Diffantom: Whole-Brain Diffusion MRI Phantoms Derived from Real Datasets of the Human Connectome Project.

Food allergies are believed to be on the rise and currently management relies on the avoidance of the food. Hen's egg allergy is after cow's milk allergy the most common food allergy; eggs are used in many food products and thus difficult to avoid. A technological process using a combination of enzymatic hydrolysis and heat treatment was designed to produce modified hen's egg with reduced allergenic potential. Biochemical (SDS-PAGE, Size exclusion chromatography and LC-MS/MS) and immunological (ELISA, immunoblot, RBL-assays, animal model) analysis showed a clear decrease in intact proteins as well as a strong decrease of allergenicity. In a clinical study, 22 of the 24 patients with a confirmed egg allergy who underwent a double blind food challenge with the hydrolysed egg remained completely free of symptoms. Hydrolysed egg products may be beneficial as low allergenic foods for egg allergic patients to extent their diet. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Data on the verification and validation of segmentation and registration methods for diffusion MRI.

The verification and validation of segmentation and registration methods is a necessary assessment in the development of new processing methods. However, verification and validation of diffusion MRI (dMRI) processing methods is challenging for the lack of gold-standard data. The data described here are related to the research article entitled "Surface-driven registration method for the structure-informed segmentation of diffusion MR images" [1], in which publicly available data are used to derive golden-standard reference-data to validate and evaluate segmentation and registration methods in dMRI

Combined Myocardial Motion Estimation and Segmentation Using Variational Techniques

Non

Comparison of methods for the analysis of Phase Sensitivity Inversion Recovery Images in the Assessment of Myocardial Infarction

Métodos estadísticos para análisis de MRI PSI

The ERICE-score: the new native cardiovascular score for the low-risk and aged mediterranean population of Spain

[Abstract] Introduction and objectives. In Spain, data based on large population-based cohorts adequate to provide an accurate prediction of cardiovascular risk have been scarce. Thus, calibration of the EuroSCORE and Framingham scores has been proposed and done for our population. The aim was to develop a native risk prediction score to accurately estimate the individual cardiovascular risk in the Spanish population. Methods. Seven Spanish population-based cohorts including middle-aged and elderly participants were assembled. There were 11 800 people (6387 women) representing 107 915 person-years of follow-up. A total of 1214 cardiovascular events were identified, of which 633 were fatal. Cox regression analyses were conducted to examine the contributions of the different variables to the 10-year total cardiovascular risk. Results. Age was the strongest cardiovascular risk factor. High systolic blood pressure, diabetes mellitus and smoking were strong predictive factors. The contribution of serum total cholesterol was small. Antihypertensive treatment also had a significant impact on cardiovascular risk, greater in men than in women. The model showed a good discriminative power (C-statistic = 0.789 in men and C = 0.816 in women). Ten-year risk estimations are displayed graphically in risk charts separately for men and women. Conclusions. The ERICE is a new native cardiovascular risk score for the Spanish population derived from the background and contemporaneous risk of several Spanish cohorts. The ERICE score offers the direct and reliable estimation of total cardiovascular risk, taking in consideration the effect of diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular risk factor management. The ERICE score is a practical and useful tool for clinicians to estimate the total individual cardiovascular risk in Spain.[Resumen] Introducción y objetivos. En España no existen unas cohortes poblacionales suficientemente grandes para hacer predicciones precisas del riesgo cardiovascular. Las ecuaciones de Framingham y EuroSCORE calibradas son las más utilizadas en España. El objetivo es desarrollar la primera ecuación de predicción autóctona para estimar con precisión el riesgo cardiovascular individual en España. Métodos. Análisis conjunto de siete cohortes españolas de población de mediana edad y anciana. La población del estudio —11.800 personas (6.387 mujeres)— aportó un total de 107.915 personas-año de seguimiento y 1.214 eventos cardiovasculares (633 de ellos, mortales). Se efectuó un análisis de regresión de Cox para examinar la contribución de los diferentes factores al riesgo de cualquier evento cardiovascular (mortal y no mortal). Resultados. La edad fue el principal factor de riesgo de eventos cardiovasculares. La presión arterial sistólica, la diabetes mellitus, el tabaquismo y el tratamiento antihipertensivo fueron factores predictivos fuertemente asociados con el riesgo cardiovascular. En cambio, la contribución del colesterol total sérico fue pequeña, especialmente en los mayores de 70 años. El modelo final de riesgo mostró un buen poder discriminatorio (estadístico C = 0,789 en varones y C = 0,816 en mujeres). Conclusiones. ERICE es una nueva ecuación de riesgo cardiovascular genuinamente española obtenida a partir del riesgo concurrente individual de los participantes en varias cohortes. La ecuación ERICE ofrece una estimación directa y fiable del riesgo cardiovascular total teniendo en cuenta factores como la diabetes mellitus y el tratamiento farmacológico de los factores de riesgo cardiovascular, habitualmente no incluidos en otras ecuaciones.Instituto de Salud Carlos III; G03/065Instituto de Salud Carlos III; PI05/1464Instituto de Salud Carlos III; RD06/0014/001

Impaired Prefrontal Synaptic Gain in People with Psychosis and Their Relatives during the Mismatch Negativity

The mismatch negativity (MMN) evoked potential, a preattentive brain response to a discriminable change in auditory stimulation, is significantly reduced in psychosis. Glutamatergic theories of psychosis propose that hypofunction of NMDA receptors (on pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons) causes a loss of synaptic gain control. We measured changes in neuronal effective connectivity underlying the MMN using dynamic causal modeling (DCM), where the gain (excitability) of superficial pyramidal cells is explicitly parameterised. EEG data were obtained during a MMN task—for 24 patients with psychosis, 25 of their first‐degree unaffected relatives, and 35 controls—and DCM was used to estimate the excitability (modeled as self‐inhibition) of (source‐specific) superficial pyramidal populations. The MMN sources, based on previous research, included primary and secondary auditory cortices, and the right inferior frontal gyrus. Both patients with psychosis and unaffected relatives (to a lesser degree) showed increased excitability in right inferior frontal gyrus across task conditions, compared to controls. Furthermore, in the same region, both patients and their relatives showed a reversal of the normal response to deviant stimuli; that is, a decrease in excitability in comparison to standard conditions. Our results suggest that psychosis and genetic risk for the illness are associated with both context‐dependent (condition‐specific) and context‐independent abnormalities of the excitability of superficial pyramidal cell populations in the MMN paradigm. These abnormalities could relate to NMDA receptor hypofunction on both pyramidal cells and inhibitory interneurons, and appear to be linked to the genetic aetiology of the illness, thereby constituting potential endophenotypes for psychosis

Intraoperative computed tomography imaging for dose calculation in intraoperative electron radiation therapy: Initial clinical observations

In intraoperative electron radiation therapy (IOERT) the energy of the electron beam is selected under the conventional assumption of water-equivalent tissues at the applicator end. However, the treatment field can deviate from the theoretic flat irradiation surface, thus altering dose profiles. This patient-based study explored the feasibility of acquiring intraoperative computed tomography (CT) studies for calculating three-dimensional dose distributions with two factors not included in the conventional assumption, namely the air gap from the applicator end to the irradiation surface and tissue heterogeneity. In addition, dose distributions under the conventional assumption and from preoperative CT studies (both also updated with intraoperative data) were calculated to explore whether there are other alternatives to intraoperative CT studies that can provide similar dose distributions. The IOERT protocol was modified to incorporate the acquisition of intraoperative CT studies before radiation delivery in six patients.This study was supported by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (http://www.ciencia.gob.es) [grant number TEC2013–48251-C2 to JP, VG-V and MJL-C], co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), “A way of making Europe” (https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/erdf); by Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (http://www.ciencia.gob.es), Instituto de Salud Carlos III (https://www.isciii.es) [grant numbers DTS14/00192 to JP, VG-V and FAC; PI15/02121 to FAC and JC-H; PI18/01625 to JP], co-funded by European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), “A way of making Europe” (https://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/en/funding/erdf); and by Comunidad de Madrid (http://www.comunidad.madrid) [grant number TOPUS-CM S2013/MIT3024 to JP], co-funded by European Structural and Investment Fund (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes/overview-funding-programmes_en). The CNIC is supported by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (http://www.ciencia.gob.es) and the Pro CNIC Foundation (https://www.fundacionprocnic.es) [to MD], and is a Severo Ochoa Center of Excellence (SEV-2015-0505). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

QuantiDOPA: A Quantification Software for Dopaminergic Neurotransmission SPECT

Quantification of neurotransmission Single-Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) studies of the dopaminergic system can be used to track, stage and facilitate early diagnosis of the disease. The aim of this study was to implement QuantiDOPA, a semi-automatic quantification software of application in clinical routine to reconstruct and quantify neurotransmission SPECT studies using radioligands which bind the dopamine transporter (DAT). To this end, a workflow oriented framework for the biomedical imaging (GIMIAS) was employed. QuantiDOPA allows the user to perform a semiautomatic quantification of striatal uptake by following three stages: reconstruction, normalization and quantification. QuantiDOPA is a useful tool for semi-automatic quantification inDAT SPECT imaging and it has revealed simple and flexibl

Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis of CCND3 gene as marker of progression in bladder carcinoma

Supported by the grants SAF2007-64942 (Ministry of Education and Research, Madrid, Spain), P07-CVI-02974 and PI0003/2007 (Junta de Andalucia, Seville, Spain). Work at CIC is also funded by Instituto de Salud Carlos III III-FEDER (PI081828, PI110018, RD06/020/0059). José Luis Oróñez is supported by CSIC (Contratos Postdoctorales JAEDOC).[EN] The aim of this study was to assess patterns of CCND3 gene amplification in bladder cancer and correlate gene status with recurrence-free and progression-free survival. A sequential cohort series of 102 primary bladder tumor samples in which there was enough tissue material to assess CCND3 gene status by fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) was the study group. CCND3 gene FISH amplification present in 31.4 percent of bladder carcinomas, was related to tumor progression (p=0.021) and lower time to progression (mean+-SD; 25.75+-15.25 months) as compared to 33.29+-11.0 months in the CCND3 not amplified group (p=0.05). By immunohistochemistry, Cyclin D3 labeling index was higher in the CCND3 amplified group (mean+-SD, 76.69+-27.51) than in not amplified (mean+-SD, 21.57+-7.02) (p less than 0.0001). The univariate survival analysis showed CCND3 gene amplification to be associated to a shorter progression-free survival (p=0.020) together with WHO histological grade (p=0.001) and pT stage category (p less than 0.0001). Cox's regression analysis selected CCND3 amplification as an independent predictor of progression-free survival (p= 0.030, RR3.561, 95 percent CI 1.128-11.236) together with pT category (p less than 0.0001, RR5.834, 95 percent CI 2.364-14.395). Our FISH analysis suggests that CCND3 gene amplification is a marker of aggressiveness and might be a predictor of tumor progression in bladder urothelial carcinoma.Ministry of Education and Research, Madrid, Spain Junta de Andalucia, Seville, Spain Instituto de Salud Carlos III III-FEDER CSI