Publications by authors named "Valerio G Barauna"

The COVID-19 pandemic that affected the world between 2019 and 2022 showed the need for new tools to be tested and developed to be applied in global emergencies. Although standard diagnostic tools exist, such as the reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), these tools have shown severe limitations when mass application is required. Consequently, a pressing need remains to develop a rapid and efficient screening test to deliver reliable results.

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Article Synopsis
  • Fabry disease (FD) is a rare genetic disorder caused by a deficiency of the enzyme alpha-galactosidase-A due to mutations in the GLA gene, leading to harmful lipid accumulation in cells and primarily affecting males.
  • The study investigates the use of attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform IR (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy to analyze plasma samples and identify a distinct molecular profile in FD patients compared to healthy controls, achieving perfect accuracy in differentiating the two groups.
  • The findings suggest that ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, combined with advanced pattern recognition algorithms, could serve as a quick and cost-effective screening method for Fabry disease, applicable to all genders.
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Early life adversity has been linked with a higher probability of developing behavioral impairments and environmental manipulation is a strategy that may reduce the negative effects of exposure to adversity in early life. Here, we focused on exploring the influence of environmental enrichment (EE) as a protective factor in the context of early life adversity. We hypothesized that 24 hours of maternal deprivation (MD), in the second week of life, could induce anxiety-like behavior alterations and that exposure to EE could induce resilience to these behaviors due to alterations in the serotonergic system.

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Sepsis continues to be a significant public health challenge despite advances in understanding its pathophysiology and management strategies. Therefore, this study evaluated the value of cell-free nuclear DNA (cf-nDNA) and cell-free mitochondrial DNA (cf-mtDNA) for assessing the severity and prognosis of sepsis. Ninety-four patients were divided into three groups: infection (n = 32), sepsis (n = 30), and septic shock (n = 32).

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The use of non-invasive tools in conjunction with artificial intelligence (AI) to detect diseases has the potential to revolutionize healthcare. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) is a technology that can be used to analyze biological samples in a non-invasive manner. This study evaluated the use of NIR spectroscopy in the fingertip to detect neutropenia in solid-tumor oncologic patients.

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Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a metabolic disease with an increasing prevalence that is causing worldwide concern. The pre-diabetes stage is the only reversible stage in the patho-physiological process towards DM. Due to the limitations of traditional methods, the diagnosis and detection of DM and pre-diabetes are complicated, expensive, and time-consuming.

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  • ATR-FTIR spectroscopy is a new technology being researched for its potential use in medical diagnostics, specifically for classifying levels of D-dimer, a substance related to blood clotting and conditions like pulmonary embolism and COVID-19 severity.
  • The study analyzed plasma D-dimer levels from 100 patients using advanced statistical methods like PCA and machine learning algorithms (GA-LDA and PLS-DA) to accurately classify D-dimer concentrations.
  • The GA-LDA method showed impressive results with high sensitivity and specificity, suggesting that ATR-FTIR spectroscopy could improve patient diagnosis, reduce healthcare costs, and enhance overall patient care.
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High-intensity interval training (HIIT) is considered an effective method to improve fitness and health indicators, but its high-intensity exercises and the mechanical and metabolic stress generated during the session can lead to the occurrence of exercise-induced muscle damage. Therefore, this study aimed to describe, by means of a systematic review, the effects of a single HIIT session on exercise-induced muscle damage. A total of 43 studies were found in the Medline/PubMed Science Direct/Embase/Scielo/CINAHL/LILACS databases; however, after applying the exclusion criteria, only 15 articles were considered eligible for this review.

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The present study aimed to evaluate whether blood flow restriction (BFR) can prevent exercise-induced muscle damage in resistance exercise (RE) performed until concentric muscle failure (CMF). Twenty healthy volunteers (25 ± 4 years, 80.4 ± 11.

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Breast cancer is a heterogeneous disease, and its spread involves a succession of clinical and pathological stages. Screening is predominantly based on mammography, which has critical limitations related to the effectiveness and production of false-positive or false-negative results, generating discomfort and low adherence. In this context, infrared with attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy emerges as a non-destructive sample tool, which is non-invasive, label-free, has a low operating-cost, and requires only a small amount of sample, including liquid plasma samples.

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Article Synopsis
  • Rapid identification of respiratory viruses, particularly SARS-CoV-2, is critical for pandemic management, and this study focuses on improving saliva screening using a high-tech method called MALDI FT-ICR MS combined with machine learning.* -
  • The study optimized saliva sample preparation using trypsin digestion and found good results in classifying samples as positive or negative for SARS-CoV-2 with two support vector machine (SVM) models, achieving high accuracy rates.* -
  • The first SVM model (SVM1) demonstrated 100% accuracy in the calibration group and a 95.6% accuracy in the test group, indicating its potential as an effective tool for COVID-19 screening.*
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The effect of caffeine on mitigating exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD) is still poorly understood, but it was hypothesized that caffeine could contribute to decreasing delayed onset muscle soreness, attenuating temporary loss of strength, and reducing circulating levels of blood markers of muscle damage. However, evidence is not conclusive and beneficial effects of caffeine ingestion on EIMD are not always observed. Factors, such as the type of exercise that induces muscle damage, supplementation protocol, and type of marker analyzed contribute to the differences between the studies.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has caused the worst global health crisis in living memory. The reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is considered the gold standard diagnostic method, but it exhibits limitations in the face of enormous demands. We evaluated a mid-infrared (MIR) data set of 237 saliva samples obtained from symptomatic patients (138 COVID-19 infections diagnosed via RT-qPCR).

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Early diagnosis of COVID-19 in suspected patients is essential for contagion control and damage reduction strategies. We investigated the applicability of attenuated total reflection (ATR) Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy associated with machine learning in oropharyngeal swab suspension fluid to predict COVID-19 positive samples. The study included samples of 243 patients from two Brazilian States.

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One of the health benefits of endurance exercise training (ET) is the stimulation of hematopoiesis. However, the mechanisms underlying ET-induced hematopoietic adaptations are understudied. N-Acetyl-Seryl-Aspartyl-Lysyl-Proline (Ac-SDKP) inhibits proliferation of early hematopoietic progenitor cells.

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Biomarkers are valuable tools in clinical practice. In 2001, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) standardized the definition of a biomarker as a characteristic that is objectively measured and evaluated as an indicator of normal biological processes, pathogenic processes, or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention. A biomarker has clinical relevance when it presents precision, standardization and reproducibility, suitability to the patient, straightforward interpretation by clinicians, and high sensitivity and/or specificity by the parameter it proposes to identify.

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Objective: To analyze the association between social determinants and morbidities for the outcomes of hospitalization, intensive care unit admission and death by COVID-19 in Espírito Santo State, Brazil.

Methods: Cross-sectional study with secondary data from confirmed cases of COVID-19, reported in the Notifiable Diseases Information System. Poisson regression was used to estimate the prevalence ratios.

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Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide. In this study we compared the effects of oral treatment with red pepper ethereal extracts or simvastatin on dyslipidemia, left ventricle remodeling, and atherosclerotic lesions of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor knockout mice (LDLr) fed a hyperlipidic diet. Forty 3-month-old male mice were distributed into four groups: control (C; animals fed a standard diet), HL (ani-mals fed a hyperlipidic diet), and HL+P or HL+S (animals fed a hyperlipidic diet plus red pepper ethereal extracts or simvastatin, respectively).

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There is an urgent need for ultrarapid testing regimens to detect the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 [SARS-CoV-2] infections in real-time within seconds to stop its spread. Current testing approaches for this RNA virus focus primarily on diagnosis by RT-qPCR, which is time-consuming, costly, often inaccurate, and impractical for general population rollout due to the need for laboratory processing. The latency until the test result arrives with the patient has led to further virus spread.

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Despite the important role of iron in cellular homeostasis, iron overload (IO) is associated with systemic and tissue deposits which damage several organs. In order to reduce the impact caused by IO, invasive diagnosis exams (e.g.

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The growth of the elderly population is a worldwide phenomenon and it is associated with chronic diseases, including dementia. In this scenario, the present study aimed to evaluate a possible association of estrogen receptor α polymorphisms with dementia in a Brazilian cohort. The subject sample was divided into two groups, control ( = 105) and case ( = 73), according to analysis of two predictive dementia tests (MMSE and CDR).

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Background: Bariatric surgery improves oxidative damage, but little is known about the differences between Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) and sleeve gastrectomy (SG). This study compared changes in lipid and protein oxidative damage markers and their correlations with body parameters of patients before and after RYGB or SG.

Methods: Body mass index (BMI), bioimpedance parameters, and biochemical parameters including lipid and protein oxidative damage markers were evaluated before and 6 months after surgery.

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Unlabelled: Muscle damage affects the blood leukocyte profile. Resistance exercise (RE) with blood flow restriction (BFR) attenuates exercise-induced muscle damage (EIMD).

Purpose: To evaluate muscle damage and the leukocyte profile in response to RE+BFR and to compare with high intensity RE.

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Vascular reactivity experiments using isolated aortic rings have been widely used as a model for physiological and pharmacological studies since the early sixties. Here, we suggest several parameters that the researcher should pay attention to when investigating angiotensin II in their experimental models. Angiotensin II is one of the active peptides of the renin-angiotensin system and exerts its effect through the AT1 and AT2 receptors.

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