Association of consciousness impairment and mortality in people with COVID-19

BACKGROUND: To investigate the association between impairment of consciousness and risk of death in people with COVID-19. METHODS: In this multicentre retrospective study, we enrolled people with confirmed COVID-19 from 44 hospitals in Wuhan and Sichuan, China, between 18 January and 30 March 2020. We extracted demographics, clinical, laboratory data and consciousness level (as measured by the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score) from medical records. We used Cox proportional hazards regression, structural equation modelling and survival time analysis to compare people with different progressions of impaired consciousness. RESULTS: We enrolled 1,143 people (average age 51.3 ± standard deviation 17.1-year-old; 50.3% males), of whom 76 died. Increased mortality risk was identified in people with GCS score between 9 and 14 (hazard ratio (HR) 46.76, p 2 days, p = .028) had shorter survival times. CONCLUSION: Altered consciousness and its progression had a direct link with death in COVID-19. Interactions with age, oxygen saturation level and pH suggest possible pathophysiology. Further work to confirm these findings explore prevention strategies and interventions to decrease mortality is warranted

The potential neurological effect of the COVID-19 vaccines: A review

The coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has become a pandemic with people infected in almost all countries. The most efficient solution to end this pandemic is a safe and efficient vaccine. Classic platforms are used to develop vaccines including live‐attenuated vaccine, inactivated vaccine, protein subunit vaccine, and viral vector. Nucleic acid vaccine uses next‐generation platforms for their development. Vaccines are now rushing to the market. Eleven candidates are in advance development. These comprise inactivated vaccines, viral vector vaccine, nucleic acid vaccine, and the protein subunit vaccine platform, which are now quite advanced in trials in various geographic and ethnic populations. The reported severe adverse effects raised the worries about their safety. It becomes critical to know whether these vaccines will cause neurologic disorders like previously recognized vaccine‐related demyelinating diseases, fever‐induced seizure, and other possible deficits. We reviewed the most promising COVID‐2 vaccines with a particular interest in mechanism(s) and adverse effect(s). We exemplify potential neurological problems these vaccines could cause by looking at previous studies. The current evidence indicated a minor risk of the acute neurological disorders after the application. The observation of the long‐time effect is still needed

Charged pions from Ni on Ni collisions between 1 and 2 AGeV

Charged pions from Ni + Ni reactions at 1.05, 1.45 and 1.93 AGeV are measured with the FOPI detector. The mean $\pi^{\pm}$ multiplicities per mean number of participants increase with beam energy, in accordance with earlier studies of the Ar + KCl and La + La systems. The pion kinetic energy spectra have concave shape and are fitted by the superposition of two Boltzmann distributions with different temperatures. These apparent temperatures depend only weakly on bombarding energy. The pion angular distributions show a forward/backward enhancement at all energies, but not the $\Theta = 90^0$ enhancement which was observed in case of the Au + Au system. These features also determine the rapidity distributions which are therefore in disagreement with the hypothesis of one thermal source. The importance of the Coulomb interaction and of the pion rescattering by spectator matter in producing these phenomena is discussed.Comment: 22 pages, Latex using documentstyle[12pt,a4,epsfig], to appear in Z. Phys.

Neurological complications during the Omicron COVID-19 wave in China: A cohort study

Background and purpose: The aim was to investigate the neurological complications associated with coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) during the 2022 Omicron wave. Methods and analysis: The medical records of a cohort of people admitted to neurological wards of three participating tertiary centres in Sichuan from 12 December 2022 to 12 January 2023 were reviewed. Demographics and clinical data were obtained and analysed with an interest in COVID-19-related new-onset or worse neurological symptoms. The current data were also compared in two centres with similar data from the same period 12 months earlier. Results: In all, 790 people were enrolled, of whom 436 were positive for COVID-19. Ninety-nine had new onset COVID-related neurological problems, or their known neurological condition deteriorated during the wave. There was a significant difference in demographics from the findings amongst admissions 12 months earlier as there was an increase in the average age, the incidence of encephalitis and encephalopathy, and mortality rates. One hundred and one received COVID-specific antivirals, intravenous glucocorticoids and intravenous immunoglobulin therapy. No differences were seen between these and those who did not use them. Conclusion: New-onset neurological conditions, particularly encephalitis and encephalopathy, increased significantly during this period. Deterioration of existing neurological conditions, such as seizure exacerbation, was also observed. A large-scale treatment trial of people with COVID-19 infection presenting with neurological disorders is still needed

A Joint Local and Global Deep Metric Learning Method for Caricature Recognition

Caricature recognition is a novel, interesting, yet challenging problem. Due to the exaggeration and distortion, there is a large cross-modal gap between photographs and caricatures, making it nontrivial to match the features of photographs and caricatures. To address the problem, a joint local and global metric learning method (LGDML) is proposed. First, joint local and global feature representation is learnt with convolutional neural networks to find both discriminant features of local facial parts and global distinctive features of the whole face. Next, in order to fuse the local and global similarities of features, a unified feature representation and similarity measure learning framework is proposed. Various methods are evaluated on the caricature recognition task. We have verified that both local and global features are crucial for caricature recognition. Moreover, experimental results show that, compared with the state-of-the-art methods, LGDML can obtain superior performance in terms of Rank-1 and Rank-10

Electrostatically gated membrane permeability in inorganic protocells

Although several strategies are now available to produce functional microcompartments analogous to primitive cell-like structures, little progress has been made in generating protocell constructs with self-controlled membrane permeability. Here we describe the preparation of water-dispersible colloidosomes based on silica nanoparticles and delineated by a continuous semipermeable inorganic membrane capable of self-activated, electrostatically gated permeability. We use crosslinking and covalent grafting of a pH-responsive copolymer to generate an ultrathin elastic membrane that exhibits selective release and uptake of small molecules. This behaviour, which depends on the charge of the copolymer coronal layer, serves to trigger enzymatic dephosphorylation reactions specifically within the protocell aqueous interior. This system represents a step towards the design and construction of alternative types of artificial chemical cells and protocell models based on spontaneous processes of inorganic self-organization

Fast interior point solution of quadratic programming problems arising from PDE-constrained optimization

Interior point methods provide an attractive class of approaches for solving linear, quadratic and nonlinear programming problems, due to their excellent efficiency and wide applicability. In this paper, we consider PDE-constrained optimization problems with bound constraints on the state and control variables, and their representation on the discrete level as quadratic programming problems. To tackle complex problems and achieve high accuracy in the solution, one is required to solve matrix systems of huge scale resulting from Newton iteration, and hence fast and robust methods for these systems are required. We present preconditioned iterative techniques for solving a number of these problems using Krylov subspace methods, considering in what circumstances one may predict rapid convergence of the solvers in theory, as well as the solutions observed from practical computations

New onset neurologic events in people with COVID-19 infection in three regions in China

OBJECTIVE: To investigate new-onset neurologic impairments associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). METHODS: A retrospective multicenter cohort study conducted between 18 January and 20 March 2020 including people with confirmed COVID-19 from 56 hospitals officially designated in three Chinese regions; data were extracted from medical records. New-onset neurologic events as assessed by neurology consultants based on manifestations, clinical examination and investigations, in which critical events included disorders of consciousness, stroke, CNS infection, seizures and status epilepticus. RESULTS: We enrolled 917 people with average age 48.7 years and 55% were male. The frequency of new onset critical neurologic events was 3.5% (32/917) overall and 9.4% (30/319) among those with severe or critical COVID-19. These were impaired consciousness (n=25) or/and stroke (n=10). The risk of critical neurologic events was highly associated with age above 60 years and previous history of neurological conditions. Non-critical events were seen in less than 1% (7/917), including muscle cramp, unexplained headache, occipital neuralgia, tic and tremor. Brain CT in 28 people led to new findings in nine. Findings from lumbar puncture in three with suspected CNS infection, unexplained headache or severe occipital neuralgia were unremarkable. CONCLUSIONS: People with COVID-19 aged over 60 and neurologic comorbidities were at higher risk of developing critical neurologic impairment, mainly impaired consciousness and cerebrovascular accidents. Brain CT should be considered when new-onset brain injury is suspected, especially in people under sedation or showing an unexplained decline in consciousness. Evidence of direct acute insult of SARS-COV-2 to the CNS is still lacking

TRPV3 and TRPV4 ion channels are not major contributors to mouse heat sensation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The discovery of heat-sensitive Transient Receptor Potential Vanilloid (TRPV) ion channels provided a potential molecular explanation for the perception of innocuous and noxious heat stimuli. TRPV1 has a significant role in acute heat nociception and inflammatory heat hyperalgesia. Yet, substantial innocuous and noxious heat sensitivity remains in TRPV1 knockout animals. Here we investigated the role of two related channels, TRPV3 and TRPV4, in these capacities. We studied TRPV3 knockout animals on both C57BL6 and 129S6 backgrounds, as well as animals deficient in both TRPV3 and TRPV4 on a C57BL6 background. Additionally, we assessed the contributions of TRPV3 and TRPV4 to acute heat nociception and inflammatory heat hyperalgesia during inhibition of TRPV1.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>TRPV3 knockout mice on the C57BL6 background exhibited no obvious alterations in thermal preference behavior. On the 129S6 background, absence of TRPV3 resulted in a more restrictive range of occupancy centered around cooler floor temperatures. TRPV3 knockout mice showed no deficits in acute heat nociception on either background. Mice deficient in both TRPV3 and TRPV4 on a C57BL6 background showed thermal preference behavior similar to wild-type controls on the thermal gradient, and little or no change in acute heat nociception or inflammatory heat hyperalgesia. Masking of TRPV1 by the TRPV1 antagonist JNJ-17203212 did not reveal differences between C57BL6 animals deficient in TRPV3 and TRPV4, compared to their wild-type counterparts.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our results support the notion that TRPV3 and TRPV4 likely make limited and strain-dependent contributions to innocuous warm temperature perception or noxious heat sensation, even when TRPV1 is masked. These findings imply the existence of other significant mechanisms for heat perception.</p