Publications by authors named "C Heck"
The hippocampus is crucial for forming new episodic memories. While the encoding of spatial and temporal information (where and when) in the hippocampus is well understood, the encoding of objects (what) remains less clear due to the high dimensions of object space. Rather than encoding each individual object separately, the hippocampus may instead encode categories of objects to reduce this dimensionality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) is a syndromic disorder presenting with seizures and cognitive comorbidities. Although seizure etiology is increasingly understood, the pathophysiological mechanisms contributing to cognitive decline and epilepsy progression remain less recognized. We have previously shown that adult hippocampal neurogenesis dramatically declines in MTLE patients with increased disease duration.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Costing and financing systematic implementation are recognized barriers to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention. In the absence of empiric implementation and economic data, perspectives from international stakeholders involved in developing and supporting daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) policy, and programs can provide critical insights for developing costed plans to support and accelerate the rollout of novel long-acting PrEP (LA-PrEP) methods, such as the monthly dapivirine vaginal ring (PrEP ring).
Methods: We interviewed stakeholders from purposively selected international organizations about anticipated PrEP-ring implementation costs, evidence gaps and key process steps for developing a costed rollout plan template (CRPT).
Article Synopsis
- Post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) is a common and challenging condition that arises after traumatic brain injury (TBI), but predicting its occurrence is difficult with existing methods.
- This study explored using machine learning to identify imaging features like lesion volumes and resting-state fMRI measures to improve predictions of PTE.
- The kernel support vector machine (KSVM) model was found to be the most effective, achieving a prediction accuracy of 0.78 AUC, and highlighted significant differences in the brain's temporal lobes and cerebellum between PTE and non-PTE patients.
Article Synopsis
- The study investigates how adolescent girls and young women in Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia perceive their risk of HIV exposure, aiming to understand factors influencing this self-appraisal and identify opportunities for engaging them in preventive measures like PrEP.
- Using cross-sectional data from 2016/2017, the researchers analyzed sexual-related factors associated with perceived HIV risk and assessed PrEP eligibility based on national guidelines.
- Results show a discrepancy between reported perceived risk and actual HIV risk factors, with some associations found, particularly relating to partners' HIV exposure and other sexual behaviors, highlighting a need for targeted interventions in this demographic.