Prospective Cohort Study

Secret History: Return of the Black Death Channel 4, 7-8pm In 1348 the Black Death swept through London, killing people within days of the appearance of their first symptoms. Exactly how many died, and why, has long been a mystery. This Secret History documentary follows experts as they pick through the evidence and reveal why the plague killed on such a scale. And they ask, what might be coming next?

Medscape

https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(00)02490-9.pdf

The importance of selenium to human health

The essential trace mineral, selenium, is of fundamental importance to human health. As a constituent of selenoproteins, selenium has structural and enzymic roles, in the latter context being best-known as an antioxidant and catalyst for the production of active thyroid hormone. Selenium is needed for the proper functioning of the immune system, and appears to be a key nutrient in counteracting the development of virulence and inhibiting HIV progression to AIDS. It is required for sperm motility and may reduce the risk of miscarriage. Deficiency has been linked to adverse mood states. Findings have been equivocal in linking selenium to cardiovascular disease risk although other conditions involving oxidative stress and inflammation have shown benefits of a higher selenium status. An elevated selenium intake may be associated with reduced cancer risk. Large clinical trials are now planned to confirm or refute this hypothesis. In the context of these health effects, low or diminishing selenium status in some parts of the world, notably in some European countries, is giving cause for concern.

The importance of selenium to human health.

Because depression and painful symptoms commonly occur together, we conducted a literature review to determine the prevalence of both conditions and the effects of comorbidity on diagnosis, clinical outcomes, and treatment. The prevalences of pain in depressed cohorts and depression in pain cohorts are higher than when these conditions are individually examined. The presence of pain negatively affects the recognition and treatment of depression. When pain is moderate to severe, impairs function, and/or is refractory to treatment, it is associated with more depressive symptoms and worse depression outcomes (eg, lower quality of life, decreased work function, and increased health care utilization). Similarly, depression in patients with pain is associated with more pain complaints and greater impairment. Depression and pain share biological pathways and neurotransmitters, which has implications for the treatment of both concurrently. A model that incorporates assessment and treatment of depression and pain simultaneously is necessary for improved outcomes.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articlepdf/216320/ira30040_2433_2445.pdf

Depression and pain comorbidity: a literature review.

Magnetic resonance fingerprinting (MRF) based on echo-planar imaging (EPI) enables whole-brain imaging to rapidly obtain T1 and T2* relaxation time maps. Reconstructing parametric maps from the MRF scanned baselines by the inner-product method is computationally expensive. We aimed to accelerate the reconstruction of parametric maps for MRF-EPI by using a deep learning model. The proposed approach uses a two-stage model that first eliminates noise and then regresses the parametric maps. Parametric maps obtained by dictionary matching were used as a reference and compared with the prediction results of the two-stage model. MRF-EPI scans were collected from 32 subjects. The signal-to-noise ratio increased significantly after the noise removal by the denoising model. For prediction with scans in the testing dataset, the mean absolute percentage errors between the standard and the final two-stage model were 3.1%, 3.2%, and 1.9% for T1, and 2.6%, 2.3%, and 2.8% for T2* in gray matter, white matter, and lesion locations, respectively. Our proposed two-stage deep learning model can effectively remove noise and accurately reconstruct MRF-EPI parametric maps, increasing the speed of reconstruction and reducing the storage space required by dictionaries.

/pdf/acceleration-of-magnetic-resonance-fingerprinting-2wq44bd6.pdf

Acceleration of Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting Reconstruction Using Denoising and Self-Attention Pyramidal Convolutional Neural Network

There is a lack of validated tools for assessing Alzheimer's disease (AD) across Asia. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale-Cognitive Subscale (ADAS-Cog), Disability Assessment for Dementia (DAD), and Neuropsychological Test Battery (NTB) in Asian participants. Participants with mild to moderate AD (n=251) and healthy controls (n=51) from Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea completed selected instruments at several time points. Test-retest reliability was better than 0.70 for all tests. AD participants performed significantly more poorly than controls on every score. Within the AD group, greater disease severity corresponded to significantly poorer performance. The AD group test performance wors - ened over time and there was a trend for worse performance in AD compared to healthy controls over time. The ADAS-Cog, DAD, and NTB are reliable, valid, and responsive measures in this population and could be used for clini- cal trials across Asian countries/regions.

Original Article Validation of an Alzheimer's disease assessment battery in Asian participants with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease

Cerebral cavernous malformations (CCMs) present variably, and epileptic seizures are the most common symptom. The factors contributing to cavernoma‐related epilepsy (CRE) and drug resistance remain inconclusive. The outcomes of CRE after different treatment modalities have not yet been fully addressed. This study aimed to characterize the clinical features of patients with CRE and the long‐term seizure outcomes of medical and surgical treatment strategies.

Shuu Jiun Wang

Papers

Acceleration of Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting Reconstruction Using Denoising and Self-Attention Pyramidal Convolutional Neural Network

Original Article Validation of an Alzheimer's disease assessment battery in Asian participants with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease

Clinical characteristics and long‐term outcome of cerebral cavernous malformations‐related epilepsy

Transient syndrome of continuous muscle fiber activity associated with staphylococcal infection

Masseter silent period: a study of magnetic stimulation.