Transcriptomic changes in the posterior pallium of male zebra finches associated with social niche conformance.

Animals plastically adjust their physiological and behavioural phenotypes to conform to their social environment-social niche conformance. The degree of sexual competition is a critical part of the social environment to which animals adjust their phenotypes, but the underlying genetic mechanisms are poorly understood. We conducted a study to investigate how differences in sperm competition risk affect the gene expression profiles of the testes and two brain areas (posterior pallium and optic tectum) in breeding male zebra finches (Taeniopygia castanotis).

Effects of Bathing Skills Training on Independence and Satisfaction of Older Adults Living in a Nursing Home: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: Dependence in bathing is the most common activities of daily living (ADLs) dependency among older adults. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of bathing skills training on the independence and satisfaction of older adults living in nursing homes.

Methods: In this randomized controlled trial, 80 participants were assigned randomly to the intervention (n = 40) and control groups (n = 40).

A Novel Hands-on Approach Towards Teaching Diagnostic Radiology Residents MRI Scanning and Physics.

Rationale And Objectives: Traditional approaches towards teaching magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning and physics have limitations that a hands-on course may help overcome. A dedicated week of MRI instruction may help improve radiology resident confidence and competence. Additional benefits may include improved physician-technologist communication and accelerated mastery of MRI safety.

Male social niche conformance? Effects of manipulated opportunity for extra-pair mating on behavior and hormones of male zebra finches.

Success in sperm competition is an important determinant of male fitness in mating systems with female multiple mating. Thus, sperm competition risk represents a key dimension of the male social environment to which individual males are expected to adaptively adjust their reproductive phenotype. Such adaptive phenotypic adjustment we here refer to as male social niche conformance.

Deployed Deep Learning Kidney Segmentation for Polycystic Kidney Disease MRI.

This study develops, validates, and deploys deep learning for automated total kidney volume (TKV) measurement (a marker of disease severity) on T2-weighted MRI studies of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). The model was based on the U-Net architecture with an EfficientNet encoder, developed using 213 abdominal MRI studies in 129 patients with ADPKD. Patients were randomly divided into 70% training, 15% validation, and 15% test sets for model development.

Risk-taking coping style correlates with SERT SNP290 polymorphisms in free-living great tits.

The coping style of an individual in relation to potentially dangerous situations has been suggested to be inherited in a polygenic fashion, SERT being one of the candidate genes. In this study, we assessed in free-living great tits (Parus major) the association between SNP290 in the SERT promoter and three standard fear-related behaviors: the response of the birds to a black-and-white flag fixed to the top of the nest box, distress calling rate of the birds in the hand once captured and the hissing call of incubating females when approached by a predator. We found a strong association between SNP290 polymorphism and the three risk-taking behaviors, with birds with genotype CT entering the nest box with the flag faster and displaying more distress calls and fewer hissing calls.

Machine Learning Based Prediction Model for Closed-Loop Small Bowel Obstruction Using Computed Tomography and Clinical Findings.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to develop a prediction model for closed-loop small bowel obstruction integrating computed tomography (CT) and clinical findings.

Methods: The radiology database and surgical reports from 2 suburban teaching hospitals were retrospectively reviewed for patients undergoing surgery for suspected closed-loop small bowel obstruction (CLSBO). Two observers independently reviewed the CT scans for the presence of imaging features of CLSBO, blinded to the surgically confirmed diagnosis and clinical parameters.

Predictors of biliary intervention in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

Background: Gastrointestinal complications of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) include abnormal liver function and acalculous cholecystitis. Cholecystostomy performed during the COVID-19 pandemic reflected a shift toward non-surgical treatment of cholecystitis and increased number of critically ill patients suffering from acalculous cholecystitis.

Purpose: (1) To determine demographic, clinical, laboratory, and ultrasound features associated with cholecystostomy placement during hospitalization for COVID-19.

Pericardial Effusion on MRI in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease.

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) has been associated with cardiac abnormalities including mitral valve prolapse and aneurysmal dilatation of the aortic root. Herein, we investigated the potential association of pericardial effusion with ADPKD. Subjects with ADPKD ( = 117) and control subjects without ADPKD matched for age, gender and renal function ( = 117) undergoing MRI including ECG-gated cine MRI of the aorta and heart were evaluated for pericardial effusion independently by three observers measuring the maximum pericardial effusion thickness in diastole using electronic calipers.

Predictors of acute deep venous thrombosis in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.

Deep venous thrombosis (DVT) is associated with high mortality in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) but there remains uncertainty about the benefit of anti-coagulation prophylaxis and how to decide when ultrasound screening is indicated. We aimed to determine parameters predicting which COVID-19 patients are at risk of DVT and to assess the benefit of prophylactic anti-coagulation.Adult hospitalized patients with positive severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) undergoing venous duplex ultrasound for DVT assessment (n = 451) were retrospectively reviewed.

Pulmonary Embolism in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: A Multicenter Study.

Background Pulmonary embolism (PE) commonly complicates SARS-CoV-2 infection, but incidence and mortality reported in single-center studies, along with risk factors, vary. Purpose To determine the incidence of PE in patients with COVID-19 and its associations with clinical and laboratory parameters. Materials and Methods In this HIPAA-compliant study, electronic medical records were searched retrospectively for demographic, clinical, and laboratory data and outcomes among patients with COVID-19 admitted at four hospitals from March through June 2020.

Prevalence of Inferior Vena Cava Compression in ADPKD.

Introduction: Kidney and liver cysts in autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) can compress the inferior vena cava (IVC), but IVC compression prevalence and its risk factors are unknown.

Methods: Patients who have ADPKD (n = 216) with abdominal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies and age-/sex-matched controls (n = 216) were evaluated for IVC compression as well as azygous vein diameter (a marker of collateral blood flow) and IVC aspect ratio (left-to-right dimension divided by anterior-to-posterior dimension with a value of 1 corresponding to a circular (high pressure) IVC caudal to compression.

Results: Severe IVC compression (≥70%) was observed in 33 (15%) ADPKD subjects and mild compression (≥50% to <70%) was observed in 33 (15%) subjects; whereas controls had no IVC compression ( < 0.

Multivariate analysis of CT imaging, laboratory, and demographical features for prediction of acute kidney injury in COVID-19 patients: a Bi-centric analysis.

Purpose: To develop and externally validate a multivariate prediction model for the prediction of acute kidney injury (AKI) in COVID-19, based on baseline renal perfusion from contrast-enhanced CT together with clinical and laboratory parameters.

Methods: In this retrospective IRB-approved study, we identified COVID-19 patients who had a standard-of-care contrast-enhanced abdominal CT scan within 5 days of their COVID-19 diagnosis at our institution (training set; n = 45, mean age 65 years, M/F 23/22) and at a second institution (validation set; n = 41, mean age 61 years, M/F 22/19). The CT renal perfusion parameter, cortex-to-aorta enhancement index (CAEI), was measured in both sets.

Hemorrhagic Cysts and Other MR Biomarkers for Predicting Renal Dysfunction Progression in Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease.

Background: Screening for rapidly progressing autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is necessary for assigning and monitoring therapies. Height-adjusted total kidney volume (ht-TKV) is an accepted biomarker for clinical prognostication, but represents only a small fraction of information on abdominal MRI.

Purpose: To investigate the utility of other MR features of ADPKD to predict progression.

Patch-based generative adversarial neural network models for head and neck MR-only planning.

Purpose: To evaluate pix2pix and CycleGAN and to assess the effects of multiple combination strategies on accuracy for patch-based synthetic computed tomography (sCT) generation for magnetic resonance (MR)-only treatment planning in head and neck (HN) cancer patients.

Materials And Methods: Twenty-three deformably registered pairs of CT and mDixon FFE MR datasets from HN cancer patients treated at our institution were retrospectively analyzed to evaluate patch-based sCT accuracy via the pix2pix and CycleGAN models. To test effects of overlapping sCT patches on estimations, we (a) trained the models for three orthogonal views to observe the effects of spatial context, (b) we increased effective set size by using per-epoch data augmentation, and (c) we evaluated the performance of three different approaches for combining overlapping Hounsfield unit (HU) estimations for varied patch overlap parameters.

Toward predicting the evolution of lung tumors during radiotherapy observed on a longitudinal MR imaging study via a deep learning algorithm.

Purpose: To predict the spatial and temporal trajectories of lung tumor during radiotherapy monitored under a longitudinal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study via a deep learning algorithm for facilitating adaptive radiotherapy (ART).

Methods: We monitored 10 lung cancer patients by acquiring weekly MRI-T2w scans over a course of radiotherapy. Under an ART workflow, we developed a predictive neural network (P-net) to predict the spatial distributions of tumors in the coming weeks utilizing images acquired earlier in the course.

Technical Note: Identification of CT Texture Features Robust to Tumor Size Variations for Normal Lung Texture Analysis.

Normal lung CT texture features have been used for the prediction of radiation-induced lung disease (RILD). For these features to be clinically useful, they should be robust to tumor size variations and not correlated with the normal lung volume of interest, i.e.

Quantifying local tumor morphological changes with Jacobian map for prediction of pathologic tumor response to chemo-radiotherapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer.

We proposed a framework to detect and quantify local tumor morphological changes due to chemo-radiotherapy (CRT) using a Jacobian map and to extract quantitative radiomic features from the Jacobian map to predict the pathologic tumor response in locally advanced esophageal cancer patients. In 20 patients who underwent CRT, a multi-resolution BSpline deformable registration was performed to register the follow-up (post-CRT) CT to the baseline CT image. The Jacobian map (J) was computed as the determinant of the gradient of the deformation vector field.

Radiomics analysis of pulmonary nodules in low-dose CT for early detection of lung cancer.

Purpose: To develop a radiomics prediction model to improve pulmonary nodule (PN) classification in low-dose CT. To compare the model with the American College of Radiology (ACR) Lung CT Screening Reporting and Data System (Lung-RADS) for early detection of lung cancer.

Methods: We examined a set of 72 PNs (31 benign and 41 malignant) from the Lung Image Database Consortium image collection (LIDC-IDRI).

Ameliorating effects of fennel and cumin extracts on sperm quality and spermatogenic cells apoptosis by inducing weight loss and reducing leptin concentration in diet-induced obese rats.

This study was established a model of obesity to estimate the impact of fennel and cumin as anti-obesity extracts on body weight, body mass index (BMI), food consumption, leptin concentration, sperm quality and testis architecture to determine the reversibility of reproductive function of obese animals. Male rats were randomly assigned to either a normal or high-fat diet for 8 weeks. Then, we divided 56 adult rats into seven groups: control (CO); obesity (OB); fennel 100 and 200 mg/kg; cumin 50 and 100 mg/kg; and fennel 100 mg/kg plus cumin 50 mg/kg.

Subclinical hypothyroidism and diabetic nephropathy in Iranian patients with type 2 diabetes.

Purpose: Association of subclinical hypothyroidism with type 2 diabetes and its complications has been previously documented. These reports were, however, inconclusive and mainly gathered from Chinese and East Asian populations. In this study, we aimed to determine the prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism and its relationship with diabetic nephropathy in Iranian individuals with type 2 diabetes, drawn from a white Middle Eastern population with an increasing prevalence of diabetes.

Combined epigenetic and intraspecific variation of the DRD4 and SERT genes influence novelty seeking behavior in great tit Parus major.

DNA methylation is one of the main epigenetic mechanisms that can regulate gene expression and is an important means for creating phenotypic variation. In the present study, we performed methylation profiling of 2 candidate genes for personality traits, namely DRD4 and SERT, in the great tit Parus major to ascertain whether personality traits and behavior within different habitats have evolved with the aid of epigenetic variation. We applied bisulphite PCR and strand-specific sequencing to determine the methylation profile of the CpG dinucleotides in the DRD4 and SERT promoters and also in the CpG island overlapping DRD4 exon 3.

Beak and skull shapes of human commensal and non-commensal house sparrows Passer domesticus.

Background: The granivorous house sparrow Passer domesticus is thought to have developed its commensal relationship with humans with the rise of agriculture in the Middle East some 10,000 years ago, and to have expanded with the spread of agriculture in Eurasia during the last few thousand years. One subspecies, P. d.

Single origin of human commensalism in the house sparrow.

The current, virtually worldwide distribution of the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is a result of its commensal relationship with humans. It has been suggested that long before the advent of agriculture, an early glacial advance resulted in two disjunct ranges of ancestral house sparrows - one in the Middle East and another on the Indian subcontinent. Differentiation during this period of isolation resulted in two major groups of subspecies: the domesticus group and the indicus group.