Ethics of the Electrified Mind: Defining Issues and Perspectives on the Principled Use of Brain Stimulation in Medical Research and Clinical Care

In recent years, non-pharmacologic approaches to modifying human neural activity have gained increasing attention. One of these approaches is brain stimulation, which involves either the direct application of electrical current to structures in the nervous system or the indirect application of current by means of electromagnetic induction. Interventions that manipulate the brain have generally been regarded as having both the potential to alleviate devastating brain-related conditions and the capacity to create unforeseen and unwanted consequences. Hence, although brain stimulation techniques offer considerable benefits to society, they also raise a number of ethical concerns. In this paper we will address various dilemmas related to brain stimulation in the context of clinical practice and biomedical research. We will survey current work involving deep brain stimulation, transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation. We will reflect upon relevant similarities and differences between them, and consider some potentially problematic issues that may arise within the framework of established principles of medical ethics: nonmaleficence and beneficence, autonomy, and justice

Fascioliasis en caballos de valles andinos de Lujan de Cuyo, Mendoza: prevalencia y parámetros hematológicos

La fascioliasis es una enfermedad parasitaria cuyo agente etiológico en el Nuevo Mundo es el tremátodo Fasciola hepatica y afecta a numerosas especies de mamíferos y al ser humano. A pesar de que en Argentina el rol de los rumiantes como reservorios ha sido bastante estudiado, a la fecha es muy poca la información disponible sobre fascioliasis en equinos, tanto a nivel internacional como nacional. Su importancia como reservorio se ve incrementada dado que estos animales son trasladados frecuentemente a eventos deportivos o utilizados como animales de carga y transporte, particularmente en zonas andinas. En lo concerniente al efecto que puede tener este parásito sobre los parámetros hematológicos del caballo, la información a nivel mundial es sumamente escasa. Su objetivo es describir prevalencia de fascioliasis en caballos de valles andinos de Luján de Cuyo. Describir pará- metros hematológicos en caballos naturalmente parasitados con Fasciola hepatica

Impacto clínico de parasitosis digestivas prevalentes en equinos de zonas andinas de la provincia de Mendoza

Los equinos, principalmente los caballos y los mulares, juegan un importante rol en las zonas andinas como animales de transporte y carga, como así también en actividades deportivas y recreativas. Las enfermedades parasitarias pueden afectar su salud, bienestar y capacidad para el trabajo y el deporte. Algunas de ellas, como la fascioliasis, tienen relevancia en salud pública, pues afectan al ser humano. Según estudios llevados a cabo por nuestro equipo de investigación del Centro de Investigación en Parasitología Regional (CIPAR), la epidemiología de las parasitosis que afectan los animales domésticos en la provincia de Mendoza, dadas sus características climáticas y ecológicas, difiere sustancialmente del resto del país. En equinos hemos descrito una situación similar, pues, a diferencia de lo establecido por la literatura, la fascioliasis, enfermedad producida en América por el trematodo zoonótico Fasciola hepática, es una parasitosis con altas prevalencias en equinos de zonas andinas. La estrongilosis equina se encuentra también presente, pero con cargas parasitarias relativamente bajas. Se desconoce el impacto real de esta parasitosis sobre la salud de los equinos en la región. Hemos realizado relevamientos coprológicos en toda la provincia y se describieron casos equinos asociados a un nuevo lymnaeido vector, Lymnaea neotropica, el cual hemos descripto por primera vez para Argentin

Addressing the disparities in dementia risk, early detection and care in Latino populations: Highlights from the second Latinos & Alzheimer\u27s Symposium

The Alzheimer\u27s Association hosted the second Latinos & Alzheimer\u27s Symposium in May 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held online over 2 days, with virtual presentations, discussions, mentoring sessions, and posters. The Latino population in the United States is projected to have the steepest increase in Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) in the next 40 years, compared to other ethnic groups. Latinos have increased risk for AD and other dementias, limited access to quality care, and are severely underrepresented in AD and dementia research and clinical trials. The symposium highlighted developments in AD research with Latino populations, including advances in AD biomarkers, and novel cognitive assessments for Spanish-speaking populations, as well as the need to effectively recruit and retain Latinos in clinical research, and how best to deliver health-care services and to aid caregivers of Latinos living with AD

The EMT signaling pathways in endometrial carcinoma

Endometrial cancer (EC) is the most common gynecologic malignancy of the female genital tract and the fourth most common neoplasia in women. In EC, myometrial invasion is considered one of the most important prognostic factors. For this process to occur, epithelial tumor cells need to undergo an epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), either transiently or stably, and to differing degrees. This process has been extensively described in other types of cancer but has been poorly studied in EC. In this review, several features of EMT and the main molecular pathways responsible for triggering this process are investigated in relation to EC. The most common hallmarks of EMT have been found in EC, either at the level of E-cadherin loss or at the induction of its repressors, as well as other molecular alterations consistent with the mesenchymal phenotype-like L1CAM and BMI-1 up-regulation. Pathways including progesterone receptor, TGFβ, ETV5 and microRNAs are deeply related to the EMT process in EC

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde