Evaluation of Early Childhood Caries and Its Association with Risk Factors among School Children: A Cross-sectional Study.

Aim: The study aimed to assess early childhood caries and its correlation with risk variables among school children.

Materials And Methods: 242 children under the age of 5 years were clinically assessed and to ascertain early childhood caries, a validated structured questionnaire was utilized. Demographic data (four questions) and oral health-related activities questions (two questions) were included.

Payment model impact on the resilience of rural communities: Exploratory study.

Objective: To explore rural physician perspectives on how remuneration impacted their experiences of contributing to community resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design: Exploratory, qualitative subanalysis.

Setting: Twenty-two rural communities in 4 Canadian provinces.

Design principles of regulatory networks underlying epithelial mesenchymal plasticity in cancer cells.

Phenotypic plasticity is a hallmark of cancer and drives metastatic disease and drug resistance. The dynamics of epithelial mesenchymal plasticity is driven by complex interactions involving multiple feedback loops in underlying networks operating at multiple regulatory levels such as transcriptional and epigenetic. The past decade has witnessed a surge in systems level analysis of structural and dynamical traits of these networks.

Classification of colorectal cancer patients based on serum micronutrients: An exploratory investigation.

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a growing global health challenge with a multifactorial etiology encompassing genetic susceptibility, nutrition, and inflammation in the bowel.

Objective: To examine micronutrient status in CRC patients undergoing CRC resection.

Design: We performed a case-control study including 13 consecutive CRC patients and 10 healthy controls (CTRL) comparing the serum levels of 29 micronutrients, namely Copper, Zinc, Selenium, Chromium, Manganese, Carnitine, Choline, Inositol, Methylmalonic acid (MMA), Vitamin (Vit) B1, Vit B2, Vit B3, Vit B5, Vit B6, Vit C, Vit A, Vit D3, Vit E, Vit K1, Vit K2 and the amino acids Serine, Valine, Leucine, Isoleucine, Asparagine, Glutamine, Arginine, Citrulline and Cysteine.

Multistability and predominant hybrid phenotypes in a four node mutually repressive network of Th1/Th2/Th17/Treg differentiation.

Elucidating the emergent dynamics of cellular differentiation networks is crucial to understanding cell-fate decisions. Toggle switch - a network of mutually repressive lineage-specific transcription factors A and B - enables two phenotypes from a common progenitor: (high A, low B) and (low A, high B). However, the dynamics of networks enabling differentiation of more than two phenotypes from a progenitor cell has not been well-studied.

Quantitative Analysis of Early White Matter Damage in Cuprizone Mouse Model of Demyelination Using 7.0 T MRI Multiparametric Approach.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is commonly used to follow the progression of neurodegenerative conditions, including multiple sclerosis (MS). MRI is limited by a lack of correlation between imaging results and clinical presentations, referred to as the clinico-radiological paradox. Animal models are commonly used to mimic the progression of human neurodegeneration and as a tool to help resolve the paradox.

A Rare Presentation of Extrahepatic Biliary Neuroendocrine Tumor Diagnosed using Ga-DOTA-TOC Imaging, But Undetectable on Ga-FAPI Imaging.

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are commonly seen in the small intestine and rarely found within the bile ducts. This low incidence is due to a smaller number of Kulchitsky cells in the extrahepatic biliary tree, which predisposes to the disease. The diagnosis of biliary tree carcinoid preoperatively is very rare, with most cases in the literature being incidentally diagnosed during surgery or being identified on the histopathology report postoperatively.

Magnetic resonance metrics for identification of cuprizone-induced demyelination in the mouse model of neurodegeneration: a review.

Neurodegenerative disorders, including Multiple Sclerosis (MS), are heterogenous disorders which affect the myelin sheath of the central nervous system (CNS). Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) provides a non-invasive method for studying, diagnosing, and monitoring disease progression. As an emerging research area, many studies have attempted to connect MR metrics to underlying pathophysiological presentations of heterogenous neurodegeneration.

Widespread innervation of motoneurons by spinal V3 neurons globally amplifies locomotor output in mice.

While considerable progress has been made in understanding the neuronal circuits that underlie the patterning of locomotor behaviours such as walking, less is known about the circuits that amplify motoneuron output to enable adaptable increases in muscle force across different locomotor intensities. Here, we demonstrate that an excitatory propriospinal neuron population (V3 neurons, Sim1 ) forms a large part of the total excitatory interneuron input to motoneurons (∼20%) across all hindlimb muscles. Additionally, V3 neurons make extensive connections among themselves and with other excitatory premotor neurons (such as V2a neurons).

Top Tips for Designing and Managing a Public Engagement Laboratory.

Public engagement with science is a core facet of the broader science ecosystem, in particular the science research and science education sectors. In this article we demarcate the benefits of dedicated laboratories along with practitioner advice pertaining to the design and running of a public engagement learning environment. A practicing public engagement laboratory and one that is currently being developed are used as illustrative cases to provide real-world insights to public engagement practitioners.

GABA Increases Sensory Transmission In Monkeys.

Sensory input flow is central to voluntary movements. For almost a century, GABA was believed to modulate this flow by inhibiting sensory axons in the spinal cord to sculpt neural inputs into skilled motor output. Instead, here we show that GABA can also facilitate sensory transmission in monkeys and consequently increase spinal and cortical neural responses to sensory inputs challenging our understanding of generation and perception of movement.

Patient Characteristics Associated with Telemedicine Use for Diabetes Mellitus Care: Experience of a University Health System.

Objectives: The objective was to understand the characteristics of patients who used telemedicine for diabetes management to inform future implementation of telemedicine.

Methods: We examined patient characteristics associated with telemedicine use for diabetes mellitus (DM) care between March 1, 2020 and April 1, 2021 (the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic period) in a large university health system when telemedicine visits increased rapidly. Logistic regression models assessed patient characteristics associated with telemedicine visits and delays in DM process measures (hemoglobin A1c checks, nephropathy, and retinopathy evaluations) during the pandemic period after adjusting for potential confounders and corresponding values before the pandemic period (March 1, 2019-February 29, 2020).

Locomotor-related propriospinal V3 neurons produce primary afferent depolarization and modulate sensory transmission to motoneurons.

When a muscle is stretched, sensory feedback not only causes reflexes but also leads to a depolarization of sensory afferents throughout the spinal cord (primary afferent depolarization, PAD), readying the whole limb for further disturbances. This sensory-evoked PAD is thought to be mediated by a trisynaptic circuit, where sensory input activates first-order excitatory neurons that activate GABAergic neurons that in turn activate GABA receptors on afferents to cause PAD, though the identity of these first-order neurons is unclear. Here, we show that these first-order neurons include propriospinal V3 neurons, as they receive extensive sensory input and in turn innervate GABAergic neurons that cause PAD, because optogenetic activation or inhibition of V3 neurons in mice mimics or inhibits sensory-evoked PAD, respectively.

Collective heterogeneity of mitochondrial potential in contact inhibition of proliferation.

In the epithelium, cell density and cell proliferation are closely connected to each other through contact inhibition of proliferation (CIP). Depending on cell density, CIP proceeds through three distinct stages: the free-growing stage at low density, the pre-epithelial transition stage at medium density, and the post-epithelial transition stage at high density. Previous studies have elucidated how cell morphology, motion, and mechanics vary in these stages.

Comparative Evaluation of the Bonding Efficacy of Multimode Adhesive, Two-Step Self-Etch Adhesive, and a Total-Etch System to Pulpal Floor Dentin - An Study.

Background: Postendodontic restoration with composite resins has gained popularity due to the development of more reliable adhesives with simplified bonding procedures and less technique sensitivity. Pulpal floor dentin is a complex biological structure and a more challenging bonding substrate. Hence, appropriate selection of the bonding agent for these regions of the tooth is important.

Assessing biological network dynamics: comparing numerical simulations with analytical decomposition of parameter space.

Mathematical modeling of the emergent dynamics of gene regulatory networks (GRN) faces a double challenge of (a) dependence of model dynamics on parameters, and (b) lack of reliable experimentally determined parameters. In this paper we compare two complementary approaches for describing GRN dynamics across unknown parameters: (1) parameter sampling and resulting ensemble statistics used by RACIPE (RAndom CIrcuit PErturbation), and (2) use of rigorous analysis of combinatorial approximation of the ODE models by DSGRN (Dynamic Signatures Generated by Regulatory Networks). We find a very good agreement between RACIPE simulation and DSGRN predictions for four different 2- and 3-node networks typically observed in cellular decision making.

Benign Lymphoepithelial Cyst of Parotid Glands in HIV Infected Patients on Anti-Retroviral Therapy: A Narrative Review.

Human immunodeficiency virus-associated salivary gland disease is a complication seen in patients infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with the commonest manifestation being the benign lymphoepithelial cyst (BLEC). The purpose of this study was to systematically review the effects of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Human Immune Virus-infected patients with confirmed benign lymphoepithelial cysts of the parotid gland. The review was conducted between August 2020 and December 2021 using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis guidelines.

Coupled Mutual Inhibition and Mutual Activation Motifs as Tools for Cell-Fate Control.

Multistability is central to biological systems. It plays a crucial role in adaptation, evolvability, and differentiation. The presence of positive feedback loops can enable multistability.

Outcome of tracheostomy among COVID-19 patients in a tertiary hospital setting: Our experience.

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented. Amongst those who contracted COVID-19, a number required intubation and prolonged ventilation. This increased the number of ventilated patients in the hospital and increased the requirement for tracheostomy of severe COVID-19 patients.

Functional Resilience of Mutually Repressing Motifs Embedded in Larger Networks.

Elucidating the design principles of regulatory networks driving cellular decision-making has important implications for understanding cell differentiation and guiding the design of synthetic circuits. Mutually repressing feedback loops between 'master regulators' of cell fates can exhibit multistable dynamics enabling "single-positive" phenotypes: (high A, low B) and (low A, high B) for a toggle switch, and (high A, low B, low C), (low A, high B, low C) and (low A, low B, high C) for a toggle triad. However, the dynamics of these two motifs have been interrogated in isolation in silico, but in vitro and in vivo, they often operate while embedded in larger regulatory networks.

Emergent properties of coupled bistable switches.

Understanding the dynamical hallmarks of network motifs is one of the fundamental aspects of systems biology. Positive feedback loops constituting one or two nodes - self-activation, toggle switch, and double activation loops - are the commonly observed motifs in regulatory networks underlying cell-fate decision systems. Their individual dynamics are well studied; they are capable of exhibiting bistability.