Para-infectious brain injury in COVID-19 persists at follow-up despite attenuated cytokine and autoantibody responses

To understand neurological complications of COVID-19 better both acutely and for recovery, we measured markers of brain injury, inflammatory mediators, and autoantibodies in 203 hospitalised participants; 111 with acute sera (1–11 days post-admission) and 92 convalescent sera (56 with COVID-19-associated neurological diagnoses). Here we show that compared to 60 uninfected controls, tTau, GFAP, NfL, and UCH-L1 are increased with COVID-19 infection at acute timepoints and NfL and GFAP are significantly higher in participants with neurological complications. Inflammatory mediators (IL-6, IL-12p40, HGF, M-CSF, CCL2, and IL-1RA) are associated with both altered consciousness and markers of brain injury. Autoantibodies are more common in COVID-19 than controls and some (including against MYL7, UCH-L1, and GRIN3B) are more frequent with altered consciousness. Additionally, convalescent participants with neurological complications show elevated GFAP and NfL, unrelated to attenuated systemic inflammatory mediators and to autoantibody responses. Overall, neurological complications of COVID-19 are associated with evidence of neuroglial injury in both acute and late disease and these correlate with dysregulated innate and adaptive immune responses acutely

Nutrient Intake and Psychological and Physiological Assessment in Eumenorrheic and Amenorrheic Female Athletes: A Preliminary Study

The present study showed that amenorrheic athletes (AAs) scored higher on the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT) (p< .05) than eumenorrheic athletes (EAs), indicating more aberrant eating patterns in the first group. Scores on the EAT were inversely correlated with fat intake (p< .05), simple carbohydrate intake (p< .01), and percentage saturation of iron (p< .05) and were positively correlated with total iron binding capacity (p< .01) for the total sample. Physiological assessment of athletes revealed that there were no significant differences between groups in serum lipoproteins, with both EAs and AAs having serum lipid profiles indicative of low cardiovascular risk. Furthermore, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was the only lipoprotein significantly and positively correlated with serum estradiol levels for the entire sample (p =.01). The present study was in agreement with previous work showing that scores on the EAT represent a primary difference between EAs and AAs; the present study was somewhat different than previous work in that serum lipoproteins were not significantly related to menstrual status

Employability and the psychological contract in European ICT sector SMEs

This article explores the employability of information and communication technology (ICT) professionals from the perspective of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The first stage of analysis, based on over 100 interviews with managers of ICT supplier companies in seven European countries (Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the UK), showed most SMEs to have a generally ad hoc approach to managing the employability of their ICT professionals. Assessment and development plans were used primarily to keep skills current to business needs; however, the more developed northern European markets showed greater awareness of the 'high commitment' benefits of a more sophisticated approach towards career management (e.g. through mentoring or career planning). A second stage of analysis based only on UK interviews builds on this to propose a model of positive employer influence on psychological contracts through career and employability management practices

Calcio e derivati della vitamina D, terapia sostitutiva, calcitonina, fluoruri, bisfosfonati

L\u2019osteoporosi \ue8 una patologia multifattoriale; l\u2019approccio medico deve quindi realizzarsi su livelli differenti e su molteplici condizioni di rischio, e prevedere per questo sia provvedimenti non farmacologici che di tipo farmacologico