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Impaired emotional processing and cognitive functioning are common in schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorders, causing significant socioemotional disability. While a large body of research demonstrates abnormal cognition/emotion interactions in these disorders, previous studies investigating abnormalities in the emotional scene response using event-related potentials (ERPs) have yielded mixed findings, and few studies compare findings across psychiatric diagnoses. The current study investigates the effects of emotion and repetition on ERPs in a large, well-characterized sample of participants with schizophrenia-bipolar syndromes. Two ERP components that are modulated by emotional content and scene repetition, the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP), were recorded in healthy controls and participants with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder with psychosis, and bipolar disorder without psychosis. Effects of emotion and repetition were compared across groups. Results displayed significant but small effects in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, with diminished EPN amplitudes to neutral and novel scenes, reduced LPP amplitudes to emotional scenes, and attenuated effects of scene repetition. Despite significant findings, small effect sizes indicate that emotional scene processing is predominantly intact in these disorders. Multivariate analyses indicate that these mild ERP abnormalities are related to cognition, psychosocial functioning, and psychosis severity. This relationship suggests that impaired cognition, rather than diagnosis or mood disturbance, may underlie disrupted neural scene processing in schizophrenia-bipolar syndromes.

Non-invasive imaging techniques to dynamically map whole-body trafficking of essential metals in vivo in health and diseases are needed. Despite 62Zn having appropriate physical properties for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging (half-life, 9.3 h; positron emission, 8.2%), its complex decay via 62Cu (half-life, 10 min; positron emission, 97%) has limited its use. We aimed to develop a method to extract 62Zn from a 62Zn/62Cu generator, and to investigate its use for in vivo imaging of zinc trafficking despite its complex decay. 62Zn prepared by proton irradiation of natural copper foil was used to construct a conventional 62Zn/62Cu generator. 62Zn was eluted using trisodium citrate and used for biological experiments, compared with 64Cu in similar buffer. PET/CT imaging and ex vivo tissue radioactivity measurements were performed following intravenous injection in healthy mice. [62Zn]Zn-citrate was readily eluted from the generator with citrate buffer. PET imaging with the eluate demonstrated biodistribution similar to previous observations with the shorter-lived 63Zn (half-life 38.5 min), with significant differences compared to [64Cu]Cu-citrate, notably in pancreas (>10-fold higher at 1 h post-injection). Between 4 and 24 h, 62Zn retention in liver, pancreas, and kidney declined over time, while brain uptake increased. Like 64Cu, 62Zn showed hepatobiliary excretion from liver to intestines, unaffected by fasting. Although it offers limited reliability of scanning before 1 h post-injection, 62Zn-PET allows investigation of zinc trafficking in vivo for >24 h and hence provides a useful new tool to investigate diseases where zinc homeostasis is disrupted in preclinical models and humans.

Motivation Inferring gene regulatory networks from gene expression time series data is important for gaining insights into the complex processes of cell life. A popular approach is to infer Boolean networks. However, it is still a pressing open problem to infer accurate Boolean networks from experimental data that are typically short and noisy. Results To address the problem, we propose a Boolean network inference algorithm which is able to infer accurate Boolean network topology and dynamics from short and noisy time series data. The main idea is that, for each target gene, we use an And/Or tree ensemble algorithm to select prime implicants of which each is a conjunction of a set of input genes. The selected prime implicants are important features for predicting the states of the target gene. Using these important features we then infer the Boolean function of the target gene. Finally, the Boolean functions of all target genes are combined as a Boolean network. Using the data generated from artificial and real-world gene regulatory networks, we show that our algorithm can infer more accurate Boolean network topology and dynamics from short and noisy time series data than other algorithms. Our algorithm enables us to gain better insights into complex regulatory mechanisms of cell life. Availability and implementation Package ATEN is freely available at https://github.com/ningshi/ATEN. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

The Pneumonia Etiology Research for Child Health (PERCH) study is the largest multicountry etiology study of pediatric pneumonia undertaken in the past 3 decades. The study enrolled 4232 hospitalized cases and 5325 controls over 2 years across 9 research sites in 7 countries in Africa and Asia. The volume and complexity of data collection in PERCH presented considerable logistical and technical challenges. The project chose an internet-based data entry system to allow real-time access to the data, enabling the project to monitor and clean incoming data and perform preliminary analyses throughout the study. To ensure high-quality data, the project developed comprehensive quality indicator, data query, and monitoring reports. Among the approximately 9000 cases and controls, analyzable laboratory results were available for ≥96% of core specimens collected. Selected approaches to data management in PERCH may be extended to the planning and organization of international studies of similar scope and complexity.

BACKGROUND: Flat and inappropriate affect and emotional labiality are features of psychosis syndromes and could involve impairments in neural processing of emotional stimuli. Studies have reported abnormal electrophysiological (EEG) responses to emotional stimuli in schizophrenia (SZ), schizoaffective disorder (SAD), and bipolar I disorder with psychosis (BDP). The Bipolar-Schizophrenia Network on Intermediate Phenotypes (BSNIP) has identified three psychosis Biotypes (abbreviated B1, B2 & B3) which display differing patterns of neural activity, but emotional processing has not been assessed in these groups. METHODS: 814 participants (HC = 197, SZ = 230, SAD = 212, BDP = 175; B1 = 198, B2 = 176, B3 = 243) from the 5-site BSNIP consortium viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant scenes from the IAPS while EEG was recorded from 64 sensors. Using a spatial PCA, two components reduced EEG data to one waveform per component. Spatial components were weighted in the occipital and centroparietal scalp regions and accounted for 56% and 42% of the variance, respectively. Early, mid-latency, and late time bins of interest (80–140 ms, 200–400 ms, & 400–1000 ms) were identified by visual inspection. Data were averaged across bins for each spatial component, yielding 6 spatiotemporal measures. Mixed-design ANOVAs were calculated using DSM and Biotype as between-subjects variables and task as the within-subjects variable. Follow up Tukey tests were conducted as appropriate. RESULTS: There were no significant DSM by Biotype interactions for any component/time combination (F = 1.39, 1.40, .92, 1.27, 1.34, 1.08, all p > .05). There was a main effect of DSM for the centroparietal component during the early time bin (F = 5.82, p < .01), with significant differences from HC and BDP to SZ and SAD (all p < .05). There was also a significant DSM by task interaction at the late time bin of the centroparietal component (F = 2.60, p = .04), where response to emotional images distinguished HC from SZ (p = .02, .03). There were main effects of Biotype for the early time bin at both components (F = 6.33, 11.77, both p < .001), with significant differences from HC and B3 to B1 and B2 (all p < .01). The mid-latency time bin displayed main effects of Biotype and Biotype by task interactions for both components (main effects: F = 7.74, 5.66, interactions: F = 2.65, 5.50, all p < .05). For all stimulus types, B1 significantly differed from all other groups at the occipital component and from HC and B3 at the centroparietal component (all p < .05). There was also a Biotype by task interaction at the late time bin of the centroparietal component, with reactivity to neutral images differing between B1 and B3 (p = .04) and reactivity to emotional images differing between B2 and HC (p = .04, .03). DISCUSSION: Distinguishing patients by Biotype yielded new information regarding emotional scene perception in psychosis. Only one neural measure distinguished between DSM-defined groups and did not interact with emotional scene content. However, these same measures and other components of the neural emotional response presented a complex pattern of differences within psychosis Biotypes. Results indicate the most profound disruptions in scene processing are found in B1. B1 is also associated with reductions in amygdala volume, which could result in abnormal aversive and appetitive reactions captured by these scalp measures of the emotional response. This external measure of neural function provides novel evidence that psychosis Biotypes identified by the BSNIP consortium provide better separation between psychosis subtypes than current DSM categories. Future research will examine habituation to scenes, medication effects, subjective reports of emotional experience, and clinical and phenotypic correlates.

Military surgeons have been providing humanitarian care in Afghanistan since 2002. There are scant published reports on the details of that care. We report here the experience of deployed U.S. Army general surgeons in the management of an endemic problem, bladder stones in Afghan children.A retrospective review was performed of pediatric patients presenting to an International Security Assistance Force humanitarian clinic over a 12-month period from October 2010 to November 2011. Symptoms at presentation, diagnostic modalities, and treatment provided were analyzed. The general surgeons of the 126th Forward Surgical Team (FST) provided surgical consultations for this military humanitarian clinic on a remote base in western Afghanistan.Eight male pediatric patients of an average age of 4 years presented with dysuria and underwent further evaluation. In five patients, the use of a portable ultrasound machine led to the diagnosis of bladder stones. Three other patients presented with ultrasound exams from an Afghan clinic. Four patients underwent surgical removal of their bladder stones by the FST and 4 four patients, including one with a recurrent bladder stone, were referred to a distant Afghan Regional Hospital. No short-term complications occurred in the five patients available for follow-up.Military surgeons providing humanitarian care in rural areas of Afghanistan, and humanitarian surgeons serving in endemic areas, can expect to encounter multiple cases of bladder stones in pediatric patients. Dysuria is a typical presenting symptom. The FST has the resources to diagnose and treat this disorder. If accessible, Afghan regional hospitals can provide curative surgery.

Background: Electroencephalographic (EEG) studies of the auditory steady state response (aSSR) noninvasively probe oscillatory capacity and synchronization in the primary auditory cortex. Abnormalities in the aSSRs have been proposed as translational biomarkers for schizophrenia. However, few studies have examined the aSSRs across diagnostic categories and included the full spectrum of psychotic subgroups (Schizophrenia: SZ, Schizoaffective disorder: SAD, Bipolar disorder with psychosis: BDP, and Bipolar disorder without psychosis: BD-NP). This is a critical step to determine its utility as a potential biomarker and to provide insight into specific neural dysregulations related to psychotic etiology. In this study, auditory steady state stimuli were administered to a large sample of well-characterized participants diagnosed with SZ, SAD, BDP, or BD-NP. Methods: 501 individuals (HC = 184, SZ = 91, SAD = 97, BD-WP = 79, BD-NP = 50) completed aSSRs EEG task at the 5 BSNIP research sites. 1500ms broadband noise sequences modulated at 20, 40, or 80-Hz were presented to investigate neural responses related to distinct frequency bands. Intertrial phase coherence (ITC) was calculated for each subject and sensor resulting in time–frequency values ranging from 5 to 90-Hz and 500–2000 ms. An average aSSR was created using the average of the 7 peak sensors and the 0–1500ms period for each subject. 1-way ANOVAs were completed for each frequency of interest and follow up Welch’s t-tests were performed to compare group differences. Results: SZ and SAD had significantly reduced ITC for all three frequency conditions in comparison to HC and BD-NP. BDP was reduced in the 20 and 40-Hz conditions in comparison to HC, but not in the 80-Hz condition. BDP differed from BD-NP only in the 40-Hz condition. HC and BD-NP did not significantly differ in any of the frequency conditions. Conclusion: Three main conclusions can be drawn from this study. (1) All 3 psychotic subgroups (SZ, SAD, and BDP) had reduced ITC in comparison to HC and BD-NP at 40-Hz. This suggests that the 40-Hz aSSR indexes psychosis in general and is not a SZ specific response. (2) SZ and SAD both showed significant reductions in the 80-Hz aSSR. This suggests that these psychotic subgroups significantly differ in their high-gamma response, which could potentially be related to a difference in pathophysiology and the severity/noncyclical nature of their psychotic symptomology. (3) BD-NP did not significantly differ from HC in any of the aSSR conditions. This could explain the mixed findings in the literature of the aSSR response in bipolar disorder and suggests that future biological-based research should consider distinguishing these groups. Examining differences in the aSSR between proband groups offers unique insight into how neural synchronization relates to the etiology of major psychotic disorders and provides novel evidence about its use as a translational biomarker.