A neuroimaging study of interpersonal distance in identical and fraternal twins.

Keeping appropriate interpersonal distance is an evolutionary conserved behavior that can be adapted based on learning. Detailed knowledge on how interpersonal space is represented in the brain and whether such representation is genetically influenced is lacking. We measured brain function using functional magnetic resonance imaging in 294 twins (71 monozygotic, 76 dizygotic pairs) performing a distance task where neural responses to human figures were compared to cylindrical blocks.

Engineered neuronal microtissue provides exogenous axons for delayed nerve fusion and rapid neuromuscular recovery in rats.

Nerve injury requiring surgical repair often results in poor functional recovery due to the inability of host axons to re-grow long distances and reform meaningful connections with the target muscle. While surgeons can re-route local axon fascicles to the target muscle, there are no technologies to provide an exogenous source of axons without sacrificing healthy nerves. Accordingly, we have developed tissue engineered neuromuscular interfaces (TE-NMIs) as the first injectable microtissue containing motor and sensory neurons in an anatomically-inspired architecture.

The prevalence of nonmelanoma skin cancer in a population of patients with oculocutaneous albinism in Haiti.

Background: Multiple studies have examined the prevalence of nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSC) in patients with oculocutaneous albinism (OCA). However, to date, no studies have examined this data in Caribbean populations.

Methods: This study is a cross-sectional study of 106 patients with OCA who were seen at the Oculocutaneous Albinism Clinic in Port-au-Prince and Gros Morne, Haiti, between the dates of February 2017 and June 2018.

Telehealth for Pediatric Gastroenterology Care Now: The Transition to Telehealth and the Impact of Webinar-Based Didactics.

Unlabelled: With the coronavirus disease 2019 public health emergency (PHE), telehealth (TH) became essential for continued delivery of care. Members of the North American Society for Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition (NASPGHAN) formed the Telehealth for Pediatric Gastrointestinal Care Now (TPGCN) working group and rapidly organized a telemedicine webinar to provide education and guidance. We aim to describe the webinar development and prospectively assess the effectiveness of this webinar-based educational intervention.

Mapping Interests in Event-Driven and Long-Acting Pre-exposure Prophylaxis Formulations onto the HIV Risk Environment of Street-Based Female Sex Workers: A Latent Class Analysis.

Despite growing availability, HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) uptake and adherence remains suboptimal among female sex workers (FSW) in the United States. Using cross-sectional data from a survey of 236 street-based cisgender FSW in Baltimore, Maryland, we examined interest in event-driven and long-acting PrEP formulations. Latent class analysis identified discrete patterns of interest in five novel PrEP agents.

From telomere to telomere: The transcriptional and epigenetic state of human repeat elements.

Mobile elements and repetitive genomic regions are sources of lineage-specific genomic innovation and uniquely fingerprint individual genomes. Comprehensive analyses of such repeat elements, including those found in more complex regions of the genome, require a complete, linear genome assembly. We present a de novo repeat discovery and annotation of the T2T-CHM13 human reference genome.

Three-Dimensional Incoherent Imaging Using Spiral Rotating Point Spread Functions Created by Double-Helix Beams [Invited].

In recent years, there has been a significant transformation in the field of incoherent imaging with new possibilities of compressing three-dimensional (3D) information into a two-dimensional intensity distribution without two-beam interference (TBI). Most incoherent 3D imagers without TBI are based on scattering by a random phase mask exhibiting sharp autocorrelation and low cross-correlation along the depth axis. Consequently, during reconstruction, high lateral and axial resolutions are obtained.

Termination-Accelerated Electrochemical Nitrogen Fixation on Single-Atom Catalysts Supported by MXenes.

The synthesis of ammonia (NH) from nitrogen (N) under ambient conditions is of great significance but hindered by the lack of highly efficient catalysts. By performing first-principles calculations, we have investigated the feasibility for employing a transition metal (TM) atom, supported on TiCT MXene with O/OH terminations, as a single-atom catalyst (SAC) for electrochemical nitrogen reduction. The potential catalytic performance of TM single atoms is evaluated by their adsorption behavior on the MXene, together with their ability to bind N and to desorb NH molecules.

Use of Percutaneous Cannulation in Robotic Mitral Valve Surgery.

Minimally invasive cardiac surgery (MICS) has evolved in its practice over the past several years. Percutaneous cannulation is a technique that can be used during MICS to facilitate cardiopulmonary bypass. This manuscript describes the stepwise approach to percutaneous cannulation and decannulation in robotic mitral valve surgery.

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography with point spread holograms of isolated chaotic islands for 3D imaging.

Interferenceless coded aperture correlation holography (I-COACH) is an incoherent digital holographic technique with lateral and axial resolution similar to a regular lens-based imaging system. The properties of I-COACH are dictated by the shape of the system's point response termed point spread hologram (PSH). As previously shown, chaotic PSHs which are continuous over some area on the image sensor enable the system to perform three-dimensional (3D) holographic imaging.

Clinical Factors Predictive of Lymph Node Metastasis in Thyroid Cancer Patients: A Multivariate Analysis.

Background: Early-stage thyroid cancers have excellent survival. However, lymph node metastases (LNM) confer a worse prognosis and are not always known preoperatively. Therefore, investigation on the clinical and histological factors predictive of LNM in thyroid cancers was conducted to tailor the extent of surgery and radioactive iodine therapy.

Steering Self-Assembly of Three-Dimensional Iptycenes on Au(111) by Tuning Molecule-Surface Interactions.

Self-assembly of three-dimensional molecules is scarcely studied on surfaces. Their modes of adsorption can exhibit far greater variability compared to (nearly) planar molecules that adsorb mostly flat on surfaces. This additional degree of freedom can have decisive consequences for the expression of intermolecular binding motifs, hence the formation of supramolecular structures.

Genetic influences on central and peripheral nervous system activity during fear conditioning.

Fear conditioning is an evolutionarily conserved type of learning serving as a model for the acquisition of situationally induced anxiety. Brain function supporting fear conditioning may be genetically influenced, which in part could explain genetic susceptibility for anxiety following stress exposure. Using a classical twin design and functional magnetic resonance imaging, we evaluated genetic influences (h) on brain activity and standard autonomic measures during fear conditioning.

Magnetic phase diagram of (MoRE)AlC, RETb and Dy, studied by magnetization, specific heat, and neutron diffraction analysis.

We report the results of magnetization, heat capacity, and neutron diffraction measurements on (MoRE)AlC with RE = Dy and Tb. Temperature and field-dependent magnetization as well as heat capacity were measured on a powder sample and on a single crystal allowing the construction of the magnetic field-temperature phase diagram. To study the magnetic structure of each magnetic phase, we applied neutron diffraction in a magnetic field up to 6 T.

Recent progress in digital holography with dynamic diffractive phase apertures [Invited].

Digital holography with diffractive phase apertures is a hologram recording technique in which at least one of the interfering waves is modulated by a phase mask. In this review, we survey several main milestones on digital holography with dynamic diffractive phase apertures. We begin with Fresnel incoherent correlation holography (FINCH), a hologram recorder with an aperture of a diffractive lens.

Tumor suppressor PLK2 may serve as a biomarker in triple-negative breast cancer for improved response to PLK1 therapeutics.

Polo-like kinase (PLK) family members play important roles in cell cycle regulation. The founding member PLK1 is oncogenic and preclinically validated as a cancer therapeutic target. Paradoxically, frequent loss of chromosome 5q11-35 which includes PLK2 is observed in basal-like breast cancer.

The Case for Integrating Medical-Legal Partnerships Into Trauma Care.

Introduction: Medical-legal needs are health-harming adverse social conditions with a legal remedy. Medical-legal partnerships in primary care settings have been proposed to address these needs for at-risk patients already seeking medical care. Our hypothesis is that trauma patients represent a unique population that may be more likely to have baseline medical-legal needs.

Transcriptome-wide association study in UK Biobank Europeans identifies associations with blood cell traits.

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of hematological traits have identified over 10 000 distinct trait-specific risk loci. However, at these loci, the underlying causal mechanisms remain incompletely characterized. To elucidate novel biology and better understand causal mechanisms at known loci, we performed a transcriptome-wide association study (TWAS) of 29 hematological traits in 399 835 UK Biobank (UKB) participants of European ancestry using gene expression prediction models trained from whole blood RNA-seq data in 922 individuals.

Unrealistic optimism about treatment risks for acute appendicitis.

Unrealistic optimism is a cognitive bias that causes people to think they are at lower risk of a negative outcome than they actually are. This study identified significant unrealistic optimism towards the risks of appendicitis treatment complications.

Verbal Descriptions of the Probability of Treatment Complications Lead to High Variability in Risk Perceptions: A Survey Study.

Objective: To assess whether different methods for communicating the probability of treatment complications for operative and nonoperative appendicitis treatments result in differences in risk perception.

Background: Surgeons must communicate the probability of treatment complications to patients, and how risks are communicated may impact the accuracy and variability in patient risk perceptions and ultimately their decision making.

Methods: A series of online surveys of American adults communicated the probability of complications associated with surgical or antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis.

Leveraging TOPMed imputation server and constructing a cohort-specific imputation reference panel to enhance genotype imputation among cystic fibrosis patients.

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a severe genetic disorder that can cause multiple comorbidities affecting the lungs, the pancreas, the luminal digestive system and beyond. In our previous genome-wide association studies (GWAS), we genotyped approximately 8,000 CF samples using a mixture of different genotyping platforms. More recently, the Cystic Fibrosis Genome Project (CFGP) performed deep (approximately 30×) whole genome sequencing (WGS) of 5,095 samples to better understand the genetic mechanisms underlying clinical heterogeneity among patients with CF.

Investigation of out-of-plane ordered TiMoSiBfrom first principles.

The laminated ternary boride MoSiBof T2 structure have two symmetrically inequivalent metallic sites, 16l and 4c, being occupied in a 4:1 ratio. The phase was recently shown to be stable for 80% substitution of Mo for Ti, at the majority site, forming an out-of-plane chemically ordered quaternary boride: TiMoSiB. Considering that the hypothetical TiSiBis theoretically predicted as not stable, a key difference in bonding characteristics is indicated for full substitution of Mo for Ti at the metallic sites.

Effect of Open-label Placebo on Children and Adolescents With Functional Abdominal Pain or Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Although it is widely believed that concealment or deception is required to elicit a placebo response, recent studies with adults suggest that open-label placebo (OLP) (ie, honestly prescribed placebos) can yield significant benefits. No studies of OLP have been performed with children.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of OLP for the treatment of children and adolescents with functional abdominal pain or irritable bowel syndrome.