Distinguishable DNA methylation defines a cardiac-specific epigenetic clock

BACKGROUND The present study investigates whether epigenetic differences emerge in the heart of patients undergoing cardiac surgery for an aortic valvular replacement (AVR) or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). An algorithm is also established to determine how the pathophysiological condition might influence the human biological cardiac age. RESULTS Blood samples and cardiac auricles were collected from patients who underwent cardiac procedures: 94 AVR and 289 CABG. The CpGs from three independent blood-derived biological clocks were selected to design a new blood- and the first cardiac-specific clocks. Specifically, 31 CpGs from six age-related genes, ELOVL2, EDARADD, ITGA2B, ASPA, PDE4C, and FHL2, were used to construct the tissue-tailored clocks. The best-fitting variables were combined to define new cardiac- and blood-tailored clocks validated through neural network analysis and elastic regression. In addition, telomere length (TL) was measured by qPCR. These new methods revealed a similarity between chronological and biological age in the blood and heart; the average TL was significantly higher in the heart than in the blood. In addition, the cardiac clock discriminated well between AVR and CABG and was sensitive to cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity and smoking. Moreover, the cardiac-specific clock identified an AVR patient's subgroup whose accelerated bioage correlated with the altered ventricular parameters, including left ventricular diastolic and systolic volume. CONCLUSION This study reports on applying a method to evaluate the cardiac biological age revealing epigenetic features that separate subgroups of AVR and CABG

Low Frequency Brain Oscillations for Brain-Computer Interface applications: from the sources to the scalp domain

Low Frequency Oscillations (LFOs) are brief periods of oscillatory activity in delta and lower theta band localized over the cortical motor areas. Recent animal and human researches have evidenced the LFO power increase, only through the analysis of cortical activity yet, in the preparatory phase of movement. In post-stroke subjects, a decrease in LFOs activity has been observed in the acute phase of the disease with a subsequent re-emergence related to functional recovery. With the ultimate aim to develop a Brain-Computer Interface for post-stroke motor rehabilitation based on LFO, in this study we analyzed LFOs activity on electroencephalographic data (EEG) recorded in a sample of 9 healthy participants during the Motor Execution (ME) and the Motor Imagery (MI) of the finger extension task. We extracted the LFOs activity both in the source and in the scalp domains with the aim of evaluate the reproducibility of the results between domains and analyze the LFO power on the scalp in the MI finger extension task. The results suggest that (i) the LFOs can be observed during the ME of the proposed experimental task in the cortex domain, (ii) the sources’ LFOs activity is reproduced on the scalp level and (iii) the LFOs may be detected also on the scalp during the MI task. In conclusion, in this preliminary study, we verified that LFOs can also be detected directly on the scalp both in the ME and the MI of the finger extension task

Low Frequency Brain Oscillations during the execution and imagination of simple hand movements for Brain-Computer Interface applications

Low Frequency Brain Oscillations (LFOs) are brief periods of oscillatory activity in delta and lower theta band that appear at motor cortical areas before and around movement onset. It has been shown that LFO power decreases in post-stroke patients and re-emerges with motor functional recovery. To date, LFOs have not yet been explored during the motor execution (ME) and imagination (MI) of simple hand movements, often used in BCI-supported motor rehabilitation protocols post-stroke. This study aims at analyzing the LFOs during the ME and MI of the finger extension task in a sample of 10 healthy subjects and 2 stroke patients in subacute phase. The results showed that LFO power peaks occur in the preparatory phase of both ME and MI tasks on the sensorimotor channels in healthy subjects and their alterations in stroke patients

Distinguishable DNA methylation defines a cardiac-specific epigenetic clock

Abstract Background The present study investigates whether epigenetic differences emerge in the heart of patients undergoing cardiac surgery for an aortic valvular replacement (AVR) or coronary artery bypass graft (CABG). An algorithm is also established to determine how the pathophysiological condition might influence the human biological cardiac age. Results Blood samples and cardiac auricles were collected from patients who underwent cardiac procedures: 94 AVR and 289 CABG. The CpGs from three independent blood-derived biological clocks were selected to design a new blood- and the first cardiac-specific clocks. Specifically, 31 CpGs from six age-related genes, ELOVL2, EDARADD, ITGA2B, ASPA, PDE4C, and FHL2, were used to construct the tissue-tailored clocks. The best-fitting variables were combined to define new cardiac- and blood-tailored clocks validated through neural network analysis and elastic regression. In addition, telomere length (TL) was measured by qPCR. These new methods revealed a similarity between chronological and biological age in the blood and heart; the average TL was significantly higher in the heart than in the blood. In addition, the cardiac clock discriminated well between AVR and CABG and was sensitive to cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity and smoking. Moreover, the cardiac-specific clock identified an AVR patient's subgroup whose accelerated bioage correlated with the altered ventricular parameters, including left ventricular diastolic and systolic volume. Conclusion This study reports on applying a method to evaluate the cardiac biological age revealing epigenetic features that separate subgroups of AVR and CABG