Signal-in-noise detection across the lifespan in a mouse model of presbycusis.

The auditory system is constantly tasked with detecting acoustic cues in complex auditory environments. Difficulty hearing speech in noise, largely a result of energetic masking, is a major communication complaint of the elderly, which impacts a third of the global population over 65. The neural mechanisms responsible for processing sound in background noise and subsequently achieving release from energetic masking remain obscure.

Exploratory study to evaluate the acceptability of a wearable accelerometer to assess motor progression in motor neuron disease.

Motor neuron disease (MND) is a rapidly progressive condition traditionally assessed using a questionnaire to evaluate physical function, the revised amyotrophic lateral sclerosis functional rating scale (ALSFRS-R). Its use can be associated with poor sensitivity in detecting subtle changes over time and there is an urgent need for more sensitive and specific outcome measures. The ActiGraph GT9X is a wearable device containing multiple sensors that can be used to provide metrics that represent physical activity.

Integrated Virtual Care for Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Qualitative Study.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a condition that affects approximately one in 10 people in the United States (Defrees & Bailey, 2017). Despite the high prevalence of IBS, the medical community struggles to effectively understand, diagnose, and treat this disorder (Ankersen et al., 2021).

The Role of Serum NT-proBNP for Predicting Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction in Hospitalized Patients in Sri Lanka.

Background/aims: Only a few studies have addressed the role of NT-proBNP in identifying Left Ventricular Systolic Dysfunction (LVSD) in South Asian populations. Therefore, the current study was aimed at assessing the use of serum NT-proBNP in predicting LVSD in a hospitalized population in Sri Lanka.

Methods: A random sample of 278 individuals referred for echocardiography at a major Teaching Hospital consented for venous blood samples to be collected for serum NT-proBNP assay by sandwich ELISA.

An Improved Model for Biogenic Ammonium Urate.

The pathological crystallization of ammonium urate inside the urinary tract is a well-documented medical condition; however, structural studies of the biogenic material have proven challenging owing to its propensity to precipitate as a powder and to exhibit diffraction patterns with widely varying intensities. Using block Rietveld refinement methods of powder diffraction data, here we identify ammonium urate hydrate (AUH) as a likely component in natural uroliths. AUH has a planar 2-D hydrogen-bonded organic framework of urate ions separated by ammonium ions with water molecules residing in bisecting channels.

Guppies in large groups cooperate more frequently in an experimental test of the group size paradox.

The volunteer's dilemma, in which a single individual is required to produce a public good, predicts that individuals in larger groups will cooperate less frequently. Mechanistically, this could result from trade-offs between costs associated with volunteering and costs incurred if the public good is not produced (nobody volunteers). During predator inspection, one major contributor to the cost of volunteering is likely increased probability of predation; however, a predator also poses a risk to all individuals if nobody inspects.

Universal automated classification of the acoustic startle reflex using machine learning.

The startle reflex (SR), a robust, motor response elicited by an intense auditory, visual, or somatosensory stimulus has been widely used as a tool to assess psychophysiology in humans and animals for almost a century in diverse fields such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, hearing loss, and tinnitus. Previously, SR waveforms have been ignored, or assessed with basic statistical techniques and/or simple template matching paradigms. This has led to considerable variability in SR studies from different laboratories, and species.

A systematic review of digital technology to evaluate motor function and disease progression in motor neuron disease.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is the most common subtype of motor neuron disease (MND). The current gold-standard measure of progression is the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALS-FRS(R)), a clinician-administered questionnaire providing a composite score on physical functioning. Technology offers a potential alternative for assessing motor progression in both a clinical and research capacity that is more sensitive to detecting smaller changes in function.

An exploration into registered nurses' knowledge of adult fever in Scotland: A mixed method study.

Background: Fever may be a result of many causes, infective or non-infective. Nurses' fever management can be affected by their knowledge and beliefs and also by patients' beliefs. Consequently, an understanding of fever is vital in the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of various ailments and diseases.

The Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients Waiting for Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction Is Worse Than an Age- and Sex-Matched Population: Increasing Time on Waiting List for Surgery Was Independently Associated with a Worse Quality of Life.

Background: The aims of this study were to assess the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients awaiting anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction compared to the population at risk: whether knee-specific function was predictive of HRQoL and to identify factors associated with a worse HRQoL.

Methods: Sixty-seven patients (male,  = 50; female,  = 17; mean age, 29) identified from the surgical waiting list completed a questionnaire that included demographics, BMI, time of injury, EuroQol 5-dimension (EQ-5D), Short-Form (SF-36), and International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) scores. Age- and sex-matched HRQoL data were obtained from population level data.

An evolutionary perspective on stress responses, damage and repair.

Variation in stress responses has been investigated in relation to environmental factors, species ecology, life history and fitness. Moreover, mechanistic studies have unravelled molecular mechanisms of how acute and chronic stress responses cause physiological impacts ('damage'), and how this damage can be repaired. However, it is not yet understood how the fitness effects of damage and repair influence stress response evolution.

Overexpression of phospholipid: diacylglycerol acyltransferase in Brassica napus results in changes in lipid metabolism and oil accumulation.

The regulation of lipid metabolism in oil seeds is still not fully understood and increasing our knowledge in this regard is of great economic, as well as intellectual, importance. Oilseed rape (Brassica napus) is a major global oil crop where increases in triacylglycerol (TAG) accumulation have been achieved by overexpression of relevant biosynthetic enzymes. In this study, we expressed Arabidopsis phospholipid: diacylglycerol acyltransferase (PDAT1), one of the two major TAG-forming plant enzymes in B.

Hot-headed peckers: thermographic changes during aggression among juvenile pheasants ().

In group-living vertebrates, dominance status often covaries with physiological measurements (e.g. glucocorticoid levels), but it is unclear how dominance is linked to dynamic changes in physiological state over a shorter, behavioural timescale.

Real-time impedance feedback to enhance cutaneous gene electrotransfer in a murine skin model.

Electric field mediated gene delivery methods have the ability to efficiently transfect cells in vivo with an excellent safety profile. The method has historically used a fixed number of electric pulses with identical characteristics in induce delivery. Electrical treatment does not typically compensate for subject-to-subject variation and other differences.

Machine learning, waveform preprocessing and feature extraction methods for classification of acoustic startle waveforms.

The acoustic startle response (ASR) is an involuntary muscle reflex that occurs in response to a transient loud sound and is a highly-utilized method of assessing hearing status in animal models. Currently, a high level of variability exists in the recording and interpretation of ASRs due to the lack of standardization for collecting and analyzing these measures. An ensembled machine learning model was trained to predict whether an ASR waveform is a startle or non-startle using highly-predictive features extracted from normalized ASR waveforms collected from young adult CBA/CaJ mice.

Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Stress Responses.

All organisms have a stress response system to cope with environmental threats, yet its precise form varies hugely within and across individuals, populations, and species. While the physiological mechanisms are increasingly understood, how stress responses have evolved remains elusive. Here, we show that important insights can be gained from models that incorporate physiological mechanisms within an evolutionary optimality analysis (the 'evo-mecho' approach).

Automated classification of acoustic startle reflex waveforms in young CBA/CaJ mice using machine learning.

Background: The acoustic startle response (ASR) is a simple reflex that results in a whole body motor response after animals hear a brief loud sound and is used as a multisensory tool across many disciplines. Unfortunately, a method of how to record, process, and analyze ASRs has yet to be standardized, leading to high variability in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of ASRs within and between laboratories.

New Method: ASR waveforms collected from young adult CBA/CaJ mice were normalized with features extracted from the waveform, the resulting power spectral density estimates, and the continuous wavelet transforms.

Learning is negatively associated with strength of left/right paw preference in wild grey squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis).

Cerebral laterality, via hemispheric specialisation, has been evidenced across the animal kingdom and linked to cognitive performance in a number of species. Previously it has been suggested that cognitive processing is more efficient in brains with stronger hemispheric differences in processing, which may be the key fitness benefit driving the evolution of laterality. However, evidence supporting a positive association between cognitive performance and lateralization is mixed: data from studies of fish and birds show a positive relationship whereas more limited data from studies of mammals suggest a weak or even negative relationship, suggesting the intriguing possibility of a mammal/non-mammal divide in the nature of this relationship.

Care home nursing: Co-creating curricular content with student nurses.

Background: Meeting the complex care needs of an ageing population is a global issue and long term care settings, such as care homes, play an essential role. However, there is a crisis in the recruitment of registered nurses within care homes. Higher educational institutions have a critical part to play in addressing the crisis in recruitment in care homes and it is argued that student nurses can have a significant role to play in co-creating curricular content responsive to population need.

Between-group attack and defence in an ecological setting: Insights from nonhuman animals.

Attempts to understand the fundamental forces shaping conflict between attacking and defending groups can be hampered by a narrow focus on humans and reductionist, oversimplified modelling. Further progress depends on recognising the striking parallels in between-group conflict across the animal kingdom, harnessing the power of experimental tests in nonhuman species and modelling the eco-evolutionary feedbacks that drive attack and defence.

Increase in lysophosphatidate acyltransferase activity in oilseed rape (Brassica napus) increases seed triacylglycerol content despite its low intrinsic flux control coefficient.

Lysophosphatidate acyltransferase (LPAAT) catalyses the second step of the Kennedy pathway for triacylglycerol (TAG) synthesis. In this study we expressed Trapaeolum majus LPAAT in Brassica napus (B. napus) cv 12075 to evaluate the effects on lipid synthesis and estimate the flux control coefficient for LPAAT.

Racial Disparities in Endovascular Aortic Aneurysm Repair.

Background: Racial and ethnic disparities are a critical issue in access to care within all fields of medicine. We hypothesized that analysis of a statewide administrative dataset would demonstrate disparities based on race with respect to access to this latest technology and the associated outcomes following endovascular aortic aneurysm repair (EVAR).

Methods: Utilizing de-identified data from the Florida State Agency for Health Care Administration, we identified patients based on International Classification of Diseases Ninth Revision procedure codes who underwent EVAR between the years 2000 and 2014.