Rehabilitation of patients with coronary cardiopathy. Early mobilization after acute myocardial infarction

The early mobilization of selected patients with uncomplicated myocardial infarction is not any longer a controversial subject. The benefits are the prevention of decreasing physical capacity and other complications due to physical immobilization. Anxiety and depressive states are prevented or improved, physical capacity is maintained; there is a well being sensation upon discharge and there are economical advantages due to shortening of the hospitalization period. The latter favors an early return to work and a rapid turnover of hospital beds. From different points of view, early discharge of these patients is desirable, safe, possible, decreases expenses, and favors recovery.     

Assessment of Platelet REACtivity After Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: The REAC-TAVI Trial

Objectives

The REAC-TAVI (Assessment of platelet REACtivity after Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation) trial enrolled patients with aortic stenosis (AS) undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) pre-treated with aspirin + clopidogrel, aimed to compare the efficacy of clopidogrel and ticagrelor in suppressing high platelet reactivity (HPR) after TAVI.

Mortality and Causes of Death in Patients With Osteogenesis Imperfecta: A Register‐Based Nationwide Cohort Study

Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) is a hereditary connective tissue disease that causes frequent fractures. Little is known about causes of death and length of survival in OI. The objective of this work was to calculate the risk and cause of death, and the median survival time in patients with OI. This study was a Danish nationwide, population‐based and register‐based cohort study. We used National Patient Register data from 1977 until 2013 with complete long‐term follow‐up. Participants comprised all patients registered with the diagnosis of OI from 1977 until 2013, and a reference population matched five to one to the OI cohort. We calculated hazard ratios for all‐cause mortality and subhazard ratios for cause‐specific mortality in a comparison of the OI cohort and the reference population. We also calculated all‐cause mortality hazard ratios for males, females, and age groups (0 to 17.99 years, 18.00 to 34.99 years, 35.00 to 54.99 years, 55.00 to 74.99 years, and >75 years). We identified 687 cases of OI (379 women) and included 3435 reference persons (1895 women). A total of 112 patients with OI and 257 persons in the reference population died during the observation period. The all‐cause mortality hazard ratio between the OI cohort and the reference population was 2.90. The median survival time for males with OI was 72.4 years, compared to 81.9 in the reference population. The median survival time for females with OI was 77.4 years, compared to 84.5 years in the reference population. Patients with OI had a higher risk of death from respiratory diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, and trauma. We were limited by the lack of clinical information about phenotype and genotype of the included patients. Patients with OI had a higher mortality rate throughout their life compared to the general population. © 2016 American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.     

A totivirus infecting the mutualistic fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae

Epichlo? festucae (Ascomycota) infects the grass Festuca rubra. Infected plants may be more resistant to herbivores and obtain other benefits. The 5109bp dsRNA genome of a virus which infects E. festucae was sequenced, and its incidence in natural populations and transmission were studied. The viral genome has characteristics of the family Totiviridae. Its two ORFs are overlapped by four nucleotides; ORF1 codes a 765 amino acid putative coat protein (CP); ORF2 is in a -1 frameshift with respect to ORF1, and codes a 826 amino acid RNA dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp). This virus, denominated Epichlo? festucae virus 1 (EfV1), is closely related to members of the genus Totivirus which infect filamentous fungi, as deduced from phylogenetic analyses of CPs and RdRps. In two natural populations of Epichlo? festucae, 36.4% of the isolates were infected by EfV1. The virus was efficiently transmitted to asexual fungal spores. However, when ascospore progeny of matings between virus-free and infected strains was analyzed, it was found that the virus was not transmitted to progeny of sexual spores.     

From spent alkaline batteries to ZnxMn3−xO4 by a hydrometallurgical route: synthesis and characterization

A series of Zn/Mn binary oxides with different molar ratios (1.4–11) were synthesized via co-precipitation from a solution obtained through the acidic (HCl) leaching of a black mass originating from the mechanical recycling of spent alkaline and Zn–C batteries. The oxides obtained were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy. Magnetic properties of the samples were also investigated. The Raman spectroscopy results showed all the binary metallic oxides belong to the Zn_xMn_3−xO₄ (0.25 ≤ x ≥ 1.75) type. All showed a spinel crystalline structure. The saturation magnetization decreases with the Zn/Mn molar ratio; a maximum of 13.19 emu g⁻¹ was found for the molar ratio of 11 at the Curie temperature (25.5 K). XPS showed that all the synthesized compounds contained Mn²⁺, Mn³⁺ and Mn⁴⁺. Mn²⁺ was the most prominent at a molar ratio of 11, Mn³⁺ was most common at a molar ratio of 2, and Mn⁴⁺ at 1.4.

A series of Zn/Mn binary oxides with different molar ratios were synthesized via co-precipitation from a solution obtained through the leaching of a black mass originating from the mechanical recycling of spent alkaline and Zn–C batteries.     

Thalamocortical rhythms during a vibrotactile detection task

To explore the role of oscillatory dynamics of the somatosensory thalamocortical network in perception and decision making, we recorded the simultaneous neuronal activity in the ventral posterolateral nucleus (VPL) of the somatosensory thalamus and primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in two macaque monkeys performing a vibrotactile detection task. Actively detecting a vibrotactile stimulus and reporting its perception elicited a sustained poststimulus beta power increase in VPL and an alpha power decrease in S1, in both stimulus-present and stimulus-absent trials. These oscillatory dynamics in the somatosensory thalamocortical network depended on the behavioral context: they were stronger for the active detection condition than for a passive stimulation condition. Furthermore, contrasting stimulus-present vs. stimulus-absent responses, we found that poststimulus theta power increased in both VPL and S1, and alpha/beta power decreased in S1, reflecting the monkey’s perceptual decision but not the motor response per se. Additionally, higher prestimulus alpha power in S1 correlated with an increased probability of the monkey reporting a stimulus, regardless of the actual presence of a stimulus. Thus, we found task-related modulations in oscillatory activity, not only in the neocortex but also in the thalamus, depending on behavioral context. Furthermore, oscillatory modulations reflected the perceptual decision process and subsequent behavioral response. We conclude that these early sensory regions, in addition to their primary sensory functions, may be actively involved in perceptual decision making.Presenting a subject with a (weak) sensory stimulus sometimes leads to perception and sometimes not. What exactly determines the detection of a stimulus has been a central question in the study of sensory perception (1). The neural correlates of somatosensory perceptual detection have been studied extensively in both human and nonhuman primates (2–6). Spike recordings in nonhuman primates showed the contribution of a distributed network of sensorimotor regions to somatosensory decision making, including primary and secondary somatosensory cortices and prefrontal, premotor, and motor areas (7, 8). It was suggested that the neuronal correlates of subjective sensory perception progressively build up as information traverses the cortical circuits, gradually transforming the encoded sensory information into a perceptual decision (5, 9). Crucially, a spike firing rate reflecting the decision process has been detected in secondary somatosensory cortex (S2) and frontal areas, but not in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) (8, 9).Previous work focused mainly on the role of the sensorimotor cortex, whereas only a few studies explored the role of the somatosensory thalamus. Most thalamic recordings have been either in tissue slices (10, 11) or in anesthetized animals (12, 13). With only a few studies in awake, behaving animals (14, 15), the thalamic contribution to somatosensory detection performance remained largely unknown. We recently conducted an experiment in which we recorded the simultaneous neuronal activity across the ventral posterolateral nucleus (VPL) and S1 in two monkeys (Macaca mulatta) performing a vibrotactile detection task (6, 16). These recordings of single-unit activity in VPL of awake, behaving monkeys showed that neural activity in these nuclei reflects stimulus properties but not the animal’s percept (6). Similarly, studies in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN), the visual equivalent of VPL, found that spike activity reflects retinal input rather than subjective perception (17, 18). Nevertheless, a study in which spikes were recorded in monkey LGN, showed an enhanced response to attended stimuli compared with nonattended stimuli (19).Although these studies focusing on single-unit spikes led to many important insights, additional understanding of perceptual decision processes may be gained by studying neuronal population dynamics as reflected by the local field potential (LFP). Several studies in humans (using EEG/magnetoencephalography) showed that cortical oscillatory dynamics influence somatosensory detection performance by setting the state of the brain networks involved (20, 21). Importantly, these studies showed that fluctuations in (anticipatory) prestimulus activity in early sensory areas, predominantly in the alpha (8–14 Hz) and beta bands (15–30 Hz), modulate the likelihood of subsequent stimulus detection (2–4, 22–26).Here, we report on the oscillatory dynamics in the somatosensory thalamocortical network. We studied LFPs that were recorded concurrently in the aforementioned detection experiments (6, 16) and asked how oscillatory activity contributes to perceptual decision making. To assess the context dependency of stimulus processing, we compared active stimulus detection with a passive control condition. This was done by investigating oscillatory activity in the LFPs of VPL and S1 and by exploring the influence of the observed oscillatory dynamics on task performance.