bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Middle meningeal artery embolization for subdural hematoma: protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials
Authors: Wang Alick P , Shakil Husain , Drake Brian J 
Published: December 2024

AbstractBackgroundMiddle meningeal artery embolization is an emerging neuroendovascular therapy for chronic subdural hematoma. Recently, a number of randomized control trials have been conducted to assess the efficacy of middle meningeal artery embolization to reduce the recurrence or progression of chronic subdural hematoma.MethodsA systematic review will be conducted following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines. The authors will systematically search MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane, andClinicalTrials.gov(National Library of Medicine) for randomized control trials evaluating middle meningeal artery embolization for chronic subdural hematoma. A meta-analysis will be undertaken to compare patients undergoing middle meningeal artery embolization and standard care compared to standard care alone; primary effectiveness endpoints will be symptomatic recurrence, radiographic re-accumulation, or reoperation; secondary safety endpoints will be new disabling stroke, myocardial infarction, or death within 30 days.DiscussionThis proposed systematic review and meta-analysis will synthesize and appraise available data regarding middle meningeal artery embolization, a novel neurointerventional therapy. Findings will help clinicians, patients, administrators, policy makers to determine the role of this new treatment and its potential benefits.Systematic review registrationPROSPERO #CRD42024512049
Prognostic factors for mortality, ICU, MIS-C and hospital admission due to SARS-CoV-2 in paediatric patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Vardavas Constantine I. , Nikitara Katerina , Mathioudakis Alexander G. , Delialis Dimitris , Marou Valia , Ramesh Nithya , Stamatelopoulos Kimon , Georgiopoulos Georgios , Phalkey Revati , Leonardi-Bee Jo , Deogan Charlotte , Lamb Favelle , Mougkou Aikaterini , Pharris Anastasia , Suk Jonathan E. 
Published: December 2024

ABSTRACTBackgroundThere is a paucity of data on the factors associated with severe COVID-19 disease, especially in children. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to identify the risk factors for acute adverse outcomes of COVID-19 within paediatric populations, using the recruitment setting as a proxy of initial disease severity.MethodsA systematic review and meta-analysis were performed representing published evidence from the start of the pandemic up to 14 February 2022. Our primary outcome was the identification of risk factors for adverse outcomes, stratified by recruitment setting (community, hospital). No geographical restrictions were imposed. The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) methodology was used to evaluate the certainty in the body of evidence for each meta-analysis. In anticipation of significant clinical and methodological heterogeneity in the meta-analyses, we fitted logistic regression models with random effects.FindingsOur review identified 47 studies involving 94,210 paediatric cases of COVID-19. Infants up to 3 months were more likely to be hospitalised than older children. Gender and ethnicity were not associated with an increased likelihood of adverse outcomes among children within the community setting. Concerning comorbidities, having at least one pre-existing disease increased the odds of hospitalisation. Concerning BMI, underweight children and severely obese were noted to have an increased likelihood of hospital admission. The presence of metabolic disorders and children with underlying cardiovascular diseases, respiratory disorders, neuromuscular disorders and neurologic conditions were also more likely to be hospitalised. Concerning underlying comorbidities, paediatric hospitalised patients with congenital/genetic disease, those obese, with malignancy, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory disease were associated with higher odds of being admitted to ICU or ventilated.InterpretationOur findings suggest that age, male, gender, and paediatric comorbidities increased the likelihood of hospital and ICU admission. Obesity, malignancy, and respiratory and cardiovascular disorders were among the most important risk factors for hospital and ICU admission among children with COVID-19. The extent to which these factors were linked to actual severity or where the application of cautious preventive care is an area in which further research is needed.
What support is needed for preconception health improvement, and by whom? A qualitative study of women’s views
Authors: Daly Michael P , Kipping Ruth R , White James , Sanders Julia 
Published: December 2024

ABSTRACTBackgroundSystematic reviews suggest preconception health interventions may be effective in improving maternal and infant outcomes. However, few studies have explored women’s views on the types of support required for preconception health improvement, nor when and to whom this support should be provided.MethodsWe purposively sampled women aged 18-48 years in the West of England from respondents to a survey, and conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews to explore their views on support needs in the preconception period and target populations for this support. We analyzed the data using a data-driven framework analysis.ResultsThe women we interviewed (N=20) broadly supported promoting greater awareness of preconception health and felt the limited focus on health before pregnancy downplays its importance relative to antenatal health. Some women opposed support services and structural interventions to improve preconception health, due to concerns these are less impactful than encouraging individual responsibility for health. Women who supported structural interventions highlighted broader determinants of health and socioeconomic barriers to preconception health improvement. Men were considered a key target population for preconception support, to help share the burden for preconception health improvement. Women broadly supported ‘age-appropriate’, school-based preconception health education, highlighting young women as an under-served group in need of additional preconception education.ConclusionOur findings indicate a need to deliver early preventive support ahead of first pregnancy through services, interventions and policies co-produced with women and women’s partners. Future research should explore how to increase public understanding of the socioeconomic, environmental and commercial determinants of preconception health.HIGHLIGHTSWomen broadly supported promoting greater awareness of preconception healthNeoliberal views on responsibility underlay opposition to structural interventionsAwareness of wider health determinants underlay support for structural interventionsSuggested support included preconception health checks and community support groupsYoung women were considered an under-served group in terms of preconception support
Understanding Healthcare Barriers for Latino/a/e/x Families with Alzheimer’s Disease: Insights from Primary Care Provider interviews
Authors: Garcia Diana Martinez , Pinzon Maria Mora , Perales-Puchalt Jaime 
Published: December 2024

AbstractBackgroundAlzheimer’s Disease and Related dementias (ADRD) are disproportionately underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and undertreated in Latino/a/e/x populations living in the U.S. Latino/a/e/x families also experience low access to ADRD caregiver support services and high levels of depression. Primary care providers (PCPs) are the first point of contact for patients and their families, and they are critical in understanding the factors associated with disparities in accessing services. This project aims to reflect on the barriers that Latino/a/e/x families experience in accessing and using healthcare services from the perspective of PCPs.MethodsThe data was collected through structured interviews with 23 diverse PCPs across the US via videoconference or phone calls. Participants were recruited via snowball sampling. Two reviewers used an inductive coding approach to conduct qualitative thematic analysis. The Rigorous and Accelerated Data Reduction (RADaR) technique was used to extract relevant data and organize it into relevant categories.ResultsSome of the themes identified reflect the experiences of individuals in the diagnostic process and subsequent care: 1) Family members are usually the first ones to notice the symptoms, 2) Delays in seeking care might be partially influenced by denial from individuals and their families, 3) Language congruency promotes the disclosure of symptoms, 4) Care that is linguistically and literacy appropriate requires additional support of patients and families, and 5) Caregiving expectations and preferences by Latino/a/e/x families do not shield caregivers from feeling burnout. Overall, PCPs reflected that the experiences of individuals are highly influenced by socioeconomic factors, which also influence their care plans.ConclusionMost Latino/a/e/x older adults with ADRD will be cared for by a PCP at some point during their disease, which means that they require additional support and resources at primary care appointments to address the barriers to accessing care services and enhance health equity in Latino/a/e/x communities.
tet2 and tet3 regulate cell fate specification and differentiation events during retinal development
Authors: Heilman Shea A , Schriever Hannah C , Kostka Dennis , Koenig Kristen M , Gross Jeffrey M 
Published: December 2024

AbstractTet enzymes are epigenetic modifiers that impact gene expression via 5mC to 5hmC oxidation. Previous work demonstrated the requirement for Tet and 5hmC during zebrafish retinogenesis.tet2-/-;tet3-/-mutants possessed defects in the formation of differentiated retinal neurons, but the mechanisms underlying these defects are unknown. Here, we leveraged scRNAseq technologies to better understand cell type-specific deficits and molecular signatures underlying thetet2-/-;tet3-/-retinal phenotype. Our results identified defects in thetet2-/-;tet3-/-retinae that included delayed specification of several retinal cell types, reduced maturity across late-stage cones, expansions of immature subpopulations of horizontal and bipolar cells, and altered biases of bipolar cell subtype fates at late differentiation stages. Together, these data highlight the critical role that tet2 and tet3 play as regulators of cell fate specification and terminal differentiation events during retinal development.
Reduced and Redundant: Information Processing of Prediction Errors during Sleep
Authors: Blume Christine , Dauphin Marina , Niedernhuber Maria , Spitschan Manuel , Meyer Martin P. , Cajochen Christian , Bekinschtein Tristan , Canales-Johnson Andrés 
Published: December 2024

AbstractDuring sleep, the human brain transitions to a ‘sentinel processing mode’, enabling the continued processing of environmental stimuli despite the absence of consciousness. Going beyond prior research, we employed advanced information-theoretic analyses, including mutual information (MI) and co-information (co-I), alongside event-related potential (ERP) and temporal generalization analyses (TGA), to characterize auditory prediction error processing across wakefulness and sleep. We hypothesized that a shared neural code would be present across sleep stages, with deeper sleep being associated with reduced information content and increased information redundancy.To investigate this, twenty-nine young healthy participants were exposed to an auditory ‘local-global’ oddball paradigm during wakefulness and continued during an 8-hour sleep opportunity monitored via polysomnography. We focused on ‘local’ mismatch responses to a deviating fifth tone following four standard tones.ERP analyses showed that prediction error processing continued throughout all sleep stages (N1-N3, REM). Mutual information analyses revealed a substantial reduction in the amount of encoded prediction error information during sleep, although ERP amplitudes increased with deeper NREM sleep. In addition, co-information analyses showed that neural dynamics became increasingly redundant with increasing sleep depth. Temporal generalisation analyses revealed a largely shared neural code between N2 and N3 sleep, although it differed between wakefulness and sleep.Here, we showed how the neural code of the ‘sentinel processing mode’ changes from wake to light to deep sleep and REM, characterised by more redundant and less rich neural information in the human cortex as consciousness wanes. This altered stimulus processing reveals how neural information changes with the changes of consciousness states as we traverse the night.
Stimulus-repetition effects on macaque V1 and V4 microcircuits explain gamma-synchronization increase
Authors: Katsanevaki Christini , Bosman Conrado A. , Friston Karl J. , Fries Pascal 
Published: December 2024

AbstractUnder natural conditions, animals repeatedly encounter the same visual scenes, objects or patterns repeatedly. These repetitions constitute statistical regularities, which the brain captures in an internal model through learning. A signature of such learning in primate visual areas V1 and V4 is the gradual strengthening of gamma synchronization. We used a V1-V4 Dynamic Causal Model (DCM) to explain visually induced responses in early and late epochs from a sequence of several hundred grating presentations. The DCM reproduced the empirical increase in local and inter-areal gamma synchronization, revealing specific intrinsic connectivity effects that could explain the phenomenon. In a sensitivity analysis, the isolated modulation of several connection strengths induced increased gamma. Comparison of alternative models showed that empirical gamma increases are better explained by (1) repetition effects in both V1 and V4 intrinsic connectivity (alone or together with extrinsic) than in extrinsic connectivity alone, and (2) repetition effects on V1 and V4 population input rather than output gain. The best input gain model included effects in V1 granular and superficial excitatory populations and in V4 granular and deep excitatory populations. Our findings are consistent with gamma reflecting bottom-up signal precision, which increases with repetition and, therefore, with predictability and learning.HighlightsWe model learning effects in macaque visual cortex using Dynamic Causal Modeling.Microcircuit-level changes explain the repetition-induced gamma increases.The best models include changes 1) within V1 and V4 and 2) in neuronal input gain.Gamma may reflect bottom-up signal precision.
Sensor Movement Drives Emergent Attention and Scalability in Active Neural Cellular Automata
Authors: Kvalsund Mia-Katrin , Ellefsen Kai Olav , Glette Kyrre , Pontes-Filho Sidney , Lepperød Mikkel Elle 
Published: December 2024

AbstractThe brain’s distributed architecture has inspired numerous artificial intelligence (AI) systems, particularly through its neocortical organization. However, current AI approaches largely over-look a crucial aspect of biological intelligence: active sensing – the deliberate movement of sensory organs to explore the environment. To explore how sensor movement impacts behavior in classification tasks, we introduce the Active Neural Cellular Automata (ANCA), a neocortex-inspired model with movable sensors. Active sensing naturally emerges in the ANCA, with belief-informed exploration and attentive behavior to salient information, without adding explicit attention mechanisms. Active sensing both simplifies classification tasks and leads to a highly scalable system. This enables ANCAs to be smaller than the image size without losing information and enables fault tolerance to damaged sensors. Overall, our work provides insight to how distributed architectures can interact with movement, opening new avenues for adaptive AI systems in embodied agents.
Space- and object-based attention in patients with a single hemisphere following childhood resection
Authors: Robert Sophia , Granovetter Michael C. , Ling Shouyu , Behrmann Marlene 
Published: December 2024

AbstractThe neural processes underlying attentional processing are typically lateralized in adults, with spatial attention associated with the right hemisphere (RH) and object-based attention with the left hemisphere (LH). Using a modified two-rectangle attention paradigm, we compared the lateralization profiles of individuals with childhood hemispherectomy (either LH or RH) and age-matched, typically developing controls. Although patients exhibited slower reaction times (RTs) compared to controls, both groups benefited from valid attentional cueing. However, patients experienced significantly higher costs for invalid trials—reflected by larger RT differences between validly and invalidly cued targets. This was true for invalid trials on both cued and uncued objects, probes of object- and space-based attentional processes, respectively. Notably, controls showed no significant RT cost differences between invalidly cued locations on cued versus uncued objects. By contrast, patients exhibited greater RT costs for targets on uncued versus cued objects, suggesting greater difficulty shifting attention across objects. We explore potential explanations for this group difference and the lack of difference between patients with LH or RH resection. These findings enhance our understanding of spatial and object-based attention in typical development and reveal how significant neural injury affects the development of attentional systems in the LH and RH.
Behavioral and genetic markers of susceptibility to escalate fentanyl intake
Authors: Keady Jack , Charnigo Richard , Shaykin Jakob D. , Prantzalos Emily R. , Xia Mengfan , Denehy Emily , Bumgardner Cody , Miller Justin , Ortinski Pavel , Bardo Michael T. , Turner Jill R. 
Published: December 2024

ABSTRACTBackgroundThe “loss of control” over drug consumption, present in opioid use disorder (OUD) and known as escalation of intake, is well-established in preclinical rodent models. However, little is known about how antecedent behavioral characteristics, such as valuation of hedonic reinforcers prior to drug use, may impact the trajectory of fentanyl intake over time. Moreover, it is unclear if distinct escalation phenotypes may be driven by genetic markers predictive of OUD susceptibility.MethodsMale and female Sprague-Dawley rats (n=63) were trained in a sucrose reinforcement task using a progressive ratio schedule. Individual differences in responsivity to sucrose were hypothesized to predict escalation of fentanyl intake. Rats underwent daily 1-h acquisition sessions for i.v. fentanyl self-administration (2.5 µg/kg; FR1) for 7 days, followed by 21 6-h escalation sessions, then tissue from prefrontal cortex was collected for RNA sequencing and qPCR. Latent growth curve and group-based trajectory modeling were used, respectively, to evaluate the association between sucrose reinforcement and fentanyl self-administration and to identify whether distinct escalation phenotypes can be linked to gene expression patterns.ResultsSucrose breakpoints were not predictive of fentanyl acquisition nor change during escalation, but did predict fentanyl intake on the first day of extended access to fentanyl. Permutation analyses did not identify associations between behavior and single gene expression when evaluated overall, or between our ascertained phenotypes. However, weighted genome correlation network analysis (WGCNA) and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) determined several gene modules linked to escalated fentanyl intake, including genes coding for voltage-gated potassium channels, calcium channels, and genes involved in excitatory synaptic signaling. Transcription factor analyses identified EZH2 and JARID2 as potential transcriptional regulators associated with escalated fentanyl intake. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) term categories were also generated and positively associated with terms relating to substance use disorders.DiscussionEscalation of opioid intake is largely distinct from motivation for natural reward, such as sucrose. Further, the gene networks associated with fentanyl escalation suggest that engagement of select molecular pathways distinguish individuals with “addiction prone” behavioral endophenotypes, potentially representing druggable targets for opioid use disorder. Our extended in silico identification of SNPs and transcription factors associated with the “addiction prone” high escalating rats highlights the importance of integrating findings from translational preclinical models. Through a precision medicine approach, our results may aid in the development of patient-centered treatment options for those with OUD.
Neural mechanisms underlying the effects of cognitive fatigue on physical effort-based choice
Authors: Dryzer Michael , Chib Vikram S 
Published: December 2024

AbstractFatigue is a state of exhaustion that influences our willingness to engage in effortful tasks. While both physical and cognitive exertion can cause fatigue, there is a limited understanding of how fatigue in one exertion domain (e.g., cognitive) affects decisions to exert in another (e.g., physical). We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain activity while human participants make decisions to exert prospective physical effort before and after engaging in a cognitively fatiguing working memory task. Using computational modeling of choice behavior, we show that fatiguing cognitive exertion increases participants’ subjective costs of physical effort compared to a baseline rested state. We describe how signals related to fatiguing cognitive exertion in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex influence physical effort value computations instantiated by the insula, thereby increasing an individual’s subjective valuation of prospective physical effort while cognitively fatigued. Our results support the idea of a general fatigue signal that integrates exertion-specific information to guide effort-based choice.
Using paralogs for phylogenetic inference mitigates the effects of long-branch attraction
Authors: Smith Megan L. , Hahn Matthew W. 
Published: December 2024

AbstractTraditionally, the inference of species trees has relied on orthologs, or genes related through speciation events, to the exclusion of paralogs, or genes related through duplication events. This has led to a focus on using only gene families with a single gene-copy per species, as these families are likely to be composed of orthologs. However, recent work has demonstrated that phylogenetic inference using paralogs is accurate and allows researchers to take advantage of more data. Here, we investigate a case in which using larger gene families actually increases accuracy compared to using single-copy genes alone. Long-branch attraction is a phenomenon in which taxa with long branches may be incorrectly inferred as sister taxa due to homoplasy. The most common solution to long-branch attraction is to increase taxon sampling to break up long branches. Sampling additional taxa is not always feasible, perhaps due to extinction or access to high-quality DNA. We propose the use of larger gene families with additional gene copies to break up long branches. Using simulations, we demonstrate that using larger gene families mitigates the impacts of long-branch attraction across large regions of parameter space. We also analyze data from Chelicerates, with a focus on assessing support for a sister relationship between scorpions and pseudoscorpions. Previous work has suggested that the failure to recover this relationship is due to long-branch attraction between pseudoscorpions and other lineages. Using data from larger gene families increases support for a clade uniting scorpions and pseudoscorpions, further highlighting the potential utility of these gene families in phylogenetic inference.