Baseline and stimulated catecholamine secretion in normotensive patients with active acromegaly: acute effects of continuous octreotide infusion

Objective: Alterations in catecholamine plasma levels may contribute to the cardiovascular complications of acromegaly. Since few data are available on the catecholamine secretory dynamics in active acromegaly and no evidence exists on catecholamine variations during GH decrease, we studied acromegalic patients before and during octreotide administration. Methods: Mie evaluated the catecholamine responses to upright posture and a cold pressure test (CPT) in 11 acromegalic (A) patients before and during continuous administration of octreotide (500 mu g/24 h by s.c. pump) compared with 11 normal(N) subjects. Results: All the acromegalic patients showed left ventricular cardiac hypertrophy. The cardiovascular responses to upright posture were similar between normal subjects and acromegalics both before and during octreotide treatment, The basal levels of norepinephrine (NE) were significantly higher in A patients compared with N subjects (423 +/- 45 vs 264 +/- 32 pg/ml, P < 0.05) and decreased during therapy (291 +/- 32 pg/ml: P < 0.01). The increase in plasma NE during upright posture was significantly lower in A than in N subjects (P < 0.01), but was restored to normal during octreotide treatment. CPT increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate and NE plasma levels in N (P < 0.05) but not in A subjects both before and during octreotide treatment. Conclusions: Our data demonstrate the presence of increased basal NE levels in acromegalic patients with a defective sympathetic response to stimuli. Short-term octreotide infusion is able to induce a reduction in the basal levels of NE and a normalization of the catecholamine response to posture

Empowering Deafblind Communication Capabilities by Means of AI-Based Body Parts Tracking and Remotely Controlled Robotic Arm for Sign Language Speakers

Deafblind people face remarkable challenges in communicating, because of their severe disability. The only way to interact with other people is the usage of the tactile sign language, which consists in understanding the sign language putting their hands on the signer’s hands. But this approach works only when the signers are in the same place. The aim of this project is to reduce the gap between deafblind people and the other ones, giving them the capability to communicate remotely. By collecting images with two cameras, the signer’s body is tracked with a deep neural network. The extracted coordinates of the body parts (chest, shoulders, elbows, wrists, palms and fingers) are used to move one or more robotic arms. The deafblind person can put his hands on the robots to understand the message delivered by the person on the other side. The entire system is based on a cloud architecture