Differing sensitivities to angiotensin converting enzyme inhibition of kidney disease mediated by APOL1 high-risk variants G1 and G2.

Apolipoprotein L1 (APOL1) variants G1 and G2 contribute to the excess risk of kidney disease in individuals of recent African ancestry. Since disease mechanisms and optimal treatments remain controversial, we study the effect of current standard-of-care drugs in mouse models of APOL1 kidney disease. Experiments were performed in APOL1 BAC-transgenic mice, which develop proteinuria and glomerulosclerosis following injection with a pCpG-free IFN-γ plasmid.

UNITY: A low-field magnetic resonance neuroimaging initiative to characterize neurodevelopment in low and middle-income settings.

Measures of physical growth, such as weight and height have long been the predominant outcomes for monitoring child health and evaluating interventional outcomes in public health studies, including those that may impact neurodevelopment. While physical growth generally reflects overall health and nutritional status, it lacks sensitivity and specificity to brain growth and developing cognitive skills and abilities. Psychometric tools, e.

The CALIPR framework for highly accelerated myelin water imaging with improved precision and sensitivity.

Quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques are powerful tools for the study of human tissue, but, in practice, their utility has been limited by lengthy acquisition times. Here, we introduce the Constrained, Adaptive, Low-dimensional, Intrinsically Precise Reconstruction (CALIPR) framework in the context of myelin water imaging (MWI); a quantitative MRI technique generally regarded as the most rigorous approach for noninvasive, in vivo measurement of myelin content. The CALIPR framework exploits data redundancy to recover high-quality images from a small fraction of an imaging dataset, which allowed MWI to be acquired with a previously unattainable sequence (fully sampled acquisition 2 hours:57 min:20 s) in 7 min:26 s (4.

Production of Psychoactive Metabolites by Gut Bacteria.

The gut microbiome plays a vital role in numerous aspects of physiology, including functions related to metabolism, the immune system, behaviour, brain structure and function. Furthermore, it is now becoming increasingly clear that alterations in microbial composition or diversity are implicated in several disease states, including anxiety, depression, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), obesity, and diabetes. Therefore, therapeutic targeting of the gut microbiota has the potential to be useful in the treatment of both stress-related disorders and metabolic diseases.

A time-lagged association between the gut microbiome, nestling weight and nestling survival in wild great tits.

Natal body mass is a key predictor of viability and fitness in many animals. While variation in body mass and therefore juvenile viability may be explained by genetic and environmental factors, emerging evidence points to the gut microbiota as an important factor influencing host health. The gut microbiota is known to change during development, but it remains unclear whether the microbiome predicts fitness, and if it does, at which developmental stage it affects fitness traits.

Volatility as a Concept to Understand the Impact of Stress on the Microbiome.

The microbiome-gut-brain-axis is a complex phenomenon spanning several dynamic systems in the body which can be parsed at a molecular, cellular, physiological and ecological level. A growing body of evidence indicates that this axis is particularly sensitive to the effects of stress and that it may be relevant to stress resilience and susceptibility. Although stress-induced changes in the composition of the microbiome have been reported, the degree of compositional change over time, which we define as volatility, has not been the subject of in-depth scrutiny.

Diet induces parallel changes to the gut microbiota and problem solving performance in a wild bird.

The microbial community in the gut is influenced by environmental factors, especially diet, which can moderate host behaviour through the microbiome-gut-brain axis. However, the ecological relevance of microbiome-mediated behavioural plasticity in wild animals is unknown. We presented wild-caught great tits (Parus major) with a problem-solving task and showed that performance was weakly associated with variation in the gut microbiome.

A specific dietary fibre supplementation improves cognitive performance-an exploratory randomised, placebo-controlled, crossover study.

Rationale: The impact of the microbiota on the gut-brain axis is increasingly appreciated. A growing body of literature demonstrates that use of dietary fibre and prebiotics can manipulate the microbiota and affect host health. However, the influence on cognition and acute stress response is less well understood.

Multi-spin echo T relaxation imaging with compressed sensing (METRICS) for rapid myelin water imaging.

Purpose: Myelin water imaging (MWI) provides a valuable biomarker for myelin, but clinical application has been restricted by long acquisition times. Accelerating the standard multi-echo T acquisition with gradient echoes (GRASE) or by 2D multi-slice data collection results in image blurring, contrast changes, and other issues. Compressed sensing (CS) can vastly accelerate conventional MRI.

Gamma-aminobutyric acid-producing lactobacilli positively affect metabolism and depressive-like behaviour in a mouse model of metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic and neuroactive metabolite production represents one of the mechanisms through which the gut microbiota can impact health. One such metabolite, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), can modulate glucose homeostasis and alter behavioural patterns in the host. We previously demonstrated that oral administration of GABA-producing Lactobacillus brevis DPC6108 has the potential to increase levels of circulating insulin in healthy rats.

Short-chain fatty acids: microbial metabolites that alleviate stress-induced brain-gut axis alterations.

Key Points: Chronic (psychosocial) stress changes gut microbiota composition, as well as inducing behavioural and physiological deficits. The microbial metabolites short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) have been implicated in gastrointestinal functional, (neuro)immune regulation and host metabolism, but their role in stress-induced behavioural and physiological alterations is poorly understood. Administration of SCFAs to mice undergoing psychosocial stress alleviates enduring alterations in anhedonia and heightened stress-responsiveness, as well as stress-induced increases in intestinal permeability.

The microbiota-gut-brain axis as a key regulator of neural function and the stress response: Implications for human and animal health.

The brain-gut-microbiota axis comprises an extensive communication network between the brain, the gut, and the microbiota residing there. Development of a diverse gut microbiota is vital for multiple features of behavior and physiology, as well as many fundamental aspects of brain structure and function. Appropriate early-life assembly of the gut microbiota is also believed to play a role in subsequent emotional and cognitive development.

Evaluation of Vaccination Policies Among Utah Pediatric Clinic Employees.

Introduction: Pediatric health care settings are high-risk environments for spreading communicable and vaccine-preventable diseases from health care workers to susceptible patients.

Method: All managers of pediatric clinics operating in the state of Utah were included. Participants were invited to complete a two-page questionnaire regarding their clinic vaccination policies.

Tourniquets exposed to the Afghanistan combat environment have decreased efficacy and increased breakage compared to unexposed tourniquets.

We hypothesize that an anecdotally observed increase in tourniquet breakage and decrease in efficacy may be secondary to environmental exposure during military deployment. This was a study comparing efficacy and breakage of 166 Afghanistan-exposed tourniquets to 166 unexposed tourniquets. Afghanistan exposure was defined as tourniquet carriage by field staff in the operational environment for approximately 6 months.

The American self and the long march to legal equality.

Legally, women, Native Americans, and African-Americans were defined by the American Constitution as inferior. The pragmatists gradually showed that all selves are equal. These ideas helped the minorities to attain nearly full legal status.

Me, myself, and I: the rise of the modern self.

Moderated by Robert Hanna (University of Colorado), historians Gerald Izenberg (Washington University, St. Louis) and Jerrold Seigel (New York University), philosopher Raymond Martin (University of Maryland and Union College), and sociologist Norbert Wiley (University of Illinois) trace the evolution of the meaning of self from antiquity to the present and consider how the self described by classical philosophers matches the reality of what we know about ourselves from human experience and research.