A influência da dança no desenvolvimento de portadores da Síndrome de Down

Orientadora: Katia Martins MortariMonografia (licenciatura) - Universidade Federal do Paraná. Setor de Ciências Biológicas. Curso de Educação Físic

6-Month Effects of Fingolimod on Indexes of Cardiovascular Autonomic Control in Multiple Sclerosis

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Applying the EFuNN Evolving Paradigm to the Recognition of Artefactual Beats in Continuous Seismocardiogram Recordings

Seismocardiogram (SCG) recording is a novel method for the prolonged monitoring of the cardiac mechanical performance during spontaneous behavior. The continuous monitoring results in a collection of thousands of beats recorded during a variety of physical activities so that the automatic analysis and processing of such data is a challenging task due to the presence of artefactual beats and morphological changes over time that currently request the human expertise. On this premise, we propose the use of the Evolving Fuzzy Neural Network (EFuNN) paradigm for the automatic artifact detection in the SCG signal. The fuzzy logic processing method can be applied to model the human expertise knowledge using the learning capabilities of an artificial neural network. The evolving capability of the EFuNN paradigm has been applied to solve the issue of the physiological variability of the SGC waveform. Preliminary tests have been carried out to validate this approach and the obtained results demonstrate the effectiveness of the method and its scalability

Peripheral resistance baroreflex during incremental bicycle ergometer exercise : characterization and correlation with cardiac baroreflex

The arm of the baroreflex (BR) controlling peripheral resistances (PR), labeled as BR of PR (prBR), was characterized through an extension of the cardiac BR (cBR) sequence analysis. The method exploits recordings of skin blood flow (SBF) from the palm of the non-dominant hand via a laser Doppler flowmeter and of arterial pressure (AP) from the middle finger of the same hand via a plethysmographic device. PR was estimated beat-by-beat as the ratio of mean AP to mean SBF computed over the same heart period (HP). Peripheral resistances-diastolic arterial pressure (PR-DAP) sequences featuring simultaneous increases of PR and decreases of diastolic AP (DAP) or vice versa were identified and the slope of the regression line in the (DAP, PR) plane was taken as an estimate of prBR sensitivity (BRSprBR). The percentage of prBR sequences (SEQ%prBR) was taken as a measure of prBR involvement and the prBR effectiveness index (EIprBR) was computed as the fraction of DAP sequences capable to drive antiparallel PR variations. Analogous markers were computed over cBR from HP and systolic AP (SAP) variability [i.e., cBR sensitivity (BRScBR), percentage of cBR sequences (SEQ%cBR), and effectiveness index of the cBR (EIcBR)]. prBR and cBR were typified during incremental light-to-moderate bicycle ergometer exercise at 10, 20, and 30% of the maximum effort in 16 healthy subjects (aged from 22 to 58 years, six males). We found that: (i) BRScBR decreased gradually with the challenge, while BRSprBR declined only at the heaviest workload; (ii) SEQ%cBR decreased solely at the lightest workload, while the decline of SEQ%prBR was significant regardless of the intensity of the challenge; (iii) EIprBR and EIcBR were not affected by exercise; (iv) after pooling together all the data regardless of the experimental conditions, BRSprBR and BRScBR were uncorrelated, while SEQ%cBR and SEQ%prBR as well as EIcBR and EIprBR, were significantly and positively correlated; (v) when the correlation between SEQ%cBR and SEQ%prBR and between EIcBR and EIprBR was assessed separately in each experimental condition, it was not systematically detected. This study suggests that prBR characterization provides information complementary to cBR that might be fruitfully exploited to improve patients\u2019 risk stratification

VARIAÇÃO DE CONCENTRAÇÃO DE PROTEINASE K EM PROTOCOLOS DE EXTRAÇÃO DE DNA DE BOVINO

Os procedimentos padrões para extração de DNA incluem o tratamento com proteinase k e posterior incubação em banho-maria por um determinado tempo. Sendo assim, avaliar métodos de extração de DNA que minimizem a quantidade de proteinase k e o tempo necessário para a realização das etapas, em que seja mantida a eficiência no que tange à quantidade, qualidade e a possibilidade de amplificação por PCR do DNA extraído, é de extrema importância para os estudos moleculares baseados em ácidos nucléicos. O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a eficiência de protocolos de extração de DNA, variando-se a concentração de proteinase k e tempo de incubação em banho-maria. O DNA foi extraído a partir de sangue periférico de bovinos. Para a extração do DNA genômico, utilizou-se oito protocolos que diferiam em concentrações de proteinase k (0,04 e 0,08µg mL-1) em intervalos de tempo variados (90, 180, 360 minutos e overnight). O DNA foi analisado quanto à sua qualidade, quantidade e viabilidade de amplificação. Foi possível obter DNA genômico de qualidade, com concentrações e pureza satisfatórias para amplificação. Com base nas análises estatísticas, as variações no protocolo tiveram efeitos isolados, ou seja, a qualidade do DNA foi suscetível à concentração de proteinase k e ao tempo no banho-maria, entretanto a quantidade de DNA das amostras foi suscetível ao tempo de incubação em banho-maria, não tendo interferência pela concentração de proteinase k. Apesar dos efeitos isolados, os parâmetros estudados influenciaram de maneira significativa na qualidade e quantidade de DNA

Characterization of the asymmetry of the cardiac and sympathetic arms of the baroreflex from spontaneous variability during incremental head-up tilt

Hysteresis of the baroreflex (BR) is the result of the different BR sensitivity (BRS) when arterial pressure (AP) rises or falls. This phenomenon has been poorly studied and almost exclusively examined by applying pharmacological challenges and static approaches disregarding causal relations. This study inspects the asymmetry of the cardiac BR (cBR) and vascular sympathetic BR (sBR) in physiological closed loop conditions from spontaneous fluctuations of physiological variables, namely heart period (HP) and systolic AP (SAP) leading to the estimation of cardiac BRS (cBRS) and muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and diastolic AP (DAP) leading to the estimation of vascular sympathetic BRS (sBRS). The assessment was carried out in 12 young healthy subjects undergoing incremental head-up tilt with table inclination gradually increased from 0 to 60°. Two analytical methods were exploited and compared, namely the sequence (SEQ) and phase-rectified signal averaging (PRSA) methods. SEQ analysis is based on the detection of joint causal schemes representing the HP and MSNA burst rate delayed responses to spontaneous SAP and DAP modifications, respectively. PRSA analysis averages HP and MSNA burst rate patterns after aligning them according to the direction of SAP and DAP changes, respectively. Since cBRSs were similar when SAP went up or down, hysteresis of cBR was not detected. Conversely, hysteresis of sBR was evident with sBRS more negative when DAP was falling than rising. sBR hysteresis was no longer visible during sympathetic activation induced by the orthostatic challenge. These results were obtained via the SEQ method, while the PRSA technique appeared to be less powerful in describing the BR asymmetry due to the strong association between BRS estimates computed over positive and negative AP variations. This study suggests that cBR and sBR provide different information about the BR control, sBR exhibits more relevant non-linear features that are evident even during physiological changes of AP, and the SEQ method can be fruitfully exploited to characterize the BR hysteresis with promising applications to BR branches different from cBR and sBR.Beatrice De Maria, Vlasta Bari, Beatrice Cairo, Emanuele Vaini, Murray Esler, Elisabeth Lambert, Mathias Baumert, Sergio Cerutti, Laura Dalla Vecchia, and Alberto Port