WhatsApp Linking Lilongwe, Malawi to Los Angeles: Impacting Medical Education and Clinical Management.

Background: Subspecialty expertise is often lacking in clinical environments in low-resource settings. As a result, medically complicated patients can receive suboptimal care, local clinicians can feel inadequately supported, and global health engagements can be difficult for medical trainees accustomed to more expert supervision at their home institutions.

Objective: We created WhatsApp Messenger discussion groups to connect subspecialists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine with clinicians and rotating global health residents at Partners in Hope (PIH) Medical Center in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Discharge Clinical Characteristics and Post-Discharge Events in Patients with Severe COVID-19: A Descriptive Case Series.

Background: As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic continues, little guidance is available on clinical indicators for safely discharging patients with severe COVID-19.

Objective: To describe the clinical courses of adult patients admitted for COVID-19 and identify associations between inpatient clinical features and post-discharge need for acute care.

Design: Retrospective chart reviews were performed to record laboratory values, temperature, and oxygen requirements of 99 adult inpatients with COVID-19.

A machine learning algorithm to increase COVID-19 inpatient diagnostic capacity.

Worldwide, testing capacity for SARS-CoV-2 is limited and bottlenecks in the scale up of polymerase chain reaction (PCR-based testing exist. Our aim was to develop and evaluate a machine learning algorithm to diagnose COVID-19 in the inpatient setting. The algorithm was based on basic demographic and laboratory features to serve as a screening tool at hospitals where testing is scarce or unavailable.

Hemodynamic characteristics of cyanotic adults with single-ventricle physiology without Fontan completion.

Objective: The aim of the current study is to describe the long-term clinical and hemodynamic characteristics of adult patients with single-ventricle physiology who have not undergone the Fontan operation and consequently have remained cyanotic.

Design: Adult patients at the Ahmanson/UCLA Adult Congenital Heart Disease Center with non-Fontan single-ventricle physiology who had undergone cardiac catheterization between 2005 and 2011 were included. Echocardiographic and cardiac catheterization data were reviewed.

A role for calcium-permeable AMPA receptors in synaptic plasticity and learning.

A central concept in the field of learning and memory is that NMDARs are essential for synaptic plasticity and memory formation. Surprisingly then, multiple studies have found that behavioral experience can reduce or eliminate the contribution of these receptors to learning. The cellular mechanisms that mediate learning in the absence of NMDAR activation are currently unknown.

The alpha1 subunit of the GABA(A) receptor modulates fear learning and plasticity in the lateral amygdala.

Synaptic plasticity in the amygdala is essential for emotional learning. Fear conditioning, for example, depends on changes in excitatory transmission that occur following NMDA receptor activation and AMPA receptor modification in this region. The role of these and other glutamatergic mechanisms have been studied extensively in this circuit while relatively little is known about the contribution of inhibitory transmission.