Publications by authors named "Cash S"

The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) is associated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular diseases (CVD). However, an updated and comprehensive assessment of the global burden attributable to SSBs remains scarce. Here we estimated SSB-attributable T2D and CVD burdens across 184 countries in 1990 and 2020 globally, regionally and nationally, incorporating data from the Global Dietary Database, jointly stratified by age, sex, educational attainment and urbanicity.

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Objective: Although seizures are the cardinal feature, epilepsy is associated with other forms of brain dysfunction including impaired cognition, abnormal sleep, and increased risk of developing dementia. We hypothesized that, given the widespread neurologic dysfunction caused by epilepsy, accelerated brain aging would be seen. We measured the sleep-based brain age index (BAI) in a diverse group of patients with epilepsy.

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  • * Thalamo-cortical spindles and Up states are crucial in coordinating co-ripples in the cortex and hippocampus during non-REM sleep.
  • * The study suggests that instead of direct thalamic ripples, spindles and Up states are key in integrating information for memory consolidation during sleep.
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  • Anxiety and depressive disorders can lead to cognitive control deficits, but the specific brain mechanisms behind this are still unclear.
  • Researchers studied participants with refractory epilepsy to see how anxiety/depression affected their brain and behavior during a cognitive task, using high-resolution EEG.
  • Key findings revealed that those with anxiety/depression took longer to respond under cognitive load but maintained response accuracy, with notable changes in brain activity patterns in regions linked to conflict processing, suggesting increased cognitive resource demands due to inefficient processing.
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  • Cognitive motor dissociation (CMD) involves patients who can follow commands in brain scans like fMRI, despite showing no behavioral signs of language function, highlighting the importance of accurate diagnosis in severe brain injuries.
  • Recent findings outline a structured approach for assessing CMD at clinical institutions, underlining the need for ethical considerations, standardized protocols, and effective communication of results.
  • The proposed method for CMD assessment aims to be adaptable, allowing for updates and improvements as more evidence becomes available in the field.
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The social dimension of sustainable diets, which addresses the impacts of food value chains on people, animals and communities, is under-represented in the food systems field. We present a definition of the social dimension of sustainable diets, clarify its boundaries and propose corresponding outcomes. Three case studies highlight the connectivity of social outcomes with the health, environment and economic dimensions of sustainable diets.

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Objective: Nutrition labelling is mandatory on food products in retail stores, but compliance in the rapidly expanding online setting remains unclear. We assessed mandatory and voluntary labelling information across major U.S.

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  • * It finds that while more implanted contacts may increase the chances of treatment progression, they do not correlate with better SOZ localization or improved seizure outcomes, with specific brain regions more frequently linked to seizure onset.
  • * Overall, SEEG is effective for localizing SOZ in various types of epilepsy, helping guide treatment decisions despite variability in electrode placement across institutions.
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  • The rise of dollar stores in the U.S. as food retailers raises significant issues concerning diet, nutrition, and community well-being, prompting an interdisciplinary workshop in Boston in 2022 to explore these topics.
  • Experts identified nine key research areas related to dollar stores, including their local community impacts, health aspects, systemic issues like racism and food access, and comparisons to other food sources.
  • The findings highlight a critical gap in research regarding the effects of dollar stores on public health and equity, emphasizing the need for collaboration among various fields to address these emerging challenges.
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Understanding how the body is represented in motor cortex is key to understanding how the brain controls movement. The precentral gyrus (PCG) has long been thought to contain largely distinct regions for the arm, leg and face (represented by the "motor homunculus"). However, mounting evidence has begun to reveal a more intermixed, interrelated and broadly tuned motor map.

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As the pace of research in implantable neurotechnology increases, it is important to take a step back and see if the promise lives up to our intentions. While direct electrical stimulation applied intracranially has been used for the treatment of various neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's, epilepsy, clinical depression, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder, the effectiveness can be highly variable. One perspective is that the inability to consistently treat these neurological disorders in a standardized way is due to multiple, interlaced factors, including stimulation parameters, location, and differences in underlying network connectivity, leading to a trial-and-error stimulation approach in the clinic.

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Modular organization at approximately 1 mm scale could be fundamental to cortical processing, but its presence in human association cortex is unknown. Using custom-built, high-density electrode arrays placed on the cortical surface of 7 patients undergoing awake craniotomy for tumor excision, we investigated receptive speech processing in the left (dominant) human posterior superior temporal gyrus. Responses to consonant-vowel syllables and noise-vocoded controls recorded with 1,024 channel micro-grids at 200 μm pitch demonstrated roughly circular domains approximately 1.

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  • Restenosis after procedures to open blocked arteries is particularly problematic for people with insulin resistance and diabetes, and the effects of insulin on blood vessels are not fully understood.
  • Insulin seems to help endothelial cells but can promote growth in vascular smooth muscle cells; previous research showed that insulin can reduce neointimal growth (the thickening of vessel walls) when the body responds well to insulin, but this effect disappears in insulin-resistant states.
  • In experiments with mice, insulin only reduced neointimal growth in healthy insulin-sensitive scenarios, whereas in insulin-resistant situations, insulin had no impact on smooth muscle cells, indicating that specific insulin receptors on these cells are crucial for insulin's protective effects against restenosis.
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Theta-burst stimulation (TBS), a patterned brain stimulation technique that mimics rhythmic bursts of 3-8 Hz endogenous brain rhythms, has emerged as a promising therapeutic approach for treating a wide range of brain disorders, though the neural mechanism of TBS action remains poorly understood. We investigated the neural effects of TBS using intracranial EEG (iEEG) in 10 pre-surgical epilepsy participants undergoing intracranial monitoring. Here we show that individual bursts of direct electrical TBS at 29 frontal and temporal sites evoked strong neural responses spanning broad cortical regions.

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Objective: To quantify global intakes of sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs) and trends over time among children and adolescents.

Design: Population based study.

Setting: Global Dietary Database.

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Objective: Training clinician-scientists is a primary objective of many academic neurology departments, as these individuals are uniquely positioned to perform insightful clinical or laboratory-based research informed both by clinical knowledge and their own experiences caring for patients. Despite its importance, training clinician-scientists has perhaps never been so challenging. The National Institute of Neurologic Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) R25 program was designed in an attempt to support these individuals, decrease the time needed to obtain National Institutes of Health K awards, and to help educate a cohort of trainees preparing for a career in academic neurology.

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Objective: Although >30% of epilepsy patients have drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), typically those with generalized or multifocal disease have not traditionally been considered surgical candidates. Responsive neurostimulation (RNS) of the centromedian (CM) region of the thalamus now appears to be a promising therapeutic option for this patient population. We present outcomes following CM RNS for 13 patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) and eight with multifocal onsets that rapidly generalize to bilateral tonic-clonic (focal to bilateral tonic-clonic [FBTC]) seizures.

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Introduction: Patients with medication-resistant disabling epilepsy should be considered for potential epilepsy surgery. If noninvasive techniques are unable to identify the location of the seizure onset zone (SOZ), it becomes necessary to consider intracranial investigations. Stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) is currently the preferred method for such monitoring, however foramen ovale (FO) electrodes offer a less invasive alternative that may be suitable in certain situations.

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  • * Researchers recorded the activity of individual neurons in the left prefrontal cortex while participants listened to various sentences and stories, revealing that these neurons are sensitive to specific word meanings.
  • * The study found that neuron activity is dynamic and context-dependent, correlating with the meanings of words in their sentences rather than just static memory, which unveils intricate details of how semantic information is organized and processed in the brain.
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Understanding service disposition pathways is critical to provide deeper insight into why certain subgroups of the population are at risk for recurrent Child Protective Services (CPS) involvement and may highlight disparities across groups or geographic areas. Using the Decision-Making Ecology Framework as a lens, the present study examines whether service disposition pathways are influenced by risk assessment, safety concerns, child age, maltreatment type, previous CPS involvement, and/or county-level structural vulnerability. We linked administrative data from New Mexico's Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) to data from the American Community Survey.

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Despite decades of research, we still do not understand how spontaneous human seizures start and spread - especially at the level of neuronal microcircuits. In this study, we used laminar arrays of micro-electrodes to simultaneously record the local field potentials and multi-unit neural activities across the six layers of the neocortex during focal seizures in humans. We found that, within the ictal onset zone, the discharges generated during a seizure consisted of current sinks and sources only within the infra-granular and granular layers.

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Aims: To describe the ultrasound diagnostic features and surgical management procedures for patients with an interstitial ectopic pregnancy in our tertiary institution and associated peripheral hospital over a ten-year period.

Methods: A retrospective audit of all surgically managed cases of interstitial pregnancies over a ten-year period at a tertiary hospital and one associated peripheral hospital in New South Wales.

Results: Sixteen cases of surgically managed interstitial pregnancy were identified.

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Introduction: Sleep disturbances are common in Alzheimer's disease (AD) and may reflect pathologic changes in brain networks. To date, no studies have examined changes in sleep functional connectivity (FC) in AD or their relationship with network hyperexcitability and cognition.

Methods: We assessed electroencephalogram (EEG) sleep FC in 33 healthy controls, 36 individuals with AD without epilepsy, and 14 individuals with AD and epilepsy.

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Objective: The prevalence of metabolic diseases is increasing globally at an alarming rate; thus, it is essential that effective, accessible, low-cost therapeutics are developed. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are transcription factors that tightly regulate glucose homeostasis and lipid metabolism and are important drug targets for the treatment of type 2 diabetes and dyslipidemia. We previously identified LDT409, a fatty acid-like compound derived from cashew nut shell liquid, as a novel pan-active PPARα/γ/δ compound.

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