Visceral fat sympathectomy ameliorates systemic and local stress response related to chronic sleep restriction.

Disturbance of sleep homeostasis encompasses health issues, including metabolic disorders like obesity, diabetes, and augmented stress vulnerability. Sleep and stress interact bidirectionally to influence the central nervous system and metabolism. Murine models demonstrate that decreased sleep time is associated with an increased systemic stress response, characterized by endocrinal imbalance, including the elevated activity of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, augmented insulin, and reduced adiponectin, affecting peripheral organs physiology, mainly the white adipose tissue (WAT).

Prenatal diagnosis and postnatal outcome of closed spinal dysraphism.

Objective: To evaluate the prenatal diagnosis of closed dysraphism (CD) and its correlation with postnatal findings and neonatal adverse outcomes.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study including pregnancies diagsnosed with fetal CD by prenatal ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at a single tertiary center between September 2011 and July 2021.

Results: CD was diagnosed prenatally and confirmed postnatally in 12 fetuses.

Smooth pursuit eye movement deficits as a biomarker for psychotic features in bipolar disorder-Findings from the PARDIP study.

Objectives: Smooth pursuit eye movement deficits are an established psychosis biomarker across schizophrenia, schizoaffective and psychotic bipolar disorder (BPwP). Whether smooth pursuit deficits are also seen in bipolar disorder without psychosis (BPwoP) is unclear. Here we present data from the Psychosis and Affective Research Domains and Intermediate Phenotypes (PARDIP) study comparing bipolar patients with and without psychotic features.

Alterations in intrinsic fronto-thalamo-parietal connectivity are associated with cognitive control deficits in psychotic disorders.

Despite a growing number of reports about alterations in intrinsic/resting brain activity observed in patients with psychotic disorders, their relevance to well-established cognitive control deficits in this patient group is not well understood. Totally 88 clinically stabilized patients with a psychotic disorder and 50 healthy controls participated in a resting-state magnetic resonance imaging study (rs-MRI) and performed an antisaccade task in the laboratory to assess voluntary inhibitory control ability. Deficits on this task are a well-established biomarker across psychotic disorders as we found in the present patient sample.

A Non-integrating Lentiviral Approach Overcomes Cas9-Induced Immune Rejection to Establish an Immunocompetent Metastatic Renal Cancer Model.

The CRISPR-based technology has revolutionized genome editing in recent years. This technique allows for gene knockout and evaluation of function in cell lines in a manner that is far easier and more accessible than anything previously available. Unfortunately, the ability to extend these studies to syngeneic murine cell line implantation is limited by an immune response against cells transduced to stably express Cas9.

Genome-wide association studies of smooth pursuit and antisaccade eye movements in psychotic disorders: findings from the B-SNIP study.

Eye movement deviations, particularly deficits of initial sensorimotor processing and sustained pursuit maintenance, and antisaccade inhibition errors, are established intermediate phenotypes for psychotic disorders. We here studied eye movement measures of 849 participants from the Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) study (schizophrenia N=230, schizoaffective disorder N=155, psychotic bipolar disorder N=206 and healthy controls N=258) as quantitative phenotypes in relation to genetic data, while controlling for genetically derived ancestry measures, age and sex. A mixed-modeling genome-wide association studies approach was used including ~4.

Pursuit eye movements as an intermediate phenotype across psychotic disorders: Evidence from the B-SNIP study.

Smooth pursuit eye tracking deficits are a promising intermediate phenotype for schizophrenia and possibly for psychotic disorders more broadly. The Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (B-SNIP) consortium investigated the severity and familiality of different pursuit parameters across psychotic disorders. Probands with schizophrenia (N=265), schizoaffective disorder (N=178), psychotic bipolar disorder (N=231), their first-degree relatives (N=306, N=217, N=273, respectively) and healthy controls (N=305) performed pursuit tracking tasks designed to evaluate sensorimotor and cognitive/predictive aspects of pursuit.

Temporal genomics of vein bypass grafting through oligonucleotide microarray analysis.

Objective: Autologous vein is the conduit of choice for small artery reconstruction. Despite excellent patency, these conduits undergo remodeling over time. The purpose of this study was to identify temporal gene expression in vein grafts versus control veins through microarray analysis.

Variable electrocardiographic characteristics of isthmus-dependent atrial flutter.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to characterize variations in flutter-wave (F-wave) morphology among patients with clockwise isthmus-dependent (CWID) and counterclockwise isthmus-dependent (CCWID) right atrial flutter (AFL) and to attempt to correlate F-wave morphology with echocardiographic data and clinical patient characteristics.

Background: Variations in F-wave morphology on surface electrocardiogram (ECG) during CCWID and CWID flutter have been reported but never systematically characterized.

Methods: Over a four-year period, 139 patients with AFL on ECG underwent electrophysiologic study and echocardiography at our institution.

[Technical aspects of MR coronary angiography].

Within the past several years, MR angiography (MRA) has experienced major technological improvements. Whereas the contrast enhanced MRA of non-coronary vessels has become established in routine clinical diagnostics, MR coronary angiography still represents technical challenges to the MR scientists and clinical investigators. To allow diagnostic quality MR coronary angiography, precise and reliable visualization of small tortuous vessels moving at fast speed is necessary.

Mycobacterium avium complex peritonitis in an AIDS patient.

Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) frequently disseminates in AIDS patients, where the gastrointestinal tract is a major target organ. While ascites in AIDS patients is common, peritonitis secondary to MAC is rare. We describe the first case of MAC peritonitis in an AIDS patient without underlying cirrhosis, portal hypertension, chylous ascites or peritoneal dialysis.

State-of-the-art ultrasonography is as accurate as helical computed tomography and computed tomographic angiography for detecting unresectable periampullary cancer.

Objective: To compare the ability of state-of-the-art ultrasonography with that of helical computed tomography and computed tomographic angiography in detecting unresectable periampullary cancer. In most patients periampullary cancer is unresectable because of either distant metastasis or local vascular involvement. The advent of gray scale and color Doppler ultrasonography has improved the ability of ultrasonography to detect vascular involvement.

A point mutation within exon 5 of the WT1 gene of a sporadic unilateral Wilms' tumor alters gene function.

The Wilms' tumor suppressor gene, wt1, encodes a zinc-finger transcription factor, WT1, that represses transcription of a number of growth-promoting genes and inhibits cell growth. The transcripts of wt1 undergo two alternative splicing events, giving rise to four isoforms of mRNA in constant ratios. The first alternative splice introduces an extra exon 5, which encodes 17 amino acid residues inserted between the transcription regulatory domain and the DNA binding domain of WT1.

Interaction of hypoxia and aging in the heart: analysis of high energy phosphate content.

To test the hypotheses that aged myocardium has lower ATP concentration and that a greater ATP hydrolysis during hypoxia exaggerates diastolic dysfunction in aged myocardium, we used 31P NMR spectroscopy to measure ATP and phosphocreatine (PCr) contents combined with heart function at baseline and during hypoxia and reoxygenation in perfused hearts isolated from young adult (3-4 months old) and old (24-25 months old) Fisher 344 rats. At baseline, old hearts had 30% lower heart rate and prevalent supraventricular arrhythmia; they had lower PCr and creatine contents (approximately 30%) but normal ATP content. Hypoxia caused similar decreases in heart rate and rate pressure product in young and old hearts.