Publications by authors named "Featherstone R"

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are small voltage changes in the brain that reliably occur in response to auditory or visual stimuli. ERPs have been extensively studied in both humans and animals to identify biomarkers, test pharmacological agents, and generate testable hypotheses about the physiological and genetic basis of schizophrenia. In this chapter, we discuss how ERPs are generated and recorded as well as review canonical ERP components in the context of schizophrenia research in humans.

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The complex and heterogeneous genetic architecture of schizophrenia inspires us to look beyond individual risk genes for therapeutic strategies and target their interactive dynamics and convergence. Postsynaptic NMDA receptor (NMDAR) complexes are a site of such convergence. Src kinase is a molecular hub of NMDAR function, and its protein interaction subnetwork is enriched for risk-genes and altered protein associations in schizophrenia.

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Pediatric gastroenterology patients are at risk for co-occurring behavioral health concerns, such as depression and anxiety, compared with youth without medical conditions. The objective of this systematic review was to assess the scientific literature supporting the hypothesis that integrating behavioral health services into gastroenterology clinics could improve patient psychosocial well-being. We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, PsycINFO, and CINAHL databases and gray literature to identify studies reporting the impact of behavioral health integration on the psychosocial well-being of pediatric gastroenterology patients.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to analyze how increasing sleep duration for one week affects insulin sensitivity (IS) in adolescents at risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D).
  • Participants aged 13-18, who were at risk due to obesity and other factors, underwent a crossover study where their sleep time was manipulated over a structured period.
  • Results showed that increasing sleep by 1 hour 30 minutes per night significantly improved insulin sensitivity by 20% compared to their usual and decreased sleep, suggesting that even small increases in sleep duration are beneficial for youth at risk of T2D.
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Article Synopsis
  • Multiple sclerosis (MS) primarily affects young adults, particularly women, leading to significant disability; while immunotherapies reduce disease activity, their safety is uncertain.
  • The study aimed to compare the adverse effects of various immunotherapies for MS and clinically isolated syndrome (CIS) and to rank these treatments based on their risk of side effects using network meta-analyses.
  • Using data from 123 trials with over 57,000 participants, the analysis employed rigorous methods to evaluate evidence quality and established a safety threshold for assessing treatment risks.
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Inertial Measurement Units are present in several applications in aerospace, unmanned vehicle navigation, legged robots, and human motion tracking systems, due to their ability to estimate a body's acceleration, orientation and angular rate. In contrast to rovers and drones, legged locomotion involves repeated impacts between the feet and the ground, and rapid locomotion (e.g.

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Cognitive deficit remains an intractable symptom of schizophrenia, accounting for substantial disability. Despite this, little is known about the cause of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. Recent studies suggest that schizophrenia patients show several changes in dentate gyrus structure and functional characteristic of immaturity.

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Background: With the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019, governments worldwide implemented a multitude of non-pharmaceutical interventions in order to control the spread of the virus. Most countries have implemented measures within the school setting in order to reopen schools or keep them open whilst aiming to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2. For informed decision-making on implementation, adaptation, or suspension of such measures, it is not only crucial to evaluate their effectiveness with regard to SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but also to assess their unintended consequences.

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Background: Few treatments exist for the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. Pharmacological agents resulting in glutamate N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor hypofunction, such as MK-801, mimic many of these symptoms and disrupt neural activity. Recent evidence suggests that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the medial septal nucleus (MSN) can modulate medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampal activity and improve spatial memory.

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Background: Early life stress may have profound effects on brain health, yielding both short- and long-term cognitive or psychiatric impairment. Early life Social Instability Stress (SIS) in rodents has been used to model the effects of early chronic human stress. While many studies have assessed acute and short-term responses to this stressor, less attention has been paid to the lasting effects of early life stress in rodents.

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Objective: Pasteurization kills harmful microorganisms found in milk. While consumption of unpasteurized milk and its products is discouraged due to increased risk of infections, some individuals prefer unpasteurized dairy products. Our objective was to estimate the burden of illness from outbreaks arising from consumption of unpasteurized and pasteurized dairy products in Canada and the United States.

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Background: This study developed, calibrated and evaluated a machine learning (ML) classifier designed to reduce study identification workload in maintaining the Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register (CCSR), a continuously updated register of COVID-19 research studies.

Methods: A ML classifier for retrieving COVID-19 research studies (the 'Cochrane COVID-19 Study Classifier') was developed using a data set of title-abstract records 'included' in, or 'excluded' from, the CCSR up to 18th October 2020, manually labelled by information and data curation specialists or the Cochrane Crowd. The classifier was then calibrated using a second data set of similar records 'included' in, or 'excluded' from, the CCSR between October 19 and December 2, 2020, aiming for 99% recall.

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Objective: To compare results reporting and the presence of spin in COVID-19 study preprints with their finalised journal publications.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: International medical literature.

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To determine whether children with neuromuscular disorders using long-term noninvasive ventilation (NIV), continuous or bilevel positive airway pressure, have improved health outcomes compared with alternative treatment strategies. This systematic review is an extension of a scoping review. The search strategy used Medical Subject Headings and free-text terms for "child" and "noninvasive ventilation.

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The Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register (CCSR) is a public, continually updated database of COVID-19 study references. The aim of this study-based register is to support rapid and living evidence synthesis, including an evidence ecosystem of COVID-19 research (CEOsys). In November and December 2020, we conducted an evaluation of the CCSR for CEOsys, measured its performance and identified areas for improvement.

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Objective: We compared the process of developing searches with and without using text-mining tools (TMTs) for evidence synthesis products.

Study Design: This descriptive comparative analysis included seven systematic reviews, classified as simple or complex. Two librarians created MEDLINE strategies for each review, using either usual practice (UP) or TMTs.

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Background: Long-term prescription of opioids by healthcare professionals has been linked to poor individual patient outcomes and high resource utilization. Supportive strategies in this population regarding acute healthcare settings may have substantial impact.

Methods: We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of primary studies.

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Background: Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) provides guidance on the use of vaccines in Canada. To support the expansion of its mandate to include considerations for vaccine acceptability when making recommendations, the NACI Secretariat developed a matrix of factors that influence acceptability. To inform and validate the matrix, we systematically reviewed evidence for factors that influence vaccine acceptability, and for interventions aimed at improving acceptability.

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The objective of this systematic review was to examine the associations between sleep timing (e.g., bedtime/wake-up time, midpoint of sleep), sleep consistency/regularity (e.

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The objective of this overview of systematic reviews was to examine the associations between sleep duration and health outcomes in adults. Four electronic databases were searched in December 2018 for systematic reviews published in the previous 10 years. Included reviews met the a priori determined population (community-dwelling adults aged 18 years and older), intervention/exposure/comparator (various levels of sleep duration), and outcome criteria (14 outcomes examined).

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Objective: The Cochrane Handbook of Systematic Reviews contains search filters to find randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Ovid MEDLINE: one maximizing sensitivity and another balancing sensitivity and precision. These filters were originally published in 1994 and were adapted and updated in 2008. To determine the performance of these filters, the authors tested them and thirty-six other MEDLINE filters against a large new gold standard set of relevant records.

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