Publications by authors named "Michael Fortunato"

Background/objectives: Recent studies reveal an "obesity paradox", suggesting better clinical outcomes after intracranial hemorrhage for obese patients compared to patients with a healthy BMI. While this paradox indicates improved survival rates for obese individuals in stroke cases, it is unknown whether this trend remains true across all forms of intracranial hemorrhage. Therefore, the objective of our study was to investigate the incidence, characteristics, and outcomes of hospitalized obese patients with intracranial hemorrhage.

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Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) often suffer from a lack of representation from historically marginalized populations, and it is uncertain whether virtual RCTs (vRCTs) enhance representativeness or if elements of their consent and enrollment processes may instead contribute to underrepresentation of these groups. In this study, we aimed to identify disparities in enrollment demographics in a vRCT, the BE ACTIVE study, which recruited patients within a single health system. We discovered that the proportions of eligible patients who were randomized differed significantly by gender and race/ethnicity (men 1.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the link between acute kidney injury (AKI) and outcomes in patients with spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), a serious condition with a high risk of complications.
  • An analysis of over 76,000 SAH patients from 2010 to 2019 shows that about 14% developed AKI, with these patients being older and more likely to be obese compared to those without AKI.
  • Findings indicate that AKI is significantly associated with poorer functional outcomes, longer hospital stays, and higher in-hospital mortality, highlighting the need for early detection to improve recovery chances.
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Background: Atlantoaxial subluxation (AAS) is a diagnosis describing misalignment of the C1 vertebra relative to C2. Excessive translation of this joint, located adjacent to the medullary brain stem, can lead to devastating neurological consequences. A higher prevalence of AAS within the Down syndrome (DS) population has been well-established.

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Central retinal artery occlusion (CRAO) is a rare and visually debilitating vascular condition characterized by sudden and severe vision loss. CRAO is a compelling target for intravenous alteplase (tPA) and endovascular mechanical thrombectomy (MT) due to pathophysiological similarities with acute ischemic stroke; however, the utility of these interventions in CRAO remains dubious due to limited sample sizes and potential risks. To assess usage and outcomes of tPA and MT in CRAO, we queried the National Inpatient Sample database using International Classification of Disease, Ninth and Tenth edition for patients with CRAO and acute ischemic stroke between 2010 and 2019.

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Article Synopsis
  • - The study investigates the occurrence and effects of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) in patients with aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH), finding that 0.22% of 76,387 SAH patients developed HIT between 2010 and 2019.
  • - HIT was linked to significantly longer hospital stays and worse functional outcomes, particularly in younger patients, those with higher SAH severity scores, and individuals on long-term anticoagulants.
  • - The findings highlight that SAH patients with HIT face a range of complications and comorbidities, emphasizing the need for increased clinical awareness regarding HIT in this patient group.
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Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is the second most common type of stroke, accounting for approximately 10-20% of all strokes, and is linked to severe neurological disability and death. Since the most accurate predictor of outcome in patients with ICH is hematoma volume, there is a great need for pharmacologic therapy that can reduce hematoma expansion and resultant mass effect and edema. This is especially critical within the ultra-early window of 3-4 hours after the presentation.

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Background And Objective: Although high-grade (Hunt and Hess 4 and 5) aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) typically portends a poor prognosis, early and aggressive treatment has previously been demonstrated to confer a significant survival advantage. This study aims to evaluate geographic, demographic, and socioeconomic determinants of high-grade aSAH treatment in the United States.

Methods: The National Inpatient Sample (NIS) was queried to identify adult high-grade aSAH hospitalizations during the period of 2015 to 2019 using the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, Clinical Modification (ICD) codes.

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Frailty is an emerging concept in clinical practice used to predict outcomes and dictate treatment algorithms. Frail patients, especially older adults, are at higher risk for adverse outcomes. Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) is a neurosurgical emergency associated with high morbidity and mortality rates that have previously been shown to correlate with frailty.

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Cerebrovascular injuries resulting from blunt or penetrating trauma to the head and neck often lead to local hemorrhage and stroke. These injuries present with a wide range of manifestations, including carotid or vertebral artery dissection, pseudoaneurysm, occlusion, transection, arteriovenous fistula, carotid-cavernous fistula, epistaxis, venous sinus thrombosis, and subdural hematoma. A selective review of the literature from 1989 to 2023 was conducted to explore various neuroendovascular surgical techniques for craniocervical trauma.

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Objectives: Chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract is a hallmark of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). This increased inflammation is thought to induce a hypercoagulable state that increases the risk for stroke. However, few studies have examined the association between IBD and acute ischemic stroke (AIS).

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We argue that existing measures of entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) are underspecified in the context of tight-knit communities, where personal reputation plays a major role. We propose a new place-based ESE dimension that measures assessment by individuals of their ability to elicit respect from their community. This integral ESE component points to the very meaning of entrepreneurship in highly relational contexts.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates how gamification can promote physical activity and weight loss in adults with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, as current research on its effectiveness in chronic patients is limited.
  • Conducted as a randomized clinical trial over one year, the research involved 361 participants who received wearable devices and engaged in gamified interventions designed to provide support, collaboration, or competition.
  • Key outcomes measured included daily step count, weight, and hemoglobin A1c levels, with an analysis showing participant demographics and initial health metrics, revealing a diverse group with high average weight and blood sugar levels.
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Goal-directed behaviors are essential for normal function and significantly impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders. Despite extensive associations between genetic mutations and these disorders, the molecular contributions to goal-directed dysfunction remain unclear. We examined mice with constitutive and brain region-specific mutations in Neurexin1α, a neuropsychiatric disease-associated synaptic molecule, in value-based choice paradigms.

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This work presents efforts to augment the performance of data-driven machine learning algorithms for reaction template recommendation used in computer-aided synthesis planning software. Often, machine learning models designed to perform the task of prioritizing reaction templates or molecular transformations are focused on reporting high-accuracy metrics for the one-to-one mapping of product molecules in reaction databases to the template extracted from the recorded reaction. The available templates that get selected for inclusion in these machine learning models have been previously limited to those that appear frequently in the reaction databases and exclude potentially useful transformations.

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Background: There is growing interest in using wearable devices to remotely monitor patient behaviors. However, there has been little evaluation of how often these technologies are used to monitor sleep patterns over longer term periods, particularly among more high-risk patients.

Objective: The goal of the research was to evaluate the proportion of time that patients with ischemic heart disease used wearable devices to monitor their sleep and identify differences in characteristics of patients with higher versus lower use.

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Background: Type 2 diabetes is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Lifestyle modifications including increasing physical activity and losing weight have been demonstrated to improve glycemic control. However, most patients struggle to make these changes.

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Importance: Gamification, the use of game design elements in nongame contexts, is increasingly being used in workplace wellness programs and digital health applications. However, the best way to design social incentives in gamification interventions has not been well examined.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of support, collaboration, and competition within a behaviorally designed gamification intervention to increase physical activity among overweight and obese adults.

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Value-based decision making relies on distributed neural systems that weigh the benefits of actions against the cost required to obtain a given outcome. Perturbations of these systems are thought to underlie abnormalities in action selection seen across many neuropsychiatric disorders. Genetic tools in mice provide a promising opportunity to explore the cellular components of these systems and their molecular foundations.

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Background And Aims: Ultrasound (US)-guided infraclavicular approach for axillary vein (AXV) cannulation has gained popularity in the last decade.

Material And Methods: In this manikin study, we evaluated the feasibility of a training model for teaching AXV cannulation. The learning pattern with this technique was assessed among attending anesthesiologists and residents in training.

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Explicit water atomistic molecular dynamics simulations (200 ns, ∼330,000 atoms) were performed to study the effects of galactosylation in the Fc domain of immunoglobulin G1. Two glycoforms were simulated to observe changes in protein-carbohydrate interactions and carbohydrate structure. A high degree of flexibility was observed in the small hinge region of the protein, while large domains remained stable.

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While evaluating a 65 year old white female as an outpatient for upper gastrointestinal bleeding, an intrauterine device (IUD) was found in her right lower quadrant on a scout film of the abdomen. She was status post total abdominal hysterectomy (TAH). A review of the literature was very sparse on how to manage this issue.

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