Effects of Nursing Home Changes in Antipsychotic Use on Outcomes Among Residents With Dementia.

Objectives: Little information exists on whether nationwide efforts to reduce antipsychotic use among nursing home (NH) residents with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias improved mortality and hospitalization outcomes for residents. Our objective was to examine the effect of NH decreases in antipsychotic use on outcomes for residents with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Design: Observational nationwide study that emulated a series of cluster randomized trials.

Chronic conditions among transgender Medicare beneficiaries: Variation by race, ethnicity, and Medicaid dual-enrollment.

Background: Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) adults experience disability at twice the rate of cisgender (non-TGD) adults in the US. TGD people of color and low-income TGD people experience intersecting discrimination that may compound chronic conditions and disability. To our knowledge, no research has focused on chronic conditions among TGD Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities.

Pleiotropic tumor suppressive functions of PTEN missense mutations during gliomagenesis.

PTEN plays a crucial role in preventing the development of glioblastoma (GBM), a severe and untreatable brain cancer. In GBM, most PTEN deficiencies are missense mutations that have not been thoroughly examined. Here, we leveraged genetically modified mice and isogenic astrocyte cell cultures to investigate the role of clinically relevant mutations (G36E, L42R, C105F, and R173H) in the development of EGFR-driven GBM.

Tunable dynamical tissue phantom for laser speckle imaging.

We introduce a novel method to design and implement a tunable dynamical tissue phantom for laser speckle-based blood flow imaging. This approach relies on stochastic differential equations (SDE) to control a piezoelectric actuator which, upon illuminated with a laser source, generates speckles of pre-defined probability density function and auto-correlation. The validation experiments show that the phantom can generate dynamic speckles that closely replicate both surfaces as well as deep tissue blood flow for a reasonably wide range and accuracy.