[S3 Guideline: Treating Chronic Respiratory Failure with Non-invasive Ventilation].

The S3 guideline on non-invasive ventilation as a treatment for chronic respiratory failure was published on the website of the Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF) in July 2024. It offers comprehensive recommendations for the treatment of chronic respiratory failure in various underlying conditions, such as COPD, thoraco-restrictive diseases, obesity-hypoventilation syndrome, and neuromuscular diseases. An important innovation is the separation of the previous S2k guideline dating back to 2017, which included both invasive and non-invasive ventilation therapy.

Best practice considerations on the assessment of robotic assisted surgical systems: results from an international consensus expert panel.

Background: Health technology assessments (HTAs) of robotic assisted surgery (RAS) face several challenges in assessing the value of robotic surgical platforms. As a result of using different assessment methods, previous HTAs have reached different conclusions when evaluating RAS. While the number of available systems and surgical procedures is rapidly growing, existing frameworks for assessing MedTech provide a starting point, but specific considerations are needed for HTAs of RAS to ensure consistent results.

The relationship between healthcare service provision models and patient experience.

Purpose: User experience is key for measuring and improving the quality of services, especially in high personal and relation-intensive sectors, such as healthcare. However, evidence on whether and how the organizational model of healthcare service delivery can affect the patient experience is at an early stage. This study investigates the relationship between healthcare service provision models and patient experience by focusing on the nursing care delivery.

A Layer Jamming Actuator for Tunable Stiffness and Shape-Changing Devices.

Changing the shape and the stiffness of a device in a dynamic and controlled way enables important advancements in the field of robotics and wearable robotics. Variable stiffness materials and technologies can be used to address this challenge. In particular, layer jamming actuation is a very promising technology, featured by high efficiency and low cost.

Epilepsy and Alzheimer's Disease: Potential mechanisms for an association.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and epilepsy are common neurological diseases. The prevalence of epilepsy in AD patients is higher than in healthy subjects, but identifying the reasons for this association, the characteristics of seizures in AD, and the implications for prognosis and treatment is challenging. The present review provides first of all an overview of the main clinical aspects of AD and epilepsy, of their reciprocal relationship, and of the challenges that identifying seizures in AD patients presents.

Exogenous 3-Iodothyronamine Rescues the Entorhinal Cortex from β-Amyloid Toxicity.

A novel form of thyroid hormone (TH) signaling is represented by 3-iodothyronamine (TAM), an endogenous TH derivative that interacts with specific molecular targets, including trace amine-associated receptor 1 (TAAR), and induces pro-learning and anti-amnestic effects in mice. Dysregulation of TH signaling has long been hypothesized to play a role in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the present investigation, we explored the neuroprotective role of TAM in beta amyloid (Aβ)-induced synaptic and behavioral impairment, focusing on the entorhinal cortex (EC), an area that is affected early by AD pathology.

The role of Locus Coeruleus in neuroinflammation occurring in Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) represents the main degenerative dementia. Its neuropathological hallmarks are β-amyloid plaques (APs) and neurofibrillary tangles (NFT), which lead to neuronal loss and brain atrophy. Recent data show that, early in the course of AD, hyperphosphorylated Tau proteins accumulate in Locus Coeruleus (LC) neuronal bodies.

Maternal Obesity and Cardiac Development in the Offspring: Study in Human Neonates and Minipigs.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the consequences of maternal overweight on cardiac development in offspring in infants (short term) and minipigs (short and longer term).

Background: The epidemic of overweight involves pregnant women. The uterine environment affects organ development, modulating disease susceptibility.

Cyclic alternating pattern and interictal epileptiform discharges during morning sleep after sleep deprivation in temporal lobe epilepsy.

Purpose: Sleep deprivation (SD) increases the occurrence of interictal epileptiform discharges (IED) compared to basal EEG in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). In adults, EEG after SD is usually performed in the morning after SD. We aimed to evaluate whether morning sleep after SD bears additional IED-inducing effects compared with nocturnal physiological sleep, and whether changes in sleep stability (described by the cyclic alternating pattern-CAP) play a significant role.

Social cognition in Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy.

Objective: Juvenile Myoclonic Epilepsy (JME) is a common genetic generalized epilepsy syndrome. Several studies have detailed cognitive and imaging abnormalities pointing to frontal lobe dysfunction, as well as disadvantageous behavioral traits and poor social outcome, challenging the commonly held view of JME being a benign disorder. Social cognition is the ability to elaborate mental representations of social interactions and to use them correctly in social contexts, and includes Theory of Mind (ToM), which pertains to the attribution of cognitive and affective mental states to self and others and seems to rely on complex fronto-temporal interactions.

On the design of ergonomic wearable robotic devices for motion assistance and rehabilitation.

The appropriate ergonomic design of a wearable robotic device is critical for the effectiveness of the device itself. In this paper we identified two key requirements for a structural ergonomics: the correct kinematic compatibility with the human limb and a comfortable and adaptable physical human-robot interface. We then show how the aforementioned requirements have been faced and implemented in the mechanical design of two wearable devices for elbow and hand rehabilitation, both developed at The BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant' Anna.

Biochemical dysfunction in heart mitochondria exposed to ischaemia and reperfusion.

Heart tissue is remarkably sensitive to oxygen deprivation. Although heart cells, like those of most tissues, rapidly adapt to anoxic conditions, relatively short periods of ischaemia and subsequent reperfusion lead to extensive tissue death during cardiac infarction. Heart tissue is not readily regenerated, and permanent heart damage is the result.

Guanidine-induced dissociation of mitochondrial F1-ATPase.

The effect of guanidine hydrochloride on ATPase activity, gel filtration, turbidity, and the fluorescence emission intensity of mitochondrial F1-ATPase was examined. Purified F1 from bovine heart mitochondria was slowly inactivated at low denaturant concentration, and inactivation was associated with delta and epsilon subunit dissociation. delta and epsilon subunits were bound together to form a stable and soluble heterodimer.

Increased state 4 mitochondrial respiration and swelling in early post-ischemic reperfusion of rat heart.

Isolated rat hearts were exposed to 30 min ischemia or to 30 min ischemia followed by 2, 5 or 40 min reperfusion and mitochondria were isolated at these different time points. ADP-stimulated, succinate-dependent respiration rate (state 3) was not significantly changed at the different time points examined. In contrast, state 4 (non-ADP-stimulated) respiration rate was significantly increased after 30 min ischemia, and it increased further during the first post-ischemic reperfusion period.

Dose-dependent inhibition of mitochondrial ATP synthase by 17 beta-estradiol.

Mitochondria produce energy through oxidative phosphorylation. A key enzyme in this pathway is F0F1-ATP synthase, catalyzing ATP production from ADP and inorganic phosphate. Recently a subunit of F0F1-ATP synthase, oligomycin sensitivity-conferring protein, was identified as a new estradiol-binding protein.

Cytochrome c oxidase and mitochondrial F1F0-ATPase (ATP synthase) activities in platelets and brain from patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Evidence suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction is prominent in Alzheimer's disease (AD). A failure of one or more of the mitochondrial electron transport chain enzymes or of F(1)F(0)-ATPase (ATP synthase) could compromise brain energy stores, generate damaging reactive oxygen species (ROS), and lead to neuronal death. In the present study, cytochrome c oxidase (COX) and F(1)F(0)-ATPase activities of isolated mitochondria from platelets and postmortem motor cortex and hippocampus from AD patients and age-matched control subjects were assayed.

Combined cadmium and ozone treatments affect photosynthesis and ascorbate-dependent defences in sunflower.

•  The combined effects of the two pollutants, cadmium and ozone, on sunflower (Helianthus annuus) metabolism are analysed here. •  Photosysnthetic processes and ascorbate metabolism were studied in sunflower plants grown for 15 d in the presence of cadmium and exposed to acute O treatments. •  CO assimilation rate was reduced in plants subjected to Cd(II) and/or O treatments, but no alterations in stomatal conductance and F  : F ratio were observed.

Myocardial ischemic preconditioning and mitochondrial F1F0-ATPase activity.

A short period of ischemia followed by reperfusion (ischemic preconditioning) is known to trigger mechanisms that contribute to the prevention of ATP depletion. In ischemic conditions, most of the ATP hydrolysis can be attributed to mitochondrial F1F0-ATPase (ATP synthase). The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of myocardial ischemic preconditioning on the kinetics of ATP hydrolysis by F1F0-ATPase.

Endothelial dysfunctions: common denominators in vascular disease.

The past 20 years have witnessed enormous progress in our understanding of the biology of vascular endothelium and its role in cardiovascular disease. Stemming from the seminal observations of Furchgott, the concept of a continuous regulation of vascular tone by normal endothelium and alterations of such control in disease states has become one of the most enlightening concepts of cardiovascular research. This review covers a few updates on the topic, illustrating selective areas of recent progress in our understanding of endothelial function in the control of leucocyte adhesion, atherogenesis and vascular tone, as well as the alterations that cause and accompany vascular disease.

Endothelial dysfunctions: common denominators in vascular disease.

The past 20 years have witnessed enormous progress in our understanding of the biology of vascular endothelium and its role in cardiovascular disease. Stemming from the seminal observations of Furchgott, the concept of a continuous regulation of vascular tone by normal endothelium and alterations of such control in disease states has become one of the most enlightening concepts of cardiovascular research. This review covers a few updates on the topic, illustrating selective areas of recent progress in our understanding of endothelial function in the control of leucocyte adhesion, atherogenesis and vascular tone, as well as the alterations that cause and accompany vascular disease.

Purification, structural characterization, cloning and immunocytochemical localization of chemoreception proteins from Schistocerca gregaria.

Soluble low-molecular-mass protein isoforms were purified from chemosensory organs (antennae, tarsi and labrum) of the desert locust Schistocerca gregaria. Five genes encoding proteins of this group were amplified by PCR from cDNAs of tarsi and sequenced. Their expression products are polypeptide chains of 109 amino acids showing 40-50% sequence identity with putative olfactory proteins from Drosophila melanogaster and Cactoblastis cactorum.

Expression of a dehydrin gene during embryo development and drought stress in ABA-deficient mutants of sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.).

The synthesis of a particular class of proteins, the dehydrins, is a common response to drought in plants. Dehydrins are known to be synthesized by the cell in response to abscisic acid, which represents a link between environment and nuclear activity, though dehydrin genes may be expressed even constitutively. We have investigated the relationship between abscisic acid (ABA) and accumulation of a dehydrin mRNA in sunflower, in which a dehydrin cDNA (HaDhnla) was isolated.