Study protocol: assessment of the usefulness and practicability of a psychoeducational intervention to prevent the negative psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on primary care health workers.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has constituted an extraordinarily stressful situation for healthcare professionals and has led to psychological distress and an increase in various mental disorders. In the post-pandemic context, it is necessary to provide professionals with strategies and skills to manage this stressful situation and prevent or minimize its negative impact.

Methods: Aims: To assess the feasibility and clinical effects of a group psychoeducational program focused on preventing the adverse psychological and emotional effects of the pandemic on primary care workers, and to explore the experience and perceptions of participants with regard to the program from a qualitative perspective.

High Performance of a Dominant/X-Linked Gene Panel in Patients with Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) affect 2-5% of the population and approximately 50% of cases are due to genetic factors. Since pathogenic variants account for the majority of cases, a gene panel including 460 dominant and X-linked genes was designed and applied to 398 patients affected by intellectual disability (ID)/global developmental delay (GDD) and/or autism (ASD). Pathogenic variants were identified in 83 different genes showing the high genetic heterogeneity of NDDs.

Atrophy signaling pathways in respiratory and limb muscles of guinea pigs exposed to chronic cigarette smoke: role of soluble guanylate cyclase stimulation.

Skeletal muscle dysfunction in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by a significant reduction in muscle strength and endurance. Preclinical studies show that stimulation of the soluble guanylate cyclase (sGC)-cGMP pathway attenuates muscle mass loss and prevents cigarette smoke-induced oxidative stress, indicating that pharmacological activation of the guanylyl cyclase pathway in COPD may provide a beneficial therapeutic strategy that reaches beyond the lung. In this study, conducted in an animal model of COPD, we first set out to assess the effect of cigarette smoke (CS) on biomarkers of muscle fatigue, such as protein degradation and its transcriptional regulation, in two types of muscles with different energy demands, i.