Psychosocial interventions for sexual dysfunction in addictive disorders.

Substance abuse and addictive disorders are very common in the community. Patients with addictive disorders frequently experience sexual dysfunctions and chronic use of substances tends to adversely affect all stages of sexual response, in both male and female abusers. An important aspect in the management of sexual dysfunction is psychosocial intervention.

In-group biases and oculomotor responses: beyond simple approach motivation.

An in-group bias describes an individual's bias towards a group that they belong to. Previous studies suggest that in-group bias facilitates approach motor responses, but disrupts avoidance ones. Such motor biases are shown to be more robust when the out-group is threatening.

Total Renal Artery Occlusion: Recovery of Function After Revascularization.

Current trends in managing atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis favor medical therapy, on account of negative results from prospective trials of revascularization, such as CORAL and ASTRAL. One result of this trend has been encountering occasional patients with progressive disease, sometimes leading to total arterial occlusion. We illustrate a case of accelerated hypertension with complete renal artery occlusion in which the patient recovered function after surgical bypass and we review the clinical approach used and the advanced imaging modalities available to us.

Ignoring versus updating in working memory reveal differential roles of attention and feature binding.

Ignoring distracting information and updating current contents are essential components of working memory (WM). Yet, although both require controlling irrelevant information, it is unclear whether they have the same effects on recall and produce the same level of misbinding errors (incorrectly joining the features of different memoranda). Moreover, the likelihood of misbinding may be affected by the feature similarity between the items already encoded into memory and the information that has to be filtered out (ignored) or updated into memory.

A framework for directional and higher-order reconstruction in photoacoustic tomography.

Photoacoustic tomography is a hybrid imaging technique that combines high optical tissue contrast with high ultrasound resolution. Direct reconstruction methods such as filtered back-projection, time reversal and least squares suffer from curved line artefacts and blurring, especially in the case of limited angles or strong noise. In recent years, there has been great interest in regularised iterative methods.

Hidden Age-Related Hearing Loss and Hearing Disorders: Current Knowledge and Future Directions.

Age-related hearing loss, which affects roughly 35% of those over the age of 70, is the second most common disorder among the elderly. The severity of age related hearing loss may actually be worse if assessments are made under more realistic conditions, such as communicating in noise. Emerging data from humans and animal models suggest that damage to the inner hair cells and/or type I neurons, that relay sound information to the brain may contribute to hearing deficits in a noisy background.

Species Differences in the Organization of the Ventral Cochlear Nucleus.

The mammalian cochlear nuclei (CN) consist of two major subdivisions, the dorsal (DCN) and ventral (VCN) nuclei. We previously reported differences in the structural and neurochemical organization of the human DCN from that in several other species. Here we extend this analysis to the VCN, considering both the organization of subdivisions and the types and distributions of neurons.

Association between urologic malignancies and end-stage renal disease: A meta-analysis.

Aim: Previous studies have suggested a higher incidence of urologic malignancies in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients. However, incidence trends of urologic malignancies in ESRD patients remain unclear. The aims of the present study were: (i) to investigate the pooled incidence/incidence trends; and (ii) to assess the risk of urologic malignancies in ESRD patients.

Spontaneous left atrial echo contrast, mitral annular systolic velocity, and left atrial appendage late emptying velocity in predicting improvement of left atrial function after percutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty.

Background: Thromboembolic events are the major cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with mitral stenosis (MS). This study aims to investigate left atrial spontaneous echo contrast (LA SEC), mitral annular systolic velocity (Sa-wave), left atrial appendage (LAA) late emptying velocity (LAAEV), LAA filling velocity (LAAFV) pre- and postpercutaneous balloon mitral valvuloplasty (PBMV) for MS. This also aims to study the association of LA SEC with inflammatory marker, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) in MS.

Short-term memory for spatial, sequential and duration information.

Space and time appear to play key roles in the way that information is organized in short-term memory (STM). Some argue that they are crucial contexts within which other stored features are embedded, allowing binding of information that belongs together within STM. Here we review recent behavioral, neurophysiological and imaging studies that have sought to investigate the nature of spatial, sequential and duration representations in STM, and how these might break down in disease.

Young lives disrupted: gender and well-being among adolescent Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

Background: The conflict in Syria that began in 2011 has resulted in the exodus of over 5 million Syrian refugees to neighbouring countries, with more than one million refugees currently registered by UNHCR in Lebanon. While some are living in tented settlements, the majority are living in strained conditions in rented accommodation or collective shelters in the Bekaa Valley next to Syria. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable in any crisis.

Household food production is positively associated with dietary diversity and intake of nutrient-dense foods for older preschool children in poorer families: Results from a nationally-representative survey in Nepal.

Background: Nutrition-sensitive interventions supporting enhanced household food production have potential to improve child dietary quality. However, heterogeneity in market access may cause systematic differences in program effectiveness depending on household wealth and child age. Identifying these effect modifiers can help development agencies specify and target their interventions.

An immortalized microglial cell line (Mocha) derived from rat cochlea.

Microglia are glial-immune cells that are essential for the function and survival of the central nervous system. Microglia not only protect neural tissues from immunological insults, but also play a critical role in neural development and repair. However, little is known about the biology of microglia in the cochlea, the auditory portion of the inner ear.

Fractionating the Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying Working Memory: Independent Effects of Dopamine and Parkinson's Disease.

Deficits in working memory (WM) in Parkinson's disease (PD) are often considered to be secondary to dopaminergic depletion. However, the neurocognitive mechanisms by which dopamine causes these deficits remain highly contested, and PD is now also known to be associated with nondopaminergic pathology. Here, we examined how PD and dopaminergic medication modulate three components of WM: maintenance over time, updating contents with new information and making memories distracter-resistant.

Role of Gut-derived Uremic Toxins on Oxidative Stress and Inflammation in Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease.

Several cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors have been identified among patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Gut-derived uremic toxins (GDUT) are important modifiable contributors in this respect. There are very few Indian studies on GDUT changes in CKD.

Fundamental bound on the persistence and capacity of short-term memory stored as graded persistent activity.

It is widely believed that persistent neural activity underlies short-term memory. Yet, as we show, the degradation of information stored directly in such networks behaves differently from human short-term memory performance. We build a more general framework where memory is viewed as a problem of passing information through noisy channels whose degradation characteristics resemble those of persistent activity networks.

An Unusual Case of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cell Infiltration of the Renal Allograft: A Case Report and Review of Literature.

Kidney transplant recipients are at a high risk for developing malignancies with dermatologic cancers and lymphomas making up the bulk of these. Leukemia is rare in this cohort of patients. Kidney infiltration by leukemic cells is seen in about 34% of native kidneys based on autopsy studies.

Therapeutic Approach to the Management of Severe Asymptomatic Hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia is an electrolyte imbalance encountered commonly in the hospital and ambulatory settings. It can be seen in isolation or present as a complication of other medical conditions. It is therefore a challenge to determine the appropriate therapeutic intervention.

Prolonged low-level noise-induced plasticity in the peripheral and central auditory system of rats.

Prolonged low-level noise exposure alters loudness perception in humans, presumably by decreasing the gain of the central auditory system. Here we test the central gain hypothesis by measuring the acute and chronic physiologic changes at the level of the cochlea and inferior colliculus (IC) after a 75-dB SPL, 10-20-kHz noise exposure for 5weeks. The compound action potential (CAP) and summating potential (SP) were used to assess the functional status of the cochlea and 16 channel electrodes were used to measure the local field potentials (LFP) and multi-unit spike discharge rates (SDR) from the IC immediately after and one-week post-exposure.

Noise-induced hearing loss induces loudness intolerance in a rat Active Sound Avoidance Paradigm (ASAP).

Hyperacusis is a loudness hypersensitivity disorder in which moderate-intensity sounds are perceived as extremely loud, aversive and/or painful. To assess the aversive nature of sounds, we developed an Active Sound Avoidance Paradigm (ASAP) in which rats altered their place preference in a Light/Dark shuttle box in response to sound. When no sound (NS) was present, rats spent more than 95% of the time in the Dark Box versus the transparent Light Box.

Magnetic Oculomotor Prosthetics for Acquired Nystagmus.

Purpose: Acquired nystagmus, a highly symptomatic consequence of damage to the substrates of oculomotor control, often is resistant to pharmacotherapy. Although heterogeneous in its neural cause, its expression is unified at the effector-the eye muscles themselves-where physical damping of the oscillation offers an alternative approach. Because direct surgical fixation would immobilize the globe, action at a distance is required to damp the oscillation at the point of fixation, allowing unhindered gaze shifts at other times.

Associations of rotational shift work and night shift status with hypertension: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The reported risks of hypertension (HTN) in rotating shift and night shift workers are controversial. The objective of this meta-analysis was to assess the association between shift work status and HTN.

Methods: A literature search was performed using MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Database from inception through October 2016.

Fibroblast-fibronectin patterning and network formation in 3D fibrin matrices.

Purpose: We previously reported that fibroblasts migrating within 3-D collagen matrices move independently, whereas fibroblasts within 3-D fibrin matrices form an interconnected network. Similar networks have been identified previously during in vivo corneal wound healing. In this study, we investigate the role of fibronectin in mediating this mechanism of collective cell spreading, migration and patterning.