A Prospective Feasibility Study to Differentiate Sacral Neuromodulation Lead Electrode Configurations Using Motor and Sensory Thresholds and Locations of Sensation.

Background: Accurate positioning and effective programming of sacral neuromodulation (SNM) relies upon the use of several acute stimulation measurements. While the clinical utility of these acute measurements including pelvic floor motor thresholds (PFMT), toe/leg motor thresholds (TMT), and sensory thresholds (ST), are widely accepted, their usefulness in quantitative research remains unclear. The purpose of this prospective study was to test these measurements and gauge their utility in future research.

Assessing Awareness, Attitude, and Practices of Breast Cancer Screening and Prevention Among General Public and Physicians in Pakistan: A Nation With the Highest Breast Cancer Incidence in Asia.

Breast cancer is a global health challenge with significant mortality, affecting millions worldwide. The current study is aimed at evaluating awareness and practices related to breast cancer screening, prevention, and treatment among the general public and physicians in Lahore, Pakistan, which has a significant incidence of breast cancer. The current study adopted a cross-sectional study design conducted in Lahore, Pakistan, between March and August 2023, among 404 participants from the general public and 240 physicians.

Hand gesture recognition with deep residual network using Semg signal.

Objectives: To design and develop a classifier, named Sewing Driving Training based Optimization-Deep Residual Network (SDTO_DRN) for hand gesture recognition.

Methods: The electrical activity of forearm muscles generates the signals that can be captured with Surface Electromyography (sEMG) sensors and includes meaningful data for decoding both muscle actions and hand movement. This research develops an efficacious scheme for hand gesture recognition using SDTO_DRN.

Zebrafish: A Pharmacological Model for Learning and Memory Research.

Learning and memory are essential to organism survival and are conserved across various species, especially vertebrates. Cognitive studies involving learning and memory require using appropriate model organisms to translate relevant findings to humans. Zebrafish are becoming increasingly popular as one of the animal models for neurodegenerative diseases due to their low maintenance cost, prolific nature and amenability to genetic manipulation.

The role of risk perception, risk communication, and demographic factors in COVID-19 preventive behaviors: an online survey in Iran.

Objectives: This study investigated preventive behaviors toward coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and related factors in a Kurdish Iranian sample.

Methods: This online survey was conducted among the population aged 18 and above in Kermanshah Province, in western Iran, in April 2020. Samples were invited and recruited through social media.

Increasing Environmental Complexity by Providing Different Types of Litter and Perches during Early Rearing Boosts Coping Abilities in Domestic Fowl Chicks.

Early experience of a complex environment can improve biologically relevant traits related to coping abilities. However, the mechanisms underlying these positive effects have not been well explored. We hypothesized that giving chicks possibilities to express choices within relevant resources could be an important part of the mechanism, as well as a novel way to increase environmental complexity.

The immune-neuroendocrine system, a key aspect of poultry welfare and resilience.

There is increasing societal concern regarding the negative impact of intensive poultry production on animal welfare, human health, and on the environment. This is leading to the inclusion of animal welfare as an imperative aspect for sustainable production. Certain environmental factors may challenge domesticated birds, resulting in poor health and welfare status.

Age matters: Differential effects of the exposure to elevated environmental temperatures on representative variables of the immune system in juvenile and adult female Japanese quail.

Several days under the influence of high environmental temperature negatively impact on some immune-related variables of poultry species. However, it is little known whether this exposure affects differentially the immune response on different life stages. This study was aimed at characterizing the immune responses of juvenile and adult female Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix) when exposed to a cyclic chronic heat stressor.

Network Analysis of Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research: Towards the Interactome.

Background And Aims: Modern views accept that inflammatory bowel diseases [IBD] emerge from complex interactions among the multiple components of a biological network known as the 'IBD interactome'. These diverse components belong to different functional levels including cells, molecules, genes and biological processes. This diversity can make it difficult to integrate available empirical information from human patients into a collective view of aetiopathogenesis, a necessary step to understand the interactome.

Dose dependence of susceptibility and transmission for an Argentinean West Nile virus strain in local Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus (Diptera: Culicidae).

Background: West Nile virus (WNV) activity has been documented in the central region of Argentina since 2005, but its maintenance network has not been elucidated yet.

Methods: We evaluated the susceptibility to WNV oral infection and transmission in a Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus mosquito population by means of a dose-dependent vector competence assay. Mosquitoes were orally infected with five different viral loads and evaluated for viral infection, dissemination and transmission.

Immediate and transgenerational effects of thymol supplementation, inactivated Salmonella and chronic heat stress on representative immune variables of Japanese quail.

Environmental challenges are integrated in the inmunoneuroendocrine interplay, impacting the immune system of the challenged individuals, and potentially implying transgenerational effects on their offspring. This study addressed whether dietary supplementation with thymol can modulate the immune response of adult Japanese quail when simultaneously exposed to an inoculum of inactivated Salmonella Enteritidis and a chronic heat stress (CHS). We also evaluated whether the experienced situations by adults can affect the immune response of their undisturbed offspring.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPE18 protein inhibits MHC class II antigen presentation and B cell response in mice.

PPE18 protein belongs to PE/PPE family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We reported earlier that PPE18 protein provides survival advantage to M. tuberculosis during infection.

Modulating offspring responses: concerted effects of stress and immunogenic challenge in the parental generation.

The perception, processing and response to environmental challenges involves the activation of the immuno-neuroendocrine (INE) interplay. Concerted environmental challenges might induce trade-off when resource allocation to one trait occurs at the expense of another, also producing potential transgenerational effects in the offspring. We evaluated whether concerted challenges, in the form of an immune inoculum against inactivated enteritidis (immune challenge, ICH) and a chronic heat stress (CHS) exposure on adult Japanese quail, modulate the INE responses of the parental generation and their offspring.

Environmental complexity: A buffer against stress in the domestic chick.

Birds kept in commercial production systems can be exposed to multiple stressors from early life and this alters the development of different morphological, immunological and behavioural indicators. We explore the hypothesis that provision of a complex environment during early life, better prepares birds to cope with stressful events as well as buffers them against future unpredictable stressful episodes. In this study, 96 one day old pullets were randomly distributed in eight pens (12 birds/pen).

A selective window after the food-intake period favors tolerance induction in mesenteric lymph nodes.

Biological rhythms are periodic oscillations that occur in the physiology of the organism and the cells. The rhythms of the immune system are strictly regulated and the circadian alteration seems to have serious consequences. Even so, it is not clear how the immune cells of the intestinal mucosa synchronize with the external environment.

Soy genistein administered in soluble chitosan microcapsules maintains antioxidant activity and limits intestinal inflammation.

We used water-soluble Chitosan obtained by Maillard reaction with glucosamine to microencapsulate soy genistein (Ge) and preserve its biological activity for oral administration. Release of Ge was pH dependent with a super Case II mechanism at pH 1.2 and an anomalous transport with non-Fickian kinetics at pH 6.

Thymol supplementation effects on adrenocortical, immune and biochemical variables recovery in Japanese quail after exposure to chronic heat stress.

Chronic heat stress (CHS) exposure negatively impairs avian' immunoneuroendocrine interplay. Thymol has shown several bioactive properties including antioxidant, bactericidal, antifungal and gamma-aminobutyric acid modulator activities. Indeed, supplementation with thymol has been used with positive effects on poultry production and immune-related variables.

Adrenocortical responses in Japanese quail classified by their permanence in proximity to either low or high density of conspecifics.

The density-related permanence test (DRP) is used to classify young birds (while in groups) according to their individual permanence in proximity to either a high or low density of conspecifics (HD or LD, respectively). The birds' performance in DRP was associated with underlying differences in the social responses of their individuals. Quails in homogeneous groups of LD residents responded with less compact groups and higher levels of agonistic interactions to the presence of an intruder, and showed higher levels of agonistic interactions among cagemates than the homogeneous groups of HD birds.

Insights into thermal stress in Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix): dynamics of immunoendocrine and biochemical responses during and after chronic exposure.

Avian require comfortable temperatures for optimal development and heat stress is a high concern in warm weather countries. We aimed to assess the dynamics of immunoendocrine and biochemical variables responses of birds exposed to a heat stressor applied during daylight hours, during the chronic stress and the recovery periods. We hypothesize that variables involved in the birds response will be differentially and gradually modified during those periods.

Stress Induced Polarization of Immune-Neuroendocrine Phenotypes in Gallus gallus.

Immune-neuroendocrine phenotypes (INPs) stand for population subgroups differing in immune-neuroendocrine interactions. While mammalian INPs have been characterized thoroughly in rats and humans, avian INPs were only recently described in Coturnix coturnix (quail). To assess the scope of this biological phenomenon, herein we characterized INPs in Gallus gallus (a domestic hen strain submitted to a very long history of strong selective breeding pressure) and evaluated whether a social chronic stress challenge modulates the individuals' interplay affecting the INP subsets and distribution.

Risk profile and health vulnerability of female workers who pick cotton by organanochlorine pesticides from southern Punjab, Pakistan.

The present study was conducted to highlight the existing level of organochlorine-pesticides (OCPs) from human milk (n = 45) and blood serum (n = 40) of female workers who pick cotton in Khanewal District, southern Punjab, Pakistan. Source apportionment, congener-specific analysis, and risk surveillance of OCPs are reported from human milk and blood samples. Levels of OCPs in milk and blood serum samples ranged from 15.

Syndrome in Question.

Waardenburg syndrome is an inherited disease characterized by sensorineural hearing loss, pigmentation changes and minor facial malformations. It has four clinical variants. We report the case of a girl who, like her mother, was affected by this syndrome.

Manipulation of the phenotypic appearance of individuals in groups of laying hens: effects on stress and immune-related variables.

This study evaluated whether phenotypic appearance (PA) alteration during two developmental phases in laying hens, reared in two different group sizes, affects stress and immune responses. After hatching, 750 chicks were randomly assigned to 30 pens at a group size of either 10 or 40 birds. Then, the appearance of 0, 30, 50, 70 or 100% of the chicks in each pen was altered by blackdyeing their head feathers (marked); remaining chicks were unmarked.

Immune neuroendocrine phenotypes in Coturnix coturnix: do avian species show LEWIS/FISCHER-like profiles?

Immunoneuroendocrinology studies have identified conserved communicational paths in birds and mammals, e.g. the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis with anti-inflammatory activity mediated by glucocorticoids.