Optimal Approaches for Pregnant Patients Undergoing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the United States. Pregnancy is associated with increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and outcomes of pregnancy-associated AMI (PAMI) are poor. Spontaneous coronary artery dissection is the most common cause of PAMI.

Shedding light on participant selection bias in Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) studies: Findings from an internet panel study.

Although the potential for participant selection bias is readily acknowledged in the momentary data collection literature, very little is known about uptake rates in these studies or about differences in the people that participate versus those who do not. This study analyzed data from an existing Internet panel of older people (age 50 and greater) who were offered participation into a momentary study (n = 3,169), which made it possible to compute uptake and to compare many characteristics of participation status. Momentary studies present participants with brief surveys multiple times a day over several days; these surveys ask about immediate or recent experiences.

Evaluating Health Care Provider Perspectives on the Use of Mobile Apps to Support Patients With Heart Failure Management: Qualitative Descriptive Study.

Background: Nonadherence to diet and medical therapies in heart failure (HF) contributes to poor HF outcomes. Mobile apps may be a promising way to improve adherence because they increase knowledge and behavior change via education and monitoring. Well-designed apps with input from health care providers (HCPs) can lead to successful adoption of such apps in practice.

Prospective Observational Study of N-terminal Pro-Brain Natriuretic Peptide Levels in Obese and Nonobese Women during Pregnancy.

Objective: N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), a marker of ventricular dysfunction, varies by body mass index (BMI) outside of pregnancy. This study aimed to determine whether obesity affects NT-proBNP levels in pregnancy.

Study Design: This was a prospective observational study of healthy pregnant people in the third trimester (3TM) and postpartum (PP).

Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy and Heart Failure Risk.

Purpose Of Review: To review the data on hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) and heart failure (HF) risk.

Recent Findings: Hypertensive disorders are the most common medical condition affecting women during pregnancy and are associated with future HF risk, including peripartum cardiomyopathy, pregnancy-associated HF with preserved ejection fraction, and new-onset HF later in life. HF related to HDP can occur during pregnancy and persist long term, as can be the case with peri-partum cardiomyopathy, or can develop years after delivery through mechanisms that have yet to be clearly defined.

Explaining age differences in the memory-experience gap.

Emotions and symptoms are often overestimated in retrospective ratings, a phenomenon referred to as the "memory-experience gap." Some research has shown that this gap is less pronounced among older compared to younger adults for self-reported negative affect, but it is not known whether these age differences are evident consistently across domains of well-being and why these age differences emerge. In this study, we examined age differences in the memory-experience gap for emotional (positive and negative affect), social (loneliness), and physical (pain, fatigue) well-being.

The Effect of Training on Participant Adherence With a Reporting Time Frame for Momentary Subjective Experiences in Ecological Momentary Assessment: Cognitive Interview Study.

Background: Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) has the potential to minimize recall bias by having people report on their experiences in the moment (momentary model) or over short periods (coverage model). This potential hinges on the assumption that participants provide their ratings based on the reporting time frame instructions prescribed in the EMA items. However, it is unclear what time frames participants actually use when answering the EMA questions and whether participant training improves participants' adherence to the reporting instructions.

Symbionts of Fungus-Growing Ants and the Evolution of Defensive Secondary Metabolism.

Actinobacteria belonging to the genus have evolved a close relationship with multiple species of fungus-growing ants, where these bacteria produce diverse secondary metabolites that protect the ants and their fungal mutualists from disease. Recent research has charted the phylogenetic diversity of this symbiosis, revealing multiple instances where the ants and have formed stable relationships in which these bacteria are housed on specific regions of the ant's cuticle. Parallel chemical and genomic analyses have also revealed that symbiotic produce diverse secondary metabolites with antifungal and antibacterial bioactivities, and highlighted the importance of plasmid recombination and horizontal gene transfer for maintaining these symbiotic traits.