Placenta-Like Structure of the Aphid Endoparasitic Wasp Aphidius ervi: A Strategy of Optimal Resources Acquisition

Aphidius ervi (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is an entomophagous parasitoid known to be an effective parasitoid of several aphid species of economic importance. A reduction of its production cost during mass rearing for inundative release is needed to improve its use in biological control of pests. In these contexts, a careful analysis of its entire development phases within its host is needed. This paper shows that this parasitoid has some characteristics in its embryological development rather complex and different from most other reported insects, which can be phylogenetically very close. First, its yolkless egg allows a high fecundity of the female but force them to hatch from the egg shell rapidly to the host hemocoel. An early cellularisation allowing a rapid differentiation of a serosa membrane seems to confirm this hypothesis. The serosa wraps the developing embryo until the first instar larva stage and invades the host tissues by microvilli projections and form a placenta like structure able to divert host resources and allowing nutrition and respiration of embryo. Such interspecific invasion, at the cellular level, recalls mammal's trophoblasts that anchors maternal uterine wall and underlines the high adaptation of A. ervi to develop in the host body

UltraLight: An ultrafast imaging platform based on a digital 64-channel ultrasound probe

Digital ultrasound probes include the entire analog frontend in their enclosing and are equipped with a standard digital link. This enables to build very cost-effective ultrasound systems as they can be simply connected to a commodity device, such as a desktop PC, tablet or smartphone, running an ultrasound imaging application. Up to now, digital probes have been mainly demonstrated for low-end ultrasound applications and are currently limited to a small number of frontend channels (typically 16). In addition, the available bandwidth at the digital interface (less than 10 Gb/s) limits these devices only to basic imaging modalities. In this work, we present an imaging platform built with a digital 64-channel ultrasound probe that supports ultrafast imaging. Our digital probe, called LightProbe, utilizes a 64-element phased array without multiplexing and incorporates a 64-channel 100 Vpp TX/RX stage providing a sample rate up to 32.5 MS/s @ 12bit. The probe features an optical link interface achieving 25Gb/s on a standard fiber cable. A Xilinx Artix 7 FPGA is integrated in the probe to manage the optical interface and to provide a high-degree of configurabilty. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first digital probe capable of compounded plane wave imaging. We capture plane waves with peak and average rate of 4.9 kHz and 2kHz respectively, with a peak link load of 15.36 Gb/s, while consuming just 9.25 W

Efficacy of a specialized inpatient rehabilitation program in patients with early versus chronic epilepsy

Hagemann A, Lahr D, May T, et al. Efficacy of a specialized inpatient rehabilitation program in patients with early versus chronic epilepsy. Epilepsy &amp; Behavior. 2023;142: 108999.Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of a specialized inpatient rehabilitation program in patients with early in comparison with chronic epilepsy.Methods: We performed a prospective, open pre/post study using a parallel group design. Patients with early epilepsy (EE, treatment with anti-seizure medication [ASM] 5 years) completed questionnaires at the time of their admission to the rehabilitation program and at discharge. Outcome measures comprised scales from the PESOS questionnaire (PErformance, SOciodemographic aspects, Subjective estimation; e.g., emotional adaptation to epilepsy) as well as screening instruments for depression (Neurological Disorders Depression Inventory for Epilepsy, NDDI-E) and anxiety (Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale, GAD-7). Linear mixed models (LMMs) were used to determine the effects of the program in the total group and to compare the effects between patients with EE and CE.Results: The analyses included 79 patients with EE and 157 patients with CE. Baseline comparisons revealed differences in disease-related and sociodemographic variables (e.g., patients with EE were older, those with CE had a higher seizure frequency and a higher rate of unemployment; all p .05) except for the perceived level of information, which was significantly lower in patients with EE at admission and improved to a higher extent in this group (both p < .001).Conclusion: Both patients with EE and patients with CE who are referred to a specialized comprehensive rehabilitation program benefit from the participation in this program with respect to emotional adapta-tion to epilepsy, aspects of quality of life, and level of information about epilepsy.(c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

First epileptic seizure and epilepsies in adulthood. Abridged version ofthe S2k guideline of the German Society for Neurology in cooperationwith the German Society for Epileptology

Holtkamp M, May T, Berkenfeld R, et al. Erster epileptischer Anfall und Epilepsien im Erwachsenenalter. Kurzfassung S2k-Leitlinie der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Neurologie in Zusammenarbeit mit der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Epileptologie. Clinical Epileptology. 2024.The new S2k guideline "First epileptic seizure and epilepsies in adulthood" provides recommendations on clinically relevant issues in five major topics: management of first epileptic seizures, pharmacotherapy, epilepsy surgery, complementary and supportive treatment, and psychosocial aspects. For the topic management of first epileptic seizures, the guideline provides recommendations on identifying the two major differential diagnoses, syncope and psychogenic non-epileptic seizure. The importance of additional examinations such as EEG, MRI and cerebrospinal fluid for syndromic classification and etiological allocation is discussed. Recommendations on neuropsychological and psychiatric screening tests are also given. The topic pharmacotherapy issues recommendations on antiseizure medication in monotherapy for focal, generalized and unclassified epilepsies; patient groups with special challenges such as the aged, women of childbearing potential and people with mental retardation are emphasized. Further issues are indications for measuring serum concentrations of antiseizure medication and possible risks of switching manufacturers. In the topic epilepsy surgery, indications for presurgical assessment and the multiple therapeutic approaches, such as resection, laser ablation, and neurostimulation are presented. Recommendations on postoperative management of patients, including rehabilitation and psychosocial counselling, are given. The topic complementary and supportive therapeutic approaches comprises recommendations on the diagnostics and treatment of common psychiatric comorbidities of epilepsy, such as anxiety disorder, depression and psychosis. Another important issue is the management of psychogenic non-epileptic seizures as a neuropsychiatric differential diagnosis or comorbidity of epileptic seizures. Furthermore, recommendations on the potential role of ketogenic diet and on acupuncture, homeopathy and other complementary approaches are made. The recommendations on psychosocial aspects comprise practical issues, such as fitness to drive a car, training and occupation, medical rehabilitation, sport, transition, patients' self-help, education programs for patients and next of kin, adherence, advise on SUDEP