Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Outcome Of Endoscopic Cartilage Tympanoplasty In Anteriorly Extended Tympanic Membrane Perforation, Ahmed Fadhil Hasan, Amjed Hayder Ali Altaee, Saif Mohammed Hussein

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: The study was conducted to assess hearing improvement and graft uptake rate in patients with an anteriorly extended tympanic membrane perforation who underwent endoscopic cartilage tympanoplasty. Aim: The study aims to assess the efficacy of endoscopic cartilage tympanoplasty in repairing an anteriorly extended tympanic membrane perforation. Methods: A total of 135 patients aged between 10 and 63 years with an anteriorly extended tympanic membrane perforation were included in this study. Patients with an active middle ear disease and ossicular abnormality were excluded. Pure-tone audiometry was performed preoperatively at 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz, and the air-bone gap (ABG) …

Hypertensive Retinopathy As A Predictor Of Coronary Artery Disease In Elderly Hypertensive Patients With Angina Pectoris: A Comparative Study, Heba Abdulilah Ali Albayati, Firas Shanshal

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: In exploring novel avenues to assess cardiac health, this study investigates the potential of retinal vascular signs (RVS) as an effective tool for predicting coronary artery disease (CAD) in elderly hypertensive patients who present with angina pectoris. Considering the rising prevalence of cardiac disorders, there is an increasing interest in using noninvasive imaging modalities for early cardiovascular disease detection. This study conducts a comprehensive analysis to establish a direct correlation between retinal microvascular alterations and the development of heart disease in hypertensive patients. Methods: A total of 70 elderly hypertensive patients with acute angina underwent coronary angiograms and were …

Versatility Of Radial Artery Fascio-Cutaneous Free Flap For Head And Neck Reconstruction, Abdulrahman Miran, Rana Kamal Ibrahim

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: Reconstruction of the head and neck has made significant progress with the advent of microsurgery. The radial artery free flap is a workhorse flap in head and neck reconstruction due to its high-quality tissue that conforms to the complex and vital structures in this region. Aim: This study aims to assess the versatility and pliability of the radial artery free flap in the reconstruction of head and neck defects. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted over a six-year period (2017 to 2022) in Erbil, the capital of the Kurdistan region in Iraq, at Maryamana and PAR private hospitals. Twelve …

Variations Of Inflammatory Markers Levels (Esr And Crp) In The Perioperative Period Of Total Knee Arthroplasty, Khalil Ibrahim Sadiq, Mohamedbakir Abbas Abdulzahra, Rafid Mousa Jaffar

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: The preferred method of treatment for severe osteoarthritis of the knee is total knee arthroplasty (TKA). TKA has been linked to a significant increase in inflammatory markers such as erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR)—a test that measures how quickly red blood cells settle to the bottom of a test tube—and C-reactive protein (CRP)—a protein made by the liver that increases when there’s inflammation in the body. Aim: Assessment of the typical time trend and physiological kinetics of CRP and ESR during the early postoperative period over 4 weeks Methods: The study was conducted in the Basrah arthroplasty center, from June …

Insight On Colonoscopy Findings In Southern Iraq: Retrospective Study From A Tertiary Center, Zeinab Kamil Dhahi, Loma Ahmed Al Mansory

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: Colonoscopy is the most trusted diagnostic tool in the screening and diagnosis of colorectal cancer and other colorectal diseases. Aim: This study intends to present the results of colonoscopic procedures carried out in Center for Digestive and Liver Disease and Surgery in Basrah Methods: Retrospective evaluation of 698 consecutive subjects who underwent screening or diagnostic colonoscopy at Basra Center for Liver Disease and Digestive System between 2014 and February 2020 was conducted. The primary outcome measure was the rate of adenoma detection, calculated alternately as the total number of detected neoplastic lesions divided by the number of subjects screened …

Comparative Analyses Of Immune Marker Levels In Seronegative And Seropositive Iraqi Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients, Ahmed Aledany, Eman Tariq Ali Altaee, Ali Nazar Mohammed, Falah Hassan Shari Alsukainy

Iraqi National Journal of Medicine

Background: Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) comprises an inflammation-based condition with a clinical phenotype that is mainly reliant on the occurrence of rheumatoid factor and anti-citrullinated protein antibodies. Literature indicates that seronegativity might be accompanied by higher severity of clinical symptoms, while higher disease activity, based on the recent classification criteria should also be associated with seronegativity. Aim: This investigation targets the identification of more efficient immune markers of RA seropositivity as well as examining the possibility that the latter is associated with lower severity. Methods: Serum samples from 128 RA patients, 106 seropositive and 22 seronegative, were analyzed using ELISA to …

Brain-Age Prediction: Systematic Evaluation Of Site Effects, And Sample Age Range And Size, Yuetong Yu, Hao-Qi Cui, Shalaila S Haas, Faye New, Nicole Sanford, Kevin Yu, Denghuang Zhan, Guoyuan Yang, Jia-Hong Gao, Dongtao Wei, Jiang Qiu, Nerisa Banaj, Dorret I Boomsma, Alan Breier, Henry Brodaty, Randy L Buckner, Jan K Buitelaar, Dara M Cannon, Xavier Caseras, Vincent P Clark, Patricia J Conrod, Fabrice Crivello, Eveline A Crone, Udo Dannlowski, Christopher G Davey, Lieuwe De Haan, Greig I De Zubicaray, Annabella Di Giorgio, Lukas Fisch, Simon E Fisher, Barbara Franke, David C Glahn, Dominik Grotegerd, Oliver Gruber, Raquel E Gur, Ruben C Gur, Tim Hahn, Ben J Harrison, Sean Hatton, Ian B Hickie, Hilleke E Hulshoff Pol, Alec J Jamieson, Terry L Jernigan, Jiyang Jiang, Andrew J Kalnin, Sim Kang, Nicole A Kochan, Anna Kraus, Jim Lagopoulos, Luisa Lazaro, Brenna C Mcdonald, Colm Mcdonald, Katie L Mcmahon, Benson Mwangi, Fabrizio Piras, Raul Rodriguez-Cruces, Jessica Royer, Perminder S Sachdev, Theodore D Satterthwaite, Andrew J Saykin, Gunter Schumann, Pierluigi Sevaggi, Jordan W Smoller, Jair C Soares, Gianfranco Spalletta, Christian K Tamnes, Julian N Trollor, Dennis Van't Ent, Daniela Vecchio, Henrik Walter, Yang Wang, Bernd Weber, Wei Wen, Lara M Wierenga, Steven C R Williams, Mon-Ju Wu, Giovana B Zunta-Soares, Boris Bernhardt, Paul Thompson, Sophia Frangou, Ruiyang Ge, Enigma‐Lifespan Working Group

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Structural neuroimaging data have been used to compute an estimate of the biological age of the brain (brain‐age) which has been associated with other biologically and behaviorally meaningful measures of brain development and aging. The ongoing research interest in brain‐age has highlighted the need for robust and publicly available brain‐age models pre‐trained on data from large samples of healthy individuals. To address this need we have previously released a developmental brain‐age model. Here we expand this work to develop, empirically validate, and disseminate a pre‐trained brain‐age model to cover most of the human lifespan. To achieve this, we selected the …

Bayesian Varying-Effects Vector Autoregressive Models For Inference Of Brain Connectivity Networks And Covariate Effects In Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury, Yangfan Ren, Nathan Osborne, Christine B Peterson, Dana M Demaster, Linda Ewing-Cobbs, Marina Vannucci

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

In this article, we develop an analytical approach for estimating brain connectivity networks that accounts for subject heterogeneity. More specifically, we consider a novel extension of a multi-subject Bayesian vector autoregressive model that estimates group-specific directed brain connectivity networks and accounts for the effects of covariates on the network edges. We adopt a flexible approach, allowing for (possibly) nonlinear effects of the covariates on edge strength via a novel Bayesian nonparametric prior that employs a weighted mixture of Gaussian processes. For posterior inference, we achieve computational scalability by implementing a variational Bayes scheme. Our approach enables simultaneous estimation of group-specific …

Clinical And Genomic Landscape Of Ras Mutations In Gynecologic Cancers, Ji Son, Yingao Zhang, Heather Lin, Oriol Mirallas, Pablo Alvarez Ballesteros, Mirella Nardo, Natalie Clark, R Tyler Hillman, Erick Campbell, Vijaykumar Holla, Amber M Johnson, Amadeo B Biter, Ying Yuan, Lauren P Cobb, David M Gershenson, Amir A Jazaeri, Karen H Lu, Pamela T Soliman, Shannon N Westin, Elizabeth D Euscher, Barrett C Lawson, Richard K Yang, Funda Meric-Bernstam, David S Hong

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Purpose: We aimed to describe RAS mutations in gynecologic cancers as they relate to clinicopathologic and genomic features, survival, and therapeutic implications.

Experimental design: Gynecologic cancers with available somatic molecular profiling data at our institution between February 2010 and August 2022 were included and grouped by RAS mutation status. Overall survival was estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and multivariable analysis was performed using the Cox proportional hazard model.

Results: Of 3,328 gynecologic cancers, 523 (15.7%) showed any RAS mutation. Patients with RAS-mutated tumors were younger (57 vs. 60 years nonmutated), had a higher prevalence of endometriosis (27.3% vs. 16.9%), and …

Intratumoral Microbiome Of Adenoid Cystic Carcinomas And Comparison With Other Head And Neck Cancers, Tatiana V Karpinets, Yoshitsugu Mitani, Chia-Chi Chang, Xiaogang Wu, Xingzhi Song, Ivonne I Flores, Lauren K Mcdaniel, Yasmine M Hoballah, Fabiana J Veguilla, Renata Ferrarotto, Lauren E Colbert, Nadim J Ajami, Robert R Jenq, Jianhua Zhang, Andrew P Futreal, Adel K El-Naggar

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a rare, usually slow-growing yet aggressive head and neck malignancy. Despite its clinical significance, our understanding of the cellular evolution and microenvironment in ACC remains limited. We investigated the intratumoral microbiomes of 50 ACC tumor tissues and 33 adjacent normal tissues using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. This allowed us to characterize the bacterial communities within the ACC and explore potential associations between the bacterial community structure, patient clinical characteristics, and tumor molecular features obtained through RNA sequencing. The bacterial composition in the ACC was significantly different from that in adjacent normal salivary tissue, and the …

Author Correction: Brafv600e-Mutant Metastatic Nsclc: Disease Overview And Treatment Landscape, David Planchard, Rachel E Sanborn, Marcelo V Negrao, Aria Vaishnavi, Egbert F Smit

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

No abstract provided.

Examining The Effects Of An Isbarr Educational Intervention On Self-Efficacy Of Senior-Level Nursing Students Within A Transition To Practice Course: A Quasi-Experimental Study, Stacy Nicole Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an introduction, situation, background, assessment, requests/recommendations, and repeatback/readback (ISBARR) educational intervention on self-efficacy of senior-level nursing students' within a Transition to Practice course at one Christian university in the southeast United States. The theoretical framework utilized in this study was Bandura's theory of self-efficacy. This study was a quasi-experimental design with a control and intervention group. The control group was in the Fall 2023 semester, and the intervention group was in the Spring 2024 semester. Each participant completed a pre-test and post-test, which was the New Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale. …

Educating Nurses On The Components Of A Healthy Work Environment, Kathryn L. Scott

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

It is essential to look at the entire picture to ensure patient care is offered in the highest quality manner possible. One must look at patient satisfaction, quality outcomes, and job satisfaction experienced by the nursing staff providing care to accomplish this goal. Research has shown that nurse burnout has increased exponentially as of late. Some blame the COVID-19 pandemic; others look at the generation of nurses graduating from nursing school and starting in the field, comparing the baby boomer nurse to the Gen Z nurse. Many factors are involved, and with the recent addition of paying particular attention to …

Provider Implementation Of Probiotics As An Adjuvant Treatment Modality For Patients With Anxiety And Or Depression In A Primary Care Setting, Sarah Dedmon

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The prevalence of anxiety and depression among Americans is growing rapidly. Patients are seeking out traditional treatments as offered by their primary care providers, but also frequently look toward integrative or complementary methods of managing their symptoms. The use of dietary supplements is at an all-time high, yet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not regulate these substances for potency and purity or evaluate them using quality standards as it does pharmaceuticals. Most providers lack education regarding the physiological interaction their patients may experience when using these substances and are naïve to their place in primary care medicine. The …

A History Of The Development Of Alternatives To Animals In Research And Testing, John Parascandola

New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond

Growing public interest in animal welfare issues in recent decades has prompted increased attention to the efforts to develop alternative, nonanimal methods for use in biomedical research and product testing. In A History of the Development of Alternatives to Animals in Research and Testing, the first book-length study of the subject, John Parascandola traces the history of the concept of alternatives to the use of animals in research and testing in Britain and the United States from its beginnings until it had become firmly established in the scientific and animal protection communities by the end of the 1980s. This …

Editorial: Ethical Considerations In Electronic Data In Healthcare, Dheya Mustafa, Mousa Al-Kfairy

All Works

No abstract provided.

Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis: Nacho Update On Progress, Chaos, And Opportunity On The Path To Rational Cures, Kevin Bielamowicz, Peter Dimitrion, Oussama Abla, Simon Bomken, Patrick Campbell, Matthew Collin, Barbara Degar, Eli L Diamond, Olive S Eckstein, Nader El-Mallawany, Mark Fluchel, Gaurav Goyal, Michael M Henry, Michelle Hermiston, Michael Hogarty, Michael Jeng, Rima Jubran, Joseph Lubega, Ashish Kumar, Stephan Ladisch, Kenneth L Mcclain, Miriam Merad, Qing-Sheng Mi, D Williams Parsons, Erin Peckham-Gregory, Jennifer Picarsic, Zachary D Prudowsky, Barrett J Rollins, Peter H Shaw, Birte Wistinghausen, Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, Carl E Allen, North American Consortium For Histiocytosis

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH) is a myeloid neoplastic disorder characterized by lesions with CD1a-positive/Langerin (CD207)-positive histiocytes and inflammatory infiltrate that can cause local tissue damage and systemic inflammation. Clinical presentations range from single lesions with minimal impact to life-threatening disseminated disease. Therapy for systemic LCH has been established through serial trials empirically testing different chemotherapy agents and durations of therapy. However, fewer than 50% of patients who have disseminated disease are cured with the current standard-of-care vinblastine/prednisone/(mercaptopurine), and treatment failure is associated with long-term morbidity, including the risk of LCH-associated neurodegeneration. Historically, the nature of LCH-whether a reactive condition versus …

The Price We Pay: An Integrative Review Exploring The Effects Of Wellness Culture On Nurse Burnout Rates, Rebekah Lillian Vance

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this integrative review is to identify cultural factors contributing to nurse burnout and to explore the strategies and effectiveness of wellness culture and cultural changes on nurse burnout rates. Nurse burnout has been attributed to a myriad of factors and has been identified in nursing since the 1970s. While other professions with similar burnout issues have investigated and implemented culture-wide changes to address burnout, nursing has remained stagnant in the field of burnout research, often applying single interventions that fall short of creating significant, lasting change. An integrative review of nursing, peer-reviewed literature was conducted in an …

Psychological Profile Of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Athletes, Leandro De Lorenco-Lima

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Martial arts and combat sports have been shown to influence several desirable psychological factors positively. This quantitative study aimed to explore the differences in mental strength, resilience, grit, self-efficacy, self-control, aggression, life satisfaction, and mental health between belt ranks in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) athletes. A sample of 410 BJJ participants (323 males and 87 females) from 18 to 60 years of age was included in this study. Data was collected anonymously via Google Form and included the Mental Strength Scale, Brief Resilience Scale, Grit Scale, General Self-Efficacy Scale, Brief Self-Control Scale, Brief Aggression Questionnaire, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Mental Health …

The Effects Of An Emotional Intelligence And Empathy Interactive Education Program With Prelicensure Nursing Students, Karen Browne

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A dissertation is presented on a teaching program for emotional intelligence (EI) and empathy with a cohort of nursing students enrolled in a traditional, undergraduate nursing college in the Northeast region of the United States (US). An interactive teaching program was used with various media to present new material and learning activities during the spring semester. The importance of teaching nursing students the aspects of EI was to prepare them for the rigors of the profession by allowing them to delve into their own self-awareness and emotional regulation, which in turn helps to connect with patients in a more robust …

Anticoagulation Stewardship Initiative For The Outpatient Management Of Atrial Fibrillation, Ryleigh Hawker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Anticoagulation prescribing for patients with atrial fibrillation at a local primary care and urgent care office has largely been conservative and unstandardized, leaving patients at risk for cardioembolic strokes. As more and more patients are diagnosed with this condition, the greater the need becomes for appropriate management within these settings. This includes preventing strokes with anticoagulation and utilizing an integrative or collaborative approach between specialty and non-specialty centers. The Anticoagulation Stewardship Initiative is the first step in promoting effective and safe anticoagulation practices in primary and urgent care centers, while simultaneously streamlining care for newly diagnosed patients. Some of the …

Improving Use Of Water Immersion And Birth Satisfaction During The First Stage Of Labor Through An Educational Handout, Dana E. Taylor

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Although using the birthing tub for hydrotherapy during the first stage of labor has been proven to be a safe and effective method of low-intervention pain management, as well as research that indicates potential other benefits such as a reduction in the use of an epidural, improvement in breastfeeding rates, and promotion of physiologic birth, its use is often limited. Chief reasons for the lack of its use include difficulty and time constraints with tub set-up and lack of knowledge about its benefits, especially the length of time used. A quasi-experimental evidence-based project at a suburban magnet-designated hospital using a …

Associations Of Ambulatory Blood Pressure Measurements With High-Sensitivity Troponin And Natriuretic Peptide Levels In Sprint, Nikit Venishetty, Jarett D Berry, James A De Lemos, Elaine Wu, Minjae Lee, Paul E Drawz, Vijay Nambi, Christie M Ballantyne, Anthony A Killeen, Joachim H Ix, Michael G Shlipak, Simon B Ascher

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Background: Nighttime blood pressure (BP) has greater prognostic importance for cardiovascular disease (CVD) than daytime BP, but less is known about nighttime and daytime BP associations with measures of subclinical CVD.

Methods: Among 897 Systolic Blood Pressure Intervention Trial Study (SPRINT) participants with 24-hour ambulatory BP monitoring obtained near the 27-month study visit, 849 (95%) had N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) and high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T (hs-cTnT) measured at the 24-month study visit. Multivariable linear regression analyses were performed to evaluate the associations of nighttime and daytime BP with cardiac biomarker levels.

Results: The mean age was 69 ± 12 …

Pure Epidural Extraosseous Cavernous Hemangioma With Thoracic Myelopathy: Case Report And Review Of Literature, Jordan Guntin, Ashley Ricciardelli, Alex Flores, Jeffrey Chen, Jeffrey Treiber, Alfonso Fuentes

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Introduction: Pure epidural spinal cavernous hemangiomas are rare, benign vascular tumors that account for approximately 4% of all spinal epidural tumors. Due to their dumbbell shape and propensity for foraminal invasion, they are often misdiagnosed and inadequately treated. We present a case of a 58-year-old male with extra-osseous cavernous hemangioma to better aid in diagnosis and management of these lesions.

Case presentation: A 58-year-old male presented with chronic lower back pain, progressive lower extremity weakness, T10 sensory level, absent lower extremity proprioception, hyperreflexia, and an episode of bowel incontinence. Imaging demonstrated T7-T10 homogenous dorsal epidural mass causing cord signal change. …

Single-Cell Total-Rna Profiling Unveils Regulatory Hubs Of Transcription Factors, Yichi Niu, Jiayi Luo, Chenghang Zong

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Recent development of RNA velocity uses master equations to establish the kinetics of the life cycle of RNAs from unspliced RNA to spliced RNA (i.e., mature RNA) to degradation. To feed this kinetic analysis, simultaneous measurement of unspliced RNA and spliced RNA in single cells is greatly desired. However, the majority of single-cell RNA-seq chemistry primarily captures mature RNA species to measure gene expressions. Here, we develop a one-step total-RNA chemistry-based single-cell RNA-seq method: snapTotal-seq. We benchmark this method with multiple single-cell RNA-seq assays in their performance in kinetic analysis of cell cycle by RNA velocity. Next, with LASSO regression …

Tractography-Based Modeling Explains Treatment Outcomes In Patients Undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation For Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Ron Gadot, Ningfei Li, Ben Shofty, Michelle Avendano-Ortega, Sarah Mckay, Kelly R Bijanki, Meghan E Robinson, Garrett Banks, Nicole Provenza, Eric A Storch, Wayne K Goodman, Andreas Horn, Sameer A Sheth

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

BACKGROUND: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an established and expanding therapy for treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder. Previous work has suggested that a white matter circuit providing hyperdirect input from the dorsal cingulate and ventrolateral prefrontal regions to the subthalamic nucleus could be an effective neuromodulatory target.

METHODS: We tested this concept by attempting to retrospectively explain through predictive modeling the ranks of clinical improvement as measured by the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) in 10 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder who underwent DBS to the ventral anterior limb of internal capsule with subsequent programming uninformed by the putative target tract.

RESULTS: Rank …

Impact Of Efavirenz On Hormone-Positive Breast Cancer Survival In Women Living With Hiv, Arthur T Johnson, Taolo Ntloedibe, Jose Euberto Mendez Reyes, Mogomotsi S Matshaba, Scott L Dryden-Peterson, Elizabeth Y Chiao

Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Women living with HIV and breast cancer have poorer survival than HIV-negative women. Efavirenz-estrogen interactions are documented; however, the survival impact is unknown. Survival between women with estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer taking efavirenz (n = 38) and nonefavirenz regimens (n = 51) were compared. The 5-year overall-survival was 48.9% [95% confidence interval (CI) 33.0-72.2 and 51.1% (95% CI 34.0-76.8)] in the efavirenz and nonefavirenz groups, respectively suggesting efavirenz is unlikely driving poorer survival in women living with HIV and estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer.

Setd3 Is A Mechanosensitive Enzyme That Methylates Actin On His73 To Regulate Mitochondrial Dynamics And Function, Vaibhav Deshmukh, James F Martin

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Mitochondria, which act as sensors of metabolic homeostasis and metabolite signaling, form a dynamic intracellular network that continuously changes shape, size and localization to respond to localized cellular energy demands. Mitochondrial dynamics and function depend on interactions with the F-actin cytoskeleton that are poorly understood. Here, we show that SET domain protein 3 (SETD3), a recently described actin histidine methyltransferase, directly methylates actin at histidine-73 and enhances F-actin polymerization on mitochondria. SETD3 is a mechano-sensitive enzyme that is localized on the outer mitochondrial membrane and promotes actin polymerization around mitochondria. SETD3 loss of function leads to diminished F-actin around mitochondria …

Beta Activity In Human Anterior Cingulate Cortex Mediates Reward Biases, Jiayang Xiao, Joshua A Adkinson, John Myers, Anusha B Allawala, Raissa K Mathura, Victoria Pirtle, Ricardo Najera, Nicole R Provenza, Eleonora Bartoli, Andrew J Watrous, Denise Oswalt, Ron Gadot, Adrish Anand, Ben Shofty, Sanjay J Mathew, Wayne K Goodman, Nader Pouratian, Xaq Pitkow, Kelly R Bijanki, Benjamin Hayden, Sameer A Sheth

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The rewards that we get from our choices and actions can have a major influence on our future behavior. Understanding how reward biasing of behavior is implemented in the brain is important for many reasons, including the fact that diminution in reward biasing is a hallmark of clinical depression. We hypothesized that reward biasing is mediated by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), a cortical hub region associated with the integration of reward and executive control and with the etiology of depression. To test this hypothesis, we recorded neural activity during a biased judgment task in patients undergoing intracranial monitoring for …

Transcriptomic Analysis Reveals The Anti-Cancer Effect Of Gestational Mesenchymal Stem Cell Secretome, Salvatore Vaiasicca, Gianmarco Melone, David W James, Marcos Quintela, Jing Xiao, Seydou Yao, Richard H Finnell, Robert S Conlan, Lewis W Francis, Bruna Corradetti

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

The environment created during embryogenesis contributes to reducing aberrations that drive structural malformations and tumorigenesis. In this study, we investigate the anti-cancer effect of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from 2 different gestational tissues, the amniotic fluid (AF) and the chorionic villi (CV), with emphasis on their secretome. Transcriptomic analysis was performed on patient-derived AF- and CV-MSCs collected during prenatal diagnosis and identified both mRNAs and lncRNAs, involved in tissue homeostasis and inhibiting biological processes associated with the etiology of aggressive cancers while regulating immune pathways shown to be important in chronic disorders. Secretome enrichment analysis also identified soluble moieties …