Abstract Post-COVID Syndrome has emerged as a significant public health concern worldwide with increasing evidence to suggest that individuals who have had an acute COVID-19 infection report ...lingering memory and attention difficulties, even in individuals who have fully recovered and no longer experiencing symptoms of COVID-19. The present study sought to investigate the profile of objective and subjective cognitive difficulties in people who have Post-COVID Syndrome, people who have fully recovered from an acute COVID infection and people who have never had COVID-19. We further sought to explore the extent to which self-reported fatigue and stress are related to subjective and objective cognitive difficulties. 162 participants including 50 people living with Post-COVID Syndrome, 59 people who have had COVID-19 but have fully recovered and 53 people who have never experienced symptoms of COVID-19 and had never tested positive for COVID-19 were recruited from Academic Prolific to complete a series of online questionnaires and neurocognitive tasks. Subjective cognitive function was measured using the Cognitive Failures Questionnaire and objective cognitive function was measured using the Cognitron cognitive test battery. We found that objective and subjective measures of cognitive function were not significantly related, suggesting that self-reports of “brain fog” are not reflecting objectively measured cognitive dysfunction. A MANOVA revealed that subjective cognitive deficits were driven by heightened perceived stress and fatigue and not significantly related to COVID-19 status. Objective cognitive function, however, was significantly related to perceived stress and COVID status whereby we observed significant objective cognitive deficits in people who have been exposed to an acute COVID-19 infection regardless of whether they had Post-COVID Syndrome or had fully recovered, as compared to people who had never had COVID-19. This suggests that an acute infection can have long term effects on cognitive function, even without persistent COVID-19 symptoms. Encouragingly, objective cognitive function was significantly associated with time since initial infection showing that cognitive deficits improved over time for people who had recovered from COVID-19. However, we did not observe the same improvement in individuals with Post-COVID Syndrome and observed that cognitive dysfunction was significantly related to the number of neurological symptoms presently experienced. These results add to the accumulating literature that COVID-19 is associated with significant cognitive difficulties following a COVID-19 infection, which appear to improve over time for those who have recovered from COVID-19 yet persist in people living with Post-COVID Syndrome.
Background
Rhinovirus (RV) can exacerbate allergen‐driven asthma. However, it has been suggested that serial infections with RV may also lead to asthma‐like features in childhood without prior ...allergen exposure.
Aim
We sought to test the effects of RV infection in the absence of allergen challenge on lung tissue remodeling and to understand whether RV induced factors in common with allergen that promote remodeling.
Methods
We infected C57BL/6 mice multiple times with RV in the absence or presence of allergen to assess airway remodeling. We used knockout mice and blocking reagents to determine the participation of LIGHT (TNFSF14), as well as IL‐1β and TGF‐β, each previously shown to contribute to lung remodeling driven by allergen.
Results
Recurrent RV infection without allergen challenge induced an increase in peribronchial smooth muscle mass and subepithelial fibrosis. Rhinovirus (RV) induced LIGHT expression in mouse lungs after infection, and alveolar epithelial cells and neutrophils were found to be potential sources of LIGHT. Accordingly, LIGHT‐deficient mice, or mice where LIGHT was neutralized, displayed reduced smooth muscle mass and lung fibrosis. Recurrent RV infection also exacerbated the airway remodeling response to house dust mite allergen, and this was significantly reduced in LIGHT‐deficient mice. Furthermore, neutralizing IL‐1β or TGF‐β also limited subepithelial fibrosis and/or smooth muscle thickness induced by RV.
Conclusion
Rhinovirus can promote airway remodeling in the absence of allergen through upregulating common factors that also contribute to allergen‐associated airway remodeling.
Mounting evidence supports a role for the immune system in breast cancer outcomes. The ability to distinguish highly immunogenic tumors susceptible to anti-tumor immunity from weakly immunogenic or ...inherently immune-resistant tumors would guide development of therapeutic strategies in breast cancer. Genomic, transcriptomic and clinical data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium (METABRIC) breast cancer cohorts were used to examine statistical associations between tumor mutational burden (TMB) and the survival of patients whose tumors were assigned to previously-described prognostic immune subclasses reflecting favorable, weak or poor immune-infiltrate dispositions (FID, WID or PID, respectively). Tumor immune subclasses were associated with survival in patients with high TMB (TMB-Hi, P < 0.001) but not in those with low TMB (TMB-Lo, P = 0.44). This statistical relationship was confirmed in the METABRIC cohort (TMB-Hi, P = 0.047; TMB-Lo, P = 0.39), and also found to hold true in the more-indolent Luminal A tumor subtype (TMB-Hi, P = 0.011; TMB-Lo, P = 0.91). In TMB-Hi tumors, the FID subclass was associated with prolonged survival independent of tumor stage, molecular subtype, age and treatment. Copy number analysis revealed the reproducible, preferential amplification of chromosome 1q immune-regulatory genes in the PID immune subclass. These findings demonstrate a previously unappreciated role for TMB as a determinant of immune-mediated survival of breast cancer patients and identify candidate immune-regulatory mechanisms associated with immunologically cold tumors. Immune subtyping of breast cancers may offer opportunities for therapeutic stratification.
mutations are a frequent risk factor for Parkinson disease (PD). The aim of this study is to evaluate clinical features in a group of
mutation-positive individuals over a 6-year follow-up.
This is a ...longitudinal study on a cohort of
-positive carriers. We enrolled 31 patients with Gaucher disease type 1 (GD), 29
heterozygous carriers (Het
group) and 30 controls (HC) at baseline and followed them for 6 years. We assessed baseline motor and non-motor signs of PD in all subjects using clinical questionnaires and scales (reduced Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale (UMSARS), Montreal Cognitive assessment (MoCA), University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test (UPSIT), REM Sleep Behavior Disorder screening questionnaire (RBDsq), Movement Disorders Society Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale motor subscale (MDS-UPDRS III) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). We repeated these at the 6-year follow-up alongside venous blood sampling for measurement of glucocerebrosidase enzymatic activity (GCase). We explored whether the GCase activity level was altered in leucocytes of these subjects and how it was related to development of PD.
We observed a significant worsening in UMSARS, RBDsq, MDS-UPDRS III and BDI scores at the 6-year follow-up compared with baseline in both the GD and Het
groups. Intergroup comparisons showed that GD subjects had significantly worse scores in UPSIT, UMSARS, MoCA and MDS-UPDRS III than HC, while Het
displayed worse outcomes in UPSIT and MDS-UPDRS III compared with HC. In
mutation-positive individuals (Het
and GD), an UPSIT score of 23 at baseline was correlated with worse outcome at 6 years in UPSIT, MoCA, MDS-UPDRS III and BDI.
In this 6-year-long longitudinal study,
mutation-positive subjects showed a worsening in motor and non-motor prodromal PD features.
At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), absolute luminosity calibrations obtained by the van der Meer (
vdM
) method are affected by the mutual electromagnetic interaction of the two beams. The colliding ...bunches experience relative orbit shifts, as well as optical distortions akin to the dynamic-
β
effect, that both depend on the transverse beam separation and must therefore be corrected for when deriving the absolute luminosity scale. In the
vdM
regime, the beam–beam parameter is small enough that the orbit shift can be calculated analytically. The dynamic-
β
corrections to the luminometer calibrations, however, had until the end of Run 2 been estimated in the linear approximation only. In this report, the influence of beam–beam effects on the
vdM
-based luminosity scale is quantified, together with the associated systematic uncertainties, by means of simulations that fully take into account the non-linearity of the beam–beam force, as well as the resulting non-Gaussian distortions of the transverse beam distributions. Two independent multiparticle simulations, one limited to the weak-strong approximation and one that models strong-strong effects in a self-consistent manner, are found in excellent agreement; both predict a percent-level shift of the absolute
pp
-luminosity values with respect to those assumed until recently in the physics publications of the LHC experiments. These results also provide guidance regarding further studies aimed at reducing the beam–beam-related systematic uncertainty on beam–beam corrections to absolute luminosity calibrations by the van der Meer method.
Rationale
Preclinical studies indicate that high-frequency oscillations, above 100 Hz (HFO:100–170 Hz), are a potential translatable biomarker for pharmacological studies, with the rapid acting ...antidepressant ketamine increasing both gamma (40–100 Hz) and HFO.
Objectives
To assess the effect of the uncompetitive NMDA antagonist ketamine, and of D-cycloserine (DCS), which acts at the glycine site on NMDA receptors on HFO in humans.
Methods
We carried out a partially double-blind, 4-way crossover study in 24 healthy male volunteers. Each participant received an oral tablet and an intravenous infusion on each of four study days. The oral treatment was either DCS (250 mg or 1000 mg) or placebo. The infusion contained 0.5 mg/kg ketamine or saline placebo. The four study conditions were therefore placebo-placebo, 250 mg DCS-placebo, 1000 mg DCS-placebo, or placebo-ketamine.
Results
Compared with placebo, frontal midline HFO magnitude was increased by ketamine (
p
= 0.00014) and 1000 mg DCS (
p
= 0.013). Frontal gamma magnitude was also increased by both these treatments. However, at a midline parietal location, only HFO were increased by DCS, and not gamma, whilst ketamine increased both gamma and HFO at this location. Ketamine induced psychomimetic effects, as measured by the PSI scale, whereas DCS did not increase the total PSI score. The perceptual distortion subscale scores correlated with the posterior low gamma to frontal high beta ratio.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that, at high doses, a partial NMDA agonist (DCS) has similar effects on fast neural oscillations as an NMDA antagonist (ketamine). As HFO were induced without psychomimetic effects, they may prove a useful drug development target.
Since its inception in late December 2020 in China, novel coronavirus has affected the global socio-economic aspect. Currently, the world is seeking safe and effective treatment measures against ...COVID-19 to eradicate it. Many established drug molecules are tested against SARS-CoV-2 as a part of drug repurposing where some are proved effective for symptomatic relief while some are ineffective. Drug repurposing is a practical strategy for rapidly developing antiviral agents. Many drugs are presently being repurposed utilizing basic understanding of disease pathogenesis and drug pharmacodynamics, as well as computational methods. In the present situation, drug repurposing could be viewed as a new treatment option for COVID-19. Several new drug molecules and biologics are engineered against SARS-CoV-2 and are under different stages of clinical development. A few biologics drug products are approved by USFDA for emergency use in the covid management. Due to continuous mutation, many of the approved vaccines are not much efficacious to render the individual immune against opportunistic infection of SARS-CoV-2 mutants. Hence, there is a strong need for the cogent therapeutic agent for covid management. In this review, a consolidated summary of the therapeutic developments against SARS-CoV-2 are depicted along with an overview of effective management of post COVID-19 complications.
Display omitted
•With continuous mutation of SARS-CoV-2, there is a strong need for the potent therapeutic agent for covid management.•Effectiveness of repurposed drugs used against COVID-19 till now it's not evident.•List of US-FDA approved drugs for COVID-19 were summarized in the article.•Several new drug molecules and biologics are engineered against SARS-CoV-2.•A consolidated summary of the therapeutic development against SARS-CoV-2 is depicted along with an overview of effective management of postCOVID-19 complications.
The pharmacological MRI (phMRI) technique is being increasingly used in both pre-clinical and clinical models to investigate pharmacological effects on task-free brain function. Ketamine, an ...N-methyl-d-aspartate receptor (NMDAR) antagonist, induces a strong phMRI response and represents a promising pharmacological model to investigate the role of glutamatergic abnormalities in psychiatric symptomatology. The aim of this study was to assess whether the brain response to ketamine is reliable in order to validate ketamine phMRI as a mechanistic marker of glutamatergic dysfunction and to determine its utility in repeated measures designs to detect the modulatory effect of other drugs. Thus we assessed the test–retest reliability of the brain response to ketamine in healthy volunteers and identified an optimal modelling approach with reliability as our selection criterion.
PhMRI data were collected from 10 healthy male participants, at rest, on two separate occasions. Subanaesthetic doses of I.V. ketamine infusion (target plasma levels 50ng/mL and 75ng/mL) were administered in both sessions. Test–retest reliability of the ketamine phMRI response was assessed voxel-wise and on pre-defined ROIs for a range of temporal design matrices including different combinations of nuisance regressors designed to model shape variance, linear drift and head motion. Effect sizes are also reported.
All models showed a significant and widespread response to low-dose ketamine in predicted cerebral networks and as expected, increasing the number of model parameters improved model fit. Reliability of the predefined ROIs differed between the different models assessed. Using reliability as the selection criterion, a model capturing subject motion and linear drift performed the best across two sessions. The anatomical distribution of effects for all models was consistent with results of previous imaging studies in humans with BOLD signal increases in regions including midline cingulate and supracingulate cortex, thalamus, insula, anterior temporal lobe and ventrolateral prefrontal structures, and BOLD signal decreases in the subgenual cingulate cortex.
This study represents the first investigation of the test–retest reliability of the BOLD phMRI response to acute ketamine challenge. All models tested were effective at describing the ketamine response although the design matrix associated with the highest reliability may represent a robust and well-characterised ketamine phMRI assay more suitable for repeated-measures designs. This ketamine assay is applicable as a model of neurotransmitter dysfunction suitable as a pharmacodynamic imaging tool to test and validate modulatory interventions, as a model of NMDA hypofunction in psychiatric disorders, and may be adapted to understand potential antidepressant and analgesic effects of NMDAR antagonists.
Anderson-Fabry disease is an X-linked glycosphingolipid storage disorder caused by deficient activity of the lysosomal enzyme alpha-galactosidase A. This leads to a progressive accumulation of ...globotriaosylceramide (Gb(3)) in the lysosomes of cells throughout the body that ultimately results in premature death from renal, cardiac or cerebrovascular complications. Until recently, there was no effective therapy available for this disease. The present study was designed to assess the safety and efficacy of enzyme replacement therapy with agalsidase alfa on the cardiac manifestations of Anderson-Fabry disease.
The effects of therapy with agalsidase alfa on cardiac structure and function were assessed in a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 15 adult male patients with Anderson-Fabry disease. The following parameters were measured at baseline and 6 months: left ventricular mass, QRS duration and levels of Gb(3) in cardiac tissue, urine sediment and plasma. After 6 months of the randomised trial patients were enrolled in a 2-year open-label extension study.
Left ventricular mass, as measured by MRI, was significantly reduced following 6 months of treatment with agalsidase alfa compared with placebo (p = 0.041). A mean 20% reduction in myocardial Gb(3) content as assessed by serial transvenous endomyocardial biopsies was demonstrated over the 6 months of enzyme replacement compared to a mean 10% increase in patients receiving placebo (p = 0.42)
Enzyme replacement therapy with agalsidase alfa resulted in regression of the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy associated with Anderson-Fabry disease.
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