Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Hyperpolarized Helium 3 Mri In Mild-To-Moderate Asthma: Prediction Of Postbronchodilator Reversibility, Rachel L Eddy, Sarah Svenningsen, Christopher Licskai, David G Mccormack, Grace Parraga

Medical Biophysics Publications

Background: Longitudinal progression to irreversible airflow limitation occurs in approximately 10% of patients with asthma, but it is difficult to identify patients who are at risk for this transition.

Purpose: To investigate 6-year longitudinal changes in hyperpolarized helium 3 (3He) MRI ventilation defects in study participants with mild-to-moderate asthma and identify predictors of longitudinal changes in postbronchodilator forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) reversibility

Materials and Methods: Spirometry and hyperpolarized 3He MRI were evaluated in participants with mild-to-moderate asthma in two prospectively planned visits approximately 6 years apart. Participants underwent methacholine challenge at baseline (January 2010 to April 2011) …

Modulation Of The Hoffmann Reflex In The Tibialis Anterior With A Change In Posture., Janelle Unger, Justin W Andrushko, Alison R Oates, Doug W Renshaw, Trevor S Barss, E Paul Zehr, Jonathan P Farthing

Physical Therapy Publications

Hoffmann (H-) reflex amplitudes in plantar flexor soleus muscle are modulated by posture, yet dorsiflexor tibialis anterior (TA) H-reflex parameters have sparingly been studied. The purpose was to investigate modulation of the TA H-reflex when postural demands are increased from sitting to standing. In this study, data from 18 participants (Age: 25 ± 4 years, Height: 170.9 ± 9.5 cm, Weight: 75.9 ± 17.2 kg) allowed comparison of two experimental conditions involving different postures (i.e. sitting and standing). Maximal amplitude of the TA H-reflex (H_max) as a percent of the maximal M-wave amplitude (M_max) …

The Healthesteps™ Lifestyle Prescription Program To Improve Physical Activity And Modifiable Risk Factors For Chronic Disease: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial., Dawn P. Gill, W Blunt, N C Boa Sorte Silva, C Stiller-Moldovan, G Y Zou, R J Petrella

Family Medicine Publications

BACKGROUND: Our objective was to determine the influence of the HealtheSteps™ lifestyle prescription program on physical activity and modifiable risk factors for chronic disease in individuals at risk.

METHODS: One hundred eighteen participants were recruited from 5 sites in Southwestern Ontario, Canada and randomized to either the intervention (HealtheSteps™ program, n = 59) or a wait-list control group (n = 59). The study comprised three phases: an Active Phase (0 to 6 months) consisted of bi-monthly in-person lifestyle coaching with access to a suite of eHealth technology supports (Heathesteps app, telephone coaching and a private HealtheSteps™ social network) followed by …

Placental Micrornas In Pregnancies With Early Onset Intrauterine Growth Restriction And Preeclampsia: Potential Impact On Gene Expression And Pathophysiology., Zain Awamleh, Gregory B Gloor, Victor K M Han

Paediatrics Publications

BACKGROUND:
A normally developed placenta is integral to a successful pregnancy. Preeclampsia (PE) and intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) are two common pregnancy related complications that maybe a result of abnormal placental development. Placental microRNAs (miRNAs) have been investigated as potential biomarkers for these complications, as they may play a role in placental development and pathophysiology by influencing gene expression. The purpose of this study is to utilize next-generation sequencing to determine miRNA and gene expression in human placental (chorionic villous) samples from three distinct patient groups with early-onset (EO) PE, IUGR, or PE + IUGR.

METHODS:
Placental tissues were collected …

Involuntary Hospitalization Among Young People With Early Psychosis: A Population-Based Study Using Health Administrative Data., Rebecca Rodrigues, Arlene G Macdougall, Guangyong Zou, Michael Lebenbaum, Paul Kurdyak, Lihua Li, Salimah Z Shariff, Kelly K Anderson

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

OBJECTIVE: Early psychosis is an important window for establishing long-term trajectories. Involuntary hospitalization during this period may impact subsequent service engagement in people with newly diagnosed psychotic disorder. However, population-based studies of involuntary hospitalization in early psychosis are lacking. We sought to estimate the proportion of people aged 16 to 35 years with early psychosis in Ontario who are hospitalized involuntarily at first admission, and to identify the associated risk factors and outcomes.

METHODS: Using linked population-based health administrative data, we identified incident cases of non-affective psychosis over a five-year period (2009-2013) and followed cases for two years to ascertain …

Intensive Balance Training For Adults With Incomplete Spinal Cord Injuries: Protocol For An Assessor-Blinded Randomized Clinical Trial., Janelle Unger, Katherine Chan, Carol Y Scovil, B Catharine Craven, Avril Mansfield, Kei Masani, Kristin E Musselman

Physical Therapy Publications

BACKGROUND: Impaired reactive balance control can lead to increased falls in people with neurological impairments. Perturbation-based balance training (PBT), which involves repetitive exposure to destabilizing external perturbations, improves the ability to take reactive steps in older adults and individuals who have had a stroke.

OBJECTIVE: The objective is to investigate whether PBT or conventional intensive balance training (CIBT) results in greater improvements in reactive stepping ability in individuals with chronic incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI).

DESIGN: The design consists of an assessor-blind randomized clinical trial comparing the efficacy of 2 balance training programs (PBT and CIBT) matched for training duration …

Oscillometry And Pulmonary Magnetic Resonance Imaging In Asthma And Copd, Rachel L Eddy, Andrew Westcott, Geoffrey N Maksym, Grace Parraga, Ronald J Dandurand

Medical Biophysics Publications

Developed over six decades ago, pulmonary oscillometry has re-emerged as a noninvasive and effort-independent method for evaluating respiratory-system impedance in patients with obstructive lung disease. Here, we evaluated the relationships between hyperpolarized

Linked Mri Signatures Of The Brain's Acute And Persistent Response To Concussion In Female Varsity Rugby Players., Kathryn Y Manning, Alberto Llera, Gregory A Dekaban, Robert Bartha, Christy Barreira, Arthur Brown, Lisa Fischer, Tatiana Jevremovic, Kevin Blackney, Timothy J Doherty, Douglas D Fraser, Jeff Holmes, Christian F Beckmann, Ravi S Menon

Paediatrics Publications

Acute brain changes are expected after concussion, yet there is growing evidence of persistent abnormalities well beyond clinical recovery and clearance to return to play. Multiparametric MRI is a powerful approach to non-invasively study structure-function relationships in the brain, however it remains challenging to interpret the complex and heterogeneous cascade of brain changes that manifest after concussion. Emerging conjunctive, data-driven analysis approaches like linked independent component analysis can integrate structural and functional imaging data to produce linked components that describe the shared inter-subject variance across images. These linked components not only offer the potential of a more comprehensive understanding of …

Reliability, Validity, And Agreement Of The Short-Form Activities-Specific Balance Confidence Scale In People With Lower Extremity Amputations., Katherine Fuller, Humberto Adolfo Omaña Moreno, Courtney Frengopoulos, Michael W Payne, Ricardo Viana, Susan W. Hunter

Physical Therapy Publications

BACKGROUND: Clinicians use the Activities-specific Balance Confidence Scale to understand balance confidence. A short-form Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale, was developed using the six most difficult tasks from the original Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale; however, short-form the short-form scale psychometrics and agreement with the original scale have yet to be explored in people with lower extremity amputations.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relative and absolute reliability, construct validity, and agreement of the short-form Activities-specific Balance Confidence scale.

STUDY DESIGN: Test-retest with a 2-week interval.

METHODS: Analysis for relative reliability and internal consistency was intraclass correlation coefficient and Cronbach's

RESULTS: The short-form Activities-specific …

Phenytoin Activates Smad3 Phosphorylation And Periostin Expression In Drug-Induced Gingival Enlargement., Shawna S Kim, Georgia Nikoloudaki, Mark Darling, Michael J Rieder, Douglas W Hamilton

Paediatrics Publications

Drug-induced gingival enlargement (DIGE) is a fibrotic condition associated with systemic administration of the anti-epileptic drug, phenytoin. We have previously demonstrated that periostin, which is transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) inducible gene, is upregulated in various fibrotic conditions including gingival enlargement associated with nifedipine. The objective of this study was to assess periostin expression in phenytoin-induced gingival enlargement (PIGE) tissues and to investigate the mechanisms underlying periostin expression. Human PIGE tissues were assessed using Masson's trichrome, with cell infiltration and changes in extracellular matrix composition characterized through labeling with antibodies to periostin, phospho-SMAD 3, TGF-β, as well as the macrophage markers …

Trends In Obesity And Multimorbidity In Canada., Michael Lebenbaum, Gregory S Zaric, Amardeep Thind, Sisira Sarma

Epidemiology and Biostatistics Publications

Very few studies have examined trends in multimorbidity over time and even fewer have examined trends over time across different body mass index (BMI) groups. Given a general decline in death rates but increased cardiovascular risk factors among individuals with obesity, the trend in the association between obesity and multimorbidity is hypothesized to be increasing over time. The data for our study came from the 1996-97 National Population Health Survey and the 2005 and 2012-13 Canadian Community Health Surveys (N = 277,366 across all 3 surveys). We examined trends in the association between BMI groups and multimorbidity using a logistic …

Complexity In Mood Disorder Diagnosis: Fmri Connectivity Networks Predicted Medication-Class Of Response In Complex Patients, E Osuch, S Gao, M Wammes, Jean Theberge, P Willimason, R J Neufeld, Y Du, J Sui, V Calhoun

Department of Medicine Publications

OBJECTIVE: This study determined the clinical utility of an fMRI classification algorithm predicting medication-class of response in patients with challenging mood diagnoses.

METHODS: Ninety-nine 16-27-year-olds underwent resting state fMRI scans in three groups-BD, MDD and healthy controls. A predictive algorithm was trained and cross-validated on the known-diagnosis patients using maximally spatially independent components (ICs), constructing a similarity matrix among subjects, partitioning the matrix in kernel space and optimizing support vector machine classifiers and IC combinations. This classifier was also applied to each of 12 new individual patients with unclear mood disorder diagnoses.

RESULTS: Classification within the known-diagnosis group was approximately …

Magnetic Resonance Imaging In The Diagnosis Of White Matter Signal Abnormalities., Ravi Datar, Asuri Narayan Prasad, Keng Yeow Tay, Charles Anthony Rupar, Pavlo Ohorodnyk, Michael Miller, Chitra Prasad

Paediatrics Publications

Background White matter abnormalities (WMAs) pose a diagnostic challenge when trying to establish etiologic diagnoses. During childhood and adult years, genetic disorders, metabolic disorders and acquired conditions are included in differential diagnoses. To assist clinicians and radiologists, a structured algorithm using cranial magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been recommended to aid in establishing working diagnoses that facilitate appropriate biochemical and genetic investigations. This retrospective pilot study investigated the validity and diagnostic utility of this algorithm when applied to white matter signal abnormalities (WMSAs) reported on imaging studies of patients seen in our clinics. Methods The MRI algorithm was applied to …

Oscillometry And Pulmonary Mri Measurements Of Ventilation Heterogeneity In Obstructive Lung Disease: Relationship To Quality Of Life And Disease Control, Heather M Young, Fumin Guo, Rachel L Eddy, Geoffrey Maksym, Grace Parraga

Medical Biophysics Publications

Ventilation heterogeneity is a hallmark finding in obstructive lung disease and may be evaluated using a variety of methods, including multiple-breath gas washout and pulmonary imaging. Such methods provide an opportunity to better understand the relationships between structural and functional abnormalities in the lungs, and their relationships with important clinical outcomes. We measured ventilation heterogeneity and respiratory impedance in 100 subjects [50 patients with asthma, 22 ex-smokers, and 28 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)] using oscillometry and hyperpolarized

Abstract Concepts And Pictures Of Real-World Situations Activate One Another., Ken Mcrae, Daniel Nedjadrasul, Raymond Pau, Bethany Pui-Hei Lo, Lisa King

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

concepts typically are defined in terms of lacking physical or perceptual referents. We argue instead that they are not devoid of perceptual information because knowledge of real-world situations is an important component of learning and using many abstract concepts. Although the relationship between perceptual information and abstract concepts is less straightforward than for concrete concepts, situation-based perceptual knowledge is part of many abstract concepts. In Experiment 1, participants made lexical decisions to abstract words that were preceded by related and unrelated pictures of situations. For example, share was preceded by a picture of two girls sharing a cob of corn. …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Humor Styles And Depression, Marisa L. Kfrerer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The present study examined the relationship between humor styles and depression using two methods of examination: (1) the mean humor style differences between individuals who reported that they had been diagnosed with depression versus those who did not report being depressed; and (2) a short scale assessing depressed affect. Participants were 878 adult Australians. With respect to mean differences, depressed individuals were found to use self-defeating humor more, and self-enhancing humor less than non-depressed adults. When the depressed affect scale score was analyzed, negative correlations were found between depressed affect and both positive styles of humor, affiliative and self-enhancing. Additionally, …

Seeing The Forest And The Trees: Default Local Processing In Individuals With High Autistic Traits Does Not Come At The Expense Of Global Attention., Ryan A Stevenson, Sol Z Sun, Naomi Hazlett, Jonathan S Cant, Morgan D Barense, Susanne Ferber

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Atypical sensory perception is one of the most ubiquitous symptoms of autism, including a tendency towards a local-processing bias. We investigated whether local-processing biases were associated with global-processing impairments on a global/local attentional-scope paradigm in conjunction with a composite-face task. Behavioural results were related to individuals' levels of autistic traits, specifically the Attention to Detail subscale of the Autism Quotient, and the Sensory Profile Questionnaire. Individuals showing high rates of Attention to Detail were more susceptible to global attentional-scope manipulations, suggesting that local-processing biases associated with Attention to Detail do not come at the cost of a global-processing deficit, but …

Free-Breathing Pulmonary Mr Imaging To Quantify Regional Ventilation, Dante P I Capaldi, Rachel L Eddy, Sarah Svenningsen, Fumin Guo, John S H Baxter, A Jonathan Mcleod, Parameswaran Nair, David G Mccormack, Grace Parraga

Medical Biophysics Publications

Purpose: To measure regional specific ventilation with free-breathing hydrogen 1 (1H) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging without exogenous contrast material and to investigate correlations with hyperpolarized helium 3 (3He) MR imaging and pulmonary function test measurements in healthy volunteers and patients with asthma.

Materials and Methods: Subjects underwent free-breathing 1H and static breath-hold hyperpolarized 3He MR imaging as well as spirometry and plethysmography; participants were consecutively recruited between January and June 2017. Free-breathing 1H MR imaging was performed with an optimized balanced steady-state free-precession sequence; images were retrospectively grouped into tidal inspiration or tidal expiration volumes with exponentially weighted phase interpolation. …

Peripheral Blood Epi-Signature Of Claes-Jensen Syndrome Enables Sensitive And Specific Identification Of Patients And Healthy Carriers With Pathogenic Mutations In Kdm5c, Laila C Schenkel, Erfan Aref-Eshghi, Cindy Skinner, Peter Ainsworth, Hanxin Lin, Guillaume Paré, David I Rodenhiser, Charles Schwartz, Bekim Sadikovic

Paediatrics Publications

Background

Claes-Jensen syndrome is an X-linked inherited intellectual disability caused by mutations in the

Results

Genome-wide DNA methylation analysis of 7 male patients affected with Claes-Jensen syndrome and 56 age- and sex-matched controls identified a specific DNA methylation defect (epi-signature) in the peripheral blood of these patients, including 1769 individual CpGs and 9 genomic regions. Six healthy female carriers showed less pronounced but distinctive changes in the same regions enabling their differentiation from both patients and controls. Highly specific computational model using the most significant methylation changes demonstrated 100% accuracy in differentiating patients, carriers, and controls in the training cohort, …

Birth Weight And Body Mass Index Z-Score In Childhood Brain Tumors: A Cross-Sectional Study, Kuan-Wen Wang, Russell J De Souza, Adam Fleming, Donna L Johnston, Shayna M Zelcer, Shahrad Rod Rassekh, Sarah Burrow, Lehana Thabane, M Constantine Samaan

Paediatrics Publications

Children with brain tumors (CBT) are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes compared to the general population, in which birth weight is a risk factor for these diseases. However, this is not known in CBT. The primary aim of this study was to explore the association between birth weight and body mass measures in CBT, compared to non-cancer controls. This is a secondary data analysis using cross-sectional data from the CanDECIDE study (n = 78 CBT and n = 133 non-cancer controls). Age, sex, and birth weight (grams) were self-reported, and confirmed through examination of the …

Mental Disorder In Children With Physical Conditions: A Pilot Study, Alexandra Butler, Ryan J Van Lieshout, Ellen Louise Lipman, Harriet L Macmillan, Andrea Gonzalez, Jan Willem Gorter, Kathy Georgiades, Kathy N Speechley, Michael H Boyle, Mark A Ferro

Paediatrics Publications

Objectives

Methodologically, to assess the feasibility of participant recruitment and retention, as well as missing data in studying mental disorder among children newly diagnosed with chronic physical conditions (ie, multimorbidity). Substantively, to examine the prevalence of multimorbidity, identify sociodemographic correlates and model the influence of multimorbidity on changes in child quality of life and parental psychosocial outcomes over a 6-month follow-up.

Design

Prospective pilot study.

Setting

Two children's tertiary-care hospitals.

Participants

Children aged 6-16 years diagnosed in the past 6 months with one of the following: asthma, diabetes, epilepsy, food allergy or juvenile arthritis, and their parents.

Outcome Measures

Response, …

Human Neuroimaging Reveals The Subcomponents Of Grasping, Reaching And Pointing Actions., Cristiana Cavina-Pratesi, Jason D Connolly, Simona Monaco, Teresa D Figley, A David Milner, Thomas Schenk, Jody C Culham

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Although the neural underpinnings of visually guided grasping and reaching have been well delineated within lateral and medial fronto-parietal networks (respectively), the contributions of subcomponents of visuomotor actions have not been explored in detail. Using careful subtraction logic, here we investigated which aspects of grasping, reaching, and pointing movements drive activation across key areas within visuomotor networks implicated in hand actions. For grasping tasks, we find activation differences based on the precision required (fine > coarse grip: anterior intraparietal sulcus, aIPS), the requirement to lift the object (grip + lift > grip: aIPS; dorsal premotor cortex, PMd; and supplementary motor area, SMA), …

Identification Of A Novel Synaptic Protein, Tmtc3, Involved In Periventricular Nodular Heterotopia With Intellectual Disability And Epilepsy, Sali M K Farhan, Kevin C J Nixon, Michelle Everest, Tara N Edwards, Shirley Long, Dmitri Segal, Maria J Knip, Heleen H Arts, Rana Chakrabarti, Jian Wang, John F Robinson, Donald Lee, Seyed M Mirsattari, C Anthony Rupar, Victoria M Siu, Forge Canada Consortium, Michael O Poulter, Robert A Hegele, Jamie M Kramer

Paediatrics Publications

Defects in neuronal migration cause brain malformations, which are associated with intellectual disability (ID) and epilepsy. Using exome sequencing, we identified compound heterozygous variants (p.Arg71His and p. Leu729ThrfsTer6) in TMTC3, encoding transmembrane and tetratricopeptide repeat containing 3, in four siblings with nocturnal seizures and ID. Three of the four siblings have periventricular nodular heterotopia (PVNH), a common brain malformation caused by failure of neurons to migrate from the ventricular zone to the cortex. Expression analysis using patient-derived cells confirmed reduced TMTC3 transcript levels and loss of the TMTC3 protein compared to parental and control cells. As TMTC3 function is currently …

Disparities In Rate, Triggers, And Management In Pediatric And Adult Cases Of Suspected Drug-Induced Anaphylaxis In Canada, Sofianne Gabrielli, Ann E Clarke, Harley Eisman, Judy Morris, Lawrence Joseph, Sebastien La Vieille, Peter Small, Rodrick Lim, Paul Enarson, Michal Zelcer, Edmond S Chan, Chris Mill, Moshe Ben-Shoshan

Paediatrics Publications

Introduction

Data is sparse on drug-induced anaphylaxis (DIA) and there have not been studies assessing the differences in clinical characteristics and management of DIA between adults and children.

Objective

We assessed the percentage, diagnosis, and management of DIA among all anaphylaxis visits in three pediatric and one adult emergency departments (ED) across Canada.

Methods

Children presenting to the Montreal Children's Hospital (MCH), British Columbia Children's Hospital (BCCH), and Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Center and adults presenting to Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur with anaphylaxis were recruited as part of the Cross-Canada Anaphylaxis Registry. A standardized data form documenting the reaction …

Vocabulary Learning Benefits From Rem After Slow-Wave Sleep., Laura J Batterink, Carmen E Westerberg, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Memory reactivation during slow-wave sleep (SWS) influences the consolidation of recently acquired knowledge. This reactivation occurs spontaneously during sleep but can also be triggered by presenting learning-related cues, a technique known as targeted memory reactivation (TMR). Here we examined whether TMR can improve vocabulary learning. Participants learned the meanings of 60 novel words. Auditory cues for half the words were subsequently presented during SWS in an afternoon nap. Memory performance for cued versus uncued words did not differ at the group level but was systematically influenced by REM sleep duration. Participants who obtained relatively greater amounts of REM showed a …

Heterozygous De Novo Ubtf Gain-Of-Function Variant Is Associated With Neurodegeneration In Childhood., Simon Edvardson, Claudia M Nicolae, Pankaj B Agrawal, Cyril Mignot, Katelyn Payne, Asuri Narayan Prasad, Chitra Prasad, Laurie Sadler, Caroline Nava, Thomas E Mullen, Amber Begtrup, Berivan Baskin, Zöe Powis, Avraham Shaag, Boris Keren, George-Lucian Moldovan, Orly Elpeleg

Paediatrics Publications

Ribosomal RNA (rRNA) is transcribed from rDNA by RNA polymerase I (Pol I) to produce the 45S precursor of the 28S, 5.8S, and 18S rRNA components of the ribosome. Two transcription factors have been defined for Pol I in mammals, the selectivity factor SL1, and the upstream binding transcription factor (UBF), which interacts with the upstream control element to facilitate the assembly of the transcription initiation complex including SL1 and Pol I. In seven unrelated affected individuals, all suffering from developmental regression starting at 2.5-7 years, we identified a heterozygous variant, c.628G>A in UBTF, encoding p.Glu210Lys in UBF, which …

Construction And Validation Of The Fatigue Impact And Severity Self-Assessment For Youth And Young Adults With Cerebral Palsy., Laura K Brunton, Doreen J Bartlett

Physical Therapy Publications

Purpose: The Fatigue Impact and Severity Self-Assessment (FISSA) was created to assess the impact, severity and self-management of fatigue for individuals with cerebral palsy (CP) aged 14-31.

Methods Used: Items were generated from a review of measures and interviews with individuals with CP. Focus groups with healthcare professionals were used for item reduction. A mailed survey was conducted (n=163/367) to assess the factor structure, known-groups validity and test-retest reliability.

Results Obtained: The final measure contained 31-items in two factors and discriminated between individuals expected to have different levels of fatigue. Individuals with more functional abilities reported less fatigue (p< 0.002) and those with higher pain reported higher fatigue (p< 0.001). The FISSA was shown to have adequate test-retest reliability, ICC(3,1)=0.74 (95% CI 0.53-0.87).

Conclusions …

Online Neural Monitoring Of Statistical Learning., Laura J Batterink, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The extraction of patterns in the environment plays a critical role in many types of human learning, from motor skills to language acquisition. This process is known as statistical learning. Here we propose that statistical learning has two dissociable components: (1) perceptual binding of individual stimulus units into integrated composites and (2) storing those integrated representations for later use. Statistical learning is typically assessed using post-learning tasks, such that the two components are conflated. Our goal was to characterize the online perceptual component of statistical learning. Participants were exposed to a structured stream of repeating trisyllabic nonsense words and a …

Sleep-Based Memory Processing Facilitates Grammatical Generalization: Evidence From Targeted Memory Reactivation., Laura J Batterink, Ken A Paller

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

Generalization-the ability to abstract regularities from specific examples and apply them to novel instances-is an essential component of language acquisition. Generalization not only depends on exposure to input during wake, but may also improve offline during sleep. Here we examined whether targeted memory reactivation during sleep can influence grammatical generalization. Participants gradually acquired the grammatical rules of an artificial language through an interactive learning procedure. Then, phrases from the language (experimental group) or stimuli from an unrelated task (control group) were covertly presented during an afternoon nap. Compared to control participants, participants re-exposed to the language during sleep showed larger …

Mri Ventilation Abnormalities Predict Quality-Of-Life And Lung Function Changes In Mild-To-Moderate Copd: Longitudinal Tincan Study, Miranda Kirby, Rachel L Eddy, Damien Pike, Sarah Svenningsen, Harvey O Coxson, Don D Sin, David G Mccormack, Grace Parraga

Medical Biophysics Publications

CT biomarkers of emphysema (15th percentile of the CT density histogram, HU15%) and airways disease (wall thickness of airways with 10 mm internal perimeter, Pi10) have shown promise for providing prognostic information.2 Although recent data3 showed that the change in CT emphysema may be used to estimate the efficacy of therapy in patients with α-1-antitrypsin-deficiency, thus far none of the currently developed CT biomarkers have been shown to reflect changes in outcomes that are important to patients with COPD. MRI with inhaled noble gases provide highly sensitive and unique microstructural and functional information in COPD.4 MRI biomarkers of COPD are …