Exploring the Link Between Sleep Patterns and Early Cardiovascular Disease Markers in Young Adults with Chronic Anxiety.

Chronic anxiety is commonly associated with poor sleep patterns, which may contribute to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) through mechanisms like oxidative stress, vascular dysfunction, and poor blood pressure control. As sleep disturbances, particularly poor sleep quality and/or regularity, have been independently linked to CVD development, this study explored whether sleep quality/regularity in young adults with chronic anxiety are associated with early indicators of CVD risk, specifically oxidative stress, vascular function, and blood pressure control. Twenty-eight young (24±4 years) participants with a prior clinical diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) or elevated GAD symptoms (GAD7>10) had their sleep quality (total sleep time (TST) and sleep efficiency (SE)) and regularity (via TST/SE standard deviations (SD)) assessed for seven consecutive days.

Getting fit for hip and knee replacement: The Fit-Joints multimodal intervention for frail patients with osteoarthritis - a pilot randomized controlled trial.

Background: Older adults with frailty have high risk for poor postoperative outcomes.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of a multimodal prehabilitation program in older adults with frailty awaiting hip or knee replacement.

Design: Parallel two-arm randomized controlled pilot trial.

MRI-Induced RF Heating of Deep Brain Stimulation Devices: In Vivo Predictions and Comparisons Between 0.55 T and 1.5 T.

The prevailing view suggests low-field MRI is safer for patients with medical implants, but evidence is insufficient. Radiofrequency (RF) heating in elongated implants is complex, with many interacting factors influencing the outcome. Thus, deeming low-field MRI universally safe on scant data could endanger patient safety.

Machine learning-driven discovery of highly selective antifungal peptides containing non-canonical β-amino acids.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are promising compounds for the treatment and prevention of multidrug-resistant infections because of their ability to directly disrupt microbial membranes, a mechanism that is less likely to lead to resistance compared to antibiotics. Unfortunately, natural AMPs are prone to proteolytic cleavage and have relatively low selectivity for microbial human cells, motivating the development of synthetic peptidomimetics of AMPs with improved peptide stability, activity, and selectivity. However, a lack of understanding of structure-activity relationships for peptidomimetics constrains development to rational design or experimental predictors, both of which are cost and time prohibitive, especially when the design space of possible sequences scales exponentially with the number of amino acids.

Effects of Pesticide Exposure on Neuroinflammation and Microglial Gene Expression: Relevance to Mechanisms of Alzheimer's Disease Risk.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by the presence of amyloid-β plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and neuroinflammation. Previously, we reported serum levels of dichlorodiphenyldichloroethylene (DDE), the primary metabolite of the pesticide dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), were significantly higher in AD patients compared to age-matched controls and that DDT exposure worsened AD pathology in animal models.

Objective: Here, we investigated the effect of DDT on neuroinflammation in primary mouse microglia (PMG) and C57BL/6J mice.