Publications by authors named "SPARKS R"

Objectives: Computer-assisted planning (CAP) allows faster SEEG planning and improves grey matter sampling, orthogonal drilling angles to the skull, reduces risk scores and minimises intracerebral electrode length. Incorporating prior SEEG trajectories enhances CAP planning, refining output with centre-specific practices. This study significantly expands on the previous work, compares priors libraries between two centres, and describes differences between SEEG in adults and children in these centres.

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  • Weather and climate patterns significantly affect societal health, but there’s a lack of comprehensive data linking specific hazards to mortality causes, leading to uncertainty about health burdens in various countries.
  • A survey of 30 experts in the UK revealed that short-term exposure to extreme temperatures is the primary contributor to weather-related deaths, primarily through cardiovascular and respiratory issues.
  • The research highlights overlooked health impacts, such as long-term effects of weather hazards, and predicts worsening mortality rates due to climate change, emphasizing the need for expert insights to understand climate-related health issues globally.
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Immunological health has been challenging to characterize but could be defined as the absence of immune pathology. While shared features of some immune diseases and the concept of immunologic resilience based on age-independent adaptation to antigenic stimulation have been developed, general metrics of immune health and its utility for assessing clinically healthy individuals remain ill defined. Here we integrated transcriptomics, serum protein, peripheral immune cell frequency and clinical data from 228 patients with 22 monogenic conditions impacting key immunological pathways together with 42 age- and sex-matched healthy controls.

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Large-scale, explosive volcanic eruptions are one of the Earth's most hazardous natural phenomena. We demonstrate that their size, frequency, and composition can be explained by processes in long-lived, high-crystallinity source reservoirs that control the episodic creation of large volumes of eruptible silicic magma and its delivery to the subvolcanic chamber where it is stored before eruption. Melt percolates upward through the reservoir and accumulates a large volume of low-crystallinity silicic magma which remains trapped until buoyancy causes magma-driven fractures to propagate into the overlying crust, allowing rapid magma transfer from the reservoir into the chamber.

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Background And Aims: Fibrosis is the common end point for all forms of chronic liver injury, and the progression of fibrosis leads to the development of end-stage liver disease. Activation of HSCs and their transdifferentiation into myofibroblasts results in the accumulation of extracellular matrix proteins that form the fibrotic scar. Long noncoding RNAs regulate the activity of HSCs and provide targets for fibrotic therapies.

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[Ga]Ga-DPI-4452, a first-in-class carbonic anhydrase IX-binding radiolabeled peptide, is the imaging agent of a theranostic pair with [Lu]Lu-DPI-4452, developed for selecting and treating patients with carbonic anhydrase IX-expressing tumors. Here, [Ga]Ga-DPI-4452 imaging characteristics, dosimetry, pharmacokinetics, and safety were assessed in 3 patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma. After [Ga]Ga-DPI-4452 administration, patients underwent serial full-body PET/CT imaging.

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  • Differentiating epilepsy from psychogenic non-epileptic seizures is difficult for clinicians, leading to misdiagnosis and treatment delays, which highlights the need for reliable diagnostic tools.
  • Two studies were conducted to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of resting-state EEG markers—one focused on specific indicators like theta power and peak alpha frequency, while the other explored a broader range of EEG features using machine learning techniques.
  • Results showed that the identified EEG markers had limited effectiveness, with mean accuracy rates around 45-60%, primarily due to overlapping neurophysiological characteristics between epilepsy and non-epileptic seizures.
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As state and local government implemented school closures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, school health services delivery experienced a fundamental change. School nurses were confronted with significant challenges to care for their students, while responding to the avalanche of public health responsibilities thrust upon them without training or resources. This qualitative study, conducted by a community-based participatory research partnership explored school nurses' experiences and perspectives in urban and rural communities across New Mexico.

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Herbivore management is an important tool for resilience-based approaches to coral reef conservation, and evidence-based science is needed to enact successful management. We synthesized data from multiple monitoring programs in Hawai'i to measure herbivore biomass and benthic condition over a 10-year period preceding any major coral bleaching. We analysed data from 20 242 transects alongside data on 27 biophysical and human drivers and found herbivore biomass was highly variable throughout Hawai'i, with high values in remote locations and the lowest values near population centres.

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In the VISION trial, [Lu]Lu-PSMA-617 (Lu-PSMA-617) plus protocol-permitted standard of care significantly improved overall survival and radiographic progression-free survival compared with standard of care alone in patients with prostate-specific membrane antigen-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. This VISION dosimetry substudy quantified absorbed doses of Lu-PSMA-617 in the kidneys and other organs. Participants were a separate cohort of 30 nonrandomized patients receiving standard of care plus Lu-PSMA-617 at 7.

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  • Research on COVID-19 vaccination in immune-deficient people largely centers on cancer and organ transplant recipients, showing that 88% developed antispike IgG after the second vaccine dose, increasing to 93% by six months post-third dose.
  • However, the antibody levels in immune-deficient patients were significantly lower than those in healthy volunteers, never exceeding one-third of their levels.
  • The study suggests that while three doses of the vaccine generate an antibody response, additional doses may be necessary for improved protection, especially against the Omicron BA.1 variant, warranting further investigation into the effectiveness of booster shots.
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Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic disease with no cure. Adipose tissue is a major site of systemic insulin resistance. Sortilin is a central component of the glucose transporter -Glut4 storage vesicles (GSV) which translocate to the plasma membrane to uptake glucose from circulation.

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Head-mounted cameras have been used in developmental psychology research for more than a decade to provide a rich and comprehensive view of what infants see during their everyday experiences. However, variation between these devices has limited the field's ability to compare results across studies and across labs. Further, the video data captured by these cameras to date has been relatively low-resolution, limiting how well machine learning algorithms can operate over these rich video data.

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Background & Aims: Fibrosis is the common endpoint for all forms of chronic liver injury, and progression of fibrosis leads to the development of end-stage liver disease. Activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and their transdifferentiation to myofibroblasts results in the accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins that form the fibrotic scar. Long noncoding (lnc) RNAs regulate the activity of HSCs and may provide targets for fibrotic therapies.

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Background: Deep learning-based (DL) methods are the best-performing methods for white matter tract segmentation in anatomically healthy subjects. However, tract annotations are variable or absent in clinical data and manual annotations are especially difficult in patients with tumors where normal anatomy may be distorted. Direct cortical and subcortical stimulation is the gold standard ground truth to determine the cortical and sub-cortical lo- cation of motor-eloquent areas intra-operatively.

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Mucormycosis is an uncommon, yet deadly invasive fungal infection caused by the Mucorales moulds. These pathogens are a WHO-assigned high-priority pathogen group, as mucormycosis incidence is increasing, and there is unacceptably high mortality with current antifungal therapies. Current diagnostic methods have inadequate sensitivity and specificity and may have issues with accessibility or turnaround time.

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  • The study aimed to improve surgical planning for vestibular schwannoma surgery by developing a method to accurately outline the facial-vestibulocochlear nerve complex using a refined diffusion-weighted imaging (rs-DWI) approach.
  • In a trial with five healthy volunteers and five patients, researchers generated color tissue maps and analyzed the accuracy of nerve segmentation through various measurements that compared preoperative imaging and intraoperative results.
  • Results indicated that the method effectively visualized the nerve complex, showing high accuracy in identifying the facial nerve, which is crucial for reducing complications during surgery.
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Performance of panfungal PCR-DNA sequencing assays for diagnosis of invasive fungal disease on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue (FFPE) is influenced by many variables. Interpretation of a positive result can be challenging due to the need to differentiate colonisers and contaminants from clinically significant pathogens. We conducted a retrospective audit on FFPE tissue specimens that underwent panfungal PCR from January 2021 to August 2022.

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  • DADA2 is a recessive disease leading to issues like systemic vasculitis and early-onset stroke, affecting both kids and adults, with over 35,000 cases globally and no current management guidelines.
  • The DADA2 Consensus Committee, including patient representatives and experts from 18 countries, created 32 consensus statements to improve diagnostic testing, screening, and treatment based on patient symptoms.
  • Early diagnosis and treatment of DADA2 are crucial, and these consensus statements aim to provide a structured approach for doctors in evaluating and managing the disease.
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Humans alter ecosystems through both consumptive and non-consumptive effects. Consumptive effects occur through hunting, fishing and collecting, while non-consumptive effects occur due to the responses of wildlife to human presence. While marine conservation efforts have focused on reducing consumptive effects, managing human presence is also necessary to maintain and restore healthy ecosystems.

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Monogenic diseases are often studied in isolation due to their rarity. Here we utilize multiomics to assess 22 monogenic immune-mediated conditions with age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Despite clearly detectable disease-specific and "pan-disease" signatures, individuals possess stable personal immune states over time.

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Flaviviruses are a diverse group of enveloped RNA viruses that cause significant clinical manifestations in the pregnancy and postpartum periods. This review highlights the epidemiology, pathophysiology, clinical features, diagnosis, and prevention of the key arthropod-borne flaviviruses of concern in pregnancy and the neonatal period-Zika, Dengue, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile, and Yellow fever viruses. Increased disease severity during pregnancy, risk of congenital malformations, and manifestations of postnatal infection vary widely amongst this virus family and may be quite marked.

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Shifts in normal aging set stage for neurodegeneration and dementia affecting 1 in 10 adults. The study demonstrates that lncRNA GAS5 is decreased in aged and Alzheimer's disease brain. The role and targets of lncRNA GAS5 in the aging brain were elucidated using a GAS5-targeting small molecule NPC86, a frontier in lncRNA-targeting therapeutic.

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