Testing an artificial intelligence algorithm to predict fetal heartbeat of vitrified-warmed blastocysts from a single image: predictive ability in different settings.

Study Question: Could an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm predict fetal heartbeat from images of vitrified-warmed embryos?

Summary Answer: Applying AI to vitrified-warmed blastocysts may help predict which ones will result in implantation failure early enough to thaw another.

What Is Known Already: The application of AI in the field of embryology has already proven effective in assessing the quality of fresh embryos. Therefore, it could also be useful to predict the outcome of frozen embryo transfers, some of which do not recover their pre-vitrification volume, collapse, or degenerate after warming without prior evidence.

Do immature and mature sibling oocytes recovered from stimulated cycles have the same reproductive potential?

Research Question: How can laboratory and clinical outcomes of spontaneously, early maturing germinal-vesicle oocytes and sibling in-vivo-matured (metaphase II [MII]) oocytes be quantified and compared?

Design: A prospective, non-randomized intra-cohort study of oocytes from women aged 38 years or younger, with six or fewer MII oocytes and four or more germinal vesicles retrieved. No indication was identified for genetic tests or oocyte or embryo cryopreservation. The study was carried out at IVIRMA-Valencia.

Selective outgrowth and differential tropism of amacrine and photoreceptor axons to cell targets during early development in vitro.

The axonal guidance and outgrowth in retinal neurons were investigated in cultures of pure retinal neurons (control) or in cocultures with heterologous BC3H-1 cells. Under control conditions, only about 10% of retinal neurons developed axons; coculturing with BC3H-1 cells induced early axonal outgrowth and guidance to BC3H-1 cells in most amacrine neurons. Both mechanisms were dependent on laminin and neural cell-adhesion molecules (N-CAMs) released by BC3H-1 cells, because they were prevented by antibodies directed against these molecules.