Leucocitos bovinos: cultivo y posible papel en la patogenesis de estomatitis vesicular bovina.

Se efectuaron ensayos sobre el cultivo in vitro de leucocitos bovinos. Inicialmente se adelantaron prácticas con leucocitos humanos. Posteriormente se trabajo con leucocitos bovinos exclusivamente, utilizándose 4 sistemas para su obtención: sedimentación libre, centrifugación a distintas revoluciones por minuto, método de la solución hipotónica y método japonés. Los 2 primeros sistemas no dieron resultados satisfactorios, mientras que con los 2 últimos se obtuvieron inóculos abundantes, los cuales sirvieron para lograr cultivos en monocapa. Las monocapas de leucocitos bovinos se producieron al utilizar frascos de plástico especial para cultivo celular, usando varios medios de cultivo y en especial con suero de bovino adulto como único medio. En la segunda parte del estudio, se efectuaron experimentos con el virus de estomatitis vesicular tipo New Jersey en cultivos de leucocitos bovinos in vitro y en un bovino inoculado por vía intramuscular luego de haberlo escarificado previamente en la lengua y en la ubre, imitando lesiones inespecíficas. La inoculación del virus de estomatitis vesicular no desencadenó síntomas clínicos de la enfermedad y no fue posible el aislamiento del virus a partir de suero ni de sus leucocitos rotos, ni de cultivos de leucocitos o de raspados de las áreas previamente escarificadas, por espacio de 7 días. Pasados 15 días de la inoculación se comprobó la presencia de anticuerpos contra el virus de estomatitis vesicular, mediante prueba de neutralización y por fijación del complemento. No pudo así establecerse el papel de los leucocitos en la patogenesis del virus de estomatitis vesicular en bovinosGanado de leche-Ganadería lecheMaestría en CienciasMaestrí

Dose-response model of murine typhus (Rickettsia typhi): time post inoculation and host age dependency analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Rickettsia typhi (R. mooseri) </it>is the causative agent of murine typhus. It is one of the most widely distributed flea-borne diseases with a relatively mild febrile initial illness with six to 14 days of incubation period. The bacterium is gram negative and an obligate intracellular pathogen. The disease is transmitted to humans and vertebrate host through fleabites or via contact with infected feces. This paper develops dose-response models of different routes of exposure for typhus in rodents.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Data from published articles were analyzed using parametric dose-response relationship models. Dose-response relationships were fit to data using the method of maximum likelihood estimation (MLE).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Dose-response models quantifying the effects of different ages of rats and time post inoculation in BALB/c mice were analyzed in the study. Both the adult rats (inoculated intradermally) and newborn rats (inoculated subcutaneously) were best fit by exponential models and both distributions could be described by a single dose-response relationship. The BALB/C mice inoculated subcutaneously were best fit by Beta-Poisson models. The time post inoculation analysis showed that there was a definite time and response relationship existed in this case.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Intradermally or subcutaneously inoculated rats (adult and newborn) models suggest that less than 1 plaque-forming unit (PFU) (1.33 to 0.38 in 95% confidence limits) of the pathogen is enough to seroconvert 50% of the exposed population on average. For the BALB/c mouse time post inoculation model, an average dose of 0.28 plaque-forming units (PFU) (0.75 to 0.11 in 95% confidence limits) will seroconvert 50% of the exposed mice.</p

Job Vacancies in Colombia : 1976-2012

Based on the counting of Help-wanted advertisements in print newspapers, we present national vacancy indexes and vacancy rates for Colombia. These series will allow tackling a myriad of questions related to the functioning of the labor markets in emerging economies, where such datasets were not available until now.A partir del conteo de avisos clasificados de empleo en los principales periódicos se construye un índice de vacantes y una tasa de vacantes para Colombia. Este es el primer intento de construir series con representatividad nacional y de tal extensión n

Increased power by harmonizing structural MRI site differences with the ComBat batch adjustment method in ENIGMA

A common limitation of neuroimaging studies is their small sample sizes. To overcome this hurdle, the Enhancing Neuro Imaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis (ENIGMA) Consortium combines neuroimaging data from many institutions worldwide. However, this introduces heterogeneity due to different scanning devices and sequences. ENIGMA projects commonly address this heterogeneity with random-effects meta-analysis or mixed-effects mega-analysis. Here we tested whether the batch adjustment method, ComBat, can further reduce site-related heterogeneity and thus increase statistical power. We conducted random-effects meta-analyses, mixed-effects mega-analyses and ComBat mega-analyses to compare cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical volumes between 2897 individuals with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and 3141 healthy controls from 33 sites. Specifically, we compared the imaging data between individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls, covarying for age and sex. The use of ComBat substantially increased the statistical significance of the findings as compared to random-effects meta-analyses. The findings were more similar when comparing ComBat with mixed-effects mega-analysis, although ComBat still slightly increased the statistical significance. ComBat also showed increased statistical power when we repeated the analyses with fewer sites. Results were nearly identical when we applied the ComBat harmonization separately for cortical thickness, cortical surface area and subcortical volumes. Therefore, we recommend applying the ComBat function to attenuate potential effects of site in ENIGMA projects and other multi-site structural imaging work. We provide easy-to-use functions in R that work even if imaging data are partially missing in some brain regions, and they can be trained with one data set and then applied to another (a requirement for some analyses such as machine learning)

Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia via the ENIGMA consortium

BACKGROUND Left-right asymmetry is an important organizing feature of the healthy brain that may be altered in schizophrenia, but most studies have used relatively small samples and heterogeneous approaches, resulting in equivocal findings. We carried out the largest case-control study of structural brain asymmetries in schizophrenia (N = 11,095), using a single image analysis protocol. METHODS We included T1-weighted data from 46 datasets (5,080 affected individuals and 6,015 controls) from the ENIGMA Consortium. Asymmetry indexes were calculated for global and regional cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical volume measures. Differences of asymmetry were calculated between affected individuals and controls per dataset, and effect sizes were meta-analyzed across datasets. Analyses were also performed with respect to the use of antipsychotic medication and other clinical variables, as well as age and sex. Case-control differences in a multivariate context were assessed in a subset of the data (N = 2,029). RESULTS Small average differences between cases and controls were observed for asymmetries in cortical thickness, specifically of the rostral anterior cingulate (d = −0.08, pFDR = 0.047) and the middle temporal gyrus (d = −0.07, pFDR = 0.048), both driven primarily by thinner cortices in the left hemisphere in schizophrenia. These asymmetries were not significantly associated with the use of antipsychotic medication or other clinical variables. Older individuals with schizophrenia showed a stronger average leftward asymmetry of pallidum volume than older controls (d = 0.08, pFDR = 9.0 × 10−3). The multivariate analysis revealed that 7% of the variance across all structural asymmetries was explained by case-control status (F = 1.87, p = 1.25 × 10−5). CONCLUSIONS Altered trajectories of asymmetrical brain development and/or lifespan asymmetry may contribute to schizophrenia pathophysiology. Small case-control differences of brain macro-structural asymmetry may manifest due to more substantial differences at the molecular, cytoarchitectonic or circuit levels, with functional relevance for lateralized cognitive processes

Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men

男女間の不平等と脳の性差 --男女間の不平等は脳構造の性差と関連する--. 京都大学プレスリリース. 2023-05-10.Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women’s worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries. We examined this through a random-effects meta-analysis on cortical thickness and surface area differences between adult healthy men and women, including a meta-regression in which country-level gender inequality acted as an explanatory variable for the observed differences. A total of 139 samples from 29 different countries, totaling 7, 876 MRI scans, were included. Thickness of the right hemisphere, and particularly the right caudal anterior cingulate, right medial orbitofrontal, and left lateral occipital cortex, presented no differences or even thicker regional cortices in women compared to men in gender-equal countries, reversing to thinner cortices in countries with greater gender inequality. These results point to the potentially hazardous effect of gender inequality on women’s brains and provide initial evidence for neuroscience-informed policies for gender equality

Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men

Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women's worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries. We examined this through a random-effects meta-analysis on cortical thickness and surface area differences between adult healthy men and women, including a meta-regression in which country-level gender inequality acted as an explanatory variable for the observed differences. A total of 139 samples from 29 different countries, totaling 7,876 MRI scans, were included. Thickness of the right hemisphere, and particularly the right caudal anterior cingulate, right medial orbitofrontal, and left lateral occipital cortex, presented no differences or even thicker regional cortices in women compared to men in gender-equal countries, reversing to thinner cortices in countries with greater gender inequality. These results point to the potentially hazardous effect of gender inequality on women's brains and provide initial evidence for neuroscience-informed policies for gender equality

Widespread white matter microstructural differences in schizophrenia across 4322 individuals:Results from the ENIGMA Schizophrenia DTI Working Group

The regional distribution of white matter (WM) abnormalities in schizophrenia remains poorly understood, and reported disease effects on the brain vary widely between studies. In an effort to identify commonalities across studies, we perform what we believe is the first ever large-scale coordinated study of WM microstructural differences in schizophrenia. Our analysis consisted of 2359 healthy controls and 1963 schizophrenia patients from 29 independent international studies; we harmonized the processing and statistical analyses of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data across sites and meta-analyzed effects across studies. Significant reductions in fractional anisotropy (FA) in schizophrenia patients were widespread, and detected in 20 of 25 regions of interest within a WM skeleton representing all major WM fasciculi. Effect sizes varied by region, peaking at (d=0.42) for the entire WM skeleton, driven more by peripheral areas as opposed to the core WM where regions of interest were defined. The anterior corona radiata (d=0.40) and corpus callosum (d=0.39), specifically its body (d=0.39) and genu (d=0.37), showed greatest effects. Significant decreases, to lesser degrees, were observed in almost all regions analyzed. Larger effect sizes were observed for FA than diffusivity measures; significantly higher mean and radial diffusivity was observed for schizophrenia patients compared with controls. No significant effects of age at onset of schizophrenia or medication dosage were detected. As the largest coordinated analysis of WM differences in a psychiatric disorder to date, the present study provides a robust profile of widespread WM abnormalities in schizophrenia patients worldwide. Interactive three-dimensional visualization of the results is available at www.enigma-viewer.org.Molecular Psychiatry advance online publication, 17 October 2017; doi:10.1038/mp.2017.170

Laparoscopy in management of appendicitis in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: a multicenter, prospective, cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Appendicitis is the most common abdominal surgical emergency worldwide. Differences between high- and low-income settings in the availability of laparoscopic appendectomy, alternative management choices, and outcomes are poorly described. The aim was to identify variation in surgical management and outcomes of appendicitis within low-, middle-, and high-Human Development Index (HDI) countries worldwide. METHODS: This is a multicenter, international prospective cohort study. Consecutive sampling of patients undergoing emergency appendectomy over 6 months was conducted. Follow-up lasted 30 days. RESULTS: 4546 patients from 52 countries underwent appendectomy (2499 high-, 1540 middle-, and 507 low-HDI groups). Surgical site infection (SSI) rates were higher in low-HDI (OR 2.57, 95% CI 1.33-4.99, p = 0.005) but not middle-HDI countries (OR 1.38, 95% CI 0.76-2.52, p = 0.291), compared with high-HDI countries after adjustment. A laparoscopic approach was common in high-HDI countries (1693/2499, 67.7%), but infrequent in low-HDI (41/507, 8.1%) and middle-HDI (132/1540, 8.6%) groups. After accounting for case-mix, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.55, 95% CI 0.42-0.71, p < 0.001) and SSIs (OR 0.22, 95% CI 0.14-0.33, p < 0.001). In propensity-score matched groups within low-/middle-HDI countries, laparoscopy was still associated with fewer overall complications (OR 0.23 95% CI 0.11-0.44) and SSI (OR 0.21 95% CI 0.09-0.45). CONCLUSION: A laparoscopic approach is associated with better outcomes and availability appears to differ by country HDI. Despite the profound clinical, operational, and financial barriers to its widespread introduction, laparoscopy could significantly improve outcomes for patients in low-resource environments. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT02179112

Global economic burden of unmet surgical need for appendicitis

Background: There is a substantial gap in provision of adequate surgical care in many low-and middle-income countries. This study aimed to identify the economic burden of unmet surgical need for the common condition of appendicitis. Methods: Data on the incidence of appendicitis from 170 countries and two different approaches were used to estimate numbers of patients who do not receive surgery: as a fixed proportion of the total unmet surgical need per country (approach 1); and based on country income status (approach 2). Indirect costs with current levels of access and local quality, and those if quality were at the standards of high-income countries, were estimated. A human capital approach was applied, focusing on the economic burden resulting from premature death and absenteeism. Results: Excess mortality was 4185 per 100 000 cases of appendicitis using approach 1 and 3448 per 100 000 using approach 2. The economic burden of continuing current levels of access and local quality was US $92 492 million using approach 1 and$73 141 million using approach 2. The economic burden of not providing surgical care to the standards of high-income countries was $95 004 million using approach 1 and$75 666 million using approach 2. The largest share of these costs resulted from premature death (97.7 per cent) and lack of access (97.0 per cent) in contrast to lack of quality. Conclusion: For a comparatively non-complex emergency condition such as appendicitis, increasing access to care should be prioritized. Although improving quality of care should not be neglected, increasing provision of care at current standards could reduce societal costs substantially