Stillbirth differences according to regions of origin: an analysis of the German perinatal database, 2004-2007

Reeske A, Kutschmann M, Razum O, Spallek J. Stillbirth differences according to regions of origin: an analysis of the German perinatal database, 2004-2007. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth. 2011;11(1): 63.Background: Stillbirth is a sensitive indicator for access to, and quality of health care and social services in a society. If a particular population group e. g. migrants experiences higher rates of stillbirth, this might be an indication of social deprivation or barriers to health care. This study examines differences in risk of stillbirth for women of different regions of origin compared to women from Germany in order to identify high risk groups/target groups for prevention strategies. Methods: We used the BQS dataset routinely compiled to examine perinatal outcomes in Germany nationwide. Participation of hospitals and completeness of data has been about 98% in recent years. Data on all live births and stillbirths were obtained for the period 2004 to 2007 (N = 2,670,048). We calculated crude and stratified mortality rates as well as corresponding relative mortality risks. Results: A significantly elevated stillbirth rate was found for women from the Middle East and North Africa (incl. Turkey) (RR 1.34, CI 1.22-1.55). The risk was slightly attenuated for low SES. An elevated risk was also found for women from Asia (RR 1.18, CI 1.02-1.65) and from Mediterranean countries (RR 1.14, CI 0.93-1.28). No considerable differences either in use and timing of antenatal care or preterm birth and low birthweight were observed between migrant and non-migrant women. After stratification for light for gestational age, the relative risk of stillbirth for women from the Middle East/North Africa increased to 1.63 (95% CI 1.25-2.13). When adjusted for preterm births with low birthweight, women from Eastern Europe and the Middle East/North Africa experienced a 26% (43%) higher risk compared with women from Germany. Conclusions: We found differences in risk of stillbirth among women from Middle East/North Africa, especially in association with low SES and low birthweight for gestational age. Our findings suggest a need for developing and evaluating socially and culturally sensitive health promotion and prevention programmes for this group. The findings should also stimulate discussion about the quality and appropriateness of antenatal and perinatal care of pregnant women and newborns with migrant backgrounds

Comparative analyses of vertebrate posterior HoxD clusters reveal atypical cluster architecture in the caecilian Typhlonectes natans

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The posterior genes of the <it>HoxD </it>cluster play a crucial role in the patterning of the tetrapod limb. This region is under the control of a global, long-range enhancer that is present in all vertebrates. Variation in limb types, as is the case in amphibians, can probably not only be attributed to variation in <it>Hox </it>genes, but is likely to be the product of differences in gene regulation. With a collection of vertebrate genome sequences available today, we used a comparative genomics approach to study the posterior <it>HoxD </it>cluster of amphibians. A frog and a caecilian were included in the study to compare coding sequences as well as to determine the gain and loss of putative regulatory sequences.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We sequenced the posterior end of the <it>HoxD </it>cluster of a caecilian and performed comparative analyses of this region using <it>HoxD </it>clusters of other vertebrates. We determined the presence of conserved non-coding sequences and traced gains and losses of these footprints during vertebrate evolution, with particular focus on amphibians. We found that the caecilian <it>HoxD </it>cluster is almost three times larger than its mammalian counterpart. This enlargement is accompanied with the loss of one gene and the accumulation of repeats in that area. A similar phenomenon was observed in the coelacanth, where a different gene was lost and expansion of the area where the gene was lost has occurred. At least one phylogenetic footprint present in all vertebrates was lost in amphibians. This conserved region is a known regulatory element and functions as a boundary element in neural tissue to prevent expression of <it>Hoxd </it>genes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The posterior part of the <it>HoxD </it>cluster of <it>Typhlonectes natans </it>is among the largest known today. The loss of <it>Hoxd-12 </it>and the expansion of the intergenic region may exert an influence on the limb enhancer, by having to bypass a distance seven times that of regular <it>HoxD </it>clusters. Whether or not there is a correlation with the loss of limbs remains to be investigated. These results, together with data on other vertebrates show that the tetrapod <it>Hox </it>clusters are more variable than previously thought.</p

26th Annual Computational Neuroscience Meeting (CNS*2017): Part 3 - Meeting Abstracts - Antwerp, Belgium. 15–20 July 2017

This work was produced as part of the activities of FAPESP Research,\ud Disseminations and Innovation Center for Neuromathematics (grant\ud 2013/07699-0, S. Paulo Research Foundation). NLK is supported by a\ud FAPESP postdoctoral fellowship (grant 2016/03855-5). ACR is partially\ud supported by a CNPq fellowship (grant 306251/2014-0)

Computational Explorations of Split Architecture in Modeling Face and Object Recognition

Anatomical evidence shows that our visual field is initially split along the vertical axis and contralaterally projected to different hemispheres. It remains unclear at which stage the split information converges. In the current study, we applied the Double Filtering by Frequency (DFF) theory (Ivry &amp; Robertson, 1998) to modeling the visual split; the theory assumes a right hemisphere/low frequency bias. We compared three cognitive architectures with different timing of convergence and examined their cognitive plausibility to account for the left side bias effect in face perception observed in human data. We show that the early convergence model failed to show the left side bias effect. The left side bias effect was also observed in Greeble recognition. The modeling hence suggests that the convergence may take place at an intermediate or late stage, at least after information has been extracted/transformed separately in the two hemispheres; it also provides testable predictions about whether the left side bias effect may also be observed in (expertise-level) object recognition

Convergence of the visual field split: hemispheric modeling of face and object recognition

&amp; Anatomical evidence shows that our visual field is initially split along the vertical midline and contralaterally projected to different hemispheres. It remains unclear at which processing stage the split information converges. In the current study, we applied the Double Filtering by Frequency (DFF) theory (Ivry &amp; Robertson, 1998) to modeling the visual field split; the theory assumes a right-hemisphere/low-frequency bias. We compared three cognitive architectures with different timings of convergence and examined their cognitive plausibility to account for the left-side bias effect in face perception observed in human data. We show that the early convergence model failed to show the left-side bias effect. The modeling, hence, suggests that the convergence may take place at an intermediate or late stage, at least after information has been extracted/ encoded separately in the two hemispheres, a fact that is often overlooked in computational modeling of cognitive processes. Comparative anatomical data suggest that this separate encoding process that results in differential frequency biases in the two hemispheres may be engaged from V1 up to the level of area V3a and V4v, and converge at least after the lateral occipital region. The left-side bias effect in our model was also observed in Greeble recognition; the modeling, hence, also provides testable predictions about whether the left-side bias effect may also be observed in (expertise-level) object recognition. &amp