Therapeutic advances in neuroinfectious diseases.

There have been several major advances in therapeutic options for the treatment of neurological infections over the past two decades. These advances encompass both the development of new antimicrobial therapies and the repurposing of existing agents for new indications. In addition, advances in our understanding of the host immune response have allowed for the development of new immunomodulatory strategies in the treatment of neurological infections.

Lower Perceived Social Support During Hospitalization by Close Family Members may have Significant Associations with Psychological Distress 1 Month After Cardiac Arrest.

Background: The perception of having poor social support is associated with worse symptoms of psychological distress in close family members of critically ill patients, yet this has never been tested after cardiac arrest.

Methods: Close family members of consecutive patients with cardiac arrest hospitalized at an academic tertiary care center participated in a prospective study. The validated Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS) cued to index hospitalization was administered before discharge.

Feasibility of a remote heart rate variability biofeedback intervention for reducing anxiety in cardiac arrest survivors: A pilot trial.

Background: Heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) is a promising non-pharmacologic approach for reducing anxiety. This intervention's feasibility needs testing in psychologically distressed cardiac patients for whom heart-related anxiety is a core concern. To enhance scalability and convenience, remote delivery of HRVB also needs to be assessed.

Lung nodule malignancy classification with associated pulmonary fibrosis using 3D attention-gated convolutional network with CT scans.

Background: Chest Computed tomography (CT) scans detect lung nodules and assess pulmonary fibrosis. While pulmonary fibrosis indicates increased lung cancer risk, current clinical practice characterizes nodule risk of malignancy based on nodule size and smoking history; little consideration is given to the fibrotic microenvironment.

Purpose: To evaluate the effect of incorporating fibrotic microenvironment into classifying malignancy of lung nodules in chest CT images using deep learning techniques.

Association between cardiac event-induced PTSD symptoms and daily intrusive thoughts about cardiac risk: An ecological momentary assessment study.

Objective: Posttraumatic stress symptoms (PSS) due to acute cardiac events are common and may lead patients to avoid secondary prevention behaviors. However, patients' daily experience of cardiac event-induced PSS has not been studied after a potentially traumatic cardiac hospitalization.

Method: In an observational cohort study, 108 mostly male patients with coronary heart disease were recruited after evaluation for suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS).

Application of VirCapSeq-VERT and BacCapSeq in the diagnosis of presumed and definitive neuroinfectious diseases.

Unbiased high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has enabled new insights into the diversity of agents implicated in central nervous system (CNS) infections. The addition of positive selection capture methods to HTS has enhanced the sensitivity while reducing sequencing costs and the complexity of bioinformatic analysis. Here we report the use of virus capture-based sequencing for vertebrate viruses (VirCapSeq-VERT) and bacterial capture sequencing (BacCapSeq) in investigating CNS infections.

KRAS activation in gastric cancer stem-like cells promotes tumor angiogenesis and metastasis.

Our previous work showed that KRAS activation in gastric cancer cells leads to activation of an epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) program and generation of cancer stem-like cells (CSCs). Here we analyze how this KRAS activation in gastric CSCs promotes tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Gastric cancer CSCs were found to secrete pro-angiogenic factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), and inhibition of KRAS markedly reduced secretion of these factors.

Vestibular Nucleus Involvement in Patients With Acute Vertigo Due to Herpes Zoster Oticus or Vestibular Neuritis.

Objectives: Herpes zoster oticus (HZO) typically provokes vestibular symptoms and is traditionally viewed as a cranial nerve equivalent of shingles, but in contrast to vestibular neuritis (VN), it is unclear whether the pathology of HZO is limited to the vestibular nerve (neuritis) or can also involve the brainstem (nucleitis).

Methods: We retrospectively compared brain MRIs of patients with HZO with those of patients with VN to study radiologic changes in the brainstem.

Results: Five of 10 patients with HZO showed signal abnormalities in the vestibular nuclei, which lie in multiple vascular territories, whereas no patients with VN exhibited such findings.

Publication outcomes of abstracts presented at the Argentine Congress of Rheumatology.

Objective: To analyse the outcome of scientific abstracts submitted to the Argentine Congress of Rheumatology (ACOR) in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015.

Methods: Every abstract submitted to the ACOR was analysed. The number of these manuscripts published was determined through Google Scholar and PubMed searches.

Universal Repositioning Maneuver: A New Treatment for Single Canal and Multi-Canal Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo by 3-Dimensional Model Analysis.

Background: Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is the most common peripheral vestibular disorder and is currently treated by many types of repositioning maneuvers. A simplification of this procedure would be desirable. A new, anatomically realistic, 3-dimensional computational simulator of the human labyrinth provides a novel insight to evaluate the viability of any new maneuver.

Patient-Derived Organoids from Locally Advanced Gastric Adenocarcinomas Can Predict Resistance to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy.

Background: Patients (pts) with locally advanced gastric adenocarcinoma (LAGA) often receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy. A minority of patients do not respond to chemotherapy and thus may benefit from upfront surgery. Patient-derived organoids (PDOs) are an in vitro model that may mimic the chemotherapy response of the original tumors.

Social concepts and the cerebellum: behavioural and functional connectivity signatures in cerebellar ataxic patients.

Neurocognitive research on social concepts underscores their reliance on fronto-temporo-limbic regions mediating broad socio-cognitive skills. Yet, the field has neglected another structure increasingly implicated in social cognition: the cerebellum. The present exploratory study examines this link combining a novel naturalistic text paradigm, a relevant atrophy model and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Associations Among Loneliness, Purpose in Life and Subjective Cognitive Decline in Ethnoracially Diverse Older Adults Living in the United States.

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD), which precedes Mild Cognitive Impairment and dementia, may be affected by purpose in life (PiL) and loneliness in older adults. We investigated associations among PiL, loneliness, and SCD in US Latino ( = 126), Black ( = 74), Asian ( = 33), and White ( = 637) adults. Higher PiL predicted lower SCD in all groups (p-values < .

Psychological Distress After Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Its Impact on Recovery.

Purpose Of Review: To summarize the prevalence, correlates, and health consequences of poor mental health in the increasingly sizable population of survivors of Sudden cardiac arrest (CA) and to describe current intervention research in this area.

Recent Findings: After CA many patients report high psychological distress, including depression, generalized anxiety, and posttraumatic stress. Emerging evidence suggests that distressed patients' attention may narrow such that anxious awareness of afferent cardiac signals e.

Acute neurologic emerging flaviviruses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on the challenges we face as a global society in preventing and containing emerging and re-emerging pathogens. Multiple intersecting factors, including environmental changes, host immunological factors, and pathogen dynamics, are intimately connected to the emergence and re-emergence of communicable diseases. There is a large and expanding list of communicable diseases that can cause neurological damage, either through direct or indirect routes.

Fish and the Thyroid: A Janus Bifrons Relationship Caused by Pollutants and the Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids.

Benefits of the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) on a number of clinical disorders, including autoimmune diseases, are widely reported in the literature. One major dietary source of PUFA are fish, particularly the small oily fish, like anchovy, sardine, mackerel and others. Unfortunately, fish (particularly the large, top-predator fish like swordfish) are also a source of pollutants, including the heavy metals.

Development of Histologically Verified Thyroid Diseases in Women Operated for Breast Cancer: A Review of the Literature and a Case Series.

Background: The possible relationships between breast and thyroid diseases have been reported in the literature. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the occurrence of histologically verified thyroid pathologies in women who were diagnosed with breast cancer and, after mastectomy/quadrantectomy complemented by oncological treatment, were thyroidectomized based on their periodic thyroid evaluation.

Patients And Methods: Our series consist of 31 women with a mean age of 62.

Comparison of the prognostic value of AJCC cancer staging system 7th and 8th editions for differentiated thyroid cancer.

Background: In the last American Joint Committee on Cancer/Tumor, Node, Metastasis (AJCC/TNM) 8th edition (TNM8), several changes were introduced to this risk stratification system to improve the prognosis of differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC).

Aim: To validate the impact of TNM8 vs. TNM 7th edition (TNM7) in DTC in terms of predictive value in two hospitals from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Mutation in SF3B1 gene promotes formation of polyploid giant cells in Leukemia cells.

Giant cells with polyploidy, termed polyploid giant cells, have been observed during normal growth, development, and pathologic states, such as solid cancer progression and resistance to therapy. Functional studies of polyploidal giant cancer cells (PGCC) provided evidence that they arise when normal diploid cells are stressed, show stem cell-like properties, and give rise to tumors. In the present study, we report in K562 leukemia cell line that introduction of the hotspot K700E mutation in the gene SF3B1 using CRISPR/Cas9 method results in an increased frequency of multinucleated polyploid giant cells resistant to chemotherapeutic agent and serum starvation stress.