Comparative technoeconomic analysis of centralised and decentralised water source heat pump systems using CATHeaPS.

In the efforts to decarbonise the heat sector, heat pumps can offer a cost-effective transition away from fossil fuels. Water Source Heat Pumps (WSHP) can be utilised in cases where ambient water sources (river, ground water, abandoned mines water) are present. However, the economic benefits of different levels of heat pump centralisation as well as their comparative advantages over other decentralised options such as individual Air Source Heat Pumps (ASHP) or Gas Boilers (GB) remain uncertain and further investigations are necessary to fully assess their potential.

Improving the Robustness of Deep-Learning Models in Predicting Hematoma Expansion from Admission Head CT.

Background And Purpose: Robustness against input data perturbations is essential for deploying deep-learning models in clinical practice. Adversarial attacks involve subtle, voxel-level manipulations of scans to increase deep-learning models' prediction errors. Testing deep-learning model performance on examples of adversarial images provides a measure of robustness, and including adversarial images in the training set can improve the model's robustness.

Genal: a Python toolkit for genetic risk scoring and Mendelian randomization.

Motivation: The expansion of genetic association data from genome-wide association studies has increased the importance of methodologies like Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) and Mendelian Randomization (MR) in genetic epidemiology. However, their application is often impeded by complex, multi-step workflows requiring specialized expertise and the use of disparate tools with varying data formatting requirements. Existing solutions are frequently standalone packages or command-line based-largely due to dependencies on tools like PLINK-limiting accessibility for researchers without computational experience.

A Hybrid Transformer-Convolutional Neural Network for Segmentation of Intracerebral Hemorrhage and Perihematomal Edema on Non-Contrast Head Computed Tomography (CT) with Uncertainty Quantification to Improve Confidence.

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) and perihematomal edema (PHE) are key imaging markers of primary and secondary brain injury in hemorrhagic stroke. Accurate segmentation and quantification of ICH and PHE can help with prognostication and guide treatment planning. In this study, we combined Swin-Unet Transformers with nnU-NETv2 convolutional network for segmentation of ICH and PHE on non-contrast head CTs.

Machine Learning Models for 3-Month Outcome Prediction Using Radiomics of Intracerebral Hemorrhage and Perihematomal Edema from Admission Head Computed Tomography (CT).

: Intracerebral hemorrhages (ICH) and perihematomal edema (PHE) are respective imaging markers of primary and secondary brain injury in hemorrhagic stroke. In this study, we explored the potential added value of PHE radiomic features for prognostication in ICH patients. : Using a multicentric trial cohort of acute supratentorial ICH ( = 852) patients, we extracted radiomic features from ICH and PHE lesions on admission non-contrast head CTs.

Corrigendum: The predictive validity of a Brain Care Score for late-life depression and a composite outcome of dementia, stroke, and late-life depression: data from the UK Biobank cohort.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.

Corrigendum: The predictive validity of a Brain Care Score for dementia and stroke: data from the UK Biobank cohort.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fneur.2023.

Health-Related Behaviors and Risk of Common Age-Related Brain Diseases Across Severities of Genetic Risk.

Background And Objectives: The 21-point Brain Care Score (BCS) is an index that ranks behaviors and clinical measurements with the aim of encouraging lifestyle adjustments to lower the incidence of age-related brain disease, including stroke, late-life depression (LLD), and dementia. A higher BCS at baseline is associated with a lower risk of these outcomes. We aimed to investigate whether the associations between BCS and stroke, LLD, and dementia risks are independent of genetic predisposition for these conditions and quantify the effect of healthy lifestyle across genetic risk distributions for these outcomes.

Polygenic Risk of Epilepsy and Poststroke Epilepsy.

Background: Epilepsy is highly heritable, with numerous known genetic risk loci. However, the genetic predisposition's role in poststroke epilepsy (PSE) remains understudied. This study assesses whether a higher genetic predisposition to epilepsy raises poststroke survivor's risk of PSE.

Life's Essential 8 and Poor Brain Health Outcomes in Middle-Aged Adults.

Background And Objectives: Mounting evidence points to a strong connection between cardiovascular risk during middle age and brain health later in life. The American Heart Association's Life's Essential 8 (LE8) constitutes a research and public health construct capturing key determinants of cardiovascular health. However, the overall effect of the LE8 on global, clinically relevant metrics of brain health is still unknown.

Caring for Coma after Severe Brain Injury: Clinical Practices and Challenges to Improve Outcomes: An Initiative by the Curing Coma Campaign.

Severe brain injury can result in disorders of consciousness (DoC), including coma, vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, and minimally conscious state. Improved emergency and trauma medicine response, in addition to expanding efforts to prevent premature withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment, has led to an increased number of patients with prolonged DoC. High-quality bedside care of patients with DoC is key to improving long-term functional outcomes.

Socioeconomic and medical determinants of state-level subjective cognitive decline in the United States.

Introduction: It is important to understand the socioeconomic and medical determinants of subjective cognitive decline (SCD) at a population level in the United States.

Methods: The primary outcomes are state-level rates of SCD and SCD-related functional impairment in adults aged ≥ 45, both measured in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System from 2016 to 2022. The exposures are state-level rates of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, college education, racial and ethnic minorities, uninsurance, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, and obesity as well as household income and physician density.

Brain Health Outcomes in Sexual and Gender Minority Groups: Results From the All of Us Research Program.

Background And Objectives: Sexual and gender minority (SGM) groups have been historically underrepresented in neurologic research, and their brain health disparities are unknown. We aim to evaluate whether SGM persons are at higher risk of adverse brain health outcomes compared with cisgender straight (non-SGM) individuals.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in the All of Us Research Program, a US population-based study, including all participants with information on gender identity and sexual orientation.

Pseudodominance in RFC1-Spectrum Disorder.

Cerebellar ataxia, neuropathy, vestibular areflexia syndrome (CANVAS) and disease spectrum is an autosomal recessive disorder associated with biallelic repeat expansion (RE) in the RFC1 gene. A high carrier frequency in the healthy population determines the possibility of having affected members in two consecutive generations. We describe pseudodominance in two families affected with RFC1 disorder (10 affected, 5 oligo/asymptomatic individuals).

White matter hyperintensity on MRI and plasma Aβ42/40 ratio additively increase the risk of cognitive impairment in hypertensive adults.

Introduction: Dementia often involves comorbid Alzheimer's and vascular pathology, but their combined impact warrants additional study.

Methods: We analyzed the Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial and categorized white matter hyperintensity (WMH) volume into highest versus lowest/mid tertile and the amyloid beta (Aβ)42/40 ratio into lowest versus mid/highest ratio tertile. Using these binary variables, we created four exposure categories: (1) combined low risk, (2) Aβ risk, (3) WMH risk, and (4) combined high risk.

Genetics of posttraumatic stress disorder and cardiovascular conditions using Life's Essential 8, Electronic Health Records, and Heart Imaging.

Background: Patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) experience higher risk of adverse cardiovascular (CV) outcomes. This study explores shared loci, and genes between PTSD and CV conditions from three major domains: CV diagnoses from electronic health records (CV-EHR), cardiac and aortic imaging, and CV health behaviors defined in Life's Essential 8 (LE8).

Methods: We used genome-wide association study (GWAS) of PTSD (N=1,222,882), 246 CV diagnoses based on EHR data from Million Veteran Program (MVP; N=458,061), UK Biobank (UKBB; N=420,531), 82 cardiac and aortic imaging traits (N=26,893), and GWAS of traits defined in the LE8 (N = 282,271 ~ 1,320,016).

Deep learning for prediction of post-thrombectomy outcomes based on admission CT angiography in large vessel occlusion stroke.

Purpose: Computed Tomography Angiography (CTA) is the first line of imaging in the diagnosis of Large Vessel Occlusion (LVO) strokes. We trained and independently validated end-to-end automated deep learning pipelines to predict 3-month outcomes after anterior circulation LVO thrombectomy based on admission CTAs.

Methods: We split a dataset of 591 patients into training/cross-validation (n = 496) and independent test set (n = 95).

The predictive validity of a Brain Care Score for late-life depression and a composite outcome of dementia, stroke, and late-life depression: data from the UK Biobank cohort.

Introduction: The 21-point Brain Care Score (BCS) is a novel tool designed to motivate individuals and care providers to take action to reduce the risk of stroke and dementia by encouraging lifestyle changes. Given that late-life depression is increasingly recognized to share risk factors with stroke and dementia, and is an important clinical endpoint for brain health, we tested the hypothesis that a higher BCS is associated with a reduced incidence of future depression. Additionally, we examined its association with a brain health composite outcome comprising stroke, dementia, and late-life depression.

Brain Care Score and Neuroimaging Markers of Brain Health in Asymptomatic Middle-Age Persons.

Objectives: To investigate associations between health-related behaviors as measured using the Brain Care Score (BCS) and neuroimaging markers of white matter injury.

Methods: This prospective cohort study in the UK Biobank assessed the BCS, a novel tool designed to empower patients to address 12 dementia and stroke risk factors. The BCS ranges from 0 to 21, with higher scores suggesting better brain care.

Bidirectional relationship between epigenetic age and brain health events.

Chronological age offers an imperfect estimate of the molecular changes that occur with aging. Epigenetic age, which is derived from DNA methylation data, provides a more nuanced representation of aging-related biological processes. This study examines the bidirectional relationship between epigenetic age and the occurrence of brain health events (stroke, dementia, and late-life depression).

APOE epsilon variants and composite risk of dementia, disability, and death in the health and retirement study.

Background: Clinical trials in older adults are increasingly focused on functional outcomes, and the composite outcome of dementia, disability, and death is gaining pivotal importance. Genetic variation, particularly the APOE epsilon(ε) variants, may modify responses to new treatments. Although APOE ε4 is known to influence these outcomes separately, the magnitude of its effect on this composite outcome remains unknown.

Hyaluronate loaded advanced wound dressing in form of in situ forming hydrogel powders: Formulation, characterization, and therapeutic potential.

In this paper, a blend composed of alginate-pectin-chitosan loaded with sodium hyaluronate in the form of an in situ forming dressing was successfully developed for wound repair applications. This complex polymeric blend has been efficiently used to encapsulate hyaluronate, forming an adhesive, flexible, and non-occlusive hydrogel able to uptake to 15 times its weight in wound fluid, and being removed without trauma from the wound site. Calorimetric and FT-IR studies confirmed chemical interactions between hyaluronate and polysaccharides blend, primarily related to the formation of a polyelectrolytic complex between hyaluronate and chitosan.