Search

D-galactose (d-gal) is broadly used in animal aging studies as its chronic administration mimics learning and memory impairments related to aging in humans. However, within the few studies that utilize chronic oral d-gal intake, none of them is focused on alteration in synaptic structure and function. We examined the effects of 6-weeks oral d-gal intake (200 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg, dissolved in tap water) on age-related changes, with emphasis on the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus (HIP) of adult male Wistar rats. Memory assessment was followed by histological examination of the PFC and HIP (Nissl staining and Iba-1 immunostaining), while in crude synaptosomal fractions the state of oxidative stress and the expression of proteins involved in glutamatergic signaling was determined. Although applied dosages compromised memory, alterations such as impaired sensory-motor function and aberrant morphology were not detected. In the PFC, analysis of microglia revealed reduction of branching pattern following d-gal intake, in parallel with increased oxidative damage of proteins, lipids and disturbed pro-oxidant antioxidant balance. These changes in the PFC were further accompanied with decreased levels of vesicular glutamate transporter 1, syntaxin-1 and NMDA receptor 2B subunit in both treated groups. Simultaneously, the increased hippocampal oxidative damage of lipids was detected. Results indicate successful provocation of age-related changes following oral d-gal intake, and suggest greater sensitivity of the PFC to d-gal treatment than HIP.

The death of a baby during pregnancy, birth or in infancy is an intensely traumatic event for the mother and her family, often coupled with prolonged grief. Many women who suffer such loss go on to conceive another baby during this psychologically fragile period. Although pregnancy after loss may bring hope, it also comes with exceptionally high anxiety and distress. Pregnancy after loss is often not recognised as an acutely vulnerable time. There can also be reluctance on the part of health professionals to talk about previous loss, which means that many families are left to cope with distress on their own. Whilst many caregivers receive training in how to break bad news and support bereaved parents around the time of loss, few receive guidance on how to optimally care for parents during a subsequent pregnancy. However, if the psychosocial aspects are negotiated with skill and the right support, pregnancy after loss can be a time with significant potential for healing.This article, co-created by parents who have experienced pregnancy after the death of a baby or child and health professionals, aims to close this gap, with reflections on how trauma and grief impact women and partners in subsequent pregnancies. We offer advice to health professionals on how to navigate the complex psychological journey of pregnancy care after loss by focusing on organisational aspects as well as communication strategies that allow for a pregnancy experience with a better relationship to health professionals as well as the new baby.

The aim of this study was to analyze injuries to the primary teeth and adjacent soft tissues in relation to the gender and age of injured children, type of injury, place, and mechanism of injury. The study enrolled 115 children (71 boys and 44 girls) managed at the Dentistry Clinic, Faculty of Medicine, University of Niš, in the period 2009-2019. The information about the type of injury, place, and mechanism of injury were obtained from the medical records of the patients aged 1-5 years. Our analysis established that there were statistically significantly (p < 0.05) more injured boys (61.74%) than girls (38.26%). Subluxation was the most common primary teeth injury, present in 60 (52.17%) children and was statistically significantly more prevalent compared to other injuries (p < 0.001). Of the injuries to the adjacent soft tissues, laceration was statistically significantly more common than other soft tissue injuries (p < 0.001). Children were most commonly injured at their homes (52.17%), and rarely in their day nurseries (3.48%). Falling was the most common cause of injuries (63.48%). Based on the obtained results, a conclusion may be drawn that boys were more commonly injured compared to girls, and that falls were the most common cause. Injuries usually occurred at the age of about 2 years. Subluxation was the most common injury, and children usually got injured at their own home.

Maxillofacial defects create physical, emotional and mental problems for the patient. The task of surgical-prosthetic rehabilitation is to provide best possible functional and esthetic solution. The aim of this paper was to present a modern approach to auricular defect rehabilitation. A 24-year-old patient with a lack of the right ear lobe due to trauma was admited for aesthetic rehabilitation. Implant-retained ear prosthesis was indicated. Three implants were placed into mastoid region of the temporal bone, and after the period of osseointegration, an individualized bar was attached to them for the retention of an auricular prosthesis made out of silicone. Prosthetic rehabilitation, in this case, achieved excellent retention and restored the appearance as well as self-confidence of the patient.

When experimental tasks require intermittent switching between easy and hard trials, people exhibit switch cost asymmetry. This is a tendency to be slower to switch over from a hard task to an easier task than vice versa. Previously, Gustavson and colleagues (2007) found that people higher on trait-anxiety exhibit a stronger switch cost asymmetry. We replicated this task, which was emotionally neutral, in an online experiment with a larger number of participants (N=212 vs. original N = 91), and extended the findings to an affective version of the same task. We found evidence of switch cost asymmetry in both experiments, with only the emotionally neutral one showing a relation to trait anxiety as well as depression. As opposed to the original study, we found that people lower, not higher, on anxiety were driving the effect, by being slower to disengage from the hard trials regardless of whether they needed to switch tasks or not on the following trial. We interpret these results in the context of the effects of anxiety and depression on allostasis, with direct consequences on available energy levels for task performance.

Both fixed and removable implant-supported prostheses are well-established methods for replacing missing teeth in partially or fully edentulous patients. Numerous systematic reviews have been performed in recent years to evaluate the survival and complication rates of implant-retained fixed dental prostheses and implant-retained overdentures, displaying high 5-year survival rates ranging from 97.1% for fixed dental prostheses to 95%-100% for implant-retained overdentures. However, the survival rates only represent the prostheses remaining in use for a defined follow-up time, and do not account for the potential prosthetic complications that may have arisen and influence the general success of the implant treatment. The most common technical complications of fixed implant-retained single crowns are crown fracture, fractures of ceramic implant abutments, and esthetic problems. The predominant technical complication at multiple-unit, implant-retained fixed dental prostheses is fracture/chipping of the veneering ceramic. Reported technical complications for implant-retained overdentures are overdenture fracture or chipping of the veneer materials, whereas mechanical complications include implant fracture, attachment failure, and attachment housing or insert complications. To reduce the risk of such failures, a comprehensive pretreatment diagnostic work-up is essential, including defining the prosthetic goal with the aid of a wax-up or set-up and the associated ideal, prosthetically oriented three-dimensional implant position. Furthermore, selection of the ideal type of prosthesis, including the respective implant components and materials, is important for clinical long-term treatment success.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning models are today frequently used for classification and prediction of various biochemical processes and phenomena. In recent years, numerous research efforts have been focused on developing such models for assessment, categorization, and prediction of oxidative stress. Supervised machine learning can successfully automate the process of evaluation and quantification of oxidative damage in biological samples, as well as extract useful data from the abundance of experimental results. In this concise review, we cover the possible applications of neural networks, decision trees and regression analysis as three common strategies in machine learning. We also review recent works on the various weaknesses and limitations of artificial intelligence in biochemistry and related scientific areas. Finally, we discuss future innovative approaches on the ways how AI can contribute to the automation of oxidative stress measurement and diagnosis of diseases associated with oxidative damage.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is not only a threat to physical health but is also having severe impacts on mental health. While increases in stress-related symptomatology and other adverse psycho-social outcomes as well as their most important risk factors have been described, hardly anything is known about potential protective factors. Resilience refers to the maintenance of mental health despite adversity. In order to gain mechanistic insights about the relationship between described psycho-social resilience factors and resilience specifically in the current crisis, we assessed resilience factors, exposure to Corona crisis-specific and general stressors, as well as internalizing symptoms in a cross-sectional online survey conducted in 24 languages during the most intense phase of the lockdown in Europe (March 22nd to April 19th) in a convenience sample of N=15,970 adults. Resilience, as an outcome, was conceptualized as good mental health despite stressor exposure and measured as the inverse residual between actual and predicted symptom total score. Preregistered hypotheses (osf.io/r6btn) were tested with multiple regression models and mediation analyses. Results confirmed our primary hypothesis that positive appraisal style (PAS) is positively associated with resilience (p

Contains fulltext : 228242.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Drawing on the concept of a gale of creative destruction in a capitalistic economy, we argue that initiatives to assess the robustness of findings in the organizational literature should aim to simultaneously test competing ideas operating in the same theoretical space. In other words, replication efforts should seek not just to support or question the original findings, but also to replace them with revised, stronger theories with greater explanatory power. Achieving this will typically require adding new measures, conditions, and subject populations to research designs, in order to carry out conceptual tests of multiple theories in addition to directly replicating the original findings. To illustrate the value of the creative destruction approach for theory pruning in organizational scholarship, we describe recent replication initiatives re-examining culture and work morality, working parents’ reasoning about day care options, and gender discrimination in hiring decisions. Significance statement It is becoming increasingly clear that many, if not most, published research findings across scientific fields are not readily replicable when the same method is repeated. Although extremely valuable, failed replications risk leaving a theoretical void - reducing confidence the original theoretical prediction is true, but not replacing it with positive evidence in favor of an alternative theory. We introduce the creative destruction approach to replication, which combines theory pruning methods from the field of management with emerging best practices from the open science movement, with the aim of making replications as generative as possible. In effect, we advocate for a Replication 2.0 movement in which the goal shifts from checking on the reliability of past findings to actively engaging in competitive theory testing and theory building. Scientific transparency statement The materials, code, and data for this article are posted publicly on the Open Science Framework, with links provided in the article. 19 p.

Contains fulltext : 203900.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) In language comprehension, a variety of contextual cues act in unison to render upcoming words more or less predictable. As a sentence unfolds, we use prior context (sentential constraints) to predict what the next words might be. Additionally, in a conversation, we can predict upcoming sounds through observing the mouth movements of a speaker (visual constraints). In electrophysiological studies, effects of visual constraints have typically been observed early in language processing, while effects of sentential constraints have typically been observed later. We hypothesized that the visual and the sentential constraints might feed into the same predictive process such that effects of sentential constraints might also be detectable early in language processing through modulations of the early effects of visual salience. We presented participants with audiovisual speech while recording their brain activity with magnetoencephalography. Participants saw videos of a person saying sentences where the last word was either sententially constrained or not, and began with a salient or non-salient mouth movement. We found that sentential constraints indeed exerted an early (N1) influence on language processing. Sentential modulations of the N1 visual predictability effect were visible in brain areas associated with semantic processing, and were differently expressed in the two hemispheres. In the left hemisphere, visual and sentential constraints jointly suppressed the auditory evoked field, while the right hemisphere was sensitive to visual constraints only in the absence of strong sentential constraints. These results suggest that sentential and visual constraints can jointly influence even very early stages of audiovisual speech comprehension. 13 p.

Background/purpose Tooth extraction is often followed by a number of different complications that demand additional treatment. In order to accelerate healing processes and decrease the complication occurrence various agents, growth factors, natural and synthetic antioxidants (e.g coenzyme Q 10 -CoQ 10 ), are applied. Due to the partially known health-promoting effects of CoQ 10 we decided to assess potential of it's encapsulated in nanoliposomes form on wound healing process following tooth extraction. Materials and methods Effects of free and encapsulated form of CoQ 10 on wound healing processes after tooth extraction in rats, 3 and 7 days following surgical procedure, was studied by means of tissue biochemical (myeloperoxidase activity and nitric oxide (NO) concentrations) and pathohistological analysis. Results The obtained results indicate that the encapsulated form of CoQ 10 compared to control and CoQ 10 treated animals statistically significantly decreases inflammatory process estimated through myeloperoxidase activity and NO concentrations, as well as based on histopathological analysis 3 and 7 days following surgery. Conclusion The results of this study unequivocally prove that the encapsulation of CoQ 10 in nanoliposomes enhances CoQ 10 activity by accelerating wound healing process after tooth extraction.

The radioactive iodine (131I) ablation is a well-accepted treatment modality for differentiated thyroid cancer patients. Unfortunately, the radiation induces the oxidative stress and damages cells and tissues, simultaneously activating the mechanisms of antioxidative defense. Since the mechanisms of those processes are not completely known, we wanted to examine the changes in the most important reactive oxygen species and antioxidative components, as well as their correlation and significance for lipid peroxidation. Our results showed that the level of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances was increased during the first 30 days after the radiotherapy. Among antioxidant components, superoxide dismutase was increased in the 3rd and 30th day; catalase in 7th and reduced glutathione in 3rd and 7th day after the radiotherapy. As regards the prooxidants, the reduction of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) was recorded in 7th and 30th day, and superoxide anion radical (O×-) was unchanged after the exposure to 131I. These results indicate that differentiated thyroid cancer patients are under constant oxidative stress despite the observed increase in antioxidative and reduction in prooxidative parameters. The understanding of these early processes is important since their progress determines the latter effects of 131I therapy. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. III41007 and Grant no. 175007]

The human brain is equipped with complex mechanisms to track the changing probability of events in time. While the passage of time itself usually leads to a mounting expectation, context can provide additional information about when events are likely to happen. In this study we dissociate these two sources of temporal expectation in terms of their neural correlates and underlying brain connectivity patterns. We analysed magnetoencephalographic (MEG) data acquired from N=24 healthy participants listening to auditory stimuli. These stimuli could be presented at different temporal intervals but occurred most often at intermediate intervals, forming a contextual probability distribution. Evoked MEG response amplitude was sensitive to both passage of time and contextual probability, albeit at different latencies: the effects of passage of time were observed earlier than the effects of context. The underlying sources of MEG activity were also different across the two types of temporal prediction: the effects of passage of time were localised to early auditory regions and superior temporal gyri, while context was additionally linked to activity in inferior parietal cortices. Finally, these differences were modelled using biophysical (dynamic causal) modelling: passage of time was explained in terms of widespread gain modulation and decreased prediction error signalling at lower levels of the hierarchy, while contextual expectation led to more localised gain modulation and decreased prediction error signalling at higher levels of the hierarchy. These results present a comprehensive account of how independent sources of temporal prediction may be differentially expressed in cortical circuits.HIGHLIGHTS- Predictability of tone onset times affects auditory network connectivity- Foreperiod and distribution of events in time have dissociable neural substrates- Decreased prediction error at different levels of cortical hierarchy

In language comprehension, a variety of contextual cues act in unison to render upcoming words more or less predictable. As a sentence unfolds, we use prior context (sentential constraints) to predict what the next words might be. Additionally, in a conversation, we can predict upcoming sounds through observing the mouth movements of a speaker (visual constraints). In electrophysiological studies, effects of visual salience have typically been observed early in language processing, while effects of sentential constraints have typically been observed later. We hypothesized that the visual and the sentential constraints might feed into the same predictive process such that effects of sentential constraints might also be detectable early in language processing through modulations of the early effects of visual salience. We presented participants with audiovisual speech while recording their brain activity with magnetoencephalography. Participants saw videos of a person saying sentences where the last word was either sententially constrained or not, and began with a salient or non-salient mouth movement. We found that sentential constraints indeed exerted an early (N1) influence on language processing. Sentential modulations of the N1 visual predictability effect were visible in brain areas associated with semantic processing, and were differently expressed in the two hemispheres. In the left hemisphere, visual and sentential constraints jointly suppressed the auditory evoked field, while the right hemisphere was sensitive to visual constraints only in the absence of strong sentential constraints. These results suggest that sentential and visual constraints can jointly influence even very early stages of audiovisual speech comprehension.

Indications of kidney cancer outcome in lowerincome countries are based on an incidence/mortality ratio due to lack of survival information. This study was conducted to provide outcome data in Serbian patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and to identify prognostic factors that could affect their overall survival (OS).This retrospective study included 185 patients who underwent nephrectomy. We assessed certain clinicopathological data including age, gender, tumor size, grade, stage and histological subtypes for their possible impact on OS.The 5-year OS was 63.2%. Significant association was found between OS and age (log-rank 12.455, p=0.006), tumor size (log-rank 26.425, p=0.000), grade (log-rank 13.249, p=0.000) and stage (log-rank 43.235, p=0.000). Univariate analysis indicated size (p=0.000), grade (p=0.001) and stage (p=0.000) as prognostic factors for OS. In multivariate analysis, grade (p=0.014) and stage (p=0.000) remained significant predictors of OS.Tumor grade and stage were identified as independent prognostic factors of OS survival in Serbian patients with RCC.

Background/purpose Tooth extraction is often followed by a number of different complications that demand additional treatment. In order to accelerate healing processes and decrease the complication occurrence various agents, growth factors, natural and synthetic antioxidants (e.g coenzyme Q10-CoQ10), are applied. Due to the partially known health-promoting effects of CoQ10 we decided to assess potential of it's encapsulated in nanoliposomes form on wound healing process following tooth extraction. Materials and methods Effects of free and encapsulated form of CoQ10 on wound healing processes after tooth extraction in rats, 3 and 7 days following surgical procedure, was studied by means of tissue biochemical (myeloperoxidase activity and nitric oxide (NO) concentrations) and pathohistological analysis. Results The obtained results indicate that the encapsulated form of CoQ10 compared to control and CoQ10 treated animals statistically significantly decreases inflammatory process estimated through myeloperoxidase activity and NO concentrations, as well as based on histopathological analysis 3 and 7 days following surgery. Conclusion The results of this study unequivocally prove that the encapsulation of CoQ10 in nanoliposomes enhances CoQ10 activity by accelerating wound healing process after tooth extraction.

Affective modulation of attentional switching may have developed early in evolution and may therefore have primacy over other affective influences. This behavioral study investigated the influence of affect on attentional switching between emotionally neutral stimuli, whether limited- capacity control processes are involved, and whether attentional flexibility should be distinguished from attentional broadening. Experiment 1 showed that suboptimally presented happy faces facilitated switching from an automatized response routine, whereas angry faces had the opposite effect. In Experiment 2, participants with a dominant global (i.e., broad) or local (i.e., narrow) spatial bias switched more easily to the opposite bias after suboptimal happy faces than after neutral primes but less easily after angry faces. Affective modulation of attentional switching was probably incorporated during evolution in many more complex forms of information processing.

Perinatal palliative medicine is an emerging subspecialty within paediatric palliative medicine, neonatal medicine, fetal medicine and obstetrics. It comprises patient-focused, non-judgemental shared decision-making and aims to provide holistic multi-disciplinary support for families. In this paper we define and describe one model for providing perinatal palliative care, drawing on the personal and professional experience of the authors.

Contains fulltext : 99626.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) Repetition suppression, the phenomenon that the second presentation of a stimulus attenuates neural activity, is typically viewed as an automatic consequence of repeated stimulus presentation. However, a recent neuroimaging study has suggested that repetition suppression may be driven by top-down expectations. Here we examined whether and when repetition suppression can be modulated by top-down expectation. Participants listened to auditory stimuli in blocks where tone repetitions were either expected or unexpected, while we recorded ongoing neural activity using magnetoencephalography. We found robust repetition suppression in the auditory cortex for repeated tones. Interestingly, this reduction was significantly larger for expected than unexpected repetitions, both in terms of evoked activity and gamma-band synchrony. These findings indicate a role of top-down expectation in generating repetition suppression and are in line with predictive coding models of perception, in which the difference between expected and actual input is propagated from lower to higher cortical areas. 6 p.

Numerous authors agree on the existence of a positive correlation between spiritual experiences and religious beliefs. The strength of this relationship, however, is amplified by the method of construction of scales measuring spirituality. Items in these scales typically consist of both descriptions of spiritual experiences, and accounts of those experiences as originating by way of the supernatural. In this article, we have created instruments measuring spirituality without including interpretations of spiritual experiences, as well as modifying two most commonly used scales, Piedmont?s Spiritual Transcendence Scale and Cloninger?s Self-Transcendence Scale, so that they also consisted exclusively of descriptions of spiritual experiences with no interpretations added. None of such conceived measures correlate with the two different measures of religiousness in our study - neither with religious beliefs, nor with religious practice.

Item does not contain fulltext Magnetoencephalography (MEG) is measured above the head, which makes it sensitive to variations of the head position with respect to the sensors. Head movements blur the topography of the neuronal sources of the MEG signal, increase localization errors, and reduce statistical sensitivity. Here we describe two novel and readily applicable methods that compensate for the detrimental effects of head motion on the statistical sensitivity of MEG experiments. First, we introduce an online procedure that continuously monitors head position. Second, we describe an offline analysis method that takes into account the head position time-series. We quantify the performance of these methods in the context of three different experimental settings, involving somatosensory, visual and auditory stimuli, assessing both individual and group-level statistics. The online head localization procedure allowed for optimal repositioning of the subjects over multiple sessions, resulting in a 28% reduction of the variance in dipole position and an improvement of up to 15% in statistical sensitivity. Offline incorporation of the head position time-series into the general linear model resulted in improvements of group-level statistical sensitivity between 15% and 29%. These tools can substantially reduce the influence of head movement within and between sessions, increasing the sensitivity of many cognitive neuroscience experiments. 10 p.

Ana Todorovic reflects on the things that helped her when facing the death of her unborn daughter Nadia

Contains fulltext : 151734.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access) The neural response to a stimulus is influenced by endogenous factors such as expectation and attention. Current research suggests that expectation and attention exert their effects in opposite directions, where expectation decreases neural activity in sensory areas, while attention increases it. However, expectation and attention are usually studied either in isolation or confounded with each other. A recent study suggests that expectation and attention may act jointly on sensory processing, by increasing the neural response to expected events when they are attended, but decreasing it when they are unattended. Here we test this hypothesis in an auditory temporal cueing paradigm using magnetoencephalography in humans. In our study participants attended to, or away from, tones that could arrive at expected or unexpected moments. We found a decrease in auditory beta band synchrony to expected (versus unexpected) tones if they were unattended, but no difference if they were attended. Modulations in beta power were already evident prior to the expected onset times of the tones. These findings suggest that expectation and attention jointly modulate sensory processing. 16 p.

This study evaluated the effects of curcumin, a naturally occurring compound with numerous health-beneficial properties, on the wound-healing process of extraction sockets (soft tissue that surrounded the extracted tooth) in rats. The effects of topically applied curcumin were monitored by tracking changes in myeloperoxidase activity and nitric oxide concentrations in soft tissue homogenates 3 and 7 days following surgery. Additionally, pathohistological examination of tissue sections was used to reveal the effects of curcumin on the course of wound healing on a microscopic level. Compared to the untreated control, topically administered curcumin statistically significantly decreased soft-tissue myeloperoxidase activity and nitric oxide concentrations after both 3 and 7 days of application. Microscopic analysis showed a reduced inflammatory infiltrate (subjectively and morphometrically estimated as the number of polymorphonuclear cells/100 μm2) and an increased collagen deposition in rats treated with curcumin. The obtained results point to the great potential of curcumin in the acceleration of tooth extraction wound-healing processes partially through the reduction of the inflammatory response and increase in collagen deposition. Thus, these results significantly contribute to the previously suggested application of curcumin in the skin wound treatment by potentially broadening its usage in the treatment of mucosal wounds.