Influence of demographic and clinical characteristics on circulating GFAP levels in Mexican American and non-Hispanic white older adults

Background: Circulating levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), an intermediate filament protein of the astrocytic cytoskeleton and putative marker of reactive astrocytosis, increase with cerebral amyloid beta burden and associate with risk of incident all-cause and Alzheimer\u27s disease (AD) dementia. However, further validation in diverse cohorts and evaluation of potential health disparities are necessary for broader generalization. The goal of the present study was to examine the associations between demographics, cardiovascular risk factors, and APOE ε4 status with serum GFAP levels among Mexican American and non-Hispanic white older adults across the continuum from cognitively unimpaired to AD dementia. Method: Participants included 1,156 Mexican American and 587 non-Hispanic white adults, aged 55 years and older, who completed a blood draw, clinical and cognitive evaluations, and dementia consensus reviews as part of the Texas Alzheimer’s Research and Care Consortium. Serum levels of GFAP were assayed using a Simoa HD-1 Analyzer (Quanterix). Associations between demographic and clinical characteristics with serum GFAP levels were evaluated using linear regression. The diagnostic accuracy of serum GFAP was further examined using area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROC) in univariate and adjusted models and optimal cut-points were derived using the maximum Kolmogorov-Smirnov metric. All models were also stratified by ethnicity and disease stage. Result: In the whole sample (Table 1), older age (b=0.588, p Conclusion: The study results highlight the importance of understanding the role of broader demographic and clinical factors on circulating GFAP levels within diverse cohorts in order to enhance precision across clinical, research, and community settings

Associations between neuropsychiatric symptoms and ADRD serum biomarkers in Mexican American and non-Hispanic white adults with mild cognitive impairment

Background: Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a heterogenous diagnostic category with trajectories ranging from reversion to unimpaired cognition to progression to dementia. Neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depression and irritability are common and influence quality of life of patients and caregivers. The role of neuropsychiatric symptoms on disease biology, presentation, and course remains poorly understood. The goal of this study was to evaluate the associations between neuropsychiatric symptoms and serum ADRD biomarkers in Mexican American and non-Hispanic white participants diagnosed with MCI. Method: Participants from the Texas Alzheimer’s Research and Care Consortium underwent a blood draw and clinical evaluation, including psychopathological and cognitive assessments. Diagnoses of MCI were adjudicated in consensus reviews. The presence and severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms were assessed by informant report using the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI). Serum levels of total tau, neurofilament light (NfL), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were assessed using Simoa HD-X Analyzer. Associations between NPI total score and individual items with serum biomarker levels were assessed using linear regression adjusted for age and sex. Result: A total of 425 participants (mean age: 71 ± 9 years, 62% female, 74% Mexican American) had a diagnosis of MCI and serum ADRD biomarkers (Table 1). Total NPI score was not associated with total tau (ß=0.002, p=0.609), NfL (ß=0.001, p=0.658), or GFAP (ß=0.001, p=0.777). However, endorsement of appetite changes was associated with higher NfL (ß=0.077, p=0.006) and GFAP (ß=0.088, p=0.002) levels. Stratified analyses indicated associations of appetite changes with serum NfL (ß=0.108, p=0.002) and GFAP (ß=0.095, p=0.003) in Mexican Americans, but not in non-Hispanic whites (NfL: ß=0.022, p=0.633, GFAP: ß=0.102, p=0.066).There were no other significant associations between individual items on the NPI with serum biomarkers (p\u3e0.05, Bonferroni adjustment p±0.003). Conclusion: Within Mexican American adults with MCI, changes in appetite were associated with higher serum NFL and GFAP levels. As elevations in circulating NfL and GFAP levels are associated with ADRD pathology and accelerated disease progression, appetite changes, a non-invasive and easily discernible behavioral phenotype, may predict higher likelihood of worsening cognitive course. Future longitudinal studies will be necessary to confirm predictive utility of appetite changes for disease progression

Título: Por el libro de la muger fuerte, Doña Maria Vela, respondiendo a las dudas que se han puesto en èl y en el espiritu y vida de la Santa

Copia digital. Valladolid : Junta de Castilla y León. Consejería de Cultura y Turismo, 2009-2010Marca de ed. en ambas port.Texto a dos col. con apostillas marginalesHojas escritas por ambas carasSign.: [calderón]8, 2[calderón]2,A-Z8, 2A-H8, 2I4Esc. xil.Del maestro Fray Angel Manrique ... Por el libro de la muger fuerte, Doña Maria Vela respondiendo a las dudas que se han puesto en el y en el espiritu y vida de la Santa : p. 198-248, con port. propi

The Dark Energy Survey : more than dark energy – an overview

This overview paper describes the legacy prospect and discovery potential of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) beyond cosmological studies, illustrating it with examples from the DES early data. DES is using a wide-field camera (DECam) on the 4 m Blanco Telescope in Chile to image 5000 sq deg of the sky in five filters (grizY). By its completion, the survey is expected to have generated a catalogue of 300 million galaxies with photometric redshifts and 100 million stars. In addition, a time-domain survey search over 27 sq deg is expected to yield a sample of thousands of Type Ia supernovae and other transients. The main goals of DES are to characterize dark energy and dark matter, and to test alternative models of gravity; these goals will be pursued by studying large-scale structure, cluster counts, weak gravitational lensing and Type Ia supernovae. However, DES also provides a rich data set which allows us to study many other aspects of astrophysics. In this paper, we focus on additional science with DES, emphasizing areas where the survey makes a difference with respect to other current surveys. The paper illustrates, using early data (from ‘Science Verification’, and from the first, second and third seasons of observations), what DES can tell us about the Solar system, the Milky Way, galaxy evolution, quasars and other topics. In addition, we show that if the cosmological model is assumed to be +cold dark matter, then important astrophysics can be deduced from the primary DES probes. Highlights from DES early data include the discovery of 34 trans-Neptunian objects, 17 dwarf satellites of the Milky Way, one published z > 6 quasar (and more confirmed) and two published superluminous supernovae (and more confirmed)

Estimating the global conservation status of more than 15,000 Amazonian tree species

Estimates of extinction risk for Amazonian plant and animal species are rare and not often incorporated into land-use policy and conservation planning. We overlay spatial distribution models with historical and projected deforestation to show that at least 36% and up to 57% of all Amazonian tree species are likely to qualify as globally threatened under International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria. If confirmed, these results would increase the number of threatened plant species on Earth by 22%. We show that the trends observed in Amazonia apply to trees throughout the tropics, and we predict thatmost of the world’s >40,000 tropical tree species now qualify as globally threatened. A gap analysis suggests that existing Amazonian protected areas and indigenous territories will protect viable populations of most threatened species if these areas suffer no further degradation, highlighting the key roles that protected areas, indigenous peoples, and improved governance can play in preventing large-scale extinctions in the tropics in this century

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on TAVR Activity: A Worldwide Registry

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic had a considerable impact on the provision of structural heart intervention worldwide. Our objectives were: 1) to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) activity globally; and 2) to determine the differences in the impact according to geographic region and the demographic, development, and economic status of diverse international health care systems. Methods: We developed a multinational registry of global TAVR activity and invited individual TAVR sites to submit TAVR implant data before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the number of TAVR procedures performed monthly from January 2019 to December 2021 was collected. The adaptive measures to maintain TAVR activity by each site were recorded, as was a variety of indices relating to type of health care system and national economic indices. The primary subject of interest was the impact on TAVR activity during each of the pandemic waves (2020 and 2021) compared with the same period pre–COVID-19 (2019). Results: Data were received from 130 centers from 61 countries, with 14 subcontinents and 5 continents participating in the study. Overall, TAVR activity increased by 16.7% (2,337 procedures) between 2018 and 2019 (ie, before the pandemic), but between 2019 and 2020 (ie, first year of the pandemic), there was no significant growth (–0.1%; –10 procedures). In contrast, activity again increased by 18.9% (3,085 procedures) between 2020 and 2021 (ie, second year of the pandemic). During the first pandemic wave, there was a reduction of 18.9% (945 procedures) in TAVR activity among participating sites, while during the second and third waves, there was an increase of 6.7% (489 procedures) and 15.9% (1,042 procedures), respectively. Further analysis and results of this study are ongoing and will be available at the time of the congress. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic initially led to a reduction in the number of patients undergoing TAVR worldwide, although health care systems subsequently adapted, and the number of TAVR recipients continued to grow in subsequent COVID-19 pandemic waves. Categories: STRUCTURAL: Valvular Disease: Aorti

Local hydrological conditions influence tree diversity and composition across the Amazon basin

Tree diversity and composition in Amazonia are known to be strongly determined by the water supplied by precipitation. Nevertheless, within the same climatic regime, water availability is modulated by local topography and soil characteristics (hereafter referred to as local hydrological conditions), varying from saturated and poorly drained to well-drained and potentially dry areas. While these conditions may be expected to influence species distribution, the impacts of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity and composition remain poorly understood at the whole Amazon basin scale. Using a dataset of 443 1-ha non-flooded forest plots distributed across the basin, we investigate how local hydrological conditions influence 1) tree alpha diversity, 2) the community-weighted wood density mean (CWM-wd) – a proxy for hydraulic resistance and 3) tree species composition. We find that the effect of local hydrological conditions on tree diversity depends on climate, being more evident in wetter forests, where diversity increases towards locations with well-drained soils. CWM-wd increased towards better drained soils in Southern and Western Amazonia. Tree species composition changed along local soil hydrological gradients in Central-Eastern, Western and Southern Amazonia, and those changes were correlated with changes in the mean wood density of plots. Our results suggest that local hydrological gradients filter species, influencing the diversity and composition of Amazonian forests. Overall, this study shows that the effect of local hydrological conditions is pervasive, extending over wide Amazonian regions, and reinforces the importance of accounting for local topography and hydrology to better understand the likely response and resilience of forests to increased frequency of extreme climate events and rising temperatures

Geographic patterns of tree dispersal modes in Amazonia and their ecological correlates

Aim: To investigate the geographic patterns and ecological correlates in the geographic distribution of the most common tree dispersal modes in Amazonia (endozoochory, synzoochory, anemochory and hydrochory). We examined if the proportional abundance of these dispersal modes could be explained by the availability of dispersal agents (disperser-availability hypothesis) and/or the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits (resource-availability hypothesis). Time period: Tree-inventory plots established between 1934 and 2019. Major taxa studied: Trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) ≥ 9.55 cm. Location: Amazonia, here defined as the lowland rain forests of the Amazon River basin and the Guiana Shield. Methods: We assigned dispersal modes to a total of 5433 species and morphospecies within 1877 tree-inventory plots across terra-firme, seasonally flooded, and permanently flooded forests. We investigated geographic patterns in the proportional abundance of dispersal modes. We performed an abundance-weighted mean pairwise distance (MPD) test and fit generalized linear models (GLMs) to explain the geographic distribution of dispersal modes. Results: Anemochory was significantly, positively associated with mean annual wind speed, and hydrochory was significantly higher in flooded forests. Dispersal modes did not consistently show significant associations with the availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits. A lower dissimilarity in dispersal modes, resulting from a higher dominance of endozoochory, occurred in terra-firme forests (excluding podzols) compared to flooded forests. Main conclusions: The disperser-availability hypothesis was well supported for abiotic dispersal modes (anemochory and hydrochory). The availability of resources for constructing zoochorous fruits seems an unlikely explanation for the distribution of dispersal modes in Amazonia. The association between frugivores and the proportional abundance of zoochory requires further research, as tree recruitment not only depends on dispersal vectors but also on conditions that favour or limit seedling recruitment across forest types