Excimer formation in zinc-phthalocyanine revealed using ultrafast electron diffraction.

The formation of excited dimer states, so called excimers, is an important phenomenon in many organic molecular semiconductor solid state aggregates. In contrast to Frenkel exciton-polarons, an excimer is long-lived and energetically low-lying due to stabilization resulting from a substantial reorganization of the intermolecular geometry. Here, we show that ultrafast electron diffraction can follow the dynamics of solid-state excimer formation in polycrystalline thin films of a molecular semiconductor, revealing both the key reaction modes and the eventual structure of the emitting state.

α-Synuclein Oligomers in Skin Biopsies Predict the Worsening of Cognitive Functions in Parkinson's Disease: A Single-Center Longitudinal Cohort Study.

α-synuclein oligomers within synaptic terminals of autonomic fibers of the skin reliably discriminate Parkinson's disease (PD) patients from healthy controls. Nonetheless, the prognostic role of oligomers for disease progression is unknown. We explored whether α-synuclein oligomers evaluated as proximity ligation assay (PLA) score may predict the worsening of cognitive functions in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Effects of freezing of gait on vertical ground reaction force in Parkinson's disease.

Vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) is a main kinetic gait analysis explaining body weight loading patterns. The study primarily aimed to understand effects of Freezing of gait (FoG) on vGRF in Parkinson's disease (PD). A secondary analysis for a walking dataset including biomechanical analyses for 26 PD participants (13 with FoG) was performed.

Adaptive vs. Conventional Deep Brain Stimulation: One-Year Subthalamic Recordings and Clinical Monitoring in a Patient with Parkinson's Disease.

Conventional DBS (cDBS) for Parkinson's disease uses constant, predefined stimulation parameters, while the currently available adaptive DBS (aDBS) provides the possibility of adjusting current amplitude with respect to subthalamic activity in the beta band (13-30 Hz). This preliminary study on one patient aims to describe how these two stimulation modes affect basal ganglia dynamics and, thus, behavior in the long term. We collected clinical data (UPDRS-III and -IV) and subthalamic recordings of one patient with Parkinson's disease treated for one year with aDBS, alternated with short intervals of cDBS.

Relevance of Prosodic Focus and Lexical Stress for Discourse Comprehension in Turkish: Evidence from Psychometric and Electrophysiological Data.

Prosody underpins various linguistic domains ranging from semantics and syntax to discourse. For instance, prosodic information in the form of lexical stress modifies meanings and, as such, syntactic contexts of words as in Turkish kaz-má "pickaxe" (noun) versus káz-ma "do not dig" (imperative). Likewise, prosody indicates the focused constituent of an utterance as the noun phrase filling the wh-spot in a dialogue like What did you eat? I ate----.

An estimate of burnout prevalence among oncology nurses.

Background: Registered nurses (RNs) in oncology must cope with the suffering of patients, the inevitability of death and their own transience. This poses a possible risk for the development of burnout, which can result in low job satisfaction and ultimately an increased intention to leave the job. Our aim was to assess psychological distress in registered nurses working in oncology.

Sarcopenia, low muscle strength, cognitive functions, and quality of life in parkinsonian syndromes.

Objectives: Parkinsonian syndromes are disabling neurodegenerative diseases resulting in reduced muscle function/performance and sarcopenia, but clinical manifestations could be systemic, including deterioration of cognitive function. As studies have reported an association between muscle dysfunction and cognitive decline yet no information on these syndromes is available, we investigated the relationship between sarcopenia, its components, and cognitive function, fatigue, and quality of life (QoL).

Methods: Consecutive patients affected by parkinsonian syndromes were assessed for the presence of sarcopenia using the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People-2 algorithm: low strength (handgrip strength: <27 kg [men]; <16 kg [women]) and low appendicular skeletal muscle index by impedance (<7.

Validating polyp and instrument segmentation methods in colonoscopy through Medico 2020 and MedAI 2021 Challenges.

Automatic analysis of colonoscopy images has been an active field of research motivated by the importance of early detection of precancerous polyps. However, detecting polyps during the live examination can be challenging due to various factors such as variation of skills and experience among the endoscopists, lack of attentiveness, and fatigue leading to a high polyp miss-rate. Therefore, there is a need for an automated system that can flag missed polyps during the examination and improve patient care.

Comparing GBA1-Parkinson's disease and idiopathic Parkinson's disease: α-Synuclein oligomers and synaptic density as biomarkers in the skin biopsy.

The main genetic risk factors for Parkinson's disease (PD) are presently represented by variants in GBA1 gene encoding for the β-glucocerebrosidase (GCase). Searching for a peripheral biomarker that can be used for selecting and monitoring patients in clinical trials targeting GBA1-associated PD (GBA1-PD) is a current challenge. We previously demonstrated that α-synuclein oligomers expressed as proximity ligation assay (PLA) score in synaptic terminals of skin biopsy are a reliable biomarker for distinguishing idiopathic PD (iPD) from healthy controls (HC).

Short Mindfulness Meditations During Breaks and After Work in Everyday Nursing Care: A Simple Strategy for Promoting Daily Recovery, Mood, and Attention?

Background: Nurses experience high job demands, which makes recovery particularly necessary to maintain well-being and performance. However, these demands also make recovery challenging. Short mindfulness meditations could potentially help alleviate this paradox.

Cortical networks of parkinsonian gait: a metabolic and functional connectivity study.

Objective: Locomotion is an automated voluntary movement sustained by coordinated neural synchronization across a distributed brain network. The cerebral cortex is central for adapting the locomotion pattern to the environment and alterations of cortical network dynamics can lead to gait impairments. Gait problems are a common symptom with a still unclear pathophysiology and represent an unmet therapeutical need in Parkinson's disease.

Photo-BQCA: Positive Allosteric Modulators Enabling Optical Control of the M Receptor.

The field of G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) research has greatly benefited from the spatiotemporal resolution provided by light controllable, i.e., photoswitchable ligands.

Application to combine questioning, stimulus presentation and external measurements in a real-life music eye tracking experiment.

Studying people in real-life situations, such as making music in a vocal group, requires flexible and integrative measurement technology. Therefore, a digital browser-based survey instrument was developed for this study. It was designed to seamlessly introduce questions on participants' mobile devices through external control immediately after relevant events, aiming to achieve high accuracy in self-administered situational questions.

Systematic rare variant analyses identify RAB32 as a susceptibility gene for familial Parkinson's disease.

Despite substantial progress, causal variants are identified only for a minority of familial Parkinson's disease (PD) cases, leaving high-risk pathogenic variants unidentified. To identify such variants, we uniformly processed exome sequencing data of 2,184 index familial PD cases and 69,775 controls. Exome-wide analyses converged on RAB32 as a novel PD gene identifying c.

Therapeutic strategies for uncomplicated cystitis in women.

Uncomplicated cystitis is affecting many women of all ages and has a great impact on the quality of life, especially in women suffering from recurrent, uncomplicated cystitis. By far the most frequent uropathogen, , may have acquired increasing resistance against a variety of oral antibiotics, which may differ between countries and regions. Therefore, local resistance data are important to be considered.

Interaction of carrier and disease isolates of MenB cc32 and MenW cc22 with epithelial cells of the nasopharyngeal barrier.

(Nm, the meningococcus) is considered an asymptomatic colonizer of the upper respiratory tract and a transient member of its microbiome. It is assumed that the spread of into the bloodstream occurs via transcytosis of the nasopharyngeal epithelial barrier without destroying the barrier layer. Here, we used Calu-3 respiratory epithelial cells that were grown under air-liquid-interface conditions to induce formation of pseudostratified layers and mucus production.

State anticipation and task serialization attenuate embodied decision biases when deciding while moving.

We examined whether and how embodied decision biases-related to motor costs (MC) as well as cognitive crosstalk (CC) due to the body state-are influenced by extended deliberation time. Participants performed a tracking task while concurrently making reward-based decisions, with rewards being presented with varying preview time. In Experiment 1 ( = 58), we observed a reduced CC bias with extended preview time.