New Tracers and New Perspectives for Molecular Imaging in Lewy Body Diseases.

The term Lewy body diseases (LBDs) refers to a subset of neurodegenerative disorders that share the accumulation of the so-called Lewy bodies (LB) including: Parkinson's disease (PD), dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), and PD later characterized by the occurrence of dementia (PDD). Moreover, multiple system atrophy (MSA) and idiopatic Rem Sleeping behaviour disorders (RBD) complete the group of synucleinopathies and have also common symptoms with respect to LBDs. The clinical diagnosis of LBDs can be challenging for physicians, particularly in the early stages of disease.

Video-assisted thoracic surgery mediastinal germ cell metastasis resection.

Thoracoscopy can be safely used for dissection of masses in the visceral mediastinum. We report the case of a 31-year-old man affected by metastatic germ cell tumour and successfully treated with a 3-port posterior approach video-assisted thoracic surgery.

Childhood trauma and mixed episodes are associated with poor response to lithium in bipolar disorders.

Objectives: Reliable predictors of response to lithium are still lacking in bipolar disorders (BDs). However, childhood trauma has been hypothesized to be associated with poor response to lithium.

Methods: We included 148 patients with BD, euthymic when retrospectively and clinically assessed for response to lithium and childhood trauma using reliable scales.

Redox-guided axonal regrowth requires cyclic GMP dependent protein kinase 1: Implication for neuropathic pain.

Cyclic GMP-dependent protein kinase 1 (PKG1) mediates presynaptic nociceptive long-term potentiation (LTP) in the spinal cord and contributes to inflammatory pain in rodents but the present study revealed opposite effects in the context of neuropathic pain. We used a set of loss-of-function models for in vivo and in vitro studies to address this controversy: peripheral neuron specific deletion (SNS-PKG1), inducible deletion in subsets of neurons (SLICK-PKG1) and redox-dead PKG1 mutants. In contrast to inflammatory pain, SNS-PKG1 mice developed stronger neuropathic hyperalgesia associated with an impairment of nerve regeneration, suggesting specific repair functions of PKG1.

Clinical and neuropsychological features of violence in schizophrenia: A prospective cohort study.

The increased risk of violence in schizophrenia has been linked to several environmental, clinical and neuropsychological factors, including executive dysfunction. However, data about the nature of these effects are mixed and controversial. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between clinical and neuropsychological factors with violence risk in patients with schizophrenia, taking into account current psychopathology and lifetime alcohol use.

EEG Markers of Dementia with Lewy Bodies: A Multicenter Cohort Study.

Quantitative EEG (QEEG) has demonstrated good discriminative capacity for dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) diagnosis as compared to Alzheimer's disease (AD) with a predictive value of 100% in a single cohort study. EEG in DLB was characterized by a dominant frequency (DF) in pre-alpha (5.5-7.

miR-195 inhibits tumor growth and angiogenesis through modulating IRS1 in breast cancer.

Angiogenesis has been found as an attractive target for drug therapy as it is necessary for tumor growth. Accumulating evidences show that microRNAs (miRNAs), which are a group of highly conserved, single-stranded, short non-coding RNAs, play important roles through directly targeting angiogenic factors and protein kinases. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of miR-195 in breast cancer development and angiogenesis through targeting IRS1.

Anatomically accurate high resolution modeling of human whole heart electromechanics: A strongly scalable algebraic multigrid solver method for nonlinear deformation.

Electromechanical (EM) models of the heart have been used successfully to study fundamental mechanisms underlying a heart beat in health and disease. However, in all modeling studies reported so far numerous simplifications were made in terms of representing biophysical details of cellular function and its heterogeneity, gross anatomy and tissue microstructure, as well as the bidirectional coupling between electrophysiology (EP) and tissue distension. One limiting factor is the employed spatial discretization methods which are not sufficiently flexible to accommodate complex geometries or resolve heterogeneities, but, even more importantly, the limited efficiency of the prevailing solver techniques which are not sufficiently scalable to deal with the incurring increase in degrees of freedom (DOF) when modeling cardiac electromechanics at high spatio-temporal resolution.

Lumbar Endoscopic Microdiscectomy: Where Are We Now? An Updated Literature Review Focused on Clinical Outcome, Complications, and Rate of Recurrence.

Endoscopic disc surgery (EDS) for lumbar spine disc herniation is a well-known but developing field, which is increasingly spreading in the last few years. Rate of recurrence/residual, complications, and outcomes, in comparison with standard microdiscectomy (MD), is still debated and need further data. We performed an extensive review based on the last 6 years of surgical series, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses reported in international, English-written literature.

MicroRNAs in spent blastocyst culture medium are derived from trophectoderm cells and can be explored for human embryo reproductive competence assessment.

Objective: To assess whether extracellular microRNAs (miRNAs) can be accurately profiled from spent blastocyst culture media (SBM) and used as embryonic biomarkers.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Private and academic in vitro fertilization centers.

Neurobiological Models of Self-Disorders in Early Schizophrenia.

Self-disorders (SDs) (from the German Ichstörungen) are alterations of the first-person perspective, long associated with schizophrenia, particularly in early phases. Although psychopathological features of SDs continue to be studied, their neurobiological underpinnings are unknown. This makes it difficult to integrate SDs into contemporary models of psychosis.

Hierarchical boosting: a machine-learning framework to detect and classify hard selective sweeps in human populations.

Motivation: Detecting positive selection in genomic regions is a recurrent topic in natural population genetic studies. However, there is little consistency among the regions detected in several genome-wide scans using different tests and/or populations. Furthermore, few methods address the challenge of classifying selective events according to specific features such as age, intensity or state (completeness).

Effects of Valerianae Radix et Rhizoma extract on psychological stress in mice.

Background: The aim of this study was to identify the effects of Valerianae Radix et Rhizoma water extract (VRe) originated from Valeriana fauriei Briquet on reducing psychological stress (PS) on mice.

Objective: Mice were put under PS with communication box method: Restraining mice and forcing to see other mice underfoot shock stress.

Materials And Methods: Measurements on plasma corticosterone, noradrenaline and lipid peroxidation, and elevated plus-maze (EPM) tests were carried out to determine the effect of VRe administration on physiological and behavioral responses of mice.

Neurobiological and behavioural studies of affective instability in clinical populations: a systematic review.

Objectives: To evaluate the neurobiological, psychophysical and behavioural measures of affective instability in clinical populations.

Data Sources: A range of medical and psychological science electronic databases were searched (including MEDLINE, EMBASE, and PsycINFO). Hand searching and reference checking are also included.

Agitation in cognitive disorders: International Psychogeriatric Association provisional consensus clinical and research definition.

Background: Agitation is common across neuropsychiatric disorders and contributes to disability, institutionalization, and diminished quality of life for patients and their caregivers. There is no consensus definition of agitation and no widespread agreement on what elements should be included in the syndrome. The International Psychogeriatric Association formed an Agitation Definition Work Group (ADWG) to develop a provisional consensus definition of agitation in patients with cognitive disorders that can be applied in epidemiologic, non-interventional clinical, pharmacologic, non-pharmacologic interventional, and neurobiological studies.

Images as drivers of progress in cardiac computational modelling.

Computational models have become a fundamental tool in cardiac research. Models are evolving to cover multiple scales and physical mechanisms. They are moving towards mechanistic descriptions of personalised structure and function, including effects of natural variability.

A systematic review of family caregiving in eating disorders.

The objective of the study was to review systematically the available new evidence on family caregiving in eating disorders (ED), updating the study of Zabala, Macdonald, and Treasure (2009). Electronic databases were searched from October 2008 until May 2013. Selected studies included carers of people with ED and employed one or more measures of caregiving experience, accommodation and enabling behaviours, expressed emotion, and/or psychological distress.

IL15RA drives antagonistic mechanisms of cancer development and immune control in lymphocyte-enriched triple-negative breast cancers.

Despite its aggressive nature, triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) often exhibits leucocyte infiltrations that correlate with favorable prognosis. In this study, we offer an explanation for this apparent conundrum by defining TNBC cell subsets that overexpress the IL15 immune receptor IL15RA. This receptor usually forms a heterotrimer with the IL2 receptors IL2RB and IL2RG, which regulates the proliferation and differentiation of cytotoxic T cells and NK cells.

Presynaptic dopaminergic function: implications for understanding treatment response in psychosis.

All current antipsychotic drugs block dopamine (DA) receptors, but the nature of the DA dysfunction in schizophrenia has not been clear. However, consistent evidence now shows that presynaptic dopaminergic function is altered in schizophrenia, specifically in terms of increased DA synthesis capacity, baseline synaptic DA levels, and DA release. Furthermore, presynaptic dopaminergic function is already elevated in prodromal patients who later developed the disorder.

Microvesicle cargo of tumor-associated MUC1 to dendritic cells allows cross-presentation and specific carbohydrate processing.

Tumor-associated glycoproteins are a group of antigens with high immunogenic interest: The glycoforms generated by the aberrant glycosylation are tumor-specific and the novel glycoepitopes exposed can be targets of tumor-specific immune responses. The MUC1 antigen is one of the most relevant tumor-associated glycoproteins. In cancer, MUC1 loses polarity and becomes overexpressed and hypoglycosylated.

Proteomics and metabolomics for mechanistic insights and biomarker discovery in cardiovascular disease.

In the last decade, proteomics and metabolomics have contributed substantially to our understanding of cardiovascular diseases. The unbiased assessment of pathophysiological processes without a priori assumptions complements other molecular biology techniques that are currently used in a reductionist approach. In this review, we highlight some of the "omics" methods used to assess protein and metabolite changes in cardiovascular disease.

Spatial working memory ability in individuals at ultra high risk for psychosis.

The goal of this investigation was to clarify the nature of spatial working memory difficulties in individuals at ultra high risk (UHR) for psychosis. We evaluated spatial working memory and intelligence in 96 individuals at UHR for psychosis, 28 patients with first episode psychosis (FEP), and 23 healthy controls. Fourteen UHR individuals developed a psychotic disorder during follow-up.