Search

Therapeutic Area: ASCVD/CVD in Special Populations Background: The US-Mexican border region (BR) faces distinct demographic and health challenges. Analyzing premature acute myocardial infarction (AMI) mortality disparities can inform targeted health strategies. Methods: Mortality data for premature AMI (

Aging affects the overall physiology, including the image-forming and non-image forming visual systems. Among the components of the latter, the thalamic retinorecipient inter-geniculate leaflet (IGL) and ventral lateral geniculate (vLGN) nucleus conveys light information to subcortical regions, adjusting visuomotor, and circadian functions. It is noteworthy that several visual related cells, such as neuronal subpopulations in the IGL and vLGN are neurochemically characterized by the presence of calcium binding proteins. Calretinin (CR), a representative of such proteins, denotes region-specificity in a temporal manner by variable day–night expression. In parallel, age-related brain dysfunction and neurodegeneration are associated with abnormal intracellular concentrations of calcium. Here, we investigated whether daily changes in the number of CR neurons are a feature of the aged IGL and vLGN in rats. To this end, we perfused rats, ranging from 3 to 24 months of age, within distinct phases of the day, namely zeitgeber times (ZTs). Then, we evaluated CR immunolabeling through design-based stereological cell estimation. We observed distinct daily rhythms of CR expression in the IGL and in both the retinorecipient (vLGNe) and non-retinorecipient (vLGNi) portions of the vLGN. In the ZT 6, the middle of the light phase, the CR cells are reduced with aging in the IGL and vLGNe. In the ZT 12, the transition between light to dark, an age-related CR loss was found in all nuclei. While CR expression predominates in specific spatial domains of vLGN, age-related changes appear not to be restricted at particular portions. No alterations were found in the dark/light transition or in the middle of the dark phase, ZTs 0, and 18, respectively. These results are relevant in the understanding of how aging shifts the phenotype of visual related cells at topographically organized channels of visuomotor and circadian processing.

Composition and abundance of phytoplankton in two areas of Gulf of California, one near (ND) and one far (FD) from shrimp farms discharge, were studied in 3 seasons: late fall (farms finishing operations); spring (farms not operating); and summer (farms operating). In ND, 61 diatoms, 33 dinoflagellates, 4 cyanobacteria, and 2 silicoflagellates were identified; in FD, 72 diatoms, 38 dinoflagellates, 5 cyanobacteria, and 4 silicoflagellates were found. Thirty-three species were recorded only in ND (20 diatoms, 11 dinoflagellates, 1 silicoflagellate), whereas 39 species appeared exclusively in the FD (28 diatoms, 9 dinoflagellates, 1 cyanobacteria, 1 silicoflagellate). Thirty-seven species were common for both areas (23 diatoms, 10 dinoflagellates, 3 cyanobacteria and 1 silicoflagellate). In ND, 9 species potentially toxic (3 diatoms, 5 dinoflagellates, 1 cyanobacteria) were identified. From FD, 3 species potentially toxic (2 diatoms and 1 cyanobacteria) were found. Total abundance of phytoplankton was more than double in ND than in FD. The species richness and diversity, were greater in FD. Higher phytoplankton abundance was observed when farms were operating or finishing operations. The composition and abundance of phytoplankton is a good indicator of shrimp effluents impact, diminishing the species richness and diversity, but augmenting the abundance.

Introduction: Turner syndrome (TS) is associated with subfertility and infertility. Nevertheless, an increasing number of women become pregnant through oocyte donation. The wish to conceive may be negatively influenced by the fear of cardiovascular complications. The aim was to investigate the wish to conceive and the concerns about cardiovascular complications during pregnancy in women with TS. Methods: The patient association for TS invited all members of ≥18 years old (n = 344) to complete a specifically developed, disease-specific questionnaire, including questions about fertility, wish to conceive, attempts and concerns. Results were compared with previously published results of this questionnaire in women with congenital heart disease. Results: The questionnaire was completed by 89 women (median age 30.1 years, Q1–Q3 = 22.9–39.4). Of them, 51% had 45, X0-monosomy and 38% had ≥1 cardiac abnormality. Seventeen women (19%) had attempted to become pregnant and 12 of them succeeded to become pregnant. Women who had not undertaken attempts to conceive (81%), considered themselves mainly too young or had no partner. Of the total sample, 58% were concerned about the influence of pregnancy on their cardiovascular status. This was higher (75%) in the sample of women with TS and cardiac abnormalities, than in women with congenital heart disease from a previously published cohort (21%), (p

From memorizing a musical tune to navigating a well known route, many of our underlying behaviors have a strong temporal component. While the mechanisms behind the sequential nature of the underlying brain activity are likely multifarious and multi-scale, in this work we attempt to characterize to what degree some of this properties can be explained as a consequence of simple associative learning. To this end, we employ a parsimonious firing-rate attractor network equipped with the Hebbian-like Bayesian Confidence Propagating Neural Network (BCPNN) learning rule relying on synaptic traces with asymmetric temporal characteristics. The proposed network model is able to encode and reproduce temporal aspects of the input, and offers internal control of the recall dynamics by gain modulation. We provide an analytical characterisation of the relationship between the structure of the weight matrix, the dynamical network parameters and the temporal aspects of sequence recall. We also present a computational study of the performance of the system under the effects of noise for an extensive region of the parameter space. Finally, we show how the inclusion of modularity in our network structure facilitates the learning and recall of multiple overlapping sequences even in a noisy regime.

The cause of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains uncertain. The accumulation of amyloid peptides (Aβ) is the main pathophysiological hallmark of the disease. Spatial deficit is an important initial sign of AD, while other types of memory impairments that appear in later stages. The Barnes maze allows the detection of subtle alterations in spatial search by the analysis of use of different strategies. Previous findings showed a general performance deficit in this task following long-term (35 days) infusion of Aβ, which corresponds to the moderate or severe impairments of the disease. In the present study, we evaluated the effects of a low-dose 15-day long treatment with Aβ peptides on spatial and non-spatial strategies of rats tested in the Barnes maze. Aβ peptides (0.5 μL/site/day; 30 pmoL solution of Aβ1–40:Aβ1–42 10:1) or saline were bilaterally infused into the CA1 (on the first treatment day) and intraventricularly (on the following 15 days) in 6-month-old Wistar male rats. Aβ infusion induced a deficit in the performance (increased latency and distance traveled to reach the target compared to saline group). In addition, a significant association between treatment and search strategy in the retrieval trial was found: Aβ group preferred the non-spatial search strategy, while saline group preferred the spatial search. In conclusion, the protocol of Aβ infusion used here induced a subtle cognitive deficit that was specific to spatial aspects. Indeed, animals under Aβ treatment still showed retrieval, but using non-spatial strategies. We suggest that this approach is potentially useful to the study of the initial memory deficits in early AD.