Digital Commons Network^™

Holding Space: How Caregivers Narrate Support, Stress, And School Partnership, Celia D. Davenport

Dissertations

This qualitative dissertation examined how caregivers of students with low-incidence disabilities experienced and interpreted school support within the context of daily family life. Grounded in the social model of disability, the study was designed to explore the nature of meaningful school-based support, the limitations caregivers encountered, and the ways school-family relationships shaped these experiences over time. The overarching research question asked how caregivers of students with low-incidence disabilities perceived the school’s role in supporting their families. A qualitative research design was selected to center caregiver voice and allow for in-depth exploration of lived experience. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews …

Fostering Developmentally Nurturant Relationships To Promote Character And Thriving: Perspectives Of Program Practitioners In Rural South Africa, Jonathan M. Tirrell, Alexa Hasse, Margaret Mackin, Elizabeth Dowling, Kirsten Olander, Roya Abbasi-Asl, Katherine Mcconnel, Thobeka Kwela, Raah Msimango, Justine Mccarthy-Martin, Tyler Howard, Angela Larkan, Richard Lerner

Journal of Youth Development

Developmentally nurturant relationships are fundamental to enabling children to thrive across contexts, including homes, schools, and communities. Such relationships are also a central feature of effective positive youth development (PYD) programming. As strengths-based PYD programs are increasingly being adopted in majority-world countries, a better understanding of how to foster and promote developmentally nurturant relationships is needed. As part of the Thanda Study of Character and Health, we interviewed 15 program practitioners about their understandings of and approaches to fostering developmentally nurturant relationships with children enrolled in Thanda programs in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Phenomenological analysis indicated that practitioners’ understanding of …

Synergies Of Microecology And Macroecology Elicit Insights For Creation Care, David Warners, John T. Wertz

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This article reports on a collection of microecological and macroecological insights that emerged from extended conversations between Calvin University professors David Warners, a botanist concentrating in restoration ecology, and John Wertz, a micro-biologist specializing in microbial ecology. Classic descriptions of ecology identify biological interactions as happening at the ecosystem, community, or population level. And yet, ecological interactions are very much occurring at the microbial level as well. Furthermore, microbial-level interactions frequently influence the quality and character of macroecological relationships and vice versa. Allowing ecological principles to be applied across all life forms broadens our comprehension of interactions that are happening …

The Color Of Combat: How Subtleties Of Resource Value Alter The Effects Of Fighting Ability In Hermit Crab Contests: How Subtleties Of Resource Value Alter The Effects Of Fighting Ability In Hermit Crab Contests, Thomas M. Chatfield, Mark Briffa

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

During contests over resources, the intensity of fighting and the outcome is often influenced by an interaction between the difference between opponents in the fighting abilities (resource holding potential [RHP]) and the difference in how they subjectively value the resource. Additionally, because fighting can involve vigorous activity, engaging in a fight can make the opponents more noticeable to predators. Thus, predation risk, alongside resource value (RV), may interact with the effects of RHP difference. During hermit crab contests over the ownership of empty gastropod shells attackers perform vigorous shell rapping, whereas defenders adopt a protective posture inside their shells. This …

The Effect Of Positive Communication On Leadership Development: A Qualitative Phenomenological Study, Philip J. Lowe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of Christian college professors in the Midwest who utilize positive communication within mentoring relationships to develop leadership capabilities in students preparing for ministry. The research addresses the development of leadership capabilities in Christian colleges and examines how mentoring relationships serve as a sustainable alternative to costly and often ineffective formal programs. Following a descriptive phenomenological approach informed by the methods of Husserl and Giorgi, the researcher conducted semi-structured interviews with faculty members who have at least five years of teaching experience at a Christian college in the Midwest. The study utilized Bowlby’s …

Happycal: Designing Text And Image-Based Supports For Savouring Positive Work Experiences, Molly Stewart, Minghao Cai, Anthony Tang, Sam Liu, Chris Mosunic, Sowmya Somanath

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Savouring positive work experiences can promote positive affect and well-being at work, yet there is limited guidance on how digital applications can support workers to engage in savouring. We developed HappyCal, a work-focused savouring application offering two forms of savouring support: text-based, a common modality in workplace reflection tools, and images, a largely unexplored approach in work-related savouring. We conducted an exploratory qualitative study where participants (N=36) used HappyCal over five days and engaged in savouring through either a text-only modality (n=17) or text input paired with image output (n=19). We found that (1) participants in both groups reported heightened …

The Putative Role Of Oral Microbiome In Premature Aging During Hiv Infection: What Do We Know?, Carlos Solá-Morlá, Daphne Alcalá-Zúñiga, Juan Araujo, Maria Da Gloria Bonecini-Almeida, Upal Roy, Josué Pérez-Santiago

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications

Despite improvements in life expectancy, people with HIV (PWH) are at risk of developing HIV-associated comorbidities at a younger age when compared to HIV-uninfected individuals. This premature aging process can be attributed to various factors, such as the prolonged exposure to combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), inflammation, microbial perturbances and oxidative stress. Similarly to the gut, oral dysbiosis occurs in HIV-1 infection, with cART and inflammation playing a crucial role. This gives rise to an enrichment of pathogenic microorganisms that in turn, elicit an immune response tied to chronic inflammation. Consequently, cART exposure, dysbiosis and persistent inflammation in HIV-1 infection have …

Towards Efficient And High-Fidelity Generative Models, Paribesh Regmi

Theses

Generative models aim to learn the underlying data distribution and synthesize realistic samples such as images, videos, and audio. Deep learning has brought remarkable success to this field, enabling models to capture complex, high-dimensional structures and produce highly realistic outputs. However, a fundamental challenge remains — achieving both computational efficiency and high-quality generation simultaneously. Among modern approaches, diffusion-based generative models stand out for their exceptional sample fidelity but require hundreds of iterative denoising steps, making them computationally expensive and slow. To improve efficiency, recent work trains diffusion models in the low-dimensional latent space of a pretrained Variational Autoencoder (VAE), where …

The Educational Disconnect: How Much Do Parents Understand About The Special Education Process?, Marisa Anne Aiello Michalowski

Theses & Dissertations

People with disabilities constitute the largest minority group in the United States. Yet, they face significant barriers that often lead to lowered academic outcomes. Federal and state K-12 educational policies emphasize family engagement as a core component of student success. The problem is that parents are not always fully informed of the special education process or their role on the Committee on Special Education (CSE), which in New York State is a team of educators, specialists, and parents that help determine appropriate special education services and placements. The purpose of this phenomenological research study was to explore the knowledge that …

Intellectual Play And Its Relationship To Teacher Self-Efficacy, Gregory William Kile

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study set out to explore what can be done to improve outcomes for students in Indiana public schools and beyond by exploring ways in which educational leaders might be able to increase levels of teacher self-efficacy in their existing staff. It looked specifically at intellectual play, defined as the behaviors associated with metacognition, play, and innovation, and analyzed its relationship with teacher self-efficacy. Student achievement and overall success in school is critically important to them as individuals and to our society as a whole. If there are innovative ways to improve those outcomes for students, they should be explored. …

Benchmarking Gaslighting Negation Attacks Against Multimodal Large Language Models, Bin Zhu, Yinxuan Gui, Huiyan Qi, Jingjing Chen, Chong-Wah Ngo, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have exhibited remarkable advancements in integrating different modalities, excelling in complex understanding and generation tasks. Despite their success, MLLMs remain vulnerable to conversational adversarial inputs. In this paper, we systematically study gaslighting negation attacks—a phenomenon where models, despite initially providing correct answers, are persuaded by user-provided negations to reverse their outputs, often fabricating justifications. We conduct extensive evaluations of state-of-the-art MLLMs across diverse benchmarks and observe substantial performance drops when negation is introduced. Notably, we introduce the first benchmark GaslightingBench, specifically designed to evaluate the vulnerability of MLLMs to negation arguments. GaslightingBench consists of multiple-choice …

The Emerging Roles Of Ai In Self-Directed Stress Management: Systematic Review, Mary Kamillah Grace Reyes, Shauna Sha Min Teo, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Background: Stress is widespread and carries substantial mental health, social, and economic burdens. Yet, access to clinician-led stress management remains constrained by service capacity, cost, and stigma. In response, artificial intelligence (AI)–enabled tools have rapidly proliferated as scalable, self-directed options. However, evidence on how these systems support stress management outside formal clinical settings remains fragmented. Objective: This systematic review aimed to synthesize empirical evidence on how AI-enabled technologies are used for self-directed stress management. We mapped the emerging functions of these tools, the psychological frameworks informing their design, the populations and settings studied, and the outcomes reported. Methods: We conducted …

Engineering Immunity? Biotechnical Governance And The Experimental Failures Of Project Wolbachia In Singapore, Siew Ying Shee, Orlando Woods, Sayd Randle

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper introduces the idea of ‘experimental failure’ to critically interrogate the limits of engineering biological systems for urban governance. Whilst experimentation through projects related to smart cities and eco-cities has garnered significant attention, biotechnical experiments––which manipulate living organisms through technology––remain underexplored. Unlike interventions leveraging non-living, inanimate systems, engineering life must contend with ecological ‘unruliness’ and social uncertainties. These complexities often resist straightforward quantification and exceed conventional evaluation frameworks, demanding a rethinking of what constitutes ‘success’ and ‘failure’ in such interventions. Drawing on ethnographic research with public health officers, pest management professionals and residents in Singapore, we analyse the government-led …

Microbiota Dynamics And Bacterial Pathogen Survival During Milk Kefir Fermentation And Storage, Léon Maughan, Leonard Koolman, Guerrino Macori, Christina Killian, Seamus Fanning, Paul Whyte, Declan Bolton

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

This study identified and investigated the relative abundance of bacterial and fungal (predominantly yeast) species in the milk kefir grains, during a typical fermentation (25◦C for 48 h) and subsequent chilled storage (4◦Cfor up to 30d) using Nanopore sequencing (16S and ITS amplicon). Challenge studies were also undertaken toexamine the behaviour of Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Senftenberg, Escherichia coli O157:H7, Staphylococcusaureus as well as non-toxigenic mesophilic and psychrophilic Clostridium spp. (Clostridium sporogenes and Clos-tridium gasigenes, respectively). Lactobacillus and Lactococcus were the predominant bacterial genera with relativeabundance of 91% and 2% in milk kefir grains, 32% and 63.7% after 24 h of …

Plasma Biomarkers Of Brain Injury In Critically Ill Children Receiving Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, Matthew L Friedman, Michael J Bell, Bonnie A Brooks, Adam S Himebauch, Asavari Kamerkar, Kerri Larovere, Laura L Loftis, Jose A Pineda, Ahmed Said, Hitesh S Sandhu, Martin Stengelin, Catherine Demos, Mark S Wainwright, Alina N West, Allan Barnes, Allen D Everett, Ryan J Felling, Sue J Hong, Jennifer L Roem, Cynthia F Salorio, Derek K Ng, Melania M Bembea

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Importance: Timely identification of acute brain injury (ABI) in children receiving extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support is critical for early neuroprotective interventions.

Objectives: To determine if elevations in plasma glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), neurofilament light chain (NfL), and tau levels in children receiving ECMO precede new ABI confirmed by neuroimaging, and if they are associated with mortality and functional outcomes.

Design, setting, and participants: This was a prospective observational cohort study conducted from 2019 to 2023, with 18-month follow-up completed in 2025. Children aged 2 days to younger than 18 years at ECMO cannulation were recruited from 11 US …

Corneal Innervation Research At A Crossroads: A Tool-Driven Roadmap For The Future, Anna Matynia, Ian D Meng, Brian M Davis, Stephen C Pflugfelder, Anat Galor, Victor L Perez, Elizabeth R Felix, Pedram Hamrah, Pantelimon Rompolas, Raul E Ruiz-Lozano, Shamsuddin A Bhuiyan, Kaveh Moghbeli, Evangelia Semizoglou, William Renthal, Harinder Singh, Jishnu Das, Marcin Golczak, Mary Ann Stepp, Catherine W Morgans, Cintia S De Paiva, Carl Y Saab, Igor Spigelman, Rony R Sayegh, Tally M Largent-Milnes, Hao Wu, Wenqin Luo, Sreya Mitra, Heesuk Yoo, Sina Farsiu, Sejiro Littleton, Eden Jacob, Matthew T Mcpheeters, Maryse Lapierre-Landry, Jordan J Smith, Xi Wang, Roxana Florea, Made Airanthi K Widjaja-Adhi, Scott Holmes, Zane Zemborain, Kate E T Laise, Nicholas J Pondelis, Ki-Soo Jeong, Rui Chen, Michael W Jenkins, Vivian Lee, Eric A Moulton, Deborah S Jacobs, Sue A Aicher, Anthony J St Leger, Daniel R Saban

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Corneal innervation research has faced long-standing clinical challenges that only recent technological breakthroughs now make tractable. Advances in single-cell analysis, viral vectors, clinical imaging, and artificial intelligence provide integrated approaches for uncovering molecular mechanisms underlying functional outcomes and facilitating clinical applications. The National Eye Institute's U01-funded consortium on ocular surface innervation addresses major knowledge gaps in characterizing corneal-projecting neurons, understanding neuroimmune and epithelial interactions in the cornea, and translating animal model findings to human pathology. The unique properties of the cornea (transparent, avascular, and densely innervated) make it ideal for neurobiology research on peripheral and central sensory processing. Through a …

A Trans-Omics Gene-Smoking Interaction Study Of Lung Cancer Based On Consortium Data, Ning Xie, Xiaowen Xu, Yanru Wang, Aoxuan Wang, Xiang Wang, Xuan Wang, Mengsheng Zhao, Jiacheng Zhou, Yongyue Wei, Manel Esteller, Zhibin Hu, Hongbing Shen, Rayjean J Hung, Christopher I Amos, Yi Li, David C Christiani, Feng Chen, Yang Zhao, Ruyang Zhang

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Rationale: Genetically predicted molecular traits provide a cost-effective approach for identifying biomarkers and uncovering underlying biological mechanisms. We extended this framework to investigate gene-smoking interactions in lung cancer susceptibility.

Objectives: To identify trans-omics gene-smoking interactions affecting lung cancer risk and to assess how biomarkers modify effect of smoking.

Methods: We conducted the first trans-omics gene-smoking interaction study of lung cancer by integrating consortium-scale individual genotype data (27 737 cases vs 449 910 noncases) from the International Lung Cancer OncoArray Consortium (ILCCO-OncoArray), Transdisciplinary Research Into Cancer of the Lung (TRICL), Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial (PLCO), and the …

Steroid Receptor Coactivators In Immunity – From Function To Emerging Translational Opportunities, Yosef Gilad, David M Lonard

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Steroid Receptor Coactivators (SRCs) comprise a family of three paralogous proteins. As transcriptional coactivators SRCs are essential for enabling the full transcriptional output of nuclear receptors (NRs). They regulate the transcriptional activity of nearly all NRs as well as a wide range of non-NR transcription factors. The central role of SRCs in gene regulation is reflected in their broad impact on major physiological and pathological processes, such as development, reproduction, metabolism, immunity and cancer. Although the major impact of SRCs on human health and disease established them as attractive therapeutic targets, their effective pharmacological targeting remained a challenge for nearly …

Anterior Cutaneous Nerve Entrapment Syndrome From Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist Injection, Neha Singh, Elisa Chaparro, Jordan Michael Shapiro, Emanuel Narcis Husu

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Anterior cutaneous nerve entrapment syndrome (ACNES) is an underdiagnosed cause of abdominal pain. We report the first documented ACNES case following subcutaneous administration of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist. A 44-year-old man developed focal, neuropathic abdominal pain coinciding with initiation of tirzepatide injections. Clinical examination confirmed ACNES diagnosis, and pain improved after relocating injections away from the abdomen and initiating multimodal pharmacotherapy. This case emphasizes the need to consider ACNES in patients endorsing focal abdominal pain with concurrent use of glucagon-like peptide-1 therapy and highlights injection site modification as a simple, effective management strategy while exercising self-restraint with respect to workup.

A Near-Field Communication (Nfc) Multi-Sensor Node With Optimized Read Range And Adaptive Power Management For Remote Monitoring, Rishin Patra, Hilary Scott Nkimbeng Cho, Jin W. Choi

Michigan Tech Publications

This paper presents the design of a batteryless near-field communication (NFC) multi-sensor node with an integrated adaptive power-management system for sensing applications. The work focuses on harvesting energy from a 13.56 MHz NFC field to power an ultra-low power sensing platform. The design consists of the TI RF430FRL152H, an integrated NFC transponder with an embedded MSP430 microcontroller core and ferroelectric random-access memory (FRAM) non-volatile memory. The system combines an ISO/IEC 15693 NFC front end, a tuned loop antenna for optimized power harvesting, and multiple analog and digital sensor interfaces, and a firmware architecture for intermittent harvested energy operation. The aforementioned …

Generation And Characterization Of Twist1 Acetyl-Mimic And Acetyl-Deficient Mouse Models, Mary Elmeniawi, Xiaobin Yu, Samuel Wen, Gunjan A Bhatia, Lan Liao, Jianming Xu, Walid D Fakhouri

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

TWIST1 encodes a highly conserved basic helix–loop–helix transcription factor essential for embryonic development from Drosophila to humans. TWIST1 activity is regulated by post‐translational modifications, including phosphorylation during development and cancer metastasis. Recent cancer studies identified acetylation of lysines K73 and K76 as a novel regulatory modification that shifts TWIST1 from a repressive to an activating state during epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT). However, the developmental and in vivo functions of TWIST1 acetylation remain unknown. To investigate the physiological role, we generated the first acetyl‐deficient Twist1 K73,76R K73,76R and acetyl‐mimic Twist1 K73,76Q K73,76Q mouse models using CRISPR/Cas9‐mediated genome editing. Targeted sequencing confirmed substitutions, …

Functional Genomics Studies Of Psychiatric Disorders In Individuals Of Latin American Populations: A Scoping Review, Luz M Porras, Isabelle Rodríguez-Lausell, Gabriel Iglesias-Maldonado, Emily Val F Tuliao, Gabriela Martínez, Chelsey Leveque, Julian Tobon, Rachel Eloy, Sintia Belangero, Cynthia M Bulik, Camila M Loureiro, Carolina Muniz Carvalho, Vanessa Ota, Diego Luiz Rovaris, Eric A Storch, Eva Maria Trujillo-Chi Vacuan, Maria M Velasquez, Latin American Genomics Consortium, Marcos L Santoro, Humberto Nicolini, Elizabeth G Atkinson, Janitza L Montalvo-Ortiz, Paola Giusti-Rodríguez

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Over the past 15 years, genetic studies of psychiatric disorders have provided important insight into the contribution of both common variants of small effect, as well as rare exonic and copy number variants with large effect sizes. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) allow us to understand the intricate polygenicity characteristic of many psychiatric disorders. However, a considerable proportion of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) implicated in these disorders localize to the non-coding regions of the genome. Unraveling the molecular mechanisms that underlie the etiology of psychiatric illnesses requires integration using functional genomics approaches. Functional genomics methods are critical for developing a mechanistic …

Author Correction: Biallelic Variants In The Noncoding Rna Gene Rnu4-2 Cause A Recessive Neurodevelopmental Syndrome With Distinct White Matter Changes, Rocio Rius, Alexander J M Blakes, Yuyang Chen, Joachim De Jonghe, François Lecoquierre, Ruebena Dawes, Benjamin Cogne, Hyung Chul Kim, Javeria R Alvi, Florence Amblard, Morad Ansari, Annabelle Arlt, Christina Austin-Tse, Sarah Baer, Meena Balasubramanian, Elsa V Balton, Giulia Barcia, Ana Beleza-Meireles, Jonathan A Bernstein, Jasmin Beygo, Pierre Blanc, Nuria C Bramswig, Frederik Braun, Daniel Buchzik, Daniel G Calame, Jamie Campbell, Charles Coutton, Chloe A Cunningham, Nitsuh Dargie, Christel Depienne, Katrina M Dipple, Anne Dieux, Abhijit Dixit, Lauren Dreyer, Haowei Du, Salima El Chehadeh, Michael Field, Lisa J Ewans, Vanessa Geiger, Richard A Gibbs, Ian Glass, Olivier Grunewald, Paul Gueguen, Tobias B Haack, Hamza Hadj Abdallah, Radu Harbuz, Ingo Helbig, Judit Horvath, Alexander Hustinx, Bertrand Isidor, Marie-Line Jacquemont, Fraser Jamie, Médéric Jeanne, Riley Kessler, Hannah Klinkhammer, G Christoph Korenke, Urania Kotzaeridou, Peter Krawitz, Steven Laurie, Richard J Leventer, Rebecca J Levy, James R Lupski, Pierre Marijon, Kaitlin E Mcginnis, Rodrigo Mendez, Olfa Messaoud, Caroline Nava, Mevyn Nizard, Anne O'Donnell-Luria, Melanie C O'Leary, Simone Olivieri, Amitav Parida, Davut Pehlivan, Anna Jenne Prentice, Jennifer E Posey, Chloe M Reuter, Véronique Satre, Caroline Schluth-Bolard, Thomas Smol, Tipu Sultan, John Taylor, Christel Thauvin-Robinet, Julien Thevenon, Eloise Uebergang, Sandra Ueberberg, Catherine Vincent-Delorme, Evangeline Wassmer, Emma Westwood, Matthew T Wheeler, Elif Yilmaz Gulec, Adeline Vanderver, Arastoo Vossough, Stephan J Sanders, Siddharth Banka, Gregory M Findlay, Daniel G Macarthur, Cas Simons, Nicola Whiffin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

No abstract provided.

Whole Genome Sequencing Analysis Of Over 3500 Individuals Dementia-Free Over 85 Years Old, Gina M Peloso, Dongyu Wang, Sabrina M Abbruzzese, Joshua C Bis, Seung Hoan Choi, Alexa Beiser, Jan Bressler, Josée Dupuis, Alison E Fohner, Mohsen Ghanbari, Richard A Gibbs, Nancy Heard-Costa, M Arfan Ikram, Paul Lacaze, Quentin Le Grand, Oscar L Lopez, Thomas H Mosley, Moeen Riaz, Aïcha Soumaré, Amber Yaqub, Eric Boerwinkle, Bruce M Psaty, Myriam Fornage, Sudha Seshadri, Anita L Destefano

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND:

Identifying genetic variants conferring resilience to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (ADRD) may hold promise for developing therapeutics.

OBJECTIVE:

To determine genetic associations with being dementia-free at age 85 (DF85).

METHODS:

We examined genetic associations, using whole genome sequencing data, with DF85 in three Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine cohorts and the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project Phenotype Harmonization Consortium. We tested common variants individually and aggregation of rare (MAF≤1%) coding and non-coding variants in DF85 participants (n=3,657) against individuals who were not DF85 (n=20,010). We verified associations using a stricter control set who developed dementia before age 85 (n=5,552).

RESULTS: …

Disease-Specific Growth Charts Capture Characteristic Growth Patterns In Children With Pmm2 – Cdg, Kyriakie Sarafoglou, Christina Lam, Andrew C Edmondson, Andrea Miller, Rodrigo T Starosta, Aziza Zeighami, Seishu Horikoshi, Hayden Vreugdenhil, Fernando Scaglia, Tamas Kozicz, Queenie K G Tan, Bradley S Miller, Iván Martínez-Duncker, Gerard T Berry, Peter Mcwilliams, Eva Morava, Yaw Addo

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Growth faltering is prevalent in 96% of children with Phosphomannomutase-2 congenital disorder of glycosylation (PMM2-CDG). Published long-term growth data is extremely limited. Growth and weight patterns of PMM2-CDG children differ from the general population limiting the utility of existing normative growth charts to track development trajectory in comparison to peers with PMM2-CDG.

Objective: Create PMM2-CDG disease-specific height-, weight-, and BMI-for-age reference growth charts (0-20 years).

Methods: De-identified growth data was provided by Frontiers in Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation Consortium, CDG Care, Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics, and Glycomine, Inc. Semi-parametric modeling techniques were used to develop PMM2-CDG-specific …

Transient Yap Activation Uncovers The Neurogenic Potential Of Proliferative Mammalian Müller Glia, English J Laserna, Irina V Saltykova, Benjamin M Hall, Xuefei Tong, Justin S Dhindsa, Borna Sarker, Ayrea E Hurley, Paul G Swinton, William R Lagor, Nicholas M Tran, James F Martin, Ross A Poché

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The Hippo pathway effector YAP promotes spontaneous proliferation of Müller glia (MG), suggesting that bypassing Hippo signaling and activating YAP could enhance retinal regeneration. However, whether proliferative adult MGs retain meaningful neurogenic competence remains unclear. Here, using viral delivery of a Hippo-resistant YAP variant to wild-type adult MGs, we achieved transient YAP activation in adult MGs, inducing proliferation followed by cell-cycle withdrawal and differentiation. Intersectional genetic lineage tracing and EdU labeling, combined with transcriptomic analyses, revealed that YAP-activated MGs predominantly regenerate MGs, whereas only a subset gives rise to bipolar cell-like neurons. These results indicate that proliferative MGs acquire a …

Plasticity And Language In The Anaesthetized Human Hippocampus, Kalman A Katlowitz, Eric R Cole, Elizabeth A Mickiewicz, Shraddha Shah, Melissa Franch, Joshua A Adkinson, James L Belanger, Raissa K Mathura, Domokos Meszéna, Matthew Mcginley, William Muñoz, Garrett P Banks, Sydney S Cash, Chih-Wei Hsu, Angelique C Paulk, Nicole R Provenza, Andrew J Watrous, Ziv Williams, Alica M Goldman, Vaishnav Krishnan, Atul Maheshwari, Sarah R Heilbronner, Robert Kim, Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana, Benjamin Y Hayden, Sameer A Sheth

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Consciousness is a fundamental component of cognition1, but the degree to which higher-order pattern recognition relies on it remains disputed2,3. Here we demonstrate the persistence of oddball discrimination, semantic processing and online prediction in individuals under general-anaesthesia-induced loss of consciousness4,5. Using high-density Neuropixels microelectrodes6 to record both single-unit and local-field-potential neural activity in the human hippocampus while playing a series of tones to anaesthetized patients, we found that hippocampal neurons and local oscillations retained some detection of oddball tones. This effect size grew over the course of the experiment …

Curriculum Innovation: Neurocritical Care Eeg Rounds: A Model To Improve Neurology Resident Eeg Interpretation., Ellen Sylvie Sanchez Mas, Mitchell Lloyd Powell, Marco Malaga, Corey Elam Goldsmith, Rahul Damani, Lu Lin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background and purpose: Rural-urban disparities in neurological care have been well documented, but limited data exist regarding Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS). This study examines differences in patient demographics, hospital characteristics, and outcomes among GBS admissions to rural versus urban hospitals in the United States.

Methods: Using the 2021 National Inpatient Sample, we conducted a retrospective cohort study of adult hospitalizations with a principal diagnosis of GBS. Hospitals were classified as rural or urban based on U.S. census designations. Multivariate logistic and linear regression models were used to assess associations between hospital location and outcomes, adjusting for demographic, clinical, and hospital-level factors. …

Spatial Transcriptomics Reveals Coordinated Endothelial And Epithelial Activator Protein-1 Activation In Chronic Lung Allograft Dysfunction, Yasufumi Goda, Tatsuhiko Naito, Mudassir M Banday, Andrew S Potter, Igor Odintsov, Kapil Patel, Nicole Davis, Stefi Lee, Amit Gaggar, Ivan Rosas, Gabriel Loor, Don Hayes, Nirmal S Sharma

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD) limits long-term lung graft survival, yet its specific gene expression profiles remain unclear. We performed comprehensive spatial transcriptomic analyses of human lungs from CLAD patients, non-CLAD transplant recipients, and non-transplanted controls. In CLAD, AP-1 target genes, including JUNB and FOS, were significantly upregulated in both the epithelium and endothelium, whereas anti-fibrotic genes such as A2M and surfactant proteins (SFTPA1,2) were upregulated in non-CLAD. The lymphocyte population in CLAD was predominantly composed of T cells, with elevated JAK3-IL7R signaling. TNF and IL-17 signaling pathways were commonly activated in both the epithelium and endothelium, with JUNB and …

Hematologic Markers And Machine Learning In Predicting Placenta Accreta: A Case-Control Study, Michael D Jochum, Kelly D Albrecht, Yamely Mendez Martinez, Victoria Zhang, Sanmay Sarada, Brian Burnett, Christina C Reed, Karin A Fox, Amir A Shamshirsaz, Michael A Belfort, Jessian L Munoz, Hennie A Lombaard

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Objective: This study aims to enhance antenatal detection of placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) and predict severe hemorrhage at delivery using machine learning by evaluating the association between antenatal hematologic index trends across trimesters, imaging markers, and patient history.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 2017-2023 data from a PAS referral center, including demographics, laboratory results, ultrasounds, and outcomes. Patients with confirmed PAS (cases) were compared to those with antenatal risk but no histopathologic evidence of PAS (controls). Statistical analyses and machine learning models were developed to predict PAS. We also used machine learning to predict severe hemorrhage (>1500 mL) in the …