A next-generation, histological atlas of the human brain and its application to automated brain MRI segmentation.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the standard tool to image the human brain In this domain, digital brain atlases are essential for subject-specific segmentation of anatomical regions of interest (ROIs) and spatial comparison of neuroanatomy from different subjects in a common coordinate frame. High-resolution, digital atlases derived from histology (e.g.

Physiologic Range of Myocardial Mechano-Energetic Efficiency among Healthy Subjects: Impact of Gender and Age.

Background: Myocardial mechano-energetic efficiency (MEE) is the capability of the left ventricle (LV) to convert the chemical energy obtained from the cardiac oxidative metabolism into mechanical work. The aim of present study was to establish normal non-invasive MEE and MEEi reference values.

Methods: In total, 1168 healthy subjects underwent physical examinations, clinical assessment, and standardized transthoracic echocardiographic (TTE) examination.

Right Heart Pulmonary Circulation Unit Response to Exercise in Patients with Controlled Systemic Arterial Hypertension: Insights from the RIGHT Heart International NETwork (RIGHT-NET).

Background: Systemic arterial hypertension (HTN) is the main risk factor for the development of heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). The aim of the study was was to assess the trends in PASP, E/E' and TAPSE during exercise Doppler echocardiography (EDE) in hypertensive (HTN) patients vs. healthy subjects stratified by age.

Reference Ranges of Left Ventricular Hemodynamic Forces in Healthy Adults: A Speckle-Tracking Echocardiographic Study.

Background: The normal limits of left ventricular (LV) hemodynamic forces (HDFs) are not exactly known. The aim of this study was to explore the full spectrum of HDF parameters in healthy subjects and determine their physiologic correlates.

Methods: 269 healthy subjects were enrolled (mean age: 43 ± 14 years; 123 (45.

Preoperative Assessment and Management of Cardiovascular Risk in Patients Undergoing Non-Cardiac Surgery: Implementing a Systematic Stepwise Approach during the COVID-19 Pandemic Era.

Major adverse cardiac events, defined as death or myocardial infarction, are common causes of perioperative mortality and major morbidity in patients undergoing non-cardiac surgery. Reduction of perioperative cardiovascular risk in relation to non-cardiac surgery requires a stepwise patient evaluation that integrates clinical risk factors, functional status and the estimated stress of the planned surgical procedure. Major guidelines on preoperative cardiovascular risk assessment recommend to establish, firstly, the risk of surgery per se (low, moderate, high) and the related timing (elective vs.

A giant mediastinal teratoma: From diagnosis to complete resection and restitutio ad integrum.

The current report highlights the integrated work-up of an unexpected giant mediastinal teratoma in 28 years old female. A comprehensive multi-modality imaging approach was implemented in order to define the diagnosis and tailor the most appropriate surgical intervention.

[An unusual case of Takotsubo syndrome after dipyridamole stress echocardiography].

Takotsubo syndrome is a transient form of left ventricular dysfunction, more common in postmenopausal women, which involves left ventricular mid-apical akinesis and mimics acute coronary syndrome. It is characterized by left ventricular apical ballooning without significant coronary artery stenosis on coronary angiography. The basic mechanisms of Takotsubo cardiomyopathy are still unclear.

Predictors of in-hospital and long-term mortality in unselected patients admitted to a modern coronary care unit.

Aims: Objective data on epidemiology, management and outcome of patients with acute cardiac illness are still scarce, and producing evidence-based guidelines remains an issue. In order to define the clinical characteristics and the potential predictors of in-hospital and long-term mortality, we performed a retrospective, observational study, in a tertiary cardiac centre in Italy.

Methods: One thousand one hundred and sixty-five consecutive patients, admitted to our intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU) during the year 2016, were included in the study.

Joint registration and synthesis using a probabilistic model for alignment of MRI and histological sections.

Nonlinear registration of 2D histological sections with corresponding slices of MRI data is a critical step of 3D histology reconstruction algorithms. This registration is difficult due to the large differences in image contrast and resolution, as well as the complex nonrigid deformations and artefacts produced when sectioning the sample and mounting it on the glass slide. It has been shown in brain MRI registration that better spatial alignment across modalities can be obtained by synthesising one modality from the other and then using intra-modality registration metrics, rather than by using information theory based metrics to solve the problem directly.

Bailout surgical explantation of a transcatheter valve-in-valve for subacute thrombosis: When there is no time for anticoagulation: Case report and literature review.

Trancatheter heart valve (THV) thrombosis is effectively treated with anticoagulation but alternative therapies are required when a faster gradient reduction is needed. Open heart surgery has been rarely performed due to the high perioperative mortality and only five cases have been described so far. Here we describe a case of emergent surgical explantation for THV thrombosis after a valve-in-valve.

TAVI for Failed Valve-Sparing Operations: In-Hospital and Mid-Term Outcome.

Background And Aim Of The Study: Although transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a steadily expanding treatment for the pathology of the aortic valve, its role in the replacement of native aortic valves following valve-sparing surgery has not been investigated.

Methods: Among 150 patients who underwent TAVI at the authors' institution, three (2%) had a failed valve-sparing operation. The in-hospital outcome, mid-term mortality, and valvular function of the three patients were evaluated retrospectively.

Accelerating Convolutional Sparse Coding for Curvilinear Structures Segmentation by Refining SCIRD-TS Filter Banks.

Deep learning has shown great potential for curvilinear structure (e.g., retinal blood vessels and neurites) segmentation as demonstrated by a recent auto-context regression architecture based on filter banks learned by convolutional sparse coding.

A fully automated tortuosity quantification system with application to corneal nerve fibres in confocal microscopy images.

Recent clinical research has highlighted important links between a number of diseases and the tortuosity of curvilinear anatomical structures like corneal nerve fibres, suggesting that tortuosity changes might detect early stages of specific conditions. Currently, clinical studies are mainly based on subjective, visual assessment, with limited repeatability and inter-observer agreement. To address these problems, we propose a fully automated framework for image-level tortuosity estimation, consisting of a hybrid segmentation method and a highly adaptable, definition-free tortuosity estimation algorithm.

Two-Dimensional Plane for Multi-Scale Quantification of Corneal Subbasal Nerve Tortuosity.

Purpose: To assess the performance of a novel system for automated tortuosity estimation and interpretation.

Methods: A supervised strategy (driven by observers' grading) was employed to automatically identify the combination of tortuosity measures (i.e.

Combining efficient hand-crafted features with learned filters for fast and accurate corneal nerve fibre centreline detection.

We propose a new approach to corneal nerve fibre centreline detection for in vivo confocal microscopy images. Relying on a combination of efficient hand-crafted features and learned filters, our method offers an excellent compromise between accuracy and running time. Unlike previous solutions using sparse coding to learn small filter banks, we employ K-means to efficiently learn the high amount of filters needed to cope with the multiple challenges involved, e.

Leveraging Multiscale Hessian-Based Enhancement With a Novel Exudate Inpainting Technique for Retinal Vessel Segmentation.

Accurate vessel detection in retinal images is an important and difficult task. Detection is made more challenging in pathological images with the presence of exudates and other abnormalities. In this paper, we present a new unsupervised vessel segmentation approach to address this problem.

An experimental assessment of five indices of retinal vessel tortuosity with the RET-TORT public dataset.

We compare the performance of five indices of retinal vessel tortuosity against sampling rates of vessel centerlines. We consider distance measure, tortuosity density, two curvature-based measures, and a recently introduced slope-chain coding for general curves, never before assessed comparatively with retinal vessels. To enable replication of our results, we use the public dataset for retinal tortuosity, RET-TORT.

Targeting mitochondria as therapeutic strategy for metabolic disorders.

Mitochondria are critical regulator of cell metabolism; thus, mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with many metabolic disorders. Defects in oxidative phosphorylation, ROS production, or mtDNA mutations are the main causes of mitochondrial dysfunction in many pathological conditions such as IR/diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, and cancer. Thus, targeting mitochondria has been proposed as therapeutic approach for these conditions, leading to the development of small molecules to be tested in the clinical scenario.

Endothelial G protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 regulates vascular homeostasis through the control of free radical oxygen species.

Objective: The role of endothelial G protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) was investigated in mice with selective deletion of the kinase in the endothelium (Tie2-CRE/GRK2(fl/fl)).

Approach And Results: Aortas from Tie2-CRE/GRK2(fl/fl) presented functional and structural alterations as compared with control GRK2(fl/fl) mice. In particular, vasoconstriction was blunted to different agonists, and collagen and elastic rearrangement and macrophage infiltration were observed.