Neuronavigation-Guided Transcranial Acoustoelectric Brain Imaging: A new Modality for High Resolution Electrical Brain Mapping.

Objective/background: Although functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and scalp electroencephalography (EEG) are powerful tools to study the human brain and behavior for many clinical and research applications, they are limited in both resolution and accuracy. Transcranial Acoustoelectric Brain Imaging (tABI) is a new modality that combines focused ultrasound with electrical sensing to map electrical currents at the millimeter and millisecond scales. The aims of this study are to demonstrate the feasibility and assess performance of integrating tABI with a neuronavigation system to map deep dipoles in a head model with a human skull.

Accuracy of semi-quantitative gold nanoparticle-based quick cortisol assay with and without adrenocorticotropic hormone infusion during adrenal vein sampling.

Adrenal vein sampling (AVS) is the gold standard for diagnosing unilateral primary aldosteronism. Point-of-care rapid cortisol assays such as the gold nanoparticle based quick cortisol assay (QCA) are used to confirm accurate cannulation of the adrenal veins during the procedure and have improved AVS success rates. In this retrospective cohort study, we reviewed the results of consecutive AVS procedures (n = 37) performed with and without ACTH (synacthen) infusion between October 2020 and December 2022 at our institution.

Isolation of a novel human prion strain from a PRNP codon 129 heterozygous vCJD patient.

The epizootic prion disease of cattle, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), caused variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans following dietary exposure. Codon 129 polymorphism of the human prion protein gene (PRNP), encoding either methionine (M) or valine (V), dictates the propagation of distinct human prion strains and up to now all but one neuropathologically confirmed vCJD patients have had a 129MM genotype. Concordant with this genetic association, transgenic modelling has established that human PrP 129V is incompatible with the vCJD prion strain and that depending on codon 129 genotype, primary human infection with BSE prions may, in addition to vCJD, result in sporadic CJD-like or novel phenotypes.

A point mutation in IAA34 confers resistance to the auxin herbicide 2,4-D in Sisymbrium orientale.

Background: Sisymbrium orientale has evolved resistance to 2,4-D in Australia due to a 27 bp deletion in SoIAA2. However, one population of Sisymbrium orientale resistant to 2,4-D (R1) did not contain the SoIAA2, suggesting another 2,4-D resistance mechanism was present in this population. Here, we reported a novel target-site resistance mechanism of 2,4-D in the R1 population.

Illusory finger stretching and somatosensory responses in participants with chronic hand-based pain.

Current pharmaceutical interventions for chronic pain are reported to be minimally effective, leading researchers to investigate non-pharmaceutical avenues for chronic pain treatment. One such avenue is resizing illusions delivered using augmented reality. These illusions resize the affected body part through stretching or shrinking manipulations and have been shown to give analgesic effects; however, the neural underpinnings of these illusions remain undefined.