Publications by authors named "Jesyin Lai"

Background/objectives: Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming neuroimaging by enhancing diagnostic precision and treatment planning. However, its applications in pediatric cancer neuroimaging remain limited. This review assesses the current state, potential applications, and challenges of AI in pediatric neuroimaging for cancer, emphasizing the unique needs of the pediatric population.

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Sickle cell disease (SCD) decreases the oxygen-carrying capacity of red blood cells. Children with SCD have reduced/restricted cerebral blood flow, resulting in neurocognitive deficits. Hydroxyurea is the standard treatment for SCD; however, whether hydroxyurea influences such effects is unclear.

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Pediatric patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) have decreased oxygen-carrying capacity in the blood and reduced or restricted cerebral blood flow resulting in neurocognitive deficits and cerebral infarcts. The standard treatment for children with SCD is hydroxyurea; however, the treatment-related neurocognitive effects are unclear. A key area of impairment in SCD is working memory, which is implicated in other cognitive and academic skills.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates how age-related hearing loss affects the brain's ability to modulate frequency-following responses (FFRs) in response to speech, particularly focusing on older adults with varying levels of hearing ability.
  • - It involves measuring brain activity through EEG while participants perform speech recognition tasks in different noise environments, revealing that older adults with hearing loss showed decreased cortical α power compared to those with normal hearing.
  • - Results indicate that lower α power correlates with poorer speech perception, suggesting that age and hearing loss negatively impact the brain's communication pathways responsible for processing sounds, especially in noisy conditions.
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Objective assays of human cochlear synaptopathy (CS) have been challenging to develop. It is suspected that relative summating potential (SP) changes are different in listeners with CS. In this proof-of-concept study, young, normal-hearing adults were recruited and assigned to a low/high-risk group for having CS based on their extended audiograms (9-16 kHz).

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Experimental evidence in animals demonstrates cortical neurons innervate subcortex bilaterally to tune brainstem auditory coding. Yet, the role of the descending (corticofugal) auditory system in modulating earlier sound processing in humans during speech perception remains unclear. Here, we measured EEG activity as listeners performed speech identification tasks in different noise backgrounds designed to tax perceptual and attentional processing.

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Amplitude and frequency modulations are important for speech intelligibility, especially in noise. Neurophysiological responses assessed by envelope following responses (EFRs) are smaller at faster amplitude modulation frequencies (AMF) in older subjects compared to younger subjects. A typical assumption is that a decline in EFRs necessarily results in corresponding perceptual deficits.

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Background: The accuracy of estimating microvascular invasion (MVI) preoperatively in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by clinical observers is low. Most recent studies constructed MVI predictive models utilizing radiological and/or radiomics features extracted from computed tomography (CT) images. These methods, however, rely heavily on human experiences and require manual tumor contouring.

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Chronic vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) has been shown to facilitate learning, but effects of acute VNS on neural coding and behavior remain less well understood. Ferrets implanted with cuff electrodes on the vagus nerve were trained by classical conditioning on an auditory tone frequency-reward association. One tone was associated with reward while another tone was not.

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Age-related hearing decline typically includes threshold shifts as well as reduced wave I auditory brainstem response (ABR) amplitudes due to cochlear synaptopathy/neuropathy, which may compromise precise coding of suprathreshold speech envelopes. This is supported by findings with older listeners, who have difficulties in envelope and speech processing, especially in noise. However, separating the effects of threshold elevation, synaptopathy, and degradation by noise on physiological representations may be difficult.

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Previous work has debated about the comparisons of hearing abilities faced with alterations in hearing thresholds and evoked potentials between groups following acoustic trauma- or age-related changes. This study compares envelope-following responses (EFRs) of young and aged rats when sound levels were matched according to (1) wave I amplitudes of auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) elicited by 8-kHz tones or (2) EFR amplitudes evoked by sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) tones at 100% depth. Matched wave I amplitudes across age corresponded to approximately 20-dB sound level differences.

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Hearing difficulties are the most commonly reported disabilities among veterans. Blast exposures during explosive events likely play a role, given their propensity to directly damage both peripheral (PAS) and central auditory system (CAS) components. Postblast PAS pathophysiology has been well documented in both clinical case reports and laboratory investigations.

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Listening conditions in the real world involve segregating the stimuli of interest from competing auditory stimuli that differ in their sound level and spectral content. It is in these conditions of complex spectro-temporal processing that listeners with age-related hearing loss experience the most difficulties. Envelope following responses (EFRs) provide objective neurophysiological measures of auditory processing.

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Amplitude modulation (AM) is an important temporal cue for precise speech and complex sound recognition. However, functional decline of the auditory periphery as well as degradation of central auditory processing due to aging can reduce the salience and resolution of temporal cues. Age-related deficits in central temporal processing have previously been observed at more rapid AM frequencies and various AM depths.

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Cell movement requires forces generated by non-muscle myosin II (NM II) for coordinated protrusion and retraction. The Cdc42/Rac effector MRCK regulates a specific actomyosin network in the lamella essential for cell protrusion and migration. Together with the Rho effector ROK required for cell rear retraction, they cooperatively regulate cell motility and tumour cell invasion.

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High-affinity aptamers for important signal transduction proteins, i.e. Cdc42-GTP, p21-activated kinase1 (PAK1) and MRCK (myotonic dystrophy kinase-related Cdc42-binding kinase) alpha were successfully selected in the low micro- to nanomolar range using non-systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX) with at least three orders of magnitude enhancement from their respective bulk affinity of naïve DNA library.

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A novel strategy for the development of molecular aptamer beacon for a signal transduction protein, myotonic dystrophy kinase-related Cdc42-binding kinase (MRCK) was proposed in this work. MRCK is an important downstream effector protein of Cdc42 that phosphorylates proteins involved in organizing actin structures responsible for forming stress fibres, lamellipodia or filopodia. The simple method for MAB design could potentially be applied to other aptamers for modification into a protein probe.

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