Development of a Web Platform to Facilitate the Implementation and Evaluation of Health Promoting Schools: Protocol for a Double Diamond Design Approach.

Background: Health Promoting Schools (HPS) have emerged as a powerful framework to promote healthy behaviors in many countries. However, HPS still present several challenges, highlighting the excessive workload involved in the accreditation, design, implementation, and evaluation processes. In this sense, a resource to facilitate the implementation processes may have a positive impact on the support of HPS.

Next-Generation Proteomics of Brain Extracellular Vesicles in Schizophrenia Provide New Clues on the Altered Molecular Connectome.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are tiny membranous structures that mediate intercellular communication. The role(s) of these vesicles have been widely investigated in the context of neurological diseases; however, their potential implications in the neuropathology subjacent to human psychiatric disorders remain mostly unknown. Here, by using next-generation discovery-driven proteomics, we investigate the potential role(s) of brain EVs (bEVs) in schizophrenia (SZ) by analyzing these vesicles from the three post-mortem anatomical brain regions: the prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus (HC), and caudate (CAU).

Novel Therapeutic Hybrid Systems Using Hydrogels and Nanotechnology: A Focus on Nanoemulgels for the Treatment of Skin Diseases.

Topical and transdermal drug delivery are advantageous administration routes, especially when treating diseases and conditions with a skin etiology. Nevertheless, conventional dosage forms often lead to low therapeutic efficacy, safety issues, and patient noncompliance. To tackle these issues, novel topical and transdermal platforms involving nanotechnology have been developed.

Neural networks need real-world behavior.

Bowers et al. propose to use controlled behavioral experiments when evaluating deep neural networks as models of biological vision. We agree with the sentiment and draw parallels to the notion that "neuroscience needs behavior.

Microcavity- and Microlaser-Based Optical Barcoding: A Review of Encoding Techniques and Applications.

Optical microbarcodes have recently received a great deal of interest because of their suitability for a wide range of applications, such as multiplexed assays, cell tagging and tracking, anticounterfeiting, and product labeling. Spectral barcodes are especially promising because they are robust and have a simple readout. In addition, microcavity- and microlaser-based barcodes have very narrow spectra and therefore have the potential to generate millions of unique barcodes.

Deep Neural Networks and Visuo-Semantic Models Explain Complementary Components of Human Ventral-Stream Representational Dynamics.

Deep neural networks (DNNs) are promising models of the cortical computations supporting human object recognition. However, despite their ability to explain a significant portion of variance in neural data, the agreement between models and brain representational dynamics is far from perfect. We address this issue by asking which representational features are currently unaccounted for in neural time series data, estimated for multiple areas of the ventral stream via source-reconstructed magnetoencephalography data acquired in human participants (nine females, six males) during object viewing.

Continuous generation of topological defects in a passively driven nematic liquid crystal.

Synthetic active matter is emerging as the prime route for the realisation of biological mechanisms such as locomotion, active mixing, and self-organisation in soft materials. In particular, passive nematic complex fluids are known to form out-of-equilibrium states with topological defects, but their locomotion, activation and experimental realization has been developed and understood to only a limited extent. Here, we report that the concentration-driven flow of small molecules triggers turbulent flow in the thin film of a nematic liquid crystal that continuously generates pairs of topological defects with an integer topological charge.

High neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio upon admission is associated with better response in psychotic depression.

Recent evidence relates the inflammatory system to the aetiology and evolution of mood disorders. The Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio (NLR) is an affordable and reproducible biomarker of inflammation. The aim of the study is to retrospectively evaluate the association between NLR and response to treatment in 50 patients aged over 50 with a diagnosis of Psychotic Depression (PD) who were admitted to an acute psychiatric unit between 2010 and 2018.

Clinical assessment of tolerability, immunological and cutaneous reactivity effects of an abbreviated schedule with Olea europaeanative extract of subcutaneous immunotherapy.

Objectives. To evaluate the tolerability and efficacy of Olea europaea subcutaneous immunotherapy (SCIT) on patients with rhinoconjunctivitis. Methods.

Analysis of the management of antipsychotics in a group of prisons.

Objective: To assess the use of prescribed antipsychotic treatments in the Spanish prison population in order to determine whether there are differences in efficacy and cost between the different long-acting antipsychotic injectables (LAIs).

Material And Method: An observational, retrospective study was carried out in twelve prisons and in two prison psychiatric hospitals. To assess efficacy, all the clinical histories of patients with some kind of LAI were reviewed and only those who were in a situation of therapeutic stability were selected, defined as those treatments that had not undergone any change in the three last months, both in doses and in the association of another antipsychotic.

Analysing linear multivariate pattern transformations in neuroimaging data.

Most connectivity metrics in neuroimaging research reduce multivariate activity patterns in regions-of-interests (ROIs) to one dimension, which leads to a loss of information. Importantly, it prevents us from investigating the transformations between patterns in different ROIs. Here, we applied linear estimation theory in order to robustly estimate the linear transformations between multivariate fMRI patterns with a cross-validated ridge regression approach.

Rapid Invariant Encoding of Scene Layout in Human OPA.

Successful visual navigation requires a sense of the geometry of the local environment. How do our brains extract this information from retinal images? Here we visually presented scenes with all possible combinations of five scene-bounding elements (left, right, and back walls; ceiling; floor) to human subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG). The fMRI response patterns in the scene-responsive occipital place area (OPA) reflected scene layout with invariance to changes in surface texture.

Longitudinal Alzheimer's Degeneration Reflects the Spatial Topography of Cholinergic Basal Forebrain Projections.

The cholinergic neurons of the basal forebrain (BF) provide virtually all of the brain's cortical and amygdalar cholinergic input. They are particularly vulnerable to neuropathology in early Alzheimer's disease (AD) and may trigger the emergence of neuropathology in their cortico-amygdalar projection system through cholinergic denervation and trans-synaptic spreading of misfolded proteins. We examined whether longitudinal degeneration within the BF can explain longitudinal cortico-amygdalar degeneration in older human adults with abnormal cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers of AD neuropathology.

Cognitive predictors of illness course at 12 months after first-episode of depression.

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) entails cognitive dysfunction in many cognitive domains, but it is still uncertain whether such deficits are present in the early stages. The purpose of the study is to determine the cognitive performance in first episode depression (FED) exploring the presence of different cognitive profiles, and the role of cognition in FED at baseline and long-term. Ninety subjects (18-50 years) were included, 50 patients with a FED and 40 healthy controls.

A supramodal role of the basal ganglia in memory and motor inhibition: Meta-analytic evidence.

The ability to stop actions and thoughts is essential for goal-directed behaviour. Neuroimaging research has revealed that stopping actions and thoughts engage similar cortical mechanisms, including the ventro- and dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex. However, whether and how these abilities require similar subcortical mechanisms remains unexplored.

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks Outperform Feature-Based But Not Categorical Models in Explaining Object Similarity Judgments.

Recent advances in Deep convolutional Neural Networks (DNNs) have enabled unprecedentedly accurate computational models of brain representations, and present an exciting opportunity to model diverse cognitive functions. State-of-the-art DNNs achieve human-level performance on object categorisation, but it is unclear how well they capture human behavior on complex cognitive tasks. Recent reports suggest that DNNs can explain significant variance in one such task, judging object similarity.

The Impact of Obesity on Cognitive Functioning in Euthymic Bipolar Patients: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study.

Objective: To determine the influence of body mass index (BMI) on cognition in euthymic bipolar patients and healthy matched controls in a post hoc study of 2 cross-sectional and longitudinal exploratory studies.

Method: A total sample of 121 individuals was examined, which included 52 euthymic bipolar disorder I or II patients (DSM-IV-TR criteria) and 69 healthy controls matched by age and gender, categorized in 2 subgroups in terms of body mass index (BMI-factor): normal weight (BMI: 18.5-24.

Are patients with bipolar disorder and comorbid attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder more neurocognitively impaired?

Objective: Research on neurocognitive impairment in adult patients with comorbid bipolar disorder (BD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is very scarce. This study assessed the neurocognitive profile of a comorbid group (BD+ADHD) compared with that of pure BD (pBD) group, pure ADHD (pADHD) group and healthy controls (HCs).

Methods: This was a three-site study comprising 229 subjects: 70 patients with pBD, 23 with BD+ADHD, 50 with pADHD, and 86 HCs.

Magnetic-field tuning of whispering gallery mode lasing from ferromagnetic nematic liquid crystal microdroplets.

We report magnetic field tuning of the structure and Whispering Gallery Mode lasing from ferromagnetic nematic liquid crystal micro-droplets. Microlasers were prepared by dispersing a nematic liquid crystal, containing magnetic nanoparticles and fluorescent dye, in a glycerol-lecithin matrix. The droplets exhibit radial director structure, which shows elastic distortion at a very low external magnetic field.

A preliminary longitudinal study on the cognitive and functional outcome of bipolar excellent lithium responders.

Background: Neurocognitive dysfunction in bipolar disorder represents a possible marker of underlying pathophysiology, but to date, most studies are cross-sectional and heterogeneous with regard to pharmacological treatments. In the present study we investigated the 6-year cognitive and functional outcome of a sample of euthymic excellent lithium responders (ELR).

Method: A total sample of twenty subjects was assessed at baseline and 6years later: ten diagnosed of bipolar disorder according to DSM-IV criteria and ten healthy matched controls.