Does performing a Point-Of-Care HbA1c test increase the chances of undertaking an OGTT among individuals at risk of diabetes? A randomized controlled trial.

Aims: Early detection of type 2 diabetes mellitus is key to reducing micro and macrovascular complications associated with this disease. However, a lab-based process for diagnosis entails the risk of loss-to-follow-up. The objective of this study was to demonstrate if performing a point-of-care test of HbA1c immediately after a screening questionnaire will increase the proportion of individuals showing up for a lab-based confirmatory test as Point-of-care (POC) provides immediate availability, which is expected to reduce loss-to-follow-up.

Complete mitochondrial genome of the introduced Indian walking stick (Lonchodidae, Insecta) from California.

We present the complete mitochondrial genome of from Salinas, CA. The mitochondrial genome of is circular, AT rich (78.1%), and 16,671 bp in length.

Virtual Reality and Serious Videogame-Based Instruments for Assessing Spatial Navigation in Alzheimer's Disease: A Systematic Review of Psychometric Properties.

Over the past decade, research using virtual reality and serious game-based instruments for assessing spatial navigation and spatial memory in at-risk and AD populations has risen. We systematically reviewed the literature since 2012 to identify and evaluate the methodological quality and risk of bias in the analyses of the psychometric properties of VRSG-based instruments. The search was conducted primarily in July-December 2022 and updated in November 2023 in eight major databases.

Adverse childhood experiences among California student pharmacists.

Introduction: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with higher mental and physical illness and substance use disorders in adulthood. However, little is known about the prevalence of ACEs among student pharmacists and the factors associated with exposure. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of ACEs, resilience, and maladaptive coping strategies among student pharmacists in California.

Fairness: from the guts to the brain - a critical examination by Atlantic fellows of the Global Brain Health Institute.

In January 2023, the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) at UCSF hosted an online salon to discuss the relationship between fairness and brain health equity. We aimed to address two primary questions: first, how is fairness perceived by the public, and how does it manifest in societal constructs like equity and justice? Second, what are the neurobiological foundations of fairness, and how do they impact brain health? Drawing from interdisciplinary fields such as philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, the salon served as a platform for participants to share diverse perspectives on fairness. Fairness is a multifaceted concept encompassing equity, justice, empathy, opportunity, non-discrimination, and the Golden Rule, but by delving into its evolutionary origins, we can verify its deep-rooted presence in both human and animal behaviors.

Types of Psychiatric Beds and Mental Health Services in 16 Latin American Countries, 1990-2020.

Objective: Latin America has undergone major changes in psychiatric services over the past three decades. The authors aimed to assess the availability of service data and changes in psychiatric services in this region during the 1990-2020 period.

Methods: The authors formed a research network to collect data on psychiatric service indicators gathered between 1990 and 2020 from national registries in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay.

Characterizing social and cognitive EEG-ERP through multiple kernel learning.

EEG-ERP social-cognitive studies with healthy populations commonly fail to provide significant evidence due to low-quality data and the inherent similarity between groups. We propose a multiple kernel learning-based approach to enhance classification accuracy while keeping the traceability of the features (frequency bands or regions of interest) as a linear combination of kernels. These weights determine the relevance of each source of information, which is crucial for specialists.

Clinical utility of a novel test for assessing cardiovascular disease risk in type 2 diabetes: a randomized controlled trial.

Background: The risk for and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) is often incorrect and delayed. We wished to determine if a novel test improved physicians' ability to risk stratify, diagnose, and treat patients with T2DM.

Methods: In a 2-phase randomized controlled trial comparing the clinical workup, diagnosis, and management of online, simulated patients with T2DM in a nationwide sample of cardiologists and primary care physicians, participants were randomly assigned to control or one of two intervention groups.

Educational inequalities in heart failure mortality and the cycles of the internal armed conflict in Colombia: An observational panel study of ecological data, 1999-2017.

Heart failure (HF) is a significant clinical problem and an important public health issue due to the morbidity and mortality that it causes, especially in a population that is aging and affected by social stressors such as armed conflict. We aim to describe the inequalities and trends of HF mortality by educational level in Colombia between 1999 and 2017 compared with the cycles of the internal armed conflict during the same period. An observational study of ecological data panels, with aggregates at the national level, was conducted.

Postoperative Liver Failure Secondary to Hypoxic Hepatitis in Double Lung Transplantation: A Case Report.

Hypoxic hepatitis is a diagnosis of exclusion that should be suspected in patients with systemic hypoperfusion risk factors. It has a very high mortality, close to 50%. Although respiratory failure has been described as an etiologic factor for hypoxic hepatitis, cases of liver failure secondary to hypoxic hepatitis after lung transplantation have not been reported.

The role of executive functions, social cognition and intelligence in predicting social adaptation of vulnerable populations.

This study sought to evaluate the roles of and interactions between cognitive processes that have been shown to exhibit impact from socioeconomic status (SES) and living conditions in predicting social adaptation (SA) in a population of adults living in socially vulnerable conditions. Participants included 226 people between the ages of 18 and 60 who have been living in vulnerable contexts throughout life in Santiago, Chile. Data was collected through a battery of psychological assessments.

A multi-lab test of the facial feedback hypothesis by the Many Smiles Collaboration.

Following theories of emotional embodiment, the facial feedback hypothesis suggests that individuals' subjective experiences of emotion are influenced by their facial expressions. However, evidence for this hypothesis has been mixed. We thus formed a global adversarial collaboration and carried out a preregistered, multicentre study designed to specify and test the conditions that should most reliably produce facial feedback effects.

Validity of the ROX index in predicting invasive mechanical ventilation requirement in pneumonia.

Background: The ROX index (espiratory rate-ygenation) has been described as a prediction tool to identify the need for invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) in community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) with acute hypoxaemic respiratory failure treated with high-flow nasal cannula in order to avoid delay of a necessary intubation. However, its use in predicting the need for ventilatory support in hospitalised patients with CAP has not been validated.

Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study including subjects with CAP treated in the general ward, emergency service or intensive care unit of a third-level centre in Cundinamarca, Colombia, between January 2001 and February 2020.

Exploring mechanisms of Chaihu-Shugan-San against liver fibrosis by integrated multi-omics and network pharmacology approach.

Chaihu-Shugan-San (CHSGS), a noted traditional Chinese medicine formula, has been used as a complementary and alternative therapy for liver fibrosis. However, the antifibrotic mechanisms of CHSGS still remain unclear. Thus, we used network pharmacology approach in combination with single cell and bulk transcriptomics to elucidate the antifibrotic mechanisms of CHSGS.

Mental health of migrants with pre-migration exposure to armed conflict: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Exposure to armed conflict has been associated with negative mental health consequences. We aimed to estimate the prevalence of generalised anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder among migrants exposed to armed conflict.

Methods: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched online databases (Cochrane Library, Embase, LILACS, PsycInfo [via Ovid], PubMed, and Web of Science Core Collection) for relevant observational studies published between Jan 1, 1994, and June 28, 2021.

A proteomic surrogate for cardiovascular outcomes that is sensitive to multiple mechanisms of change in risk.

A reliable, individualized, and dynamic surrogate of cardiovascular risk, synoptic for key biologic mechanisms, could shorten the path for drug development, enhance drug cost-effectiveness and improve patient outcomes. We used highly multiplexed proteomics to address these objectives, measuring about 5000 proteins in each of 32,130 archived plasma samples from 22,849 participants in nine clinical studies. We used machine learning to derive a 27-protein model predicting 4-year likelihood of myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, or death.

Lack of age-related mosaic loss of W chromosome in long-lived birds.

Females and males often exhibit different survival in nature, and it has been hypothesized that sex chromosomes may play a role in driving differential survival rates. For instance, the Y chromosome in mammals and the W chromosome in birds are often degenerated, with reduced numbers of genes, and loss of the Y chromosome in old men is associated with shorter life expectancy. However, mosaic loss of sex chromosomes has not been investigated in any non-human species.

Mental health outcomes in communities exposed to Armed Conflict Experiences.

Background: Populations exposed to Armed Conflict Experiences (ACE) show different levels of impact in their mental health (i.e. clinical and positive components); however, there is limited evidence related to mental health of general population (civilians not classified as victims) exposed to ACE.

Attentional bias during emotional processing: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence from an Emotional Flanker Task.

Threatening stimuli seem to capture attention more swiftly than neutral stimuli. This attention bias has been observed under different experimental conditions and with different types of stimuli. It remains unclear whether this adaptive behaviour reflects the function of automatic or controlled attention mechanisms.

Patterns of genetic diversity in Colombia for 38 indels used in human identification.

The current population of Colombia has a genetic heterogeneity resulting from different migrations from other continents and within the country. In addition, there are small groups in their territory that have remained isolated and therefore have a different genetic pool in relation to that of the neighbouring urban populations. This population stratification must be considered in forensic analysis, being more complex for markers with marked intercontinental differentiation.

The Dynamics of Implicit Intergroup Biases of Victims and Ex-combatants in Post-conflict Scenarios.

Strong group identities arise in intergroup conflict scenarios and perpetuate sectarian violence even in post-conflict scenarios. In particular, out-group negative implicit associations are predictors of decreased intergroup forgiveness, as well as increased distrust and aggression against the out-group. Thus, the presence of implicit intergroup (i.

From discourse to pathology: Automatic identification of Parkinson's disease patients via morphological measures across three languages.

Embodied cognition research on Parkinson's disease (PD) points to disruptions of frontostriatal language functions as sensitive targets for clinical assessment. However, no existing approach has been tested for crosslinguistic validity, let alone by combining naturalistic tasks with machine-learning tools. To address these issues, we conducted the first classifier-based examination of morphological processing (a core frontostriatal function) in spontaneous monologues from PD patients across three typologically different languages.

Free-viewing as experimental system to test the Temporal Correlation Hypothesis: A case of theory-generative experimental practice.

Theory-free characterizations of experimental systems miss normative and conceptual components that sometimes are crucial to understanding their historical development. In the following paper, we show that these components may be part of the intrinsic capacities of experimental systems themselves. We study a case of non-exploratory and theory-oriented research in experimental neuroscience that concerns the construction of free-viewing as an experimental system to test one particular pre-existing hypothesis, the Temporal Correlation Hypothesis (TCH), at a laboratory in Santiago de Chile, during 2002-2008.

Neurocognitive reorganization of emotional processing following a socio-cognitive intervention in Colombian ex-combatants.

Ex-combatants often exhibit atypical Emotional Processing (EP) such as reduced emphatic levels and higher aggressive attitudes. Social Cognitive Training (SCT) addressing socio-emotional components powerfully improve social interaction among Colombian ex-combatants. However, with narrow neural evidence, this study offers a new testimony.

Validation of the Extreme Experiences Scale (EX) for Armed Conflict Contexts.

Psychological approaches to the study of armed conflict have focused on analyzing post-traumatic stress outcomes, and on evaluating the intensity of exposure to violent confrontation. Nevertheless, psychometrically valid tools required for measuring these traumatic experiences are scarce To validate the Extreme Experiences scale (EX) for armed conflict contexts for its use in Colombia, and to provide a framework for validation in conflict contexts around the world This Cross-sectional aims to validate the scale with 187 participants, study of validate with 187 participants, comprising population with high exposure to conflict (former combatants and a set of armed conflict victims) and low conflict-exposed individuals (control group). Structures of two domains and 18 items were confirmed: Direct Extreme Experiences (dEX) and Indirect Extreme Experiences (iEX); these dimensions were also validated by expert judgment, producing 14-item version.