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Abstract Introduction We report the case of a patient with Churg-Strauss syndrome with eighth cranial nerve palsy. Vestibulocochlear nerve palsy is extremely rare in Churg-Strauss syndrome. To the best of our knowledge, only one case of complicated neuropathy of the eighth cranial nerve has been described in a previous report presenting an aggregate calculation, but no differentiation between polyarteritis nodosa and Churg-Strauss syndrome was made. High-dose immunoglobulin was administered to our patient, and her neuropathy of the eighth cranial nerve showed improvement. Case presentation At the age of 46, a Japanese woman developed Churg-Strauss syndrome that later became stable with low-dose prednisolone treatment. At the age of 52, she developed sudden difficulty of hearing in her left ear, persistent severe rotary vertigo, and mononeuritis multiplex. At admission, bilateral perceptive deafness of about 80dB and eosinophilia of 4123/μL in peripheral blood were found. A diagnosis of cranial neuropathy of the eighth cranial nerve associated with exacerbated Churg-Strauss syndrome was made. Although high doses of steroid therapy alleviated the inflammatory symptoms and markers, the vertigo and bilateral hearing loss remained. Addition of a high-dose immunoglobulin finally resulted in marked alleviation of the symptoms associated with neuropathy of the eighth cranial nerve. Conclusions A high dose of immunoglobulin therapy shows favorable effects in neuropathy of the eighth cranial nerve, but no reports regarding its efficacy in cranial neuropathy have been published.

We perceive and understand others' emotional states from multisensory information such as facial expressions and vocal cues. However, such cues are not always available or clear. Can partial loss of visual cues affect multisensory emotion perception? In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the widespread use of face masks, which can reduce some facial cues used in emotion perception. Thus, can frequent exposure to masked faces affect emotion perception? We conducted an emotion perception task using audio-visual stimuli that partially occluded the speaker's face. Participants were simultaneously shown a face and voice that expressed either congruent or incongruent emotions and judged whether the person was happy or angry. The stimuli included videos in which the eyes or mouth were partially covered and where the whole face was visible. Our findings showed that, when facial cues were partially occluded, participants relied more on vocal cues for emotion recognition. Moreover, when the mouth was covered, participants relied less on vocal cues after the pandemic compared to before. These findings indicate that partial face masking and prolonged exposure to masked faces can affect multisensory emotion perception. In unimodal emotion perception from only facial cues, accuracy also improved after the pandemic compared to before for faces with the mouth occluded. Therefore, changes in the reliance on vocal cues in multisensory emotion perception during the pandemic period could be explained by improved facial emotion perception from the eye region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Psoriasis is a skin disease with a complicated pathophysiology that includes an extensive inflammatory cytokine network. Nevertheless, the relationship between psoriasis severity, cytokine levels, and coronary artery atherosclerosis remains poorly understood. Our aim was to find serum markers as potential candidates for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk monitoring in patients with psoriasis. Therefore, we examined coronary artery atherosclerosis via coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA), serum cytokine levels via multiple immunoassays, and the patients' psoriasis state. Our findings reveal for the first time that the mainstream psoriasis cytokines interleukin 17A (IL‐17A), IL‐19, and IL‐36 in the sera of Japanese patients with psoriasis showed a linear regression association with the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index score. Furthermore, the serum level of IL‐19 was remarkably correlated to Th2‐related serum cytokines such as IL‐4 and IL‐17E. When we investigated potential markers to monitor CVD in patients with psoriasis, circulating cluster of differentiation 31 (CD31) and resistin, but not psoriasis‐related cytokines, were expressed differently at each stage of coronary atherosclerosis by CCTA. CD31 and resistin levels rose dramatically in individuals with psoriasis vulgaris (PV) and noncalcified atherosclerosis. In contrast, CD31 was negatively correlated with the coronary artery calcification score (CACS) in patients with PV, whereas resistin was inversely correlated with CACS in patients with psoriatic arthritis. In conclusion, the axis of IL‐17A, IL‐19, and IL‐36 remains associated with the severity of psoriasis during the chronic phase of the disease, regardless of the application of topical or systemic treatment. Monitoring the levels of these cytokines can accurately determine the severity of skin inflammation. Resistin and CD31 are linked to coronary artery lesions and might be good candidates for tracking the progression of coronary atherosclerosis in patients with psoriasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatiotemporal control of subcellular events is crucial for embryogenesis. A new study in fruit flies reports that the speed of chromosome segregation upon nuclear division robustly scales with spindle size and cell-cycle duration, both of which change during development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationship between the temperature of the electric field treatment (EFT) and the improvement of the effective thermal conductivity (TC) in the out‐of‐plane direction of the carbon nanofiber (CNF)/cured silicone rubber composite sheet was investigated to elucidate the appropriate operation of the EFT. Two types of silicone rubber precursors, with viscosities of 1.3 and 58 Pa∙s, were used. The effective TC gradually increased as the temperature during EFT increased from 40 to 80 °C. However, beyond 80 °C, the effective TC started to decrease and reached the same value as that of the sheet without EFT at 100 °C. This trend was observed regardless of the rubber species or CNF content. The influence of the EFT temperature was also discussed regarding the temperature dependency of the viscoelastic properties: storage modulus, loss modulus, and complex viscosity of the uncured precursor solution. When the temperatures were set at 80 °C, no significant changes were observed in the three‐viscoelastic properties for 60 min. On the other hand, a significant increase in the viscoelastic properties was observed after 10 min at 100 °C because of the start of the curing reaction, which supported the relationship between the temperature of the EFT and effective TC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tardigrades are small aquatic invertebrates known for their remarkable tolerance to diverse extreme stresses. To elucidate the in vivo mechanisms underlying this extraordinary resilience, methods for genetically manipulating tardigrades have long been desired. Despite our prior success in somatic cell gene editing by microinjecting Cas9 ribonucleoproteins (RNPs) into the body cavity of tardigrades, the generation of gene-edited individuals remained elusive. In this study, employing an extremotolerant parthenogenetic tardigrade species, Ramazzottius varieornatus, we established conditions that led to the generation of gene-edited tardigrade individuals. Drawing inspiration from the direct parental CRISPR (DIPA-CRISPR) technique employed in several insects, we simply injected a concentrated Cas9 RNP solution into the body cavity of parental females shortly before their initial oviposition. This approach yielded gene-edited G0 progeny. Notably, only a single allele was predominantly detected at the target locus for each G0 individual, indicative of homozygous mutations. By co-injecting single-stranded oligodeoxynucleotides (ssODNs) with Cas9 RNPs, we achieved the generation of homozygously knocked-in G0 progeny, and these edited alleles were inherited by G1/G2 progeny. This is the first example of heritable gene editing in the entire phylum of Tardigrada. This establishment of a straightforward method for generating homozygous knockout/knock-in individuals not only facilitates in vivo analyses of the molecular mechanisms underpinning extreme tolerance, but also opens up avenues for exploring various topics, including Evo-Devo, in tardigrades. Author summary: Tardigrades, tiny aquatic invertebrates also known as water bears, are celebrated for their extraordinary resilience to various extreme stresses like dehydration, radiation, and unusual ranges of temperature and pressure. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of this resilience not only satisfies scientific curiosity but also holds promise for the development of innovative technologies for the dry preservation of biomaterials like biomedicines and vaccines. However, the lack of a heritable genome manipulation technology has hindered in vivo analyses of these mechanisms. This study addresses this longstanding challenge in the field. Employing an extremotolerant parthenogenetic tardigrade species, we established conditions that enable the efficient production of gene-manipulated individuals. Using these conditions, the simple injection of Cas9 genome-editing components into parental females leads to the generation of knockout/knock-in progeny. Unlike similar approaches in other animals, we obtained mutant progeny predominantly carrying a single type of mutation, namely, homozygous mutants, which significantly facilitates downstream analyses. This is the first report of a heritable gene-editing method in the entire group of tardigrades. The establishment of this straightforward method for generating gene-manipulated tardigrades not only facilitates in vivo analyses of the molecular mechanisms underpinning extreme tolerance, but also opens up avenues for exploring various topics, including Evo-Devo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tardigrades can survive hostile environments such as desiccation by adopting a state of anhydrobiosis. Numerous tardigrade species have been described thus far, and recent genome and transcriptome analyses revealed that several distinct strategies were employed to cope with harsh environments depending on the evolutionary lineages. Detailed analyses at the cellular and subcellular levels are essential to complete these data. In this work, we analyzed a tardigrade species that can withstand rapid dehydration, Ramazzottius varieornatus. Surprisingly, we noted an absence of the anhydrobiotic-specific extracellular structure previously described for the Hypsibius exemplaris species. Both Ramazzottius varieornatus and Hypsibius exemplaris belong to the same evolutionary class of Eutardigrada. Nevertheless, our observations reveal discrepancies in the anhydrobiotic structures correlated with the variation in the anhydrobiotic mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide a Monte Carlo simulation method for a European type option under a regime switching type Black-Scholes model where the volatility is a discontinuous step function which takes $ n+1 $ n + 1 different values depending on the value of the underlying within $ n+1 $ n + 1 disjoint partition intervals. Our simulation method is based on a combination of the Euler scheme which is used in the case that the process is away from the boundary points of the partition intervals and the skew Brownian motion in the case that it the process in near the boundary points of the partition intervals. We show that the weak error of approximation is exponentially small for the proposed method and show some simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]