Oral formulation of DPP-4 inhibitor plus Quercetin improves metabolic homeostasis in type 1 diabetic rats.

This study aimed to investigate the potential of an oral formulation (QV formulation) containing Quercetin and a Dipeptidyl Peptidase-4 Inhibitor (DPP-4 inhibitor), Vildagliptin, in improving metabolic homeostasis in type 1 diabetes model. Female albino Fischer rats were divided into four groups: untreated control animals (C), untreated diabetic animals (D), diabetic animals treated with QV formulation (DQV), and diabetic animals treated with insulin (DI). Diabetes was induced by injection of alloxan (135?mg?kg body mass)?1 and confirmed by glycemic test. After the 30-day treatment period, biochemical parameters were analyzed in the pancreas, liver, and serum. Histopathological changes in pancreatic tissue were examined by Hematoxyline & Eosin staining and the insulin content in the islet measured by immunohistochemistry with anti-insulin antibody. The glycogen content in the hepatocytes was quantified by Periodic Schiff Acid staining. The QV formulation reduced the glycemia, preserved the pancreatic architecture, increased insulin levels, furthermore ameliorated lipid profile and to promote higher survival rate of animals. Together, our data suggest that the QV formulation treatment was able to normalize metabolic homeostasis in type 1 diabetic rats

Do baseline characteristics affect depressive symptoms treatment success? Posthoc subgroup analysis from the CONEMO trials

Objective: As a secondary trial plan analysis, we aim to examine whether participant characteristics, measured before randomization, modified the effect of a digital intervention designed to improve depressive symptoms (CONEMO – Emotional Control) on recovery from depression that has presented a substantive impact on previous research.Method: Mixed logistic regression was used to explore interactions between the treatment arm and subgroups of interest, including suicidal ideation, race/color, age, gender, income, type of mobile phone, alcohol misuse, tobacco use, and diabetes/hypertension). We estimated interaction effects between the treatment group and these subgroup factors for the secondary outcomes using linear mixed regression models.Results: Increased effects of the CONEMO intervention on the primary outcome (reduction of the scores of depressive symptoms in at least 50% at three-month follow-up) were observed amongst older and wealthier participants in Lima (p-values 0.030 and 0.001, respectively). At the same time, there was no evidence of such differential effects in São Paulo or any other secondary outcomes level in both countries.Conclusions: Digital intervention used in primary care settings needs to be accessible. We conclude that the technological intervention CONEMO has no heterogeneity effects on most subgroups studied, except income and age in the Lima trial

Latin American Consensus Statement for the Use of Contrast-Enhanced Transcranial Ultrasound as a Diagnostic Test for Detection of Right-to-Left Shunt

Background: The role of patent foramen ovale is a field of debate and current publications have increasing controversies about the patients' management in young undetermined stroke. Work up with echocardiography and transcranial Doppler (TCD) can aid the decision with better anatomical and functional characterization of right-to-left shunt (RLS). Medical and interventional strategy may benefit from this information. Summary: a group of experts from the Latin American participants of the Neurosonology Research Group (NSRG) of World Federation of Neurology created a task force to review literature and describe the better methodology of contrast TCD (c-TCD). All signatories of the present consensus statement have published at least one study on TCD as an author or co-author in an indexed journal. Two meetings were held while the consensus statement was being drafted, during which controversial issues were discussed and voted on by the statement signatories. The statement paper was reviewed and approved by the Executive Committee of the NSRG of the World Federation of Neurology. The main objective of this consensus statement is to establish a standardization of the c-TCD technique and its interpretation, in order to improve the informative quality of the method, resulting in expanding the application of TCD in the clinical setting. These recommendations optimize the comparison of different diagnostic methods and encourage the use of c-TCD for RLS screening and complementary diagnosis in multicenter studies

Genomic history of coastal societies from eastern South America

Sambaqui (shellmound) societies are among the most intriguing archaeological phenomena in pre-colonial South America, extending from approximately 8,000 to 1,000 years before present (yr bp) across 3,000 km on the Atlantic coast. However, little is known about their connection to early Holocene hunter-gatherers, how this may have contributed to different historical pathways and the processes through which late Holocene ceramists came to rule the coast shortly before European contact. To contribute to our understanding of the population history of indigenous societies on the eastern coast of South America, we produced genome-wide data from 34 ancient individuals as early as 10,000 yr bp from four different regions in Brazil. Early Holocene hunter-gatherers were found to lack shared genetic drift among themselves and with later populations from eastern South America, suggesting that they derived from a common radiation and did not contribute substantially to later coastal groups. Our analyses show genetic heterogeneity among contemporaneous Sambaqui groups from the southeastern and southern Brazilian coast, contrary to the similarity expressed in the archaeological record. The complex history of intercultural contact between inland horticulturists and coastal populations becomes genetically evident during the final horizon of Sambaqui societies, from around 2,200 yr bp, corroborating evidence of cultural change

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Local hydrological conditions influence tree diversity and composition across the Amazon basin

Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well-drained and potentially dry areas. While these conditions may be expected to influence species distribution, the impacts of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity and composition remain poorly understood at the whole Amazon basin scale. Using a dataset of 443 1-ha non-flooded forest plots distributed across the basin, we investigate how local hydrological conditions influence 1) tree alpha diversity, 2) the community-weighted wood density mean (CWM-wd) – a proxy for hydraulic resistance and 3) tree species composition. We find that the effect of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity depends on climate, being more evident in wetter forests, where diversity increases towards locations with well-drained soils. CWM-wd increased towards better drained soils in Southern and Western Amazonia. Tree species composition changed along local soil hydrological gradients in Central-Eastern, Western and Southern Amazonia, and those changes were correlated with changes in the mean wood density of plots. Our results suggest that local hydrological gradients filter species, influencing the diversity and composition of Amazonian forests. Overall, this study shows that the effect of local hydrological conditions is pervasive, extending over wide Amazonian regions, and reinforces the importance of accounting for local topography and hydrology to better understand the likely response and resilience of forests to increased frequency of extreme climate events and rising temperatures

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions