Purpose of Review
There has been an exponential growth in functional connectomics research in neurodegenerative disorders. This review summarizes the recent findings and limitations of the field in ...Parkinson’s disease (PD) and atypical parkinsonian syndromes.
Recent Findings
Increasingly more sophisticated methods ranging from seed-based to network and whole-brain dynamic functional connectivity have been used. Results regarding the disruption in the functional connectome vary considerably based on disease severity and phenotypes, and treatment status in PD. Non-motor symptoms of PD also link to the dysfunction in heterogeneous networks. Studies in atypical parkinsonian syndromes are relatively scarce.
Summary
An important clinical goal of functional connectomics in neurodegenerative disorders is to establish the presence of pathology, track disease progression, predict outcomes, and monitor treatment response. The obstacles of reliability and reproducibility in the field need to be addressed to improve the potential of the functional connectome as a biomarker for these purposes in PD and atypical parkinsonian syndromes.
For the first time, this book examines the strategies of leaders of emerging nations to use sport as a tool for reaching social, economic, cultural, political, technological or environmental goals ...and gaining international prestige. It assesses whether sport can really be an effective tool in international development.The book explores the unique challenges, issues and opportunities offered by sport for development in emerging nations. Bringing together case studies of sport and development in countries including Brazil, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Qatar, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey, the book looks at policies designed to achieve development through, by and for sport, and whether they have achieved their socio-economic objectives. It considers the way that emerging nations have used major international sports events as political and developmental projects, as well as the importance of sporting infrastructure, professional leagues, participation programmes and the influence of nationalism and ideology.With a truly global perspective, this book is important reading for any student, researcher or policy-maker with interest in sport management, sport development, development studies, international economics, globalisation or political science.
Accurate and timely diagnosis of atypical parkinsonian syndromes (APS) remains a challenge. Especially early in the disease course, the clinical manifestations of the APS overlap with each other and ...with those of idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD). Recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology have introduced promising imaging modalities to aid in the diagnosis of APS. Some of these MRI modalities are also included in the updated diagnostic criteria of APS. Importantly, MRI is safe for repeated use and more affordable and accessible compared to nuclear imaging. These advantages make MRI tools more appealing for diagnostic purposes. As the MRI field continues to advance, the diagnostic use of these techniques in APS, alone or in combination, are expected to become commonplace in clinical practice.
Aims
Quorum sensing (QS) is a cell–cell communication system used by a broad spectrum of pathogenic bacteria to control the expression of their virulence genes. The interruption of QS systems of ...pathogenic bacteria has been considered as a novel way to fight bacterial diseases. In this study, trans‐anethole, the main component of anise (Pimpinella anisum) oil was examined for its QS inhibitor (QSI) potential in an attempt to identify novel QSI compound effective against opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Methods and Results
The preliminary screening of QSI capacity of trans‐anethole was determined using a quorum‐sensing inhibitor screen (QSIS) assay. The QSIS assay indicated that trans‐anethole has QSI properties. QSI capacity of trans‐anethole was further confirmed by lasB‐gfp fussion assay and virulence factor assays. A sub‐MIC of trans‐anethole reduced the expression of lasB by 57%, elastase production by 59%, protease production by 56%, pyocyanin production by 95% and swarming motility by 68% without inhibiting growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa PA01. Molecular docking and protein–ligand interaction studies were performed to understand the molecular mechanism underlying inhibitory activity of trans‐anethole. The results of these analysis suggested that trans‐anethole fits within the binding site of the LasR protein of P. aeruginosa.
Conclusion
Trans‐anethole has the potential to inhibit QS‐regulated virulence factors in P. aeruginosa by binding to LasR protein, similar to its natural ligand N‐(3‐oxododecanoyl)‐l‐homoserine lactone.
Significance and Impact of the Study
In this study, for the first time, it was demonstrated that trans‐anethole has the potential to disrupt bacterial communication and can be developed as a novel QSI to combat with P. aeruginosa and other clinically significant pathogens.
Multi-contrast MRI acquisitions of an anatomy enrich the magnitude of information available for diagnosis. Yet, excessive scan times associated with additional contrasts may be a limiting factor. Two ...mainstream frameworks for enhanced scan efficiency are reconstruction of undersampled acquisitions and synthesis of missing acquisitions. Recently, deep learning methods have enabled significant performance improvements in both frameworks. Yet, reconstruction performance decreases towards higher acceleration factors with diminished sampling density at high-spatial-frequencies, whereas synthesis can manifest artefactual sensitivity or insensitivity to image features due to the absence of data samples from the target contrast. In this article, we propose a new approach for synergistic recovery of undersampled multi-contrast acquisitions based on conditional generative adversarial networks. The proposed method mitigates the limitations of pure learning-based reconstruction or synthesis by utilizing three priors: shared high-frequency prior available in the source contrast to preserve high-spatial-frequency details, low-frequency prior available in the undersampled target contrast to prevent feature leakage/loss, and perceptual prior to improve recovery of high-level features. Demonstrations on brain MRI datasets from healthy subjects and patients indicate the superior performance of the proposed method compared to pure reconstruction and synthesis methods. The proposed method can help improve the quality and scan efficiency of multi-contrast MRI exams.
Objective
Parkinson disease is characterized by motor and nonmotor symptoms, reduced striatal dopamine signaling, and loss of dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra. It is now known that the ...pathological process in Parkinson disease may begin decades before the clinical diagnosis and include a variety of neuronal alterations in addition to the dopamine system.
Methods
This study examined the density of all synapses with synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2A (SV2A) in Parkinson disease subjects with mild bilateral disease (n = 12) and matched normal controls (n = 12) using in vivo high‐resolution positron emission tomographic imaging as well as postmortem autoradiography in an independent sample with Parkinson disease (n = 15) and normal controls (n = 13) in the substantia nigra and putamen.
Results
A group‐by‐brain region interaction effect (F10, 22 = 3.52, p = 0.007) was observed in the primary brain areas with in vivo SV2A binding. Post hoc analyses revealed that the Parkinson disease group exhibited lower SV2A in the substantia nigra (−45%; p < 0.001), red nucleus (−31%; p = 0.03), and locus coeruleus (−17%; p = 0.03). Exploratory analyses also revealed lower SV2A binding in clinically relevant cortical areas. Using autoradiography, we confirmed lower SV2A in the substantia nigra (−17%; p < 0.005) and nonsignificant findings in the putamen (−4%; p = 0.06).
Interpretation
This work provides the first evidence of synaptic loss in brainstem nuclei involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson disease in living patients. SV2A imaging holds promise for understanding synaptic changes central to the disease. Ann Neurol 2020;87:329–338
This article investigates why, how, and under which conditions countries naturalise foreign-born athletes. Such nationality transfers are an under-researched topic in academic literature on ...citizenship and on elite sport. This can be explained by macro data which shows that naturalisations are a negligible factor to explain the overall, historical performance of countries in international sport. However, what makes the current work relevant is that there are some outliers that have recently made excessive use of foreign-born athletes on their national teams, many of whom have no prior connections to their new homes. This research sheds light on the Middle East, a region that has recently been at the forefront when it comes to nationality transfers of migrant athletes, by discussing naturalisation policy in Qatar and Turkey. The motives of naturalised athletes and national federations, the role of governments in transferring nationality to migrant athletes, as well as the rules and regulations of international federations and the International Olympic Committee concerning nationality transfers are discussed. Naturalisations can be explained in regards to low participation rates in national sport and the desire of both countries to gain international prestige through sport. Athletes switch nationalities for economic and sports-related reasons: it is easier for athletes to qualify for international competitions when representing weaker sporting nations. A distinction between both cases is that Qatar only grants temporary passports to many immigrant athletes, a practice that deserves scrutiny by international federations, while Turkey provides naturalised talents with full citizenship.
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