Blood glucose and β-hydroxybutyrate predict significant brain injury after hypoxia-ischemia in neonatal mice.

Background: The Vannucci procedure is widely used to model cerebral hypoxic-ischemic (HI) injury in neonatal rodents. Identifying minimally invasive biomarkers linked to brain injury would improve stratification of pups to experimental treatments. We hypothesized that extreme blood glucose (BG) and β-hydroxybutyrate (bHB) levels immediately after HI will correlate with severity of brain injury in this model.

The role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in depression across the female reproductive lifecycle: current knowledge and future directions.

The aim of this narrative review is to consolidate knowledge on the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in depression pathophysiology at different reproductive stages across the female lifespan. Despite growing evidence about the impact of gonadal hormones on mood disorders, no previous review has examined the interaction between such hormonal changes and the HPA axis within the context of depressive disorders in women. We will focus on HPA axis function in depressive disorders at different reproductive stages including the menstrual cycle (e.

Unbiased Quantitative Single-Cell Morphometric Analysis to Identify Microglia Reactivity in Developmental Brain Injury.

Microglia morphological studies have been limited to the process of reviewing the most common characteristics of a group of cells to conclude the likelihood of a "pathological" milieu. We have developed an Imaris-software-based analytical pipeline to address selection and operator biases, enabling use of highly reproducible machine-learning algorithms to quantify at single-cell resolution differences between groups. We hypothesized that this analytical pipeline improved our ability to detect subtle yet important differences between groups.

Disease Severity and Immune Activity Relate to Distinct Interkingdom Gut Microbiome States in Ethnically Distinct Ulcerative Colitis Patients.

Unlabelled: Significant gut microbiota heterogeneity exists among ulcerative colitis (UC) patients, though the clinical implications of this variance are unknown. We hypothesized that ethnically distinct UC patients exhibit discrete gut microbiotas with unique metabolic programming that differentially influence immune activity and clinical status. Using parallel 16S rRNA and internal transcribed spacer 2 sequencing of fecal samples (UC, 30; healthy, 13), we corroborated previous observations of UC-associated bacterial diversity depletion and demonstrated significant Saccharomycetales expansion as characteristic of UC gut dysbiosis.

Practice variation in PEG tube placement: trends and predictors among providers in the United States.

Background: Enteral access placement is performed among a variety of providers and specialties, yet there is a dearth of literature on trends and factors related to enteral access placement in the United States.

Objective: To examine trends in the incidence of enteral access procedures performed by gastroenterologists in the United States.

Design: Retrospective review of upper endoscopic procedures that involved PEG tube placement between 2000 and 2010.