Balance Impairment in Radiation Induced Leukoencephalopathy Patients Is Coupled With Altered Visual Attention in Natural Tasks

Background: Recent studies have shown that alterations in executive function and attention lead to balance control disturbances. One way of exploring the allocation of attention is to record eye movements. Most experimental data come from a free viewing of static scenes but additional information can be leveraged by recording eye movements during natural tasks. Here, we aimed to provide evidence of a correlation between impaired visual alteration in natural tasks and postural control in patients suffering from Radiation-Induced Leukoencephalopathy (RIL).Methods: The study subjects were nine healthy controls and 10 patients who were diagnosed with RIL at an early stage, with isolated dysexecutive syndrome without clinically detectable gait or posture impairment. We performed a balance evaluation and eye movement recording during an ecological task (reading a recipe while cooking). We calculated a postural score and oculomotor parameters already proposed in the literature. We performed a variable selection using an out-of-bag random permutation and a random forest regression algorithm to find: (i) if visual parameters can predict postural deficit and, (ii) which are the most important of them in this prediction. Results were validated using the leave-one-out cross-validation procedure.Results: Postural scores indeed were found significantly lower in patients with RIL than in healthy controls. Visual parameters were found able to predict the postural score of RIL patients with normalized root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.16. The present analysis showed that horizontal and vertical eye movements, as well as the average duration of the saccades and fixations influenced significantly the prediction of the postural score in RIL patients. While two patients with very low MATTIS-Attention sub score showed the lowest postural scores, no statistically significant relationship was found between the two outcomes.Conclusion: These results highlight the significant relationship between the severity of balance deficits and the visual characteristics in RIL patients. It seems that increased balance impairment is coupled with a reduced focusing capacity in ecological tasks. Balance and eye movement recordings during a natural task could be a useful aspect of multidimensional scoring of the dysexecutive syndrome

The Intensity of IUGR-Induced Transcriptome Deregulations Is Inversely Correlated with the Onset of Organ Function in a Rat Model

A low-protein diet applied during pregnancy in the rat results in intrauterine growth restricted (IUGR) fetuses. In humans, IUGR is associated with increased perinatal morbidity, higher incidence of neuro-developmental defects and increased risk of adult metabolic anomalies, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Development and function of many organs are affected by environmental conditions such as those inducing fetal and early postnatal growth restriction. This phenomenon, termed “fetal programming” has been studied unconnectedly in some organs, but very few studies (if any) have investigated at the same time several organs, on a more comparative basis. However, it is quite probable that IUGR affects differentially most organ systems, with possible persistent changes in gene expression. In this study we address transcriptional alterations induced by IUGR in a multi-organ perspective, by systematic analysis of 20-days rat fetuses. We show that (1) expressional alterations are apparently stronger in organs functioning late in foetal or postnatal life than in organs that are functioning early (2) hierarchical classification of the deregulations put together kidney and placenta in one cluster, liver, lungs and heart in another; (3) the epigenetic machinery is set up especially in the placenta, while its alterations are rather mild in other organs; (4) the genes appear deregulated in chromosome clusters; (5) the altered expression cascades varies from organ to organ, with noticeably a very significant modification of the complement and coagulation cascades in the kidney; (6) we found a significant increase in TF binding site for HNF4 proteins specifically for liver genes that are down-regulated in IUGR, suggesting that this decrease is achieved through the action of HNF transcription factors, that are themselves transcriptionnally induced in the liver by IUGR (x 1.84 fold). Altogether, our study suggests that a combination of tissue-specific mechanisms contributes to bring about tissue-driven modifications of gene cascades. The question of these cascades being activated to adapt the organ to harsh environmental condition, or as an endpoint consequence is still raised

Non-random, individual-specific methylation profiles are present at the sixth CTCF binding site in the human H19/IGF2 imprinting control region

Expression of imprinted genes is classically associated with differential methylation of specific CpG-rich DNA regions (DMRs). The H19/IGF2 locus is considered a paradigm for epigenetic regulation. In mice, as in humans, the essential H19 DMR—target of the CTCF insulator—is located between the two genes. Here, we performed a pyrosequencing-based quantitative analysis of its CpG methylation in normal human tissues. The quantitative analysis of the methylation level in the H19 DMR revealed three unexpected discrete, individual-specific methylation states. This epigenetic polymorphism was confined to the sixth CTCF binding site while a unique median-methylated profile was found at the third CTCF binding site as well as in the H19 promoter. Monoallelic expression of H19 and IGF2 was maintained independently of the methylation status at the sixth CTCF binding site and the IGF2 DMR2 displayed a median-methylated profile in all individuals and tissues analyzed. Interestingly, the methylation profile was genetically transmitted. Transgenerational inheritance of the H19 methylation profile was compatible with a simple model involving one gene with three alleles. The existence of three individual-specific epigenotypes in the H19 DMR in a non-pathological situation means it is important to reconsider the diagnostic value and functional importance of the sixth CTCF binding site

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Towards a Muon Collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work.Comment: 118 pages, 103 figure

Towards a muon collider

A muon collider would enable the big jump ahead in energy reach that is needed for a fruitful exploration of fundamental interactions. The challenges of producing muon collisions at high luminosity and 10 TeV centre of mass energy are being investigated by the recently-formed International Muon Collider Collaboration. This Review summarises the status and the recent advances on muon colliders design, physics and detector studies. The aim is to provide a global perspective of the field and to outline directions for future work

Erratum: Towards a muon collider

The original online version of this article was revised: The additional reference [139] has been added. Tao Han’s ORICD ID has been incorrectly assigned to Chengcheng Han and Chengcheng Han’s ORCID ID to Tao Han. Yang Ma’s ORCID ID has been incorrectly assigned to Lianliang Ma, and Lianliang Ma’s ORCID ID to Yang Ma. The original article has been corrected

Le thème du IIIe siècle dans la recherche archéologique languedocienne: État de la question (1996-2008)

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