Choose Your Collimator Wisely: Inappropriate Collimator Selection During a Lu-DOTATATE Posttreatment Scan.

Proper collimator selection is critical to obtaining high-quality, interpretable nuclear medicine images. Collimators help eliminate scatter, which leads to poor spatial resolution and blurry images. We present the case of a posttherapy Lu-DOTATATE (Lutathera) patient who was initially imaged with a low-energy, high-resolution collimator routinely used in Tc imaging.

Normative Modeling of Thalamic Nuclear Volumes and Characterization of Lateralized Volume Alterations in Alzheimer's Disease Versus Schizophrenia.

Background: Thalamic nuclei facilitate a wide range of complex behaviors, emotions, and cognition and have been implicated in neuropsychiatric disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and schizophrenia (SCZ). The aim of this work was to establish novel normative models of thalamic nuclear volumes and their laterality indices and investigate their changes in SCZ and AD.

Methods: Volumes of bilateral whole thalami and 10 thalamic nuclei were generated from T1 magnetic resonance imaging data using a state-of-the-art novel segmentation method in healthy control participants (n = 2374) and participants with early mild cognitive impairment (n = 211), late mild cognitive impairment (n = 113), AD (n = 88), and SCZ (n = 168).

Normative modeling of thalamic nuclear volumes.

Thalamic nuclei have been implicated in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. Normative models for thalamic nuclear volumes have not been proposed thus far. The aim of this work was to establish normative models of thalamic nuclear volumes and subsequently investigate changes in thalamic nuclei in cognitive and psychiatric disorders.

Development of a selective and scalable 1-indazole alkylation.

1-Alkyl indazoles are a ubiquitous and privileged motif within medicinal chemistry, yet methods to selectively furnish 1-alkyl indazoles with simple alkyl side chains remain sparse. Herein, negative data from high-throughput experimentation (HTE) enabled a confident pivot of resource from continued optimisation to the development of an alternative reaction. This workflow culminated in a methodology for the synthesis of 1-alkyl indazoles.

Cyclonite-Induced Seizures After Voluntary C-4 Ingestion.

Cyclonite (cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, RDX, hexogen) is the active agent in the plastic explosive, composition 4 (C-4). It has been used globally since the Vietnam War for both military and civilian applications due to its metastable nature. Ingestion or inhalation of C-4 can cause euphoric effects such as those commonly seen with alcohol toxicity, in addition to seizures and rarely fulminant liver and kidney failure.

Folate deficiency increases the incidence of dolutegravir-associated foetal defects in a mouse pregnancy model.

Background: Dolutegravir (DTG) is a recommended first-line regimen for all people with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. Initial findings from Botswana, a country with no folate fortification program, showed an elevated prevalence of neural tube defects (NTDs) with peri-conceptional exposure to DTG. Here we explore whether a low folate diet influences the risk of DTG-associated foetal anomalies in a mouse model.

Selective PPAR-Delta/PPAR-Gamma Activation Improves Cognition in a Model of Alzheimer's Disease.

The continuously increasing association of Alzheimer's disease (AD) with increased mortality rates indicates an unmet medical need and the critical need for establishing novel molecular targets for therapeutic potential. Agonists for peroxisomal proliferator activating receptors (PPAR) are known to regulate energy in the body and have shown positive effects against Alzheimer's disease. There are three members of this class (delta, gamma, and alpha), with PPAR-gamma being the most studied, as these pharmaceutical agonists offer promise for AD because they reduce amyloid beta and tau pathologies, display anti-inflammatory properties, and improve cognition.

Safety of re-challenging adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with PEG-asparaginase-induced severe hypertriglyceridemia when treated with a pediatric-inspired regimen.

PEG-asparaginase is used as a treatment for Philadelphia-negative acute lymphoblastic leukemia. In pediatric studies, triglycerides (TGs) were affected more by PEG-asparaginase than by native L-asparaginase (10.0% vs.

Teaching Postsecondary Students to Use Analogies as a Cognitive Learning Strategy: An Intervention.

Analogical reasoning is an important type of cognition often used by experts across domains. Little research, however, has investigated how generating analogies can support college students' self-regulated learning (SRL) of biology. This study therefore evaluated a contextualized cognitive learning strategy intervention designed to teach students to generate analogies as a learning strategy to aid learning within a university biology course.

The Two-Component System YesMN Promotes Pneumococcal Host-to-Host Transmission and Regulates Genes Involved in Zinc Homeostasis.

The ability to sense and respond rapidly to the dynamic environment of the upper respiratory tract (URT) makes Streptococcus pneumoniae () a highly successful human pathogen. Two-component systems (TCSs) of sense and respond to multiple signals it encounters allowing to adapt and thrive in various host sites. TCS have been implicated in their ability to promote pneumococcal colonization of the URT and virulence.

MgrB-Dependent Colistin Resistance in Klebsiella pneumoniae Is Associated with an Increase in Host-to-Host Transmission.

Due to its high transmissibility, Klebsiella pneumoniae is one of the leading causes of nosocomial infections. Here, we studied the biological cost of colistin resistance, an antibiotic of last resort, in this opportunistic pathogen using a murine model of gut colonization and transmission. Colistin resistance in K.

Gene Expression Profiling in the Skin Reveals Strong Similarities between Subacute and Chronic Cutaneous Lupus that Are Distinct from Lupus Nephritis.

Subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus and chronic cutaneous lupus erythematosus are represented in the majority of cutaneous lupus subtypes, each of which has variable implications for systemic manifestations such as lupus nephritis. On dermatologic examination, subacute cutaneous lupus erythematosus and chronic cutaneous lupus erythematosus are distinct. However, it is often difficult to diagnose the subtype from histology alone.

Bedside Evaluation for Early Sepsis Intervention: Addition of a Sepsis Response Team Leads to Improvement in Sepsis Bundle Compliance.

Objectives: Sepsis is associated with high morbidity and mortality and high healthcare costs. We hypothesized that a multifaceted quality improvement project would lead to an improvement in compliance with the sepsis "bundles."

Design: Patients presenting to the emergency department that met criteria for sepsis at triage triggered notification of an emergency department physician and the sepsis response team in order to facilitate timely completion of the 3-hour bundles.

Results from a prospective study of individuals' symptoms and patient activation after hepatitis C treatment.

The treatment of the hepatitis C virus has been revolutionized by the discovery of direct-acting antiviral medications, which offer more effective treatment with fewer potential side effects. Few studies have examined changes in patient-reported outcomes in individuals undergoing treatment for the hepatitis C virus in the immediate time period after the first treatment (within 1 month). This study is one of the first to use quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate changes in quality of life, patient activation, and symptom burden in adults undergoing treatment for hepatitis C virus with direct-acting antiviral medications.

Animal Model To Study Klebsiella pneumoniae Gastrointestinal Colonization and Host-to-Host Transmission.

An important yet poorly understood facet of the life cycle of a successful pathogen is host-to-host transmission. Hospital-acquired infections (HAI) resulting from the transmission of drug-resistant pathogens affect hundreds of millions of patients worldwide. , a Gram-negative bacterium, is notorious for causing HAI, with many of these infections difficult to treat, as has become multidrug resistant.

"Free to Say No": Evoking freedom increased compliance in two field experiments.

The evoking freedom or "but you are free" (BYAF) technique is a social influence tactic that offers recipients the freedom to accept or decline a request. This research tested the effectiveness of the evoking freedom technique in two field experiments. Participants were asked either to complete a survey (Experiment 1) or to allow a stranger to borrow their mobile phone to make a call (Experiment 2) on an urban university campus.

S100B and Inflammatory Cytokine Levels in Blood as Potential Markers of Blood-Brain Barrier Damage and Psychiatric Impairment in Comorbid Hepatitis C Viral Infection and Alcohol Use Disorder.

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and alcohol use disorder (AUD) both adversely affect the immune system resulting in alterations in immune cell signaling and inflammatory processes. The aim of this study was to investigate how comorbid AUD contributes to abnormalities in inflammatory mediators and psychiatric impairments in adults with HCV.

Methods: Alcohol use, mood, and inflammatory factors were evaluated at 3 time points (baseline, week 4, and week 12) in Veterans with HCV, with (n = 42) and without (n = 13) comorbid AUD.

Fine-mapping, novel loci identification, and SNP association transferability in a genome-wide association study of QRS duration in African Americans.

The electrocardiographic QRS duration, a measure of ventricular depolarization and conduction, is associated with cardiovascular mortality. While single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with QRS duration have been identified at 22 loci in populations of European descent, the genetic architecture of QRS duration in non-European populations is largely unknown. We therefore performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) meta-analysis of QRS duration in 13,031 African Americans from ten cohorts and a transethnic GWAS meta-analysis with additional results from populations of European descent.

A Novel Approach to High-Quality Postmortem Tissue Procurement: The GTEx Project.

The Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project, sponsored by the NIH Common Fund, was established to study the correlation between human genetic variation and tissue-specific gene expression in non-diseased individuals. A significant challenge was the collection of high-quality biospecimens for extensive genomic analyses. Here we describe how a successful infrastructure for biospecimen procurement was developed and implemented by multiple research partners to support the prospective collection, annotation, and distribution of blood, tissues, and cell lines for the GTEx project.

Human genomics. The human transcriptome across tissues and individuals.

Transcriptional regulation and posttranscriptional processing underlie many cellular and organismal phenotypes. We used RNA sequence data generated by Genotype-Tissue Expression (GTEx) project to investigate the patterns of transcriptome variation across individuals and tissues. Tissues exhibit characteristic transcriptional signatures that show stability in postmortem samples.

Gene-centric approach identifies new and known loci for FVIII activity and VWF antigen levels in European Americans and African Americans.

Coagulation factor VIII and von Willebrand factor (VWF) are key proteins in procoagulant activation. Higher FVIII coagulant activity (FVIII :C) and VWF antigen (VWF :Ag) are risk factors for cardiovascular disease and venous thromboembolism. Beyond associations with ABO blood group, genetic determinants of FVIII and VWF are not well understood, especially in non European-American populations.

Leveraging population admixture to characterize the heritability of complex traits.

Despite recent progress on estimating the heritability explained by genotyped SNPs (h(2)g), a large gap between h(2)g and estimates of total narrow-sense heritability (h(2)) remains. Explanations for this gap include rare variants or upward bias in family-based estimates of h(2) due to shared environment or epistasis. We estimate h(2) from unrelated individuals in admixed populations by first estimating the heritability explained by local ancestry (h(2)γ).

A genetic association study of D-dimer levels with 50K SNPs from a candidate gene chip in four ethnic groups.

Introduction: D-dimer, a fibrin degradation product, is related to risk of cardiovascular disease and venous thromboembolism. Genetic determinants of D-dimer are not well characterized; notably, few data have been reported for African American (AA), Asian, and Hispanic populations.

Materials And Methods: We conducted a large-scale candidate gene association study to identify variants in genes associated with D-dimer levels in multi-ethnic populations.

Large multiethnic Candidate Gene Study for C-reactive protein levels: identification of a novel association at CD36 in African Americans.

C-reactive protein (CRP) is a heritable biomarker of systemic inflammation and a predictor of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Large-scale genetic association studies for CRP have largely focused on individuals of European descent. We sought to uncover novel genetic variants for CRP in a multiethnic sample using the ITMAT Broad-CARe (IBC) array, a custom 50,000 SNP gene-centric array having dense coverage of over 2,000 candidate CVD genes.

A comparison of computer-generated and naturally occurring foraging patterns in route-network-constrained spider monkeys.

The attribution of goal-directed behavior to observations of primate foraging and ranging requires that simpler explanations for observed behavior patterns be eliminated. Computer-generated simulations of non-goal-directed foraging behavior can be used as null models for higher complexity cognitive foraging, and can provide quantifiable data against which to compare the observed behavioral patterns in wild primates. In this paper, we compare the results of two variations of computer simulated null models with observed foraging behavior of wild spider monkeys (Ateles belzebuth).