Differential tractography identifies a distinct pattern of white matter alterations in essential tremor with or without resting tremor.

Essential Tremor (ET) is characterized by action tremor often associated with resting tremor (rET). Although previous studies have identified widespread brain white matter (WM) alterations in ET patients, differences between ET and rET have been less explored. In this study we employed differential tractography to investigate WM microstructural alterations in these tremor disorders.

Frailty and Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia: A Single Center Study.

During the time-course of cognitive decline, Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) may arise, negatively impacting the outcomes. The aim of this single center, longitudinal study was to evaluate the correlation between frailty and BPSD in a population of older patients with dementia. BPSD were classified into three clusters: "mood/apathy" (depression, apathy, sleep disturbances, appetite disturbances), "psychosis" (delusions, hallucinations, and anxiety), and "hyperactivity" (agitation, elation, motor aberrant behavior, irritability, disinhibition).

Multimodal imaging and electrophysiological study in the differential diagnosis of rest tremor.

Introduction: Distinguishing tremor-dominant Parkinson's disease (tPD) from essential tremor with rest tremor (rET) can be challenging and often requires dopamine imaging. This study aimed to differentiate between these two diseases through a machine learning (ML) approach based on rest tremor (RT) electrophysiological features and structural MRI data.

Methods: We enrolled 72 patients including 40 tPD patients and 32 rET patients, and 45 control subjects (HC).

Combined blood Neurofilament light chain and third ventricle width to differentiate Progressive Supranuclear Palsy from Parkinson's Disease: A machine learning study.

Introduction: Differentiating Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP) from Parkinson's Disease (PD) may be clinically challenging. In this study, we explored the performance of machine learning models based on MR imaging and blood molecular biomarkers in distinguishing between these two neurodegenerative diseases.

Methods: Twenty-eight PSP patients, 46 PD patients and 60 control subjects (HC) were consecutively enrolled in the study.

Combined cortical thickness and blink reflex recovery cycle to differentiate essential tremor with and without resting tremor.

Objective: To investigate the performance of structural MRI cortical and subcortical morphometric data combined with blink-reflex recovery cycle (BRrc) values using machine learning (ML) models in distinguishing between essential tremor (ET) with resting tremor (rET) and classic ET.

Methods: We enrolled 47 ET, 43 rET patients and 45 healthy controls (HC). All participants underwent brain 3 T-MRI and BRrc examination at different interstimulus intervals (ISIs, 100-300 msec).

Neuroimaging correlates of postural instability in Parkinson's disease.

Background: Postural instability (PI) is a common disabling symptom in Parkinson's disease (PD), but little is known on its pathophysiological basis.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to identify the brain structures associated with PI in PD patients, using different MRI approaches.

Methods: We consecutively enrolled 142 PD patients and 45 control subjects.

Evaluation of arteriovenous fistula for hemodialysis with a new generation digital stethoscope: a pilot study.

Background And Aims: The management of complications of arteriovenous fistula (AVF) for hemodialysis, principally stenosis, remains a major challenge for clinicians with a substantial impact on health resources. Stenosis not infrequently preludes to thrombotic events with the loss of AVF functionality. A functioning AVF, when listened by a stethoscope, has a continuous systolic-diastolic low-frequency murmur, while with stenosis, the frequency of the murmur increases and the duration of diastolic component decreases, disappearing in severe stenosis.

Predicting In-Hospital Acute Heart Failure Worsening in the Oldest Old: Insights from Point-of-Care Ultrasound.

The decompensation trajectory check is a basic step to assess the clinical course and to plan future therapy in hospitalized patients with acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF). Due to the atypical presentation and clinical complexity, trajectory checks can be challenging in older patients with acute HF. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has proved to be helpful in the clinical decision-making of patients with dyspnea; however, to date, no study has attempted to verify its role in predicting determinants of ADHF in-hospital worsening.

Explainability of random survival forests in predicting conversion risk from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease.

Random Survival Forests (RSF) has recently showed better performance than statistical survival methods as Cox proportional hazard (CPH) in predicting conversion risk from mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, RSF application in real-world clinical setting is still limited due to its black-box nature.For this reason, we aimed at providing a comprehensive study of RSF explainability with SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) on biomarkers of stable and progressive patients (sMCI and pMCI) from Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative.

Advancing healthcare through thoracic ultrasound research in older patients.

This paper reports the proceedings of a meeting convened by the Research Group on Thoracic Ultrasound in Older People of the Italian Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics, to discuss the current state-of-the-art of clinical research in the field of geriatric thoracic ultrasound and identify unmet research needs and potential areas of development. In the last decade, point-of-care thoracic ultrasound has entered clinical practice for diagnosis and management of several respiratory illnesses, such as bacterial and viral pneumonia, pleural effusion, acute heart failure, and pneumothorax, especially in the emergency-urgency setting. Very few studies, however, have been specifically focused on older patients with frailty and multi-morbidity, who frequently exhibit complex clinical pictures needing multidimensional evaluation.

Differentiating between common PSP phenotypes using structural MRI: a machine learning study.

Background: Differentiating Progressive supranuclear palsy-Richardson's syndrome (PSP-RS) from PSP-Parkinsonism (PSP-P) may be extremely challenging. In this study, we aimed to distinguish these two PSP phenotypes using MRI structural data.

Methods: Sixty-two PSP-RS, 40 PSP-P patients and 33 control subjects were enrolled.

Neuroimaging correlates of postural instability in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

Objective: We aimed to identify the brain structures associated with postural instability (PI) in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP).

Methods: Forty-seven PSP patients and 45 control subjects were enrolled in this study. PI was assessed using the items 27 and 28 of the PSP rating scale (postural instability score, PIS).

Cortical involvement in essential tremor with and without rest tremor: a machine learning study.

Introduction: There is some debate on the relationship between essential tremor with rest tremor (rET) and the classic ET syndrome, and only few MRI studies compared ET and rET patients. This study aimed to explore structural cortical differences between ET and rET, to improve the knowledge of these tremor syndromes.

Methods: Thirty-three ET patients, 30 rET patients and 45 control subjects (HC) were enrolled.

Heritability of human "directed" functional connectome.

Introduction: The functional connectivity patterns in the brain are highly heritable; however, it is unclear how genetic factors influence the directionality of such "information flows." Studying the "directionality" of the brain functional connectivity and assessing how heritability modulates it can improve our understanding of the human connectome.

Methods: Here, we investigated the heritability of "directed" functional connections using a state-space formulation of Granger causality (GC), in conjunction with blind deconvolution methods accounting for local variability in the hemodynamic response function.

FT-IR Analysis of Structural Changes in Ketoprofen Lysine Salt and KiOil Caused by a Pulsed Magnetic Field.

High-intensity, low-frequency magnetic fields (MFs) have been widely used in the treatment of diseases and in drug delivery, even though they could induce structural changes in pharmacological molecules. Morphological changes in ketoprofen and KiOil were investigated through Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Unsupervised principal component analysis was carried out for data clustering.

Anti-Reflective Zeolite Coating for Implantable Bioelectronic Devices.

Since sunlight is one of the most easily available and clean energy supplies, solar cell development and the improvement of its conversion efficiency represent a highly interesting topic. Superficial light reflection is one of the limiting factors of the photovoltaic cells (PV) efficiency. To this end, interfacial layer with anti-reflective properties reduces this phenomenon, improving the energy potentially available for transduction.

Magnetic Resonance Planimetry in the Differential Diagnosis between Parkinson's Disease and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

The clinical differential diagnosis between Parkinson's disease (PD) and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is often challenging. The description of milder PSP phenotypes strongly resembling PD, such as PSP-Parkinsonism, further increased the diagnostic challenge and the need for reliable neuroimaging biomarkers to enhance the diagnostic certainty. This review aims to summarize the contribution of a relatively simple and widely available imaging technique such as MR planimetry in the differential diagnosis between PD and PSP, focusing on the recent advancements in this field.

Cerebellar voxel-based morphometry in essential tremor.

Background: Imaging studies investigating cerebellar gray matter (GM) in essential tremor (ET) showed conflicting results. Moreover, no large study explored the cerebellum in ET patients with resting tremor (rET), a syndrome showing enhanced blink reflex recovery cycle (BRrc).

Objective: To investigate cerebellar GM in ET and rET patients using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis.

Development and Validation of Automated Magnetic Resonance Parkinsonism Index 2.0 to Distinguish Progressive Supranuclear Palsy-Parkinsonism From Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Differentiating progressive supranuclear palsy-parkinsonism (PSP-P) from Parkinson's disease (PD) is clinically challenging.

Objective: This study aimed to develop an automated Magnetic Resonance Parkinsonism Index 2.0 (MRPI 2.

Glucose biosensors in clinical practice: principles, limits and perspectives of currently used devices.

The demand of glucose monitoring devices and even of updated guidelines for the management of diabetic patients is dramatically increasing due to the progressive rise in the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and the need to prevent its complications. Even though the introduction of the first glucose sensor occurred decades ago, important advances both from the technological and clinical point of view have contributed to a substantial improvement in quality healthcare. This review aims to bring together purely technological and clinical aspects of interest in the field of glucose devices by proposing a roadmap in glucose monitoring and management of patients with diabetes.