GENERATIVE MODELS FOR LARGE-SCALE SIMULATIONS OF CONNECTOME DEVELOPMENT.

Functional interactions and anatomic connections between brain regions form the connectome. Its mathematical representation in terms of a graph reflects the inherent neuroanatomical organization into structures and regions (nodes) that are interconnected through neural fiber tracts and/or interact functionally (edges). Without knowledge of the ground truth topology of the connectome, functional (directional or nondirectional) graphs represent estimates of signal correlations, from which underlying mechanisms and processes, such as development and aging, or neuropathologies, are difficult to unravel.

Strength and resilience of developing brain circuits predict adolescent emotional and stress responses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound but incompletely understood adverse effects on youth. To elucidate the role of brain circuits in how adolescents responded to the pandemic's stressors, we investigated their prepandemic organization as a predictor of mental/emotional health in the first ~15 months of the pandemic. We analyzed resting-state networks from n = 2,641 adolescents [median age (interquartile range) = 144.

HIV/Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Knowledge and Acceptability of Rapid HIV Testing Among Transgender Adolescents in a Multidisciplinary Gender Clinic.

Purpose: The objectives of this study were to assess the knowledge of HIV and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in transgender adolescents and young adults (AYAs) and to test the acceptability of rapid HIV testing among transgender adolescents in a multidisciplinary gender clinic.

Methods: Participants enrolled on the same day as their mental health or medical appointment in a multidisciplinary gender clinic. They completed survey questions regarding HIV and PrEP knowledge and were also offered an optional same-day, rapid, fourth-generation HIV test.

Community detection in the human connectome: Method types, differences and their impact on inference.

Community structure is a fundamental topological characteristic of optimally organized brain networks. Currently, there is no clear standard or systematic approach for selecting the most appropriate community detection method. Furthermore, the impact of method choice on the accuracy and robustness of estimated communities (and network modularity), as well as method-dependent relationships between network communities and cognitive and other individual measures, are not well understood.

Associations between nutritional intake, stress and hunger biomarkers, and anxiety and depression during the treatment of anorexia nervosa in adolescents and young adults.

Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with anorexia nervosa (AN) frequently have co-occurring anxiety and depression, which can negatively impact prognosis. To inform treatment of co-occurring anxiety and depression, we assessed the association of nutritional intake and hunger/stress hormones on anxiety and depression using a six-month longitudinal study of 50 AYA females receiving care for AN. At baseline and six months, we measured anxiety (Spielberger State/Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI]), depression (Beck Depression Inventory [BDI]), body mass index (BMI), 3-day dietary intake (total calories and proportion of fat, carbohydrate, protein), and serum cortisol, leptin, and adiponectin.

Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound of the Chest in Children and Adolescents: A Pilot Study for Assessment of Added Diagnostic Value.

Objectives: To determine the added diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) in pediatric chest abnormalities by comparing interpretation of CEUS studies and confidence level to conventional US studies.

Methods: CEUS studies in patients with a variety of clinically suspected chest abnormalities performed between 2016 and 2020 were reviewed and compared to same-day conventional US studies. Examinations were independently interpreted by 4 radiologists blinded to clinical and other imaging data.

Effects of multidomain environmental and mental health factors on the development of empathetic behaviors and emotions in adolescence.

Empathy is at the core of our social world, yet multidomain factors that affect its development in socially sensitive periods, such as adolescence, are incompletely understood. To address this gap, this study investigated associations between social, environmental and mental health factors, and their temporal changes, on adolescent empathetic behaviors/emotions and, for comparison, callous unemotional (CU) traits and behaviors, in the early longitudinal Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development sample (baseline: n = 11062; 2-year follow-up: n = 9832, median age = 119 and 144 months, respectively). Caregiver affection towards the youth, liking school, having a close friend, and importance of religious beliefs/spirituality in the youth's life were consistently positively correlated with empathetic behaviors/emotions across assessments (p<0.

Modulatory effects of fMRI acquisition time of day, week and year on adolescent functional connectomes across spatial scales: Implications for inference.

Metabolic, hormonal, autonomic and physiological rhythms may have a significant impact on cerebral hemodynamics and intrinsic brain synchronization measured with fMRI (the resting-state connectome). The impact of their characteristic time scales (hourly, circadian, seasonal), and consequently scan timing effects, on brain topology in inherently heterogeneous developing connectomes remains elusive. In a cohort of 4102 early adolescents with resting-state fMRI (median age = 120.

Pelvis radiographs in children with cerebral palsy: effects of patient positioning on calculating migration percentages.

Background: Hip displacement in children with cerebral palsy (CP) is monitored by measuring migration percentage on anteroposterior pelvis radiographs. However, proper positioning for radiography in children with spasticity is difficult. The reliability and accuracy of migration percentage as a function of patient positioning is unknown.

Excess BMI in early adolescence adversely impacts maturating functional circuits supporting high-level cognition and their structural correlates.

Background/objectives: Adverse effects of excess BMI (affecting 1 in 5 children in the US) on brain circuits during neurodevelopmentally vulnerable periods are incompletely understood. This study investigated BMI-related alterations in maturating functional networks and their underlying brain structures, and high-level cognition in early adolescence.

Subjects/methods: Cross-sectional resting-state fMRI, structural sMRI, neurocognitive task scores, and BMI from 4922 youth [median (IQR) age = 120.

Parental religiosity is associated with changes in youth functional network organization and cognitive performance in early adolescence.

Parental religious beliefs and practices (religiosity) may have profound effects on youth, especially in neurodevelopmentally complex periods such as adolescence. In n = 5566 children (median age = 120.0 months; 52.

Shorter Duration and Lower Quality Sleep Have Widespread Detrimental Effects on Developing Functional Brain Networks in Early Adolescence.

Sleep is critical for cognitive health, especially during complex developmental periods such as adolescence. However, its effects on maturating brain networks that support cognitive function are only partially understood. We investigated the impact of shorter duration and reduced quality sleep, common stressors during development, on functional network properties in early adolescence-a period of significant neural maturation, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging from 5566 children (median age = 120.

Nonhormonal therapy for endometriosis: a randomized, placebo-controlled, pilot study of cabergoline versus norethindrone acetate.

Objective: To estimate the efficacy and safety of a novel nonhormonal therapeutic agent, cabergoline, compared with that of the standard clinical therapy, norethindrone acetate (NETA), for the treatment of endometriosis-associated pain in young women with endometriosis.

Design: Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled pilot study.

Setting: Tertiary care center.

Big Data-Driven Brain Parcellation from fMRI: Impact of Cohort Heterogeneity on Functional Connectivity Maps.

Ongoing large-scale human brain studies are generating complex neuroimaging data from thousands of individuals that can be leveraged to derive data-driven, anatomically accurate brain parcellations. However, despite their promise and many strengths, these data are highly heterogeneous, a characteristic that may affect the anatomical accuracy and generalization of the template but has received relatively little attention. Using multiple similarity measures and thresholding approaches, this study investigated the topological intra- and inter-individual variability of restingstate (rs) functional edge maps (often used for brain parcellation), estimated from rs-fMRI connectivity in n = 5878 children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study.

A Novel Mobile Phone App for Optimizing Dynamic Discrete Data Collection in Pediatric Epilepsy Studies.

Mobile technologies, including applications (apps) and wearable devices, are playing an increasingly important role in health monitoring. In particular, apps are becoming a critical component of m-health, which promises to transform personalized care management, optimize clinical outcomes, and improve patient-provider communication. They may also play a central role in research, to facilitate rapid and inexpensive collection of repeated data, such as momentary clinical, physiological, and/or behavioral assessments and optimize their sampling.

Novel Seizure Biomarkers in Continuous Electrocardiograms from Pediatric Epilepsy Patients.

There is growing evidence that seizures are accompanied by multi-system changes, not only in the brain but also in organs and systems under its control. Non-EEG measurements from these systems could be leveraged to improve seizure prediction, which is difficult but critical to the success of next-generation epilepsy therapies. Clinical electrophysiology studies during presurgical patient evaluations routinely collect continuous EEG but also ECG data that span multiple days.

Trainee doctors' experiences of learning and well-being while working in intensive care during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study using appreciative inquiry.

Objectives: Concern about trainee work-related well-being has been raised in recent years and is the subject of several reviews, reports and research studies. This study aimed to understand the experiences of trainees working in a large intensive care unit during the first surge of the COVID-19 pandemic from an educational and operational perspective in order to highlight what worked and what could be improved.

Design: A qualitative study using peer-to-peer semistructured interviews, developed using appreciative inquiry methodology, was conducted during July 2020.

Widespread Positive Direct and Indirect Effects of Regular Physical Activity on the Developing Functional Connectome in Early Adolescence.

Adolescence is a period of profound but incompletely understood changes in the brain's neural circuitry (the connectome), which is vulnerable to risk factors such as unhealthy weight, but may be protected by positive factors such as regular physical activity. In 5955 children (median age = 120 months; 50.86% females) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort, we investigated direct and indirect (through impact on body mass index [BMI]) effects of physical activity on resting-state networks, the backbone of the functional connectome that ubiquitously affects cognitive function.

Developing a Database of Structural Racism-Related State Laws for Health Equity Research and Practice in the United States.

Objectives: Although US state laws shape population health and health equity, few studies have examined how state laws affect the health of marginalized racial/ethnic groups (eg, Black, Indigenous, and Latinx populations) and racial/ethnic health inequities. A team of public health researchers and legal scholars with expertise in racial equity used systematic policy surveillance methods to develop a comprehensive database of state laws that are explicitly or implicitly related to structural racism, with the goal of evaluating their effect on health outcomes among marginalized racial/ethnic groups.

Methods: Legal scholars used primary and secondary sources to identify state laws related to structural racism pertaining to 10 legal domains and developed a coding scheme that assigned a numeric code representing a mutually exclusive category for each salient feature of each law using a subset of randomly selected states.

Analysis of Staphylococcus aureus Transcriptome in Pediatric Soft Tissue Abscesses and Comparison to Murine Infections.

A comprehensive understanding of how adapts to cause infections in humans can inform development of diagnostic, therapeutic, and preventive approaches. Expression analysis of clinical strain libraries depicts conditions that differ from those in human infection, but low bacterial burden and the requirement for reverse transcription or nucleic acid amplification complicate such analyses of bacteria causing human infection. We developed methods to evaluate the mRNA transcript signature of in pediatric skin and soft tissue infections (SSTI) directly Abscess drainage from 47 healthy pediatric patients undergoing drainage of a soft tissue infection was collected, and RNA was extracted from samples from patients with microbiologically confirmed abscesses (42% due to methicillin-resistant [MRSA]).

A Spectral Clustering Approach for the Classification of Waveform Anomalies in High-Dimensional Brain Signals.

Transient electrophysiological anomalies in the human brain have been associated with neurological disorders such as epilepsy, may signal impending adverse events (e.g, seizurse), or may reflect the effects of a stressor, such as insufficient sleep. These, typically brief, high-frequency and heterogeneous signal anomalies remain poorly understood, particularly at long time scales, and their morphology and variability have not been systematically characterized.

Characteristics of Adolescents with Differing Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Phenotypes.

Study Objective: To analyze clinical, metabolic, hormonal, and ultrasound characteristics of adolescents with polycystic ovary syndrome phenotypes.

Design: We performed a retrospective analysis of quality improvement data. We divided patients according to phenotype on the basis of clinical or biochemical diagnosis of hyperandrogenism (HA), irregular menstruation (IM), and presence or absence of polycystic ovarian morphology (PCOM) on pelvic ultrasound (PUS) images, if obtained.