Cardiovascular regulation: associations between exercise and head-up tilt.

It was hypothesized that faster cardiorespiratory kinetics during exercise are associated with higher orthostatic tolerance. Cardiorespiratory kinetics of 14 healthy male subjects (30 ± 4 years, 179 ± 8 cm, 79 ± 8 kg) were tested on a cycle ergometer during exercise with changing work rates of 30 and 80 W. Pulmonary oxygen uptake ( ) was measured breath-by-breath and heart rate (HR), mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were measured beat-to-beat.

Binaural advantages in using a cochlear implant for adults with profound unilateral hearing loss.

Background: Recent studies of cochlear implants (CIs) in profound unilateral hearing loss (UHL) patients have demonstrated a restoration of some binaural hearing.

Aims/objectives: The objective was to evaluate three possible advantages of binaural hearing in CIs adult users with UHL including single-side deafness (SSD) and asymmetric hearing loss (AHL) subgroups.

Material And Methods: A prospective study was conducted that included 70 sequentially implanted patients.

Continuous, label-free, 96-well-based determination of cell migration using confluence measurement.

Cellular migration is essential in diverse physiological and pathophysiological processes. Here, we present a protocol for quantitative analysis of migration using confluence detection allowing continuous, non-endpoint measurement with minimal hands-on time under cell incubator conditions. Applicability was tested using substances which enhance (EGF) or inhibit (cytochalasin D, ouabain) migration.

On the lighter side: Medicine or etiquette? Rethinking a lecturer's teaching assignment.

To investigate the extent to which medical students demonstrate politeness. With respect to patient-physician interactions, politeness appears to be a factor in therapeutic success, perhaps because it might induce greater patient compliance. We assessed 354 third-semester medical students on one type of politeness, that is the percentage of students who greeted the teacher upon entering the lecture room.

Very late-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a Portuguese cohort.

Objective: Although amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) incidence has been stable among Western countries, population-ageing effect will probably increase the proportion of very-old ALS patients. We aim to study this population.

Methods: A retrospective study was performed, including 1083 ALS patients followed longitudinally in our ALS unit from January 1995 to December 2017.

Defective autophagy degradation and abnormal tight junction-associated signaling drive epithelial dysfunction in cystinosis.

Cystinosis is a lysosomal storage disease due to inactivating mutations in CTNS, the cystinosin transporter that exports cystine out of lysosomes. The lysosomal accumulation of cystine leads to severe dysfunction of the epithelial cells lining the proximal tubule of the kidney, causing defective endocytosis and massive losses of solutes in the urine. The mechanisms linking lysosomal defect and epithelial dysfunction were unknown, preventing the development of disease-modifying therapies.

Cardiotoxicity of β-mimetic catecholamines during ontogenetic development - possible risks of antenatal therapy.

Catecholamines are involved in the regulation of a wide variety of vital functions. The β-adrenergic receptor (β-AR) - adenylyl cyclase system has been identified early in embryogenesis before the heart has received adrenergic innervation. The structure of β-receptors in the immature myocardium is similar to that in adults; there are, however, significant quantitative developmental changes in the inotropic and chronotropic responsiveness.

Effects of natural peptides from food proteins on angiotensin converting enzyme activity and hypertension.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death. The underlying pathophysiology is largely contributed by an overactivation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone-system (RAAS). Herein, angiotensin II (AngII) is a key mediator not only in blood pressure control and vascular tone regulation, but also involved in inflammation, endothelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis, hypertension and congestive heart failure.

International Survey of ALS Experts about Critical Questions for Assessing Patients with ALS.

Objective: To define an applicable dataset for ALS patient registries we weighted specific clinical items as scored by worldwide ALS experts.

Methods: Sixty participants were invited based on relevant clinical work, publications and personal acquaintance. They rated 160 clinical items consensually agreed by the members of our project, incorporating specialists from five European Centres.

Effect of acute ambient temperature exposure on cardio-pulmonary and respiratory kinetics in men.

Aim: The goal of the study was to compare the kinetic responses of heart rate (HR) and pulmonary (V̇Opulm) and muscular (V̇Omusc) oxygen uptake during dynamic leg exercise across different acute ambient temperature conditions in a climatic chamber.

Methods: Thirteen physically healthy, active, male volunteers demonstrated pseudorandom binary sequence (PRBS) work rate (WR) changes between 30 and 80 W at 15 °C, 25 °C and 35 °C, respectively. HR was measured beat-to-beat using an echocardiogram and V̇Opulm by breath-by-breath gas exchange; V̇Omusc estimations were assessed by applying a circulatory model and cross-correlation functions.

The triggering pathway to insulin secretion: Functional similarities and differences between the human and the mouse β cells and their translational relevance.

In β cells, stimulation by metabolic, hormonal, neuronal, and pharmacological factors is coupled to secretion of insulin through different intracellular signaling pathways. Our knowledge about the molecular machinery supporting these pathways and the patterns of signals it generates comes mostly from rodent models, especially the laboratory mouse. The increased availability of human islets for research during the last few decades has yielded new insights into the specifics in signaling pathways leading to insulin secretion in humans.

Early development in Rett syndrome - the benefits and difficulties of a birth cohort approach.

Purposes: Typically, early (pre-diagnostic) development in individuals later diagnosed with Rett syndrome (RTT) has been investigated retrospectively using parent reports, medical records and analysis of home videos. In recent years, prospective research designs have been increasingly applied to the investigation of early development in individuals with late phenotypical onset disorders, for example, autism spectrum disorder.

Methods: In this study, data collected by the Danish National Birth Cohort lent itself to prospective exploration of the early development of RTT, in particular early motor-, speech-language, and socio-communicative behaviors, mood, and sleep.

Beneficial effect of enriched air nitrox on bubble formation during scuba diving. An open-water study.

Bubble formation during scuba diving might induce decompression sickness. This prospective randomised and double-blind study included 108 advanced recreational divers (38 females). Fifty-four pairs of divers, 1 breathing air and the other breathing nitrox28 undertook a standardised dive (24 ± 1 msw; 62 ± 5min) in the Red Sea.

The hearing benefit of cochlear implantation for individuals with unilateral hearing loss, but no tinnitus.

Conclusion: Cochlear implants improve the hearing abilities of individuals with unilateral hearing loss and no tinnitus. The benefit is no different from that seen in patients with unilateral hearing loss and incapacitating tinnitus.

Objective: To evaluate hearing outcomes after cochlear implantation in individuals with unilateral hearing loss and no tinnitus and compare them to those obtained in a similar group who had incapacitating tinnitus.

Adaptation of Reactive Saccades is Influenced by Unconscious Priming of the Attention Focus.

The authors investigated whether the size of the attention focus can influence saccadic adaptation, and whether this influence changes in older age. Using the scrambled sentence task, young and older participants were either primed for a wide attention focus, or primed of a narrow attention focus, or were not primed for any specific attention focus. Subsequently, all participants underwent a double-step saccadic adaptation paradigm aimed at changing the direction of reflexive saccades.

In vitro gastrointestinal-resistant pectin hydrogel particles for β-glucuronidase adsorption.

Pectin hydrogel particles (PHPs) were prepared by ionotropic gelation of low methylesterified pectin of Tanacetum vulgare L. with calcium ions. Wet PHPs prepared from TVF exhibited a smaller diameter and the lower weight as well as exhibited the best textural properties in terms of hardness and elasticity compared to the PHPs prepared from commercial low methylesterified pectin (CU701) used for comparison.

Brain region-specific effects of immobilization stress on cholinesterases in mice.

Brain acetylcholinesterase (AChE) variant AChE expression increases with acute stress, and this persists for an extended period, although the timing, strain and laterality differences, have not been explored previously. Acute stress transiently increases acetylcholine release, which in turn may increase activity of cholinesterases. Also the AChE gene contains a glucocorticoid response element (GRE), and stress-inducible AChE transcription and activity changes are linked to increased glucocorticoid levels.

Faster heart rate and muscular oxygen uptake kinetics in type 2 diabetes patients following endurance training.

Cardiorespiratory kinetics were analyzed in type 2 diabetes patients before and after a 12-week endurance exercise-training intervention. It was hypothesized that muscular oxygen uptake and heart rate (HR) kinetics would be faster after the training intervention and that this would be detectable using a standardized work rate protocol with pseudo-random binary sequences. The cardiorespiratory kinetics of 13 male sedentary, middle-aged, overweight type 2 diabetes patients (age, 60 ± 8 years; body mass index, 33 ± 4 kg·m) were tested before and after the 12-week exercise intervention.

Circadian rhythms in bed rest: Monitoring core body temperature via heat-flux approach is superior to skin surface temperature.

Continuous recordings of core body temperature (CBT) are a well-established approach in describing circadian rhythms. Given the discomfort of invasive CBT measurement techniques, the use of skin temperature recordings has been proposed as a surrogate. More recently, we proposed a heat-flux approach (the so-called Double Sensor) for monitoring CBT.

Usefulness of the LDL-C/apoB ratio in the overall evaluation of atherogenicity of lipid profile.

Context: The ratio of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol to apolipoprotein-B (LDL-C/apoB) conventionally represents an alternative index of LDL particle size.

Objective: This study was undertaken to determine the importance of LDL-C/apoB ratio in the overall evaluation of atherogenicity of lipid profile.

Methods: The plasma levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), apolipoprotein (apo) A-I, apoB and apoE were measured in 186 apparently healthy men using enzymatic and immunoturbidimetric methods.

Ion channel regulation by β-secretase BACE1 - enzymatic and non-enzymatic effects beyond Alzheimer's disease.

β-site APP-cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) has become infamous for its pivotal role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Consequently, BACE1 represents a prime target in drug development. Despite its detrimental involvement in AD, it should be quite obvious that BACE1 is not primarily present in the brain to drive mental decline.

The effects of priming with age stereotypes on a PC-based mail-sorting task.

Objective: This study examines whether unconscious priming of attitudes towards older age might change the self-efficacy of older employees, and thus modify their performance at work.

Methods: Three age- and gender-matched groups of 20 participants were primed with positive, negative or no age stereotypes by means of the scrambled sentence task, and were then transferred to a cognitively demanding PC-based mail-sorting task.

Results: Participants' accuracy on the latter task was significantly higher in the positively primed group than in the unprimed group, and was significantly lower in the negatively primed group than in the unprimed group, except for one parameter.

Wrist temperature and cortisol awakening response in humans with social jetlag in the North.

The discrepancy between biological and social rhythms known as social jetlag (SJL) is common in modern society and has a range of negative consequences for cognitive functioning, well-being and health. Social jetlag is typical for people with late chronotypes. As shown earlier, the prevalence of individuals with a late chronotype is higher among the residents of high latitudes.