Subtypes of cognitive impairment in cerebellar disease identified by cross-diagnostic cluster-analysis: results from a German multicenter study.

Background: Cognitive and neuropsychiatric impairment, known as cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome (CCAS), may be present in cerebellar disorders. This study identified distinct CCAS subtypes in cerebellar patients using cluster analysis.

Methods: The German CCAS-Scale (G-CCAS-S), a brief screening test for CCAS, was assessed in 205 cerebellar patients and 200 healthy controls.

Characterization of Upper Esophageal Sphincter Pressures Relative to Vocal Acoustics.

Strength of vocal fold adduction has been hypothesized to be a critical factor influencing voice quality, but has been difficult to measure directly during phonation. Recent work has suggested that UES pressure, which can be easily assessed, increases with stronger vocal fold adduction, raising the possibility that UES pressure might indirectly reflect vocal fold adduction strength. However, concurrent UES pressure and voice quality have not previously been examined across different vocal tasks.

Laryngeal Vibrotactile Stimulation Is Feasible, Acceptable To People With Unexplained Chronic Cough.

Objectives: Unexplained chronic cough (UCC) is common and has significant impacts on quality of life. Ongoing cough can sensitize the larynx, increasing the urge to cough and perpetuating the cycle of chronic cough. Vibrotactile stimulation (VTS) of the larynx is a noninvasive stimulation technique that can modulate laryngeal somatosensory and motor activity.

Increased oxygen content in biochar lowered bioavailability of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons-related toxicity to various organisms.

Agricultural or environmental application of biochar (BC) is connected with the introduction of biochar-derived components among which polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals are the most toxic. Their presence and bioavailability are crucial considering biochar toxicity. The effect of feedstock and pyrolysis temperature on the physicochemical properties of produced biochar and contaminant content was established and combined with toxicity to a broad range of living organisms.

Robot-aided assessment and associated brain lesions of impaired ankle proprioception in chronic stroke.

Background: Impaired ankle proprioception strongly predicts balance dysfunction in chronic stroke. However, only sparse data on ankle position sense and no systematic data on ankle motion sense dysfunction in stroke are available. Moreover, the lesion sites underlying impaired ankle proprioception have not been comprehensively delineated.

Effects of an 11-week vibro-tactile stimulation treatment on voice symptoms in laryngeal dystonia.

Background: Laryngeal dystonia is a task-specific focal dystonia of laryngeal muscles that impairs speech and voice production. At present, there is no cure for LD. The most common therapeutic option for patients with LD involves Botulinum neurotoxin injections.

Multilevel Regulation of Membrane Proteins in Response to Metal and Metalloid Stress: A Lesson from Yeast.

In the face of flourishing industrialization and global trade, heavy metal and metalloid contamination of the environment is a growing concern throughout the world. The widespread presence of highly toxic compounds of arsenic, antimony, and cadmium in nature poses a particular threat to human health. Prolonged exposure to these toxins has been associated with severe human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disorders.

The European trees phyllosphere characteristics and its potential in air bioremediation.

The air pollution remediation is naturally carried out by plants. Their overground parts called phyllosphere are a type of a natural filter on which pollutants can be adsorb. Moreover, microbial communities living in phyllosphere perform a variety of biochemical processes removing also chemical pollutants.

Benchmarking antibody clustering methods using sequence, structural, and machine learning similarity measures for antibody discovery applications.

Antibodies are proteins produced by our immune system that have been harnessed as biotherapeutics. The discovery of antibody-based therapeutics relies on analyzing large volumes of diverse sequences coming from phage display or animal immunizations. Identification of suitable therapeutic candidates is achieved by grouping the sequences by their similarity and subsequent selection of a diverse set of antibodies for further tests.

Biochemical and Structural Analysis of the Bacterial Enzyme Succinyl-Diaminopimelate Desuccinylase (DapE) from .

There is an urgent need for new antibiotics given the rise of antibiotic resistance, and succinyl-diaminopimelate desuccinylase (DapE, E.C. 3.

Cyclobutanone Inhibitors of Diaminopimelate Desuccinylase (DapE) as Potential New Antibiotics.

Based on our previous success in using cyclobutanone derivatives as enzyme inhibitors, we have designed and prepared a 37-member library of α-aminocyclobutanone amides and sulfonamides, screened for inhibition of the bacterial enzyme diaminopimelate desuccinylase (DapE), which is a promising antibiotic target, and identified several inhibitors with micromolar inhibitory potency. Molecular docking suggests binding of the deprotonated hydrate of the strained cyclobutanone, and thermal shift analysis with the most potent inhibitor (, IC = 23.1 µM) enabled determination of a K value of 10.

Dyad motor learning in a wrist-robotic environment: Learning together is better than learning alone.

Objective: Dyad motor practice is characterized by two learners alternating between physical and observational practice, which can lead to better motor outcomes and reduce practice time compared to physical practice alone. Robot-assisted therapy has become an established neurorehabilitation tool but is limited by high therapy cost and access. Implementing dyad practice in robot-assisted rehabilitation has the potential to improve therapeutic outcomes and/or to achieve them faster.

A Physically Active Lifestyle Can Protect against Age-Related Decline in Ankle Proprioception.

This study examined whether physically active middle-aged (50-64 years) and older adults (65-80 years) demonstrate age-related ankle proprioceptive decline relative to younger counterparts. Empirical data indicate that ankle proprioception declines with aging and such sensory decline negatively affects balance. Using a passive motion apparatus, we employed a psychophysical forced-choice paradigm in which the ankle was passively plantarflexed to a reference position (15° or 25°) and a comparison position that was always smaller than the reference.

Increased concentration of PAH derivatives in biochar-amended soil observed in a long-term experiment.

During biochar preparation or application some toxic substances may be formed. The established limitations of the content of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) aim to monitor the fate of PAHs in the life cycle of biochar. The latest studies have revealed that besides PAHs, some of their derivatives with confirmed toxicity are formed.

Ankle proprioception in children with cerebral palsy.

Purpose: There is no established clinical standard to evaluate ankle proprioception in children with cerebral palsy (CP). This study compared ankle position sense of children with CP to age-matched children who are typically developing (TD).

Methods: Children aged 6-17 years participated (15 CP, 58 TD).

Optic Pathway Gliomas in Pediatric Population-Current Approach in Diagnosis and Management: Literature Review.

Unlabelled: In this paper, the authors present a clinical picture of the diagnosis and current treatment regimens of optic pathway glioma in the pediatric population, with an emphasis on the role of an ophthalmic diagnosis in the differentiation and monitoring of lesions. Glioma is the most common optic nerve tumor in children.

Material: Articles in PubMed, Scholar and Website were reviewed, taking into account current standards of management related to sporadic or NF1-related optic glioma, epidemiology, location, course of the disease, clinical manifestations, histological types of the tumor, genetic predisposition, diagnostic ophthalmic tests currently applicable in therapeutic monitoring of the tumor, neurological diagnosis, therapeutic management and prognosis.

A robot-aided visuomotor wrist training induces motor and proprioceptive learning that transfers to the untrained ipsilateral elbow.

Background: Learning of a visuomotor task not only leads to changes in motor performance but also improves proprioceptive function of the trained joint/limb system. Such sensorimotor learning may show intra-joint transfer that is observable at a previously untrained degrees of freedom of the trained joint.

Objective: Here, we examined if and to what extent such learning transfers to neighboring joints of the same limb and whether such transfer is observable in the motor as well as in the proprioceptive domain.

Structural modeling of antibody variable regions using deep learning-progress and perspectives on drug discovery.

AlphaFold2 has hallmarked a generational improvement in protein structure prediction. In particular, advances in antibody structure prediction have provided a highly translatable impact on drug discovery. Though AlphaFold2 laid the groundwork for all proteins, antibody-specific applications require adjustments tailored to these molecules, which has resulted in a handful of deep learning antibody structure predictors.

Atypical Activation of Laryngeal Somatosensory-Motor Cortex During Vocalization in People With Unexplained Chronic Cough.

Importance: Unexplained chronic cough is common and has substantial negative quality-of-life implications, yet its causes are not well understood. A better understanding of how peripheral and central neural processes contribute to chronic cough is essential for treatment design.

Objective: To determine if people with chronic cough exhibit signs of abnormal neural processing over laryngeal sensorimotor cortex during voluntary laryngeal motor activity such as vocalization.

A Robotic Device for Measuring Human Ankle Motion Sense.

Proprioceptive signals about ankle motion are essential for the control of balance and gait. However, objective, accurate methods for testing ankle motion sense in clinical settings are not established. This study presents a fast and accurate method to assess human ankle motion sense acuity.

Identifying body awareness-related brain network changes after Spring Forest Qigong™ practice or P.Volve low-intensity exercise in adults with chronic low back pain: a feasibility Phase I Randomized Clinical Trial.

Background: Chronic low back pain (cLBP) affects the quality of life of 52 million Americans and leads to an enormous personal and economic burden. A multidisciplinary approach to cLBP management is recommended. Since medication has limited efficacy and there are mounting concerns about opioid addiction, the American College of Physicians and American Pain Society recommend non-pharmacological interventions, such as mind and body approaches (e.

UPF1-From mRNA Degradation to Human Disorders.

Up-frameshift protein 1 (UPF1) plays the role of a vital controller for transcripts, ready to react in the event of an incorrect translation mechanism. It is well known as one of the key elements involved in mRNA decay pathways and participates in transcript and protein quality control in several different aspects. Firstly, UPF1 specifically degrades premature termination codon (PTC)-containing products in a nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD)-coupled manner.