Preclinical Drug Testing in Scalable 3D Engineered Muscle Tissues.

Accurately modeling healthy and disease conditions in vitro is vital for the development of new treatment strategies and therapeutics. For cardiac and skeletal muscle diseases, contractile force and kinetics constitute key metrics for assessing muscle function. New and improved methods for generating engineered muscle tissues (EMTs) from induced pluripotent stem cells have made in vitro disease modeling more reliable for contractile tissues; however, reproducibly fabricating tissues from suspended cell cultures and measuring their contractility is challenging.

AD Informer Set: Chemical tools to facilitate Alzheimer's disease drug discovery.

Introduction: The portfolio of novel targets to treat Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been enriched by the Accelerating Medicines Partnership Program for Alzheimer's Disease (AMP AD) program.

Methods: Publicly available resources, such as literature and databases, enabled a data-driven effort to identify existing small molecule modulators for many protein products expressed by the genes nominated by AMP AD and suitable positive control compounds to be included in the set. Compounds contained within the set were manually selected and annotated with associated published, predicted, and/or experimental data.

Use of AD Informer Set compounds to explore validity of novel targets in Alzheimer's disease pathology.

Introduction: A chemogenomic set of small molecules with annotated activities and implicated roles in Alzheimer's disease (AD) called the AD Informer Set was recently developed and made available to the AD research community: https://treatad.org/data-tools/ad-informer-set/.

Methods: Small subsets of AD Informer Set compounds were selected for AD-relevant profiling.

Isokinetic Strength Testing Following Intramedullary Nailing of Tibial Shaft Fractures Predicts Time to Recovery and Return of Muscle Strength in the Injured Extremity: A Prospective Case Series.

Background: The speed and degree of functional recovery over time after surgery for tibial shaft fracture has been previously described using subjective methods.

Questions/purpose: This study aimed to quantitatively measure recovery of isokinetic strength in the injured leg after surgical repair of isolated closed tibial shaft fracture.

Methods: In this prospective case series, patients were recruited after intramedullary nailing for isolated closed tibial shaft fracture at an academic medical center from January 2012 to December 2015.

Regulation of skeletal myotube formation and alignment by nanotopographically controlled cell-secreted extracellular matrix.

Skeletal muscle has a well-organized tissue structure comprised of aligned myofibers and an encasing extracellular matrix (ECM) sheath or lamina, within which reside satellite cells. We hypothesize that the organization of skeletal muscle tissues in culture can affect both the structure of the deposited ECM and the differentiation potential of developing myotubes. Furthermore, we posit that cellular and ECM cues can be a strong determinant of myoblast fusion and morphology in 3D tissue culture environments.

Corticospinal excitability in patients with anoxic, traumatic, and non-traumatic diffuse brain injury.

Background: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have been frequently used to explore changes in motor cortex excitability in stroke and traumatic brain injury, while the extent of motor cortex reorganization in patients with diffuse non-traumatic brain injury remains largely unknown.

Objective/hypothesis: It was hypothesized that the motor cortex excitability would be decreased and would correlate to the severity of brain injury and level of functioning in patients with anoxic, traumatic, and non-traumatic diffuse brain injury.

Methods: TMS was applied to primary motor cortices of 19 patients with brain injury (5 traumatic and 14 non-traumatic causes; on average four months after insult), and 9 healthy controls.

Regulation of the Bcas1 and Baiap3 transcripts in the subthalamic nucleus in mice recovering from MPTP toxicity.

1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) exposure leads to significant and irreversible damage to dopaminergic neurons in both mice and humans. While MPTP exposure in humans causes permanent symptoms of Parkinson's disease, MPTP treated mice will recover behaviorally over a 3-week period. This mouse specific recovery might be linked to transcriptional changes in the basal ganglia enabling mice to maintain normal motor function in spite of low striatal dopamine levels.

A proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL) is expressed by astrocytes and is increased in multiple sclerosis.

A proliferation-inducing ligand (APRIL) is a newly described member of the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily that was first identified as a factor favouring tumorigenesis. APRIL is also important for several immune functions, including B-cell survival. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory, demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that is commonly diagnosed in early adulthood.

Temperamental emotionality in preschoolers and parental mood disorders.

A number of models developed in the adult psychopathology literature (i.e., L.

Spectral karyotype analysis of colon cancer cell lines of the tumor suppressor and mutator pathway.

Background And Aims: Microsatellite instability (MSI) is characterized by the size variation of microsatellites in tumor DNA as compared to matching normal DNA due to defects in the mismatch repair system. To examine the chromosomal differences in microsatellite-stable (MSS) and -unstable (MSI) tumors in detail, we analyzed MSS (Caco-2, Colo-205, SW948) and MSI (HCT-15, HCT-116, LoVo) cell lines by spectral karyotyping (SKY).

Methods: SKY is a sensitive method to detect chromosome aberrations by visualizing each chromosome in a different color.

Development and validation of a Q-sort procedure to assess temperament and behavior in preschool-age children.

Few broad observational measures of preschool-age children's temperament and behavior currently exist. Studied the Child Temperament and Behavior Q-Set (CTBQ-Set) as a naturalistic observation measure to tap the major domains of temperament and behavior in preschoolers. Pairs of observers rated the behavior of a community sample of preschoolers during 2 independent home visits using q-sort methodology.

Gender differences in eating disorder symptoms in young adults.

Objective: The major goal of this study was to identify problematic eating behaviors and attitudes in young men and compare them with those of young women.

Method: A community sample of young adults (n = 1,056) completed a questionnaire that contained the Drive for Thinness, Bulimia, and Body Dissatisfaction subscales of the Eating Disorder Inventory, as well as probes for inappropriate compensatory behaviors, excessive exercise, and episodes of binge eating.

Results: A five-factor structure fit both male and female samples.

The development of major depressive episodes during the course of dysthymic and episodic major depressive disorders: a retrospective examination of life events.

Background: The present study examined whether stressful life events are associated with the development of major depressive episodes (MDEs) in a longitudinal, retrospective study of dysthymic and episodic major depressive disorders.

Methods: Sixty-seven outpatients with DSM-III-R dysthymia and 38 outpatients with non-chronic major depression were followed up 30-60 months after entry into the study. Follow-up assessments included a modified version of Paykel's (1997) Interview for Recent Life Events (IRLE) and Keller et al.

Sequential analyses, multiple controlling stimuli, and temporal patterning in first-language transmission.

Although inferences of causality from contingencies are problematic, as Hume argued, and are difficult to prove empirically, explanatory accounts of normal language acquisition and all remedial interventions rely on presumptions of environmental effectiveness. Careful sequential analyses of verbal behaviors can strongly corroborate dependencies by means of establishing either (a) contiguous contingencies or (b) topographical resemblances between antecedents and delayed consequences that could not be explained without assuming such dependencies. The promises, as well as the methodological and conceptual challenges, of such sequential analyses of verbal training and learning are exemplified on the basis of mother-child interactions.

Three-term contingency patterns in mother-child verbal interactions during first-language acquisition.

Selections from a large longitudinal data set of verbal interactions between a mother and her child are presented. Two sets of three-term contingency sequences that seemed to reflect maternal rewards and corrections were noted. Both the antecedents as well as the immediate consequences of maternal interventions are presented to explore training and learning processes.

Preadolescents' conceptions of children.

The effect of the most important dimensions of person perception-the person performing the evaluation, the person being evaluated, and the interaction between evaluator and object of evaluation-upon person descriptions was explored. In a free-response design, preadolescents of both sexes described a "vividly imagined child." Six main evaluative dimensions, each of them subdivided according to evaluative tone, were analyzed statistically.

Like father like son: Imprisonment of fathers and the psychological adjustment of sons.

The present study demonstrates that profiles of children from families with imprisoned fathers were more similar to those of juvenile delinquents and less similar to the norm group than were the profiles of children from divorced families. Based on findings presented, it would not be justified to conclude that father absence and father imprisonmentper se were the causes of negative psychological reactions. Discordant family relationships before the father left the family could have primarily caused the disturbance of these children.

Factors of style and personality.

In an attempt to find relationships between psychological and linguistic variables, style samples of short stories, 300 words each, were analyzed according to formal criteria and the results were correlated with scores on personality tests. The number of significant correlations supported the hypothesis that style is related to personality. A factor analysis, using the principal component solution and Varimax rotation (Harman, 1967), of the correlation matrix resulted in six identifiable factors of style, three factors of psychological tests, and a large number of small factors, each represented only by two to five experimental variables with significant loadings.