Focus on cardiologic findings in 30 children with PANS/PANDAS. an italian single-center observational study

Objective: Cardiac involvement in PANS has not been clarified relying on the scientific literature available until today. It is known that streptococcal infections play a role in the etiology of a great number of diseases including Sydenham chorea and rheumatic fever, among others. Based on the suspected pathogenesis of PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal infections) reported in the medical literature, we decided to investigate the cardiologic involvement in children with a recent PANS/PANDAS diagnosis. Methods: The study population satisfies PANS (1) and PANDAS (2) criteria of diagnoses. Cardiologic assessment was performed through clinical examination, electrocardiography, and echocardiography. Results: In the selected pediatric population, a significant number of children presented mitral valve involvement, systolic murmurs and electrocardiographic abnormalities. High ASLOT levels did not seem to be associated to a cardiac involvement. Conclusions: Often PANS is difficult to diagnose because it is little known by physicians and most of the cardiologic findings described in this study are common among the healthy pediatric population. Also, ASLOT levels seems not to be predictive of cardiac involvement. Furthermore, the existence of PANDAS as a clinical entity is associated with a group of anti-neuronal autoantibodies found in Sydenham chorea is still controversial. We recommend a complete cardiologic evaluation in those children who meet the PANS/PANDAS diagnostic criteria

Effects of Long-Term Pioglitazone Treatment on Peripheral and Central Markers of Aging

BACKGROUND: Thiazolidinediones (TZDs) activate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARgamma) and are used clinically to help restore peripheral insulin sensitivity in Type 2 diabetes (T2DM). Interestingly, long-term treatment of mouse models of Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) with TZDs also has been shown to reduce several well-established brain biomarkers of AD including inflammation, oxidative stress and Abeta accumulation. While TZD\u27s actions in AD models help to elucidate the mechanisms underlying their potentially beneficial effects in AD patients, little is known about the functional consequences of TZDs in animal models of normal aging. Because aging is a common risk factor for both AD and T2DM, we investigated whether the TZD, pioglitazone could alter brain aging under non-pathological conditions. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We used the F344 rat model of aging, and monitored behavioral, electrophysiological, and molecular variables to assess the effects of pioglitazone (PIO-Actos® a TZD) on several peripheral (blood and liver) and central (hippocampal) biomarkers of aging. Starting at 3 months or 17 months of age, male rats were treated for 4-5 months with either a control or a PIO-containing diet (final dose approximately 2.3 mg/kg body weight/day). A significant reduction in the Ca2+-dependent afterhyperpolarization was seen in the aged animals, with no significant change in long-term potentiation maintenance or learning and memory performance. Blood insulin levels were unchanged with age, but significantly reduced by PIO. Finally, a combination of microarray analyses on hippocampal tissue and serum-based multiplex cytokine assays revealed that age-dependent inflammatory increases were not reversed by PIO. CONCLUSIONS: While current research efforts continue to identify the underlying processes responsible for the progressive decline in cognitive function seen during normal aging, available medical treatments are still very limited. Because TZDs have been shown to have benefits in age-related conditions such as T2DM and AD, our study was aimed at elucidating PIO\u27s potentially beneficial actions in normal aging. Using a clinically-relevant dose and delivery method, long-term PIO treatment was able to blunt several indices of aging but apparently affected neither age-related cognitive decline nor peripheral/central age-related increases in inflammatory signaling

Search for gravitational-lensing signatures in the full third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions of gravitational wave-signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO--Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by 1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, 2) calculating the degree of overlap amongst the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, 3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms amongst pairs of signals, and 4) performing dual-signal Bayesian analysis that takes into account selection effects and astrophysical knowledge. We also search for distortions to the gravitational waveform caused by 1) frequency-independent phase shifts in strongly lensed images, and 2) frequency-dependent modulation of the amplitude and phase due to point masses. None of these searches yields significant evidence for lensing. Finally, we use the non-detection of gravitational-wave lensing to constrain the lensing rate based on the latest merger-rate estimates and the fraction of dark matter composed of compact objects

Search for eccentric black hole coalescences during the third observing run of LIGO and Virgo

Despite the growing number of confident binary black hole coalescences observed through gravitational waves so far, the astrophysical origin of these binaries remains uncertain. Orbital eccentricity is one of the clearest tracers of binary formation channels. Identifying binary eccentricity, however, remains challenging due to the limited availability of gravitational waveforms that include effects of eccentricity. Here, we present observational results for a waveform-independent search sensitive to eccentric black hole coalescences, covering the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO and Virgo detectors. We identified no new high-significance candidates beyond those that were already identified with searches focusing on quasi-circular binaries. We determine the sensitivity of our search to high-mass (total mass M>70 M⊙) binaries covering eccentricities up to 0.3 at 15 Hz orbital frequency, and use this to compare model predictions to search results. Assuming all detections are indeed quasi-circular, for our fiducial population model, we place an upper limit for the merger rate density of high-mass binaries with eccentricities 0<e≤0.3 at 0.33 Gpc−3 yr−1 at 90\% confidence level

Ultralight vector dark matter search using data from the KAGRA O3GK run

Among the various candidates for dark matter (DM), ultralight vector DM can be probed by laser interferometric gravitational wave detectors through the measurement of oscillating length changes in the arm cavities. In this context, KAGRA has a unique feature due to differing compositions of its mirrors, enhancing the signal of vector DM in the length change in the auxiliary channels. Here we present the result of a search for U(1)B−L gauge boson DM using the KAGRA data from auxiliary length channels during the first joint observation run together with GEO600. By applying our search pipeline, which takes into account the stochastic nature of ultralight DM, upper bounds on the coupling strength between the U(1)B−L gauge boson and ordinary matter are obtained for a range of DM masses. While our constraints are less stringent than those derived from previous experiments, this study demonstrates the applicability of our method to the lower-mass vector DM search, which is made difficult in this measurement by the short observation time compared to the auto-correlation time scale of DM