Macleodglenn5134

Tumour necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) is a cytokine with inflammatory and apoptotic properties. A complex relationship exists between TRAIL and the lung where both elevated TRAIL and TRAIL deficiency are associated with lung impairment. In neonatal mice, TRAIL is thought to translate respiratory infections into chronic lung disease but the association between TRAIL and lung function in childhood has not been assessed.

To assess the cross-sectional relationship between TRAIL levels and lung function in school-aged children.

The study cohort consisted of 170 school-aged children attending four schools in Malmö, Sweden. Lung volumes, impulse oscillometry (IOS) and serum TRAIL were measured for all children. Linear regression was used to assess changes in lung function per 1-SD increase in TRAIL. General linear models were used to assess mean lung function by tertiles (T) of TRAIL.

Mean age was 9.9 years (±0.6). A 1-SD increase in TRAIL was associated with lower values of FEV

and FEV

/VC (change in FEV

(L) and FEV

/VC ratio -0.047, p-value 0.002, and -0.011, p-value 0.020, respectively) and higher values of lung resistance (change in R

and R

(kPa/(L/s)) 0.035, p-value <0.001 and 0.027, p-value 0.004, respectively). These associations remained significant after excluding children with pre-existing lung disease. Higher TRAIL levels were associated with more negative values for X

in general linear models (Mean X

(kPa/(L/s)) in T1 (low TRAIL) -0.193 vs T3 (high TRAIL) -0.216, p-value 0.026).

High TRAIL levels are significantly associated with markers of pulmonary airflow obstruction in school-aged children.

High TRAIL levels are significantly associated with markers of pulmonary airflow obstruction in school-aged children.

To describe gestational age-specific distribution of scores for the Hammersmith Neonatal Neurological Examination (HNNE) up to 48h after birth in a low-risk, term-born, single-center sample in Ghana.

This is a nested substudy of a larger prospective study (IMPRINT Impact of Malaria in Pregnancy on Infant Neurodevelopment) comprising 140 low-risk, term-born neonates at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Ghana, between November 2018 and February 2019. The sample was stratified into three gestational age groups early-term (37+0-38+6,weeks+days; n=61), full-term (39+0-40+6,weeks+days; n=52), and late/post-term (41+0-42+6,weeks+days; n=27). Neonates were administered the 34-item HNNE by trained physicians. As per the original British scoring system, raw scores for the Ghanaian sample were plotted and scores > 10th centile were assigned a score of 1, 5th-10th centile 0.5, and<5th centile 0.

The range of raw scores for 16/34 HNNE items varied with gestational age. Specifically, 100% (7/7), 50% (5/10), omparison to the original British sample could be, albeit unlikely, due to misclassification of gestational age, unmeasured maternal or fetal morbidity, or perhaps more likely, variation in testing or test conditions, or some combination of these. Genetic variation in neurological development is also a possibility. Further research is warranted to determine the reasons for differences. Our findings highlight the need to determine the accuracy and reliability of standardized neurologic assessments in predicting neurodevelopmental risk for infants in low- and middle-income countries.Attention is an important function that allows us to selectively enhance the processing of relevant stimuli in our environment. Fittingly, a number of studies have revealed that potentially threatening/fearful stimuli capture attention more efficiently. Interestingly, in separate fMRI studies, threatening stimuli situated close to viewers were found to enhance brain activity in fear-relevant areas more than stimuli that were further away. Despite these observations, few studies have examined the effect of personal distance on attentional capture by emotional stimuli. Using electroencephalography (EEG), the current investigation addressed this question by investigating attentional capture of emotional faces that were either looming/receding, or were situated at different distances from the viewer. In Experiment 1, participants carried out an incidental task while looming or receding fearful and neutral faces were presented bilaterally. A significant lateralised N170 and N2pc were found for a looming upright fearful face, however no significant components were found for a looming upright neutral face or inverted fearful and neutral faces. In Experiment 2, participants made gender judgements of emotional faces that appeared on a screen situated within or beyond peripersonal space (respectively 50 cm or 120 cm). selleck kinase inhibitor Although response times did not differ, significantly more errors were made when faces appeared in near as opposed to far space. Importantly, ERPs revealed a significant N2pc for fearful faces presented in peripersonal distance, compared to the far distance. Our findings show that personal distance markedly affects neural responses to emotional stimuli, with increased attention towards fearful upright faces that appear in close distance.Humans, and several non-human species, possess the ability to make approximate but reliable estimates of the number of objects around them. Alike other perceptual features, numerosity perception is susceptible to adaptation exposure to a high number of items causes underestimation of the numerosity of a subsequent set of items, and vice versa. Several studies have investigated adaptation in the auditory and visual modality, whereby stimuli are preferentially encoded in an external coordinate system. As tactile stimuli are primarily coded in an internal (body-centered) reference frame, here we ask whether tactile numerosity adaptation operates based on internal or external spatial coordinates as it occurs in vision or audition. Twenty participants performed an adaptation task with their right hand located either in the right (uncrossed) or left (crossed) hemispace, in order for the two hands to occupy either two completely different positions, or the same position in space, respectively. Tactile adaptor and test stimuli were passively delivered either to the same (adapted) or different (non-adapted) hands.