Cortical Lesions as an Early Hallmark of Multiple Sclerosis: Visualization by 7 T MRI.

Objectives: Compelling evidence indicates a significant involvement of cortical lesions in the progressive phase of multiple sclerosis (MS), significantly contributing to late-stage disability. Despite the promise of ultra-high-field magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detecting cortical lesions, current evidence falls short in providing insights into the existence of such lesions during the early stages of MS or their underlying cause. This study delineated, at the early stage of MS, (1) the prevalence and spatial distribution of cortical lesions identified by 7 T MRI, (2) their relationship with white matter lesions, and (3) their clinical implications.

NEOTROPICAL FRESHWATER FISHES: A dataset of occurrence and abundance of freshwater fishes in the Neotropics.

The Neotropical region hosts 4225 freshwater fish species, ranking first among the world's most diverse regions for freshwater fishes. Our NEOTROPICAL FRESHWATER FISHES data set is the first to produce a large-scale Neotropical freshwater fish inventory, covering the entire Neotropical region from Mexico and the Caribbean in the north to the southern limits in Argentina, Paraguay, Chile, and Uruguay. We compiled 185,787 distribution records, with unique georeferenced coordinates, for the 4225 species, represented by occurrence and abundance data.

A quality improvement program to reduce the time on the lung transplant waiting list at the Nantes University Hospital.

Background: In 2010, the time on the lung transplant waiting list in Nantes University Hospital (NUH) was 9.2 months, compared to a French national median of about 4 months. The NUH transplant unit performs both heart and lung transplantations, which can be seen as competing activities.

Inventory on the dietary assessment tools available and needed in africa: a prerequisite for setting up a common methodological research infrastructure for nutritional surveillance, research, and prevention of diet-related non-communicable diseases.

Objective: To carry out an inventory on the availability, challenges, and needs of dietary assessment (DA) methods in Africa as a pre-requisite to provide evidence, and set directions (strategies) for implementing common dietary methods and support web-research infrastructure across countries.

Methods: The inventory was performed within the framework of the "Africa's Study on Physical Activity and Dietary Assessment Methods" (AS-PADAM) project. It involves international institutional and African networks.

From pollen tubes to infection threads: recruitment of Medicago floral pectic genes for symbiosis.

While the biology of nitrogen-fixing root nodules has been extensively studied, little is known about the evolutionary events that predisposed legume plants to form symbiosis with rhizobia. We have studied the presence and the expression of two pectic gene families in Medicago, polygalacturonases (PGs) and pectin methyl esterases (PMEs) during the early steps of the Sinorhizobium meliloti-Medicago interaction and compared them with related pollen-specific genes. First, we have compared the expression of MsPG3, a PG gene specifically expressed during the symbiotic interaction, with the expression of MsPG11, a highly homologous pollen-specific gene, using promoter-gus fusions in transgenic M.

Healthy aging, memory subsystems and regional cerebral oxygen consumption.

The present study was designed to search for concomitant age-related changes in memory subsystems, defined according to current structural theories, and resting oxygen consumption in selected brain regions. We have investigated a sample of subjects between 20 and 68 years of age and strictly screened for their good health. We applied in the same subjects a battery of neuropsychological tests selected to investigate several memory subsystems, and high-resolution positron imaging with stereotaxic localization to study a purposely limited number of cerebral structures, selected on a priori hypotheses to match the different memory subsystems.