Research on infants who have allegedly succumbed to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has been of variable quality over the years. Even now peer-reviewed papers are being published on cases termed 'SIDS' without autopsies having been performed, despite this being a requirement of the three major definitions for over five decades. Clearly cases used in earlier research studies could not have complied with the requirements of as-yet unpublished definitions/guidelines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFollowing ischemic stroke, substance P (SP)-mediated neurogenic inflammation is associated with profound blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction, cerebral edema, and elevated intracranial pressure (ICP). SP elicits its effects by binding the neurokinin 1 tachykinin receptor (NK1-R), with administration of an NK1-R antagonist shown to ameliorate BBB dysfunction and cerebral edema in rodent and permanent ovine stroke models. Given the importance of reperfusion in clinical stroke, this study examined the efficacy of NK1-R antagonist treatment in reducing cerebral edema and ICP in an ovine model of transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAo).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTraumatic brain injuries represent a leading cause of death and disability in the paediatric and adult populations. Moderate-to-severe injuries are associated with blood-brain barrier dysfunction, the development of cerebral oedema, and neuroinflammation. Antagonists of the tachykinin NK1 receptor have been proposed as potential agents for the post-injury treatment of TBI.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Phys Condens Matter
February 2024
We analytically study friction and dissipation of a driven bead in a 1D harmonic chain, and analyze the role of internal damping mechanism as well as chain length. Specifically, we investigate Dissipative Particle Dynamics and Langevin Dynamics, as paradigmatic examples that do and do not display translational symmetry, with distinct results: For identical parameters, the friction forces can differ by many orders of magnitude. For slow driving, a Goldstone mode traverses the entire system, resulting in friction of the driven bead that grows arbitrarily large (Langevin) or gets arbitrarily small (Dissipative Particle Dynamics) with system size.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFForensic Sci Med Pathol
December 2023
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative condition, in which the only known cause is exposure to repeated episodes of blunt head trauma. It most often occurs in professional and amateur athletes who have had frequent and repetitive cranial impacts during contact sports, but may also be found in victims of domestic violence, military personnel exposed to explosive devices and in individuals with severe epilepsy. The pathognomonic pathological findings are of neurofibrillary tangles and pretangles in the depths of the cerebral sulci caused by perivascular accumulation of phosphorylated Tau (pTau).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutosomal recessive microcephaly and chorioretinopathy-1 (MCCRP1) is a rare Mendelian disorder resulting from biallelic loss of function variants in Tubulin-Gamma Complex Associated Protein 6 (TUBGCP6, MIM#610053). Clinical features of this disorder include microcephaly, cognitive impairment, dysmorphic features, and variable ophthalmological anomalies including chorioretinopathy. Microcephaly can be recognized prenatally and visual impairment becomes evident during the first year of life.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Given the large genetic heterogeneity in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), it seems likely that genetic subgroups may benefit differently from treatment. An exploratory meta-analysis identified that patients homozygous for the C-allele at SNP rs12608932, a single nucleotide polymorphism in the gene UNC13A, had a statistically significant survival benefit when treated with lithium carbonate. We aim to confirm the efficacy of lithium carbonate on the time to death or respiratory insufficiency in patients with ALS homozygous for the C-allele at SNP rs12608932 in UNC13A.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnlabelled: Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) occurs more often in male than in female infants, suggesting involvement of the X-chromosome. Histopathological studies have suggested that altered expression of the Neurokinin-1 receptor may also play a role in the pathogenesis of SIDS. It was hypothesised that genetic variants in three X-chromosome-encoded microRNA (miRNA/miR), known to down-regulate expression of the Neurokinin-1 receptor, may contribute to SIDS.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContext: Long-term weight loss (WL) maintenance is the biggest challenge for overweight and obesity because of the almost unavoidable phenomenon of partial or even total weight regain (WR) after WL.
Objective: In the present study we investigated the relations of (the changes of) adipocyte size and other risk biomarkers with WR during the follow-up of the Yoyo dietary intervention.
Methods: In this randomized controlled study, 48 overweight/obese participants underwent a very-low-calorie diet to lose weight, followed by a weight-stable period of 4 weeks and a follow-up period of 9 months.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has shown promise for diagnosing prostate cancer in biopsies. However, results have been limited to individual studies, lacking validation in multinational settings. Competitions have been shown to be accelerators for medical imaging innovations, but their impact is hindered by lack of reproducibility and independent validation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
September 2021
Many adverse situations for parenting and healthy child development can be detected before a child's birth. The aim of this project was to develop and test an instrument to use in prenatal home visits, to improve the identification of adverse situations and care needs during pregnancy. The preSPARK is based on a valid and reliable broad-scope structured interview called SPARK (Structured Problem Analysis of Raising Kids).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Hyperoxemia may increase organ dysfunction in critically ill patients, but optimal oxygenation targets are unknown.
Objective: To determine whether a low-normal Pao2 target compared with a high-normal target reduces organ dysfunction in critically ill patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS).
Design, Setting, And Participants: Multicenter randomized clinical trial in 4 intensive care units in the Netherlands.
We present molecular dynamics simulations of one- and two-dimensional bead-spring models sliding on incommensurate substrates after an initial kick, in the case where the coupling to the underlying substrate is weak, i.e., energy can dissipate only into the internal degrees of freedom of the sliding object, but not into the substrate below.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExposure to repeated concussive traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to blast-induced TBI has been associated with the potential development of the neurodegenerative condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). CTE is characterized by the accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau protein, with the resultant tau tangles thought to initiate the cognitive and behavioral manifestations that appear as the condition progresses. However, the mechanisms linking concussive and blast TBI with tau hyperphosphorylation are unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe low incidence of special types of breast cancer hinders adequate clinical research efforts. As such, collecting sufficient data to develop well-established therapy strategies are difficult. The aim of our study was to obtain more data on these special types in order to better understand the different characteristics and optimize therapy strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground And Aims: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an inherited disorder associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease as a result of high LDL-cholesterol (LDL-C). The clinical diagnosis can be made with the Dutch Lipid Clinic Network criteria (DLCN criteria). FH is an underdiagnosed disorder, possibly due to false negative LDL-C interpretation during lipid lowering therapy (LLT).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Gleason score is the most important prognostic marker for prostate cancer patients, but it suffers from significant observer variability. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems based on deep learning can achieve pathologist-level performance at Gleason grading. However, the performance of such systems can degrade in the presence of artifacts, foreign tissue, or other anomalies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Over the last decade, there has been an increasing awareness for the potential harm of the administration of too much oxygen. We aimed to describe self-reported attitudes towards oxygen therapy by clinicians from a large representative sample of intensive care units (ICUs) in the Netherlands.
Methods: In April 2019, 36 ICUs in the Netherlands were approached and asked to send out a questionnaire (59 questions) to their nursing and medical staff (ICU clinicians) eliciting self-reported behaviour and attitudes towards oxygen therapy in general and in specific ICU case scenarios.
Background: The Gleason score is the strongest correlating predictor of recurrence for prostate cancer, but has substantial inter-observer variability, limiting its usefulness for individual patients. Specialised urological pathologists have greater concordance; however, such expertise is not widely available. Prostate cancer diagnostics could thus benefit from robust, reproducible Gleason grading.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGiven the association of disturbances in non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) metabolism with the development of Type 2 Diabetes and Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease, computational models of glucose-insulin dynamics have been extended to account for the interplay with NEFA. In this study, we use arteriovenous measurement across the subcutaneous adipose tissue during a mixed meal challenge test to evaluate the performance and underlying assumptions of three existing models of adipose tissue metabolism and construct a new, refined model of adipose tissue metabolism. Our model introduces new terms, explicitly accounting for the conversion of glucose to glyceraldehye-3-phosphate, the postprandial influx of glycerol into the adipose tissue, and several physiologically relevant delays in insulin signalling in order to better describe the measured adipose tissues fluxes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF