A machine learning-based score for precise echocardiographic assessment of cardiac remodelling in hypertensive young adults.

Aims: Accurate staging of hypertension-related cardiac changes, before the development of significant left ventricular hypertrophy, could help guide early prevention advice. We evaluated whether a novel semi-supervised machine learning approach could generate a clinically meaningful summary score of cardiac remodelling in hypertension.

Methods And Results: A contrastive trajectories inference approach was applied to data collected from three UK studies of young adults.

Neglected cervical meningocele in an adult: illustrative case.

Background: Posterior cervical meningoceles are rare in adults because most are surgically excised early in life. Such meningoceles in adults are mostly presented as a cystic mass and their presentation as a solid mass is very rare.

Observations: An asymptomatic adult with cervical meningocele presented as a congenital midline skin covered solid mass in the posterior aspect of the neck is presented.

Aerobic exercise increases brain vessel lumen size and blood flow in young adults with elevated blood pressure. Secondary analysis of the TEPHRA randomized clinical trial.

Importance: Cerebrovascular changes are already evident in young adults with hypertension and exercise is recommended to reduce cardiovascular risk. To what extent exercise benefits the cerebrovasculature at an early stage of the disease remains unclear.

Objective: To investigate whether structured aerobic exercise increases brain vessel lumen diameter or cerebral blood flow (CBF) and whether lumen diameter is associated with CBF.

Aerobic Exercise Training Response in Preterm-Born Young Adults with Elevated Blood Pressure and Stage 1 Hypertension: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Premature birth is an independent predictor of long-term cardiovascular risk. Individuals affected are reported to have a lower rate of [Formula: see text]o at peak exercise intensity ([Formula: see text]o) and at the ventilatory anaerobic threshold ([Formula: see text]o), but little is known about their response to exercise training. The primary objective was to determine whether the [Formula: see text]o response to exercise training differed between preterm-born and term-born individuals; the secondary objective was to quantify group differences in [Formula: see text]o response.

Use of the behaviour change wheel to improve everyday person-centred conversations on physical activity across healthcare.

Background: An implementation gap exists between the evidence supporting physical activity in the prevention and management of long-term medical conditions and clinical practice. Person-centred conversations, i.e.

Vagus nerve stimulation drives selective circuit modulation through cholinergic reinforcement.

Vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is a neuromodulation therapy for a broad and expanding set of neurologic conditions. However, the mechanism through which VNS influences central nervous system circuitry is not well described, limiting therapeutic optimization. VNS leads to widespread brain activation, but the effects on behavior are remarkably specific, indicating plasticity unique to behaviorally engaged neural circuits.

Effect of moderate to high intensity aerobic exercise on blood pressure in young adults: The TEPHRA open, two-arm, parallel superiority randomized clinical trial.

Background: Exercise is advised for young adults with elevated blood pressure, but no trials have investigated efficacy at this age. We aimed to determine whether aerobic exercise, self-monitoring and motivational coaching lowers blood pressure in this group.

Methods: The study was a single-centre, open, two-arm, parallel superiority randomized clinical trial with open community-based recruitment of physically-inactive 18-35 year old adults with awake 24 h blood pressure 115/75mmHg-159/99 mmHg and BMI<35 kg/m.

Six cases of occult sacral meningocele.

Background: Intrasacral occult sacral meningoceles (OSM) are uncommon congenital lesions that rarely become symptomatic, even over a patient's life time.

Methods: We operated on six patients with symptomatic OSM diagnosed on MR studies (all six) and/or CT examinations (four cases).

Results: All six patients had uneventful postoperative recoveries.

Physical Function, An Adjunct to Brain Health Score for Phenotyping Cognitive Function Trajectories in Older Age: Findings From The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

Background: Evidence is limited regarding the cumulative effect of risk factors on cognitive decline and the added value of physical function for cognitive function trajectory stratification. We operationalize 13 modifiable dementia risk factors in a scoring system and investigate the relationship between this brain health score, combined with simple measures of physical function, and risk of cognitive decline.

Methods: Population-based cohort study of persons aged 50 and older from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing without a history of dementia at baseline who underwent repeated neuropsychological tests (8.

Symptomatic thoracic ossification of the ligamentum flavum in a patient with ankylosing spondylitis: Report of a case and review.

Background: Thoracic spinal cord compression due to both ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and ossification of the ligamentum flavum (OLF) is rare.

Case Description: A 33-year-old male with AS presented with a paraparesis attributed to MR documented T9-T10 OLF/stenosis. He was successfully managed with a decompressive laminectomy; this resulted in marked improvement of his deficit.

Peroneal/posterior tibial nerves delayed dysfunction due to traumatic popliteal artery pseudoaneurysm resulting from trivial stab wound: A case report.

Background: Popliteal artery pseudoaneurysms due to stab wounds are extremely rate. Even more infrequently, they can contribute to the compression of multiple peripheral nerves.

Case Description: A 23-year-old male, following a trivial stab wound, developed the delayed occurrence of a pseudoaneurysm of the popliteal artery.

Closed-loop automated reaching apparatus (CLARA) for interrogating complex motor behaviors.

Closed-loop neuromodulation technology is a rapidly expanding category of therapeutics for a broad range of indications. Development of these innovative neurological devices requires high-throughput systems for closed-loop stimulation of model organisms, while monitoring physiological signals and complex, naturalistic behaviors. To address this need, we developed CLARA, a closed-loop automated reaching apparatus.

Association of Preterm Birth With Myocardial Fibrosis and Diastolic Dysfunction in Young Adulthood.

Background: Preterm birth affects about 10% of live births worldwide and is associated with cardiac alterations. Animal models of preterm birth suggest that left ventricular functional impairment may be due to an up-regulation of myocardial fibrosis.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine whether diffuse left ventricular fibrosis is evident in young adults born preterm.

Proteomic Signature of Dysfunctional Circulating Endothelial Colony-Forming Cells of Young Adults.

Background A subpopulation of endothelial progenitor cells called endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs) may offer a platform for cellular assessment in clinical studies because of their remarkable angiogenic and expansion potentials in vitro. Despite endothelial cell function being influenced by cardiovascular risk factors, no studies have yet provided a comprehensive proteomic profile to distinguish functional (ie, more angiogenic and expansive cells) versus dysfunctional circulating ECFCs of young adults. The aim of this study was to provide a detailed proteomic comparison between functional and dysfunctional ECFCs.

Anaplastic myxopapillary ependymoma of the sacrum: A case report.

Background: Myxopapillary ependymoma (MPE) with anaplastic features is extremely rare. There are very few such case reports in the medical literature.

Case Description: A 23-year-old female presented with lower back pain, and both urinary and fecal dysfunction.

Left atrial strain predicts cardiovascular response to exercise in young adults with suboptimal blood pressure.

Aims: To investigate the left ventricular response to exercise in young adults with hypertension, and identify whether this response can be predicted from changes in left atrial function at rest.

Methods: A total of 127 adults aged 18-40 years who completed clinical blood pressure assessment and echocardiography phenotyping at rest and during cardiopulmonary exercise testing, were included. Measurements were compared between participants with suboptimal blood pressure ≥120/80mm Hg (n = 68) and optimal blood pressure <120/80mm Hg (n = 59).

Obesity is associated with reduced cerebral blood flow - modified by physical activity.

This study examined the associations of body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), waist circumference (WC), and physical activity (PA) with gray matter cerebral blood flow (CBF) in older adults. Cross-sectional data was used from the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (n = 495, age 69.0 ±7.

Association of Systolic Blood Pressure Elevation With Disproportionate Left Ventricular Remodeling in Very Preterm-Born Young Adults: The Preterm Heart and Elevated Blood Pressure.

Importance: Preterm-born individuals have higher blood pressure with an increased risk of hypertension by young adulthood, as well as potentially adverse cardiac remodeling even when normotensive. To what extent blood pressure elevation affects left ventricular (LV) structure and function in adults born preterm is currently unknown.

Objective: To investigate whether changes observed in LV structure and function in preterm-born adults make them more susceptible to cardiac remodeling in association with blood pressure elevation.

Acute traumatic sequestrated thoracic disc herniation: A case report and review.

Background: Pure sequestrated thoracic disc herniations secondary to a traumatic event are rare.

Case Description: Elderly male presented with the sudden onset of severe paraparesis following a fall. The MR showed a left-sided extruded disc at the T10-T11.

Comparison of faecal indicator and viral pathogen light and dark disinfection mechanisms in wastewater treatment pond mesocosms.

This study compared light and dark disinfection of faecal bacteria/viral indicator organisms (E. coli and MS2 (fRNA) bacteriophage) and human viruses (Echovirus and Norovirus) in Wastewater Treatment Pond (WTP) mesocosms. Stirred pond mesocosms were operated in either outdoor sunlight-exposed or laboratory dark conditions in two experiments during the austral summer.

Gray matter volume in the right angular gyrus is associated with differential patterns of multisensory integration with aging.

Multisensory perception might provide an important marker of brain function in aging. However, the cortical structures supporting multisensory perception in aging are poorly understood. In this study, we compared regional gray matter volume in a group of middle-aged (n = 101; 49-64 years) and older (n = 116; 71-87 years) adults from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Aging using voxel-based morphometry.

Age-related normative changes in cerebral perfusion: Data from The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA).

Objective: To establish normative reference values for total grey matter cerebral blood flow (CBF) measured using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labelling (pCASL) MRI in a large cohort of community-dwelling adults aged 54 years and older.

Background: Quantitative assessment of CBF may provide an imaging biomarker for the early detection of those at risk of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and dementia. However, the use of this method to differentiate normal age-related decline in CBF from pathological reduction has been hampered by the lack of reference values for cerebral perfusion.