Publications by authors named "Caspers J"

The protein regulator of cytokinesis 1 (PRC1) is a key regulator of microtubule crosslinking and bundling, which is crucial for spindle formation and cytokinesis. RITA, the BP-J nteracting and ubulin-ssociated protein, is a microtubule associated protein. We have reported that RITA localizes to mitotic spindles modulating microtubule dynamics and stability as well as to spindle poles affecting the activity of Aurora A.

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Introduction: Ventriculoperitoneal shunts (VPS) are an essential part of the treatment of hydrocephalus, with numerous valve models available with different ways of indicating pressure levels. The model types often need to be identified on X‑rays to assess pressure levels using a matching template. Artificial intelligence (AI), in particular deep learning, is ideally suited to automate repetitive tasks such as identifying different VPS valve models.

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Introduction: This study investigates the influence of carotid artery elongation on neurovascular intervention and outcome in acute stroke treatments proposing an easily assessable imaging marker for carotid elongation.

Methods: 118 patients who underwent mechanical thrombectomy for middle cerebral artery occlusions were included. The carotid elongation ratio (CER), center-line artery length to scan's Z-axis, was measured on the affected side in CT-angiographies.

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The neurodegenerative progression of Parkinson's disease affects brain structure and function and, concomitantly, alters the topological properties of brain networks. The network alteration accompanied by motor impairment and the duration of the disease has not yet been clearly demonstrated in the disease progression. In this study, we aim to resolve this problem with a modeling approach using the reduced Jansen-Rit model applied to large-scale brain networks derived from cross-sectional MRI data.

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Why is it that some people seem to learn new languages faster and more easily than others? The present study investigates the neuroanatomical basis of language learning aptitude, with a focus on the multiplication pattern of the transverse temporal gyrus/gyri (TTG/TTGs) of the auditory cortex. The size and multiplication pattern of the first TTG (i.e.

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Background: The reduction of processing times in the treatment of acute ischemic stroke is of outstanding importance. Our objective is to analyze the acute stroke care chain from onset to treatment in a city in Germany comprising three stroke units. Additionally, we discuss solutions for detected treatment delays.

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When a probe particle immersed in a fluid with nonlinear interactions is subject to strong driving, the cumulants of the stochastic force acting on the probe are nonlinear functionals of the driving protocol. We present a Volterra series for these nonlinear functionals by applying nonlinear response theory in a path integral formalism, where the emerging kernels are shown to be expressed in terms of connected equilibrium correlation functions. The first cumulant is the mean force, the second cumulant characterizes the non-equilibrium force fluctuations (noise), and higher order cumulants quantify non-Gaussian fluctuations.

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This study aimed to (1) replicate a deep-learning-based model for cerebral aneurysm segmentation in TOF-MRAs, (2) improve the approach by testing various fully automatic pre-processing pipelines, and (3) rigorously validate the model's transferability on independent, external test-datasets. A convolutional neural network was trained on 235 TOF-MRAs acquired on local scanners from a single vendor to segment intracranial aneurysms. Different pre-processing pipelines including bias field correction, resampling, cropping and intensity-normalization were compared regarding their effect on model performance.

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Autoimmune vasculitides affect the cerebral vasculature significantly in a considerable number of cases. When immunosuppressive treatments fail to prevent stenosis in cerebral vessels, treatment options for affected patients become limited. In this case series, we present four cases of pharmacoresistant vasculitis with recurrent transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) or stroke successfully treated with either extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass surgery or endovascular stenting.

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Objectives: This study investigates the influence of normal cohort (NC) size and the impact of different NCs on automated MRI-based brain atrophy estimation.

Methods: A pooled NC of 3945 subjects (NC) was retrospectively created from five publicly available cohorts. Voxel-wise gray matter volume atrophy maps were calculated for 48 Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients (55-82 years) using veganbagel and dynamic normal templates with an increasing number of healthy subjects randomly drawn from NC (initially three, and finally 100 subjects).

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Purpose: To evaluate if a machine learning prediction model based on clinical and easily assessable imaging features derived from baseline breast [F]FDG-PET/MRI staging can predict pathologic complete response (pCR) in patients with newly diagnosed breast cancer prior to neoadjuvant system therapy (NAST).

Methods: Altogether 143 women with newly diagnosed breast cancer (54 ± 12 years) were retrospectively enrolled. All women underwent a breast [F]FDG-PET/MRI, a histopathological workup of their breast cancer lesions and evaluation of clinical data.

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Purpose: Occlusions of the internal carotid artery (ICA) may be caused by dissection, embolic or macroangiopathic pathogenesis, which partially influences the treatment; however, inferring the underlying etiology in computed tomography angiography can be challenging. In this study, we investigated whether computed tomography perfusion (CT-P) parameters could be used to distinguish between etiologies.

Methods: Patients who received CT‑P in acute ischemic stroke due to ICA occlusion between 2012 and 2019 were retrospectively analyzed.

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When a colloidal probe is forced through a viscoelastic fluid which is characterized by a long stress-relaxation time, the fluid is excited out of equilibrium. This is leading to a number of interesting effects including a non-trivial recoil of the probe when the driving force is removed. Here, we experimentally and theoretically investigate the transient recoil dynamics of non-spherical particles, i.

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Article Synopsis
  • Age-related cognitive decline varies among healthy older adults, with potential links to brain network architecture differences.
  • The study investigated the use of resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) and machine learning (ML) to classify and predict cognitive performance in older adults aged 55-85.
  • Results showed low classification (under 60% accuracy) and prediction performance, indicating that RSFC may not be a reliable sole biomarker for cognitive aging.
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Differences in brain structure and functional and structural network architecture have been found to partly explain cognitive performance differences in older ages. Thus, they may serve as potential markers for these differences. Initial unimodal studies, however, have reported mixed prediction results of selective cognitive variables based on these brain features using machine learning (ML).

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Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that often persists into adulthood. Core symptoms of ADHD, such as impulsivity, are caused by an interaction of genetic and environmental factors. Epigenetic modifications of DNA, such as DNA methylation, are thought to mediate the interplay of these factors.

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The difference between age predicted using anatomical brain scans and chronological age, i.e., the brain-age delta, provides a proxy for atypical aging.

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The motion of a colloidal probe in a viscoelastic fluid is described by friction or mobility, depending on whether the probe is moving with a velocity or feeling a force. While the Einstein relation describes an inverse relationship valid for Newtonian solvents, both concepts are generalized to time-dependent memory kernels in viscoelastic fluids. We theoretically and experimentally investigate their relation by considering two observables: the recoil after releasing a probe that was moved through the fluid and the equilibrium mean squared displacement (MSD).

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Simulated whole-brain connectomes demonstrate enhanced inter-individual variability depending on the data processing and modelling approach. By considering the human brain connectome as an individualized attribute, we investigate how empirical and simulated whole-brain connectome-derived features can be utilized to classify patients with Parkinson's disease against healthy controls in light of varying data processing and model validation. To this end, we applied simulated blood oxygenation level-dependent signals derived by a whole-brain dynamical model simulating electrical signals of neuronal populations to reveal differences between patients and controls.

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Article Synopsis
  • This study evaluates the effectiveness of two patient care strategies, mothership (MS) and drip-and-ship (DnS), in endovascular thrombectomy (ET) for stroke patients admitted to hospitals.
  • Out of 202 patients analyzed, no significant differences in patient outcomes, such as modified Rankin Scale scores, were found between the two admission strategies, but DnS showed a tendency for better results.
  • The study concludes that both strategies offer comparable functional outcomes, and the observed benefits in DnS might be due to the selection of patients with worse initial conditions being more likely to receive treatment in that group.
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  • The study investigates the role of normative brain volume reports (NBVR) in diagnosing neurodegenerative dementia in a clinical setting using MRI and PET scans.
  • NBVRs showed a trend toward increased accuracy but ultimately had a low and non-significant impact on diagnosing these disorders in real-world cases.
  • There was a noted drop in sensitivity but an increase in specificity for one rater, suggesting that while NBVRs might help improve diagnostic confidence, a better system for integrating them into clinical practice is needed.
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In addition to its high prognostic value, the involvement of axillary lymph nodes in breast cancer patients also plays an important role in therapy planning. Therefore, an imaging modality that can determine nodal status with high accuracy in patients with primary breast cancer is desirable. Our purpose was to investigate whether, in newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, machine-learning prediction models based on simple assessable imaging features on MRI or PET/MRI are able to determine nodal status with performance comparable to that of experienced radiologists; whether such models can be adjusted to achieve low rates of false-negatives such that invasive procedures might potentially be omitted; and whether a clinical framework for decision support based on simple imaging features can be derived from these models.

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This study explores the difficulties in distinguishing different lexical tone contrasts at both sub-lexical and lexical levels for beginning and advanced Dutch learners of Mandarin, using a sequence-recall task and an auditory lexical decision task. In both tasks, the Tone 2-Tone 3 contrast is most prone to errors for both groups of learners. A significant improvement in the advanced group was found for this tone contrast in the sub-lexical sequence recall task, but not in the lexical decision task.

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Background: Defacing has become mandatory for anonymization of brain MRI scans; however, concerns regarding data integrity were raised. Thus, we systematically evaluated the effect of different defacing procedures on automated brain atrophy estimation.

Methods: In total, 268 Alzheimer's disease patients were included from ADNI, which included unaccelerated (n = 154), within-session unaccelerated repeat (n = 67) and accelerated 3D T1 imaging (n = 114).

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We investigate the hopping dynamics of a colloidal particle across a potential barrier and within a viscoelastic, i.e., non-Markovian, bath and report two clearly separated timescales in the corresponding waiting time distributions.

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