Guerrerofrantzen2519

Despite well-documented neurotoxic and ototoxic properties, styrene remains commonly used in industry. Its effects on the cochlea have been extensively studied in animals, and epidemiological and animal evidence indicates an impact on balance. However, its influence on the peripheral vestibular receptor has yet to be investigated. Here, we assessed the vestibulotoxicity of styrene using an in vitro model, consisting of three-dimensional cultured newborn rat utricles filled with a high‑potassium (K+) endolymph-like fluid, called "cysts". K+ entry in the cyst ("influx") and its exit ("efflux") are controlled by secretory cells and hair cells, respectively. The vestibular epithelium's functionality is thus linked to K+ concentration, measured using a microelectrode. Known inhibitors of K+ efflux and influx validated the model. find more Cysts were subsequently exposed to styrene (0.25; 0.5; 0.75 and 1 mM) for 2 h or 72 h. The decrease in K+ concentration measured after both exposure durations was dose-dependent, and significant from 0.75 mM styrene. Vacuoles were visible in the cytoplasm of epithelial cells from 0.5 mM after 2 h and from 0.25 mM after 72 h. The results presented here are the first evidence that styrene may deregulate K+ homeostasis in the endolymphatic space, thereby altering the functionality of the vestibular receptor.This study evaluated the impact of contrast material (CM) on radiation dose for adults undergoing computed tomography pulmonary angiography (CTPA). A previously developed physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model and phantoms representing the average (reference) adult male and female individual were used to evaluate the iodine concentration in tissues as a function of time elapsed since the initiation of iodinated contrast medium administration. In order to estimate the radiation dose more accurately, a detailed model of pulmonary vessels was added to the phantoms. Then, the material composition of phantoms was modified to include the iodine concentration in different organs and tissues at different acquisition times after CM injection. The calculations were performed using Monte Carlo N-Particle extended code (MCNPX) version 2.6.0. The radiation dose estimates during CTPA were provided as a function of scan acquisition time after injection considering the distribution of iodinated CM within ICRP reference phantoms. It was shown that the estimated radiation dose to the lungs could be 31-40% (27-34%) larger when considering the effect of iodinated contrast administration with injection rate of 5 (3)mL/s. Moreover, the effective dose for contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) would be utmost 10-13% larger than that for non-enhanced CT (NECT). The radiation doses to the other organs in-/outside the scanned region would be decreased if the scan performed on time. In case of late scanning, absorbed dose decreases slightly for lungs (∼15-20%) whereas becomes (∼10% or more) higher than its NECT value for some organs such as heart muscle, kidneys, and spleen. To sum up, the late scanning (Δt>5s after the end of injection) is not recommended because of higher dose delivered to other organs than the lungs (particularly heart muscle).Background Frailty has been studied as a valuable predictor of adverse health events and poor postoperative outcomes in patients undergoing surgery. Thus, the use of simple and adapted indexes to define frailty, like the modified frailty index (mFI)-11, proved useful in assessing patients undergoing vascular surgery. However, the literature about the applicability of an even more pragmatic index, the modified frailty (mFI) index mFI-5 in vascular patients is scarce, particularly in those submitted to carotid endarterectomy (CEA). This study aimed to validate and estimate the prognostic value of the mFI-5 on the postoperative period and long-term survival of this population. Methods From January 2011 to June 2019, 184 patients from a tertiary care referral center who underwent CEA with regional anesthesia for carotid artery stenosis were selected from a previous prospectively mantained cohort database. Clinical adverse events such as stroke, myocardial infarction (MI), acute heart failure (AHF), and all-cause mortality were assessed 30-days post-procedure and in the subsequent long-term surveillance period. mFI-5 was applied to this population to evaluate the impact of frailty on mortality and morbidity. Results The mFI-5 was significantly associated with increased risk of long-term MI (P less then 0.001), AHF (P = 0.043), major adverse cardiovascular events (P = 0.001) and mortality (P less then 0.001). Concerning major adverse limb events and stroke survival, mFI-5 did not reveal statistical significance. The mFI-5 was not able to predict 30-day postoperative adverse events. Conclusion The mFI-5 has demonstrated to be a potential index tool capable of easily stratifying patients and predicting outcomes in the long-term and add therapeutic value in the future. The mFI-5 provides a means of rapidly comparing the comorbidity charge between cohorts.Here we describe a rare case of Capgras delusion - a misidentification syndrome characterized by the belief that a person has been replaced by an imposter - in a patient without evident neurological or psychiatric symptoms. Intriguingly, delusional belief was selective for both person and modality, as the patient believed that his son - not his daughter or other relatives - was substituted with an imposter only while being in presence of him and looking at his face, but not when merely listening to his voice. A neuroanatomical reconstruction obtained integrating morphological and functional patient's neuroimaging data highlighted two main peculiarities a compression of the rostral portion of right temporal lobe due to a large arachnoid cyst, and a bilaterally reduced metabolism of frontal areas. Autonomic data obtained from thermal infra-red camera and skin conductance recordings showed that a higher sympathetic activation was evoked by the observation of daughter's face, relative to the observation of the son's face as well as of not-familiar faces; conversely, daughter and son voices elicited a similar sympathetic activation, higher relative to not-familiar voices, indicating a modality-dependent dissociation consistent with the delusional behavior. Our case supports the "two-hit hypothesis" about Capgras delusion etiopathogenesis here, the first hit is represented by the right-temporal lesion impairing the association between familiar faces and emotional values, the second one is the frontal bilateral hypometabolism favoring delusional behavior. The selective occurrence of "imposter" delusion for a particular subject and for a specific perceptual modality suggests the involvement of modality-specific interactions in the retrieval of affective properties during familiar people recognition.