Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Utilizing Fast Spin Echo Mri To Reduce Image Artifacts And Improve Implant/Tissue Interface Detection In Refractory Parkinson’S Patients With Deep Brain Stimulators, Subhendra N. Sarkar, Pooja R. Sarkar, Efstathios Papavassiliou, Rafael Rojas

Publications and Research

Introduction. In medically refractory Parkinson’s disease (PD) deep-brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective therapeutic tool. Postimplantation MRI is important in assessing tissue damage and DBS lead placement accuracy. We wanted to identify which MRI sequence can detectDBS leads with smallest artifactual signal void, allowing better tissue/electrode edge conspicuity.

Methods. Using an IRB approved protocol 8 advanced PDpatientswere imagedwithinMRconditional safety guidelines at lowRF power (SAR ≤ 0.1 W/kg) in coronal plane at 1.5T by various sequences.The image slices were subjectively evaluated for diagnostic quality and the lead contact diameters were compared to identify a sequence least affected by metallic leads.

Results …

Direct Control Of Visual Perception With Phase-Specific Modulation Of Posterior Parietal Cortex, Andrew Jaegle, Tony Ro

Publications and Research

We examined the causal relationship between the phase of alpha oscillations (9–12 Hz) and conscious visual perception using rhythmic TMS (rTMS) while simultaneously recording EEG activity. rTMS of posterior parietal cortex at an alpha frequency (10 Hz), but not occipital or sham rTMS, both entrained the phase of subsequent alpha oscillatory activity and produced a phase-dependent change on subsequent visual perception, with lower discrimination accuracy for targets presented at one phase of the alpha oscillatory waveform than for targets presented at the opposite phase. By extrinsically manipulating the phase of alpha before stimulus presentation, we provide direct evidence that the …

Milk Consumption And Cardiovascular Risk Factors In Older Chinese: The Guangzhou Biobank Cohort Study, Yangbo Sun, Chaoqiang Jiang, Kar Keung Cheng, Weisen Zhang, Gabriel M. Leung, Tai Hing Lam, Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Background
Dairy products consumption is increasingly common globally. Most of the evidence concerning dairy products comes from observational studies in western populations which are inevitably open to confounding. To triangulate the evidence concerning dairy products, we examined the associations of whole cow’s milk consumption with cardiovascular risk factors in a non-Western setting with a different pattern of milk consumption and cardiovascular diseases from Western populations.

Methods
We used multivariable censored linear or logistic regression to examine cross-sectionally the adjusted associations of whole cow’s milk consumption (none (n = 14892), 1–3/week (n = 2689) and 3+/week (n = 2754)) with cardiovascular …

Writing To Cope: Meaning Making For Professionals Caring For The Cancer Patient, Nicole Saint-Louis

Publications and Research

This paper will focus on the use of narrative or writing as an opportunity to bear witness, honor and work through the grief and loss professional caregivers experience in their oncology practice. The discussion includes, meaning making, narrative theory, narrative therapy and the growing literature of narrative medicine. Sample narratives will be shared to elucidate how writing can assist with the pain, loss and grief professional caregivers experience in the care of those coping with death and dying.

Identifying And Addressing Sources Of Measurement Error In The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire, Eileen Gigliotti, William Ellery Samuels, June Como, Tofiga Gamidova, Brian Gordon, Peter Acerios

Publications and Research

Background and Purpose: The Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire (NSSQ) provides a rich portrait of one’s perceived social support including network size/composition and quality of support. Analyses of quantitative research reports and critiques of the NSSQ revealed non-negligible measurement error. We document evidence of measurement error, report potential sources of this error, and present forthcoming psychometric testing. Methods: Quantitative evidence of measurement error from the NSSQ literature provided the basis for initial hypotheses concerning sources of error in network nomination and support ratings. We then conducted cognitive interviews to investigate these hypotheses. Results: Cognitive interviews revealed evidence of respondents’ miscomprehension and …

Is Burnout A Depressive Disorder? A Reexamination With Special Focus On Atypical Depression, Renzo Bianchi, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Eric Laurent

Publications and Research

Whether burnout and depression cover the same psychopathology remains to be elucidated. To date, subtypes of depression have been overlooked in research on the burnout–depression overlap. Our aim was to estimate the prevalence of depressive disorders in workers with burnout while examining the overlap of burnout with the atypical subtype of depression. The present study included 5,575 schoolteachers (mean age = 41 years; 78% female). Burnout was assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Depression was measured with the 9-item depression scale of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Atypical features of depression were examined using a dedicated module, referenced to …

Perception Of Childhood Obesity And Support For Prevention Policies Among Latinos And Whites, Douglas M. Puricelli Purin, Leah Frerichs, Sergio Costa, Amelie G. Ramirez, Terry T.-K. Huang

Publications and Research

A cross-sectional survey was administered to Latino and White residents of Omaha, NE, to assess perception of the childhood obesity problem, attribution of responsibility, and support for obesity-related policies. The sample included 40.8% () Latinos and 59.2% () Whites. Among Latinos, 25% did not see childhood obesity as a problem, compared to 6% of Whites (). This difference persisted after adjusting for age, gender, and education level (odds ratio (OR) 2.10, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–4.14). Latinos were more likely to agree that government was responsible for addressing childhood obesity compared to Whites (OR 2.81, 95% CI 1.82–4.35). Higher support …

Influences Of Maternal Stress During Pregnancy On The Epi/Genome: Comparison Of Placenta And Umbilical Cord Blood, Jia Chen, Qian Li, Alexender Rialdi, Elana Mystal, Jenny Ly, Jackie Finik, Taira Davey, Luca Lambertini, Yoko Nomura

Publications and Research

Background: Maternal stress during pregnancy is one of the major adverse environmental factors in utero that is capable of influencing health outcomes of the offspring throughout life. Both genetic and epigenetic processes are susceptible to environmental insults in utero and are potential biomarkers of the experienced environment including maternal stress.

Methods: We profiled expression level of six genes in hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning (HSD11B2, SLC6A4, NR3C1, NR3C2, CRHR1 and CRHR2), two imprinted genes (IGF2 and H19) and one neurodevelopmental gene (EGR1), from 49 pairs of placenta and umbilical cord blood (UCB) samples from a birth cohort. We also …

Community-Based Settings And Sampling Strategies: Implications For Reducing Racial Health Disparities Among Black Men, New York City, 2010–2013, Helen Cole, Antoinette Schoenthaler, Scott Braithwaite, Joseph Ladapo, Sherry Mentor, Jennifer Uyei, Chau Trinh-Shevrin

Publications and Research

Introduction Rates of screening colonoscopies, an effective method of preventing colorectal cancer, have increased in New York City over the past decade, and racial disparities in screening have declined. However, vulnerable subsets of the population may not be reached by traditional surveillance and intervention efforts to improve colorectal cancer screening rates.

Methods We compared rates of screening colonoscopies among black men aged 50 or older from a citywide random-digit–dial sample and a location-based sample focused on hard-to-reach populations to evaluate the representativeness of the random-digit–dial sample. The location-based sample (N = 5,568) was recruited from 2010 through 2013 from community-based …

Case Study: Sick On A South American Sugarcane Plantation, Kevin M. Bonney

Publications and Research

A case study is presented that was designed to be used in high school and college level courses to familiarize students with chagas disease, its transmission, and effects in Central and South America. Noted objectives of the lesson include evaluating disease symptoms, examining socioeconomic factors related to the epidemiology, and creating visual aids with public health information. Questions are provided for discussing the a case of chagas disease at a Brazilian sugarcane plantation.

Idiots Savants, Retarded Savants, Talented Aments, Mono-Savants, Autistic Savants, Just Plain Savants, People With Savant Syndrome, And Autistic People Who Are Good At Things: A View From Disability Studies, Joseph N. Straus

Publications and Research

People identified as idiot savants have long comprised an identifiable group (a high level of skill in the context of perceived mental deficiency) whose story has mostly been told by psychiatrists and psychologists within a medicalized model of disability that assumes deficiency and seeks remediation and normalization. More recently, people identified as savants have become common figures of literary and cinematic representation. Both of these narrative frames have enfreaked them as alien Others, whose gifts and disabilities place them outside the normal run of human intelligence and creativity. With a focus on music, this article tries to see through these …

Osteoarthritis And Articular Cartilage: Biomechanics And Novel Treatment Paradigms, Ray Marks

Publications and Research

Background: Osteoarthritis is a widespread highly painful disabling age-related disease with no known cure. Although novel strategies for ameliorating osteoarthritic damage abound, it is likely that none will be successful over time if the entire spectrum of the disease and the effects of joint biomechanics on joint tissues are not carefully considered.

Objectives: 1) To detail the structure of healthy articular cartilage, the key tissue affected by osteoarthritis. 2) To detail what aspects of cartilage damage best characterize osteoarthritis. 3) To consider the role of biomechanical factors in developing solutions to treat osteoarthritic joint damage. Methods: Literature sources from 1980 …

Complement Expression In The Retina Is Not Influenced By Short-Term Pressure Elevation, Konstantin Astafurov, Cecilia Q. Dong, Lampros Panagis, Gautam Kamtham, Lizhen Ren, Anna Rozenboym, Tarique D. Perera, Jeremy D. Coplan, John Danias

Publications and Research

Purpose: To determine whether short-term pressure elevation affects complement gene expression in the retina in vitro and in vivo.

Methods: Muller cell (TR-MUL5) cultures and organotypic retinal cultures from adult mice and monkeys were sub- jected to either 24-h or 72-h of pressure at 0, 15, 30, and 45 mmHg above ambient. C57BL/6 mice were subjected to microbead-induced intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation for 7 days. RNA and protein were extracted and used for analysis of expression levels of complement component genes and complement component 1, q subcomponent (C1q) and comple- ment factor H (CFH) immunoblotting. …

An Exploration Of Self-Management Support In The Context Of Palliative Nursing: A Modified Concept Analysis, Bridget Johnson, Liz Rogerson, Jurate Macijauskiene, Aurelija Blaževičienė, Patricia Cholewka

Publications and Research

Background
The role of self-management is often ambiguous, yet, it is an important area in clinical practice for palliative nurses. A clear conceptual understanding, however, of what it represents is lacking.

Method
This paper reports an analysis of the concept of self-management support in palliative nursing. Avant and Walker's method was used to guide this concept analysis. A search of electronic databases (1990–2013), use of internet search engines and supplementary hand searching produced an international data set of reviews, empirical research, editorials, protocols and guidelines.

Results
Based on the analysis self-management support in palliative nursing has been defined as assessing, …

Three‐Dimensional Brain Mri For Dbs Patients Within Ultra‐Low Radiofrequency Power Limits, Subhendra N. Sarkar, Efstathios Papavassiliou, David Hackney, David Alsop, Ananth Madhuranthakam, Ludy Shih, Reed Busse, Susan Laruche, Rafeeque Bhadelia

Publications and Research

Background: For patients with deep brain stimulators (DBS), local absorbed radiofrequency (RF) power is unknown and is much higher than what the system estimates. We developed a comprehensive, highquality brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol for DBS patients utilizing three-dimensional (3D) magnetic resonance sequences at very low RF power. Methods: Six patients with DBS were imaged (10 sessions) using a transmit/receive head coil at 1.5 Tesla with modified 3D sequences within ultra-low specific absorption rate (SAR) limits (0.1 W/kg) using T2, fast fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) and T1- weighted image contrast. Tissue signal and tissue contrast from the low-SAR images …

Food Advertisements In Two Popular U.S. Parenting Magazines: Results Of A Five-Year Analysis, Corey H. Basch, Rodney N. Hammond, Danna Ethan, Lalitha Samuel

Publications and Research

Obesity rates among American youth have prompted an examination of food advertisements geared towards children. Research indicates children’s high exposure to these advertisements and their influence on food preferences. Less is known about the presence of these advertisements in parenting magazines. This study’s objective was to examine prevalence of food advertisements in popular parenting magazines and identify products by USDA food category. We analyzed 116 issues of two popular U.S. parenting magazines across five years. All food and beverage advertisements for USDA Food Category were coded. Breakfast cereals were coded for nutritional quality. The coding took place at varied libraries …

Reductions In Serum Igf-1 During Aging Impair Health Span, Zhenwei Gong, Oran Kennedy, Hui Sun, Yingjie Wu, Garry A. Williams, Laura Klein, Luis Cardoso, Ronald W. Matheny Jr, Gene B. Hubbard, Yuji Ikeno, Roger P. Farrar, Mitchell B. Schaffler, Martin L. Adamo, Radhika H. Muzumdar, Shoshana Yakar

Publications and Research

In lower or simple species, such as worms and flies, disruption of the insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-1 and the insulin signaling pathways has been shown to increase lifespan. In rodents, however, growth hormone (GH) regulates IGF-1 levels in serum and tissues and can modulate lifespan via/or independent of IGF- 1. Rodent models, where the GH/IGF-1 axis was ablated congenitally, show increased lifespan. However, in contrast to rodents where serum IGF-1 levels are high throughout life, in humans, serum IGF-1 peaks during puberty and declines thereafter during aging. Thus, animal models with congenital disruption of the GH/ IGF-1 axis are unable …

An Argument And Plan For Promoting The Teaching And Learning Of Neglected Tropical Diseases, Kevin M. Bonney

Publications and Research

Neglected tropical diseases constitute a significant public health burden, affecting over one billion people globally, yet this group of diseases is underrepresented in the appropriation of both monetary and intellectual capital for developing improved therapies and public health campaigns. The topic of neglected tropical diseases has been similarly marginalized in the biology classrooms of our nation’s high schools and colleges, despite offering an opportunity to teach and learn about a diverse area of microbiology with far-reaching public health, social, and economic implications. Discussed herein is an argument for increasing the representation of neglected tropical diseases in microbiology education as a …

Communication And Common Interest, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Manolo Martínez

Publications and Research

Explaining the maintenance of communicative behavior in the face of incentives to deceive, conceal information, or exaggerate is an important problem in behavioral biology. When the interests of agents diverge, some form of signal cost is often seen as essential to maintaining honesty. Here, novel computational methods are used to investigate the role of common interest between the sender and receiver of messages in maintaining cost-free informative signaling in a signaling game. Two measures of common interest are defined. These quantify the divergence between sender and receiver in their preference orderings over acts the receiver might perform in each state …

Dental Hygienists' Knowledge Of Hiv, Attitudes Towards People With Hiv And Willingness To Conduct Rapid Hiv Testing, Anthony J. Santella, B Krishnamachari, Susan H. Davide, Marilyn Cortell, Winnie Furnari, B Watts, Sarah C. Hayden

Publications and Research

This study was aimed to determine the dental hygienists' knowledge of HIV, attitudes towards people living with HIV and willingness to conduct rapid HIV testing.

Intimate Partner Violence During Pregnancy: Victim Or Perpetrator? Does It Make A Difference?, Yuliya Shneyderman, Michele Kiely

Publications and Research

Objectives: To differentiate between forms of intimate partner violence (IPV)(victim only, perpetrator only, or participating in reciprocal violence) and examine risk profiles and pregnancy outcomes.

Design: Prospective

Setting: Washington, DC, July 2001 to October 2003

Sample: 1044 high-risk African-American pregnant women who participated in a randomized controlled trial to address IPV, depression, smoking, and environmental tobacco smoke exposure.

Methods: Multivariable linear and logistic regression

Main outcome measures: Low and very low birth weight, preterm and very preterm birth

Results: 5% of women were victims only, 12% were perpetrators only, 27% participated in reciprocal violence, and 55% reported no IPV. …

Sequential Screening For Psychosocial And Behavioural Risk During Pregnancy In A Population Of Urban African Americans, Michele Kiely, Marie G. Gantz, M. Nabil El-Khorazaty, Ayman El-Mohandes

Publications and Research

Objective: Screening for psychosocial and behavioral risks, such as depression, intimate partner violence and smoking, during pregnancy is considered state-of-the-art in prenatal care (PNC). This prospective longitudinal analysis examines the added benefit of repeated screening over a one-time screen in identifying such risks during pregnancy.

Design: Data were collected as part of a randomized controlled trial to address intimate partner violence (IPV), depression, smoking and environmental tobacco smoke exposure (ETSE) in African-Americans women.

Setting: PNC sites in the District of Columbia serving mainly minority women

Population: 1044 African-American pregnant women in the District of Columbia

Methods: Mothers were classified by …

Situational Awareness: Reframing Within Fire Service Culture, Martha Dow, Len Garis, Larry Thomas

Publications and Research

There is increasing attention being paid to better understanding and consequently decreasing the incidence of on-the-job injuries and deaths within the fire service across North America. Heightening situational awareness is being explored as the most critical factor in maintaining the safety of participants in high risk, low frequency events. Situational awareness is generally defined as “understanding the current environment and being able to accurately anticipate future problems to enable effective action”. Situational awareness is cited as a critical factor in most research exploring safety in fire suppression activities and in many cases the “No. 1 factor identified by firefighters filing …

Modified Impact Of Emotion On Temporal Discrimination In A Transgenic Rat Model Of Huntington Disease, Alexis Faure, Mouna Es-Sesddiqi, Bruce L. Brown, Hoa P. Nguyen, Olaf Riess, Stephan Von Hörsten, Pascale Le Blanc, Nathalie Desvignes, Bruno Bozon, Nicole El Massioui, Valérie Doyère

Publications and Research

Huntington's disease (HD) is characterized by triad of motor, cognitive, and emotional symptoms along with neuropathology in fronto-striatal circuit and limbic system including amygdala. Emotional alterations, which have a negative impact on patient well-being, represent some of the earliest symptoms of HD and might be related to the onset of the neurodegenerative process. In the transgenic rat model (tgHD rats), evidence suggest emotional alterations at the symptomatic stage along with neuropathology of the central nucleus of amygdala (CE). Studies in humans and animals demonstrate that emotion can modulate time perception. The impact of emotion on time perception has never been …

Assessing The Burden Of Crime And The Criminal Sanction: A Public Health Perspective On Critical Issues In Criminal Justice, Jeremy Travis

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Differential Joint-Specific Corticospinal Tract Projections Within The Cervical Enlargement, Curtis O. Asante, John H. Martin

Publications and Research

The motor cortex represents muscle and joint control and projects to spinal cord interneurons and–in many primates, including humans–motoneurons, via the corticospinal tract (CST). To examine these spinal CST anatomical mechanisms, we determined if motor cortex sites controlling individual forelimb joints project differentially to distinct cervical spinal cord territories, defined regionally and by the locations of putative last-order interneurons that were transneuronally labeled by intramuscular injection of pseudorabies virus. Motor cortex joint-specific sites were identified using intracorticalmicrostimulation. CST segmental termination fields from joint-specific sites, determined using anterograde tracers, comprised a high density core of terminations that was consistent between animals …

Cholinergic Enhancement Of Brain Activation In Mild Cognitive Impairment During Episodic Memory Encoding, Shannon L. Risacher, Yang Wang, Heather A. Wishart, Laura A. Rabin, Laura A. Flashman, Brenna C. Mcdonald, John D. West, Robert B. Santulli, Andrew J. Saykin

Publications and Research

Objective: To determine the physiological impact of treatment with donepezil (Aricept) on neural circuitry supporting episodic memory encoding in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (MCI) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Methods: Eighteen patients with MCI and 20 age-matched healthy controls (HC) were scanned twice while performing an event-related verbal episodic encoding task. MCI participants were scanned before treatment and after approximately 3 months on donepezil; HCwere untreated but rescanned at the same interval.Voxel-level analyses assessed treatment effects on activation profiles in MCI patients relative to retest changes in non-treated HC. Changes in task-related connectivity in medial temporal circuitry …

Centrosomal Kinase Nek2 Cooperates With Oncogenic Pathways To Promote Metastasis, T K. Das, Dibyendu Dana, Suneeta S. Paroly, S. K. Perumal, S. Singh, H. Jhun, J. Pendse, R. L. Cagan, T. T. Talele, Sanjai Kumar

Publications and Research

Centrosomal kinase Nek2 is overexpressed in different cancers, yet how it contributes toward tumorigenesis remains poorly understood. dNek2 overexpression in a Drosophila melanogaster model led to upregulation of Drosophila Wnt ortholog wingless (Wg), and alteration of cell migration markers—Rho1, Rac1 and E-cadherin (Ecad)—resulting in changes in cell shape and tissue morphogenesis. dNek2 overexpression cooperated with receptor tyrosine kinase and mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling to upregulate activated Akt, Diap1, Mmp1 and Wg protein to promote local invasion, distant seeding and metastasis. In tumor cell injection assays, dNek2 cooperated with Ras and Src signaling to promote aggressive colonization of tumors into different …

Androgen Activity And Markers Of Inflammation Among Men In Nhanes Iii, Mary Schooling

Publications and Research

Objectives
Inflammation contributes to chronic diseases. Lower serum testosterone among men is associated with less inflammation, yet immune defense is thought to trade-off against reproduction with androgens adversely affecting immune function. Anti-androgens are effective at castrate levels of serum testosterone, suggesting serum testosterone may not capture all androgen activity. The association of two androgen biomarkers with key markers of inflammation was examined.

Methods
The adjusted association of serum testosterone and androstanediol glucuronide with Creactive protein, white blood cell, granulocyte and lymphocyte count, fibrinogen and hemoglobin, as a control outcome because testosterone administration raises hemoglobin, were examined in a nationally representative …

Therapeutic Ultrasound: Osteoarthritis Symptom-Modification And Potential For Disease Modification, Daniel J. Leong, Huagang Zhang, Lin Xu, Justin Tang, David M. Hirsh, John A. Hardin, Luis Cardoso, Chandan Guha, Neil J. Cobelli, Hui B. Sun

Publications and Research

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease and a leading cause of adult disability. While joint replacement surgery is a common treatment option for end-stage disease, non-surgical management is critical for preventing disability and maintaining quality of life. Although therapeutic ultrasound, which applies mechanical and may also apply thermal energy in the form of sound waves, is widely used to treat various musculoskeletal disorders such as bone fractures, tendinopathy, and muscle contusions, its symptom- and disease-modifying effects on osteoarthritis have not been clearly demonstrated. Recent clinical evidence indicates therapeutic ultrasound is capable of relieving OAassociated pain and improving function of …