Cerebellar Volume and Disease Staging in Parkinson's Disease: An ENIGMA-PD Study.

peer reviewed[en] BACKGROUND: Increasing evidence points to a pathophysiological role for the cerebellum in Parkinson's disease (PD). However, regional cerebellar changes associated with motor and non-motor functioning remain to be elucidated. OBJECTIVE: To quantify cross-sectional regional cerebellar lobule volumes using three dimensional T1-weighted anatomical brain magnetic resonance imaging from the global ENIGMA-PD working group. METHODS: Cerebellar parcellation was performed using a deep learning-based approach from 2487 people with PD and 1212 age and sex-matched controls across 22 sites. Linear mixed effects models compared total and regional cerebellar volume in people with PD at each Hoehn and Yahr (HY) disease stage, to an age- and sex- matched control group. Associations with motor symptom severity and Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores were investigated. RESULTS: Overall, people with PD had a regionally smaller posterior lobe (dmax  = -0.15). HY stage-specific analyses revealed a larger anterior lobule V bilaterally (dmax  = 0.28) in people with PD in HY stage 1 compared to controls. In contrast, smaller bilateral lobule VII volume in the posterior lobe was observed in HY stages 3, 4, and 5 (dmax  = -0.76), which was incrementally lower with higher disease stage. Within PD, cognitively impaired individuals had lower total cerebellar volume compared to cognitively normal individuals (d = -0.17). CONCLUSIONS: We provide evidence of a dissociation between anterior "motor" lobe and posterior "non-motor" lobe cerebellar regions in PD. Whereas less severe stages of the disease are associated with larger motor lobe regions, more severe stages of the disease are marked by smaller non-motor regions

New Mediterranean biodiversity records (December 2011)

The present work reports on recent biodiversity records of Mediterranean native species such as Olindias phosphorica in the Turkish Aegean Sea and extended distribution of eleven alien species in the Mediterranean. These are: Bursatella leachi (Mollusca, Gastropoda: Algeria); Callinectes sapidus (Crustacea, Decapoda: Greek Ionian Sea); Caprella scaura (Crustacea, Amphipoda: Mar Piccolo of Taranto); Fistularia commersonii (Fish: Saronikos Gulf, Aegean Sea); Sphoeroides pachygaster (Fish: South Turkey); Musculista perfragilis (Mollusca, Bivalvia: South Turkey); Sepioteuthis lessoniana (Mollusca, Cephalopoda: central eastern coast of Tunisia); Flabellina rubrolineata (Mollusca, opisthobranchia: central Aegean, Greece); Hesionura serrata (Polychaeta: Apulian coast); Stephanolepis diaspros (Fish: Saronikos Gulf, Aegean Sea); and Parvocalanus crassirostris (Crustacea, Copepoda: Lesvos Island, Greek Aegean Sea)

Evaluation of Tenax thin films as adsorbent material in a micro-preconcentrator and its operation as a valve-less multiple injection system in micro-gas chromatography

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Preparation of conductive polymer graphite (PG) composites

The preparation of conductive polymer graphite (PG) composites thin film is described. The thickness of the PG composites due to slip casting method was set approximately ~0.1 mm. The optical microscope (OM) and fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR) has been operated to distinguish the structure–property relationships scheme of PG composites. It shows that the graphite is homogenously dispersed in polymer matrix composites. The electrical characteristics of the PG composite were measured at room temperature and the electrical conductivity (σ) was discovered with respect of its resistivity (Ω). By achieving conductivity of 103 S/m, it is proven that at certain graphite weight loading (PG20, PG25 and PG30) attributes to electron pathway in PG composites