth patterns in the cortex may influence later variations in surface area and mental health outcomes.
  • Using data from over 27,000 MRI scans, researchers identified significant differences in cortical area among individuals with conditions like ADHD, schizophrenia, and major depression, particularly in association cortices linked to cognitive processing.
  • The findings indicate a correlation between these structural differences and prenatal gene expression related to cell types important for brain development, highlighting how prenatal factors may play a crucial role in the risk of developing mental illnesses.
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Background: Due to the steadily increasing life expectancy of the population, the need for medical aids to maintain the previous quality of life is growing. The basis for independent mobility is a functional locomotor system. The hip joint can be so badly damaged by everyday wear or accelerated by illness that reconstruction by means of endoprostheses is necessary.

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Fowl glioma-inducing virus (FGV), a strain of avian leukosis virus (ALV) subgroup A, is the causal agent of fowl glioma characterized by multiple nodular astrocytic growths, gliosis, and lymphocytic encephalitis. Also associated with FGV infection are cases of cerebellar hypoplasia, perineuromas, and nonsuppurative myocarditis. Though fowl glioma has been recognized in several countries, most reports of FGV infection come from Japan.

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  • - Growing evidence suggests that the complement system may play a role in schizophrenia, but the specific disturbances in complement factors among patients are not fully understood.
  • - In a study with 75 healthy controls and 90 patients with schizophrenia, researchers analyzed blood samples and MRI scans to assess complement factor levels and cortical thickness.
  • - Findings revealed increased levels of specific complement receptors, regulators, and proteins in schizophrenia patients, with elevated C4a levels linked to higher inflammation and reduced cortical thickness in certain brain regions.
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  • Research suggests that inflammation may play a significant role in the cognitive and neurological changes associated with schizophrenia, including increased peripheral inflammation and cortical thinning.
  • A study involving 644 controls and 499 schizophrenia patients found that levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker of inflammation, were significantly higher in schizophrenia patients and linked to attention deficits and reduced cortical thickness in specific brain regions.
  • These findings highlight the potential of using CRP as a biomarker to identify individuals with schizophrenia who may benefit from anti-inflammatory treatments, indicating a connection between inflammation and cognitive impairment in the disorder.
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  • Cigarette smoking negatively impacts cognitive function and brain structure, but its specific effects in individuals with schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) compared to healthy individuals remain unclear.
  • The study analyzed cognitive performance and brain morphology in 299 healthy controls and 455 SSD patients, identifying no significant differences between smokers and non-smokers except for a thinner left posterior cingulate in smokers.
  • Findings suggest potential subtle effects of smoking on cognition and brain structure in SSD patients, warranting further investigation to verify and explore these trends.
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Applications of density-functional theory (DFT) in computational chemistry rely on an approximate exchange-correlation (xc) functional. However, existing approximations can fail dramatically for open-shell molecules, in particular for transition-metal complexes or radicals. Most importantly, predicting energy differences between different spin-states with approximate exchange-correlation functionals remains extremely challenging.

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  • - Large-scale neuroimaging studies show differences in cortical thickness in various psychiatric disorders, but the biological reasons for these differences are not fully understood.
  • - The study aimed to identify neurobiological correlates of cortical thickness variations between affected individuals and controls across six disorders: ADHD, ASD, BD, MDD, OCD, and schizophrenia.
  • - Using data from 145 cohorts and advanced imaging techniques, the analysis revealed distinct patterns of cortical thickness associated with specific gene expressions in disorders, involving a total of over 28,000 participants.
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  • The ENIGMA Consortium aims to enhance neuroimaging studies by combining data from various institutions, tackling the issue of small sample sizes but facing challenges due to diverse scanning devices.
  • This study tested the effectiveness of the ComBat batch adjustment method to reduce site-related differences and improve statistical outcomes in comparing brain structure between individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls.
  • Results showed that using ComBat significantly boosted statistical significance and power in analyses, making it a recommended tool for ENIGMA and other multi-site neuroimaging projects, with user-friendly R functions available for implementation.
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Most transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) trials of schizophrenia administer few sessions and do not assess transfer effects to other cognitive domains. In a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled, parallel groups trial, we determined the extent to which 4-weeks of 2 mA tDCS at 20 min/day totalling 20 tDCS sessions administered during a spatial working memory test, with anodal right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and cathodal left tempo-parietal junction (TPJ) placement, as an adjunct to antipsychotics reduced auditory hallucinations and improved cognition in 12 outpatients with schizophrenia. Anodal tDCS significantly improved language-based working memory after 2 weeks and verbal fluency after 2 and 4 weeks.

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  • - Relative stability in cognitive deficits in schizophrenia contrasts with observed accelerated brain deterioration, suggesting cognitive reserve (CR) might play a key role in protecting cognitive function despite brain changes.
  • - A study of 214 individuals with schizophrenia and 168 healthy controls found that while patients experienced greater age-related declines in brain structure, they did not show similar declines in fluid reasoning unless they had low CR.
  • - The findings indicate that CR can mitigate age-related cognitive decline in schizophrenia, potentially explaining discrepancies in the relationship between brain structure and cognitive outcomes seen in previous research.
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  • - The study aimed to explore the relationship between cortical thickness reductions and cortical connectivity networks in schizophrenia, hypothesizing that areas with reduced thickness are well interconnected, forming a network.
  • - Researchers analyzed structural brain images from three groups: patients with first-episode psychosis, chronic schizophrenia, and treatment-resistant schizophrenia, comparing their cortical thickness to healthy controls across 148 regions of the cortex.
  • - Findings revealed significant reductions in cortical thickness, especially in the chronic and treatment-resistant groups, with notable decreases in frontal, temporal, cingulate, and insular regions, and highlighted stronger structural connectivity among the affected areas compared to randomly selected ones.
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  • Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) is important for brain functions like synaptogenesis and synaptic plasticity, which are crucial in conditions like schizophrenia.
  • This study compared BDNF levels in the blood of 95 individuals with schizophrenia and 80 healthy controls, focusing specifically on sex differences.
  • Results showed that females with schizophrenia had higher BDNF levels compared to males with schizophrenia and healthy females, indicating that these differences could impact the way schizophrenia manifests in different sexes.
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