The Genetic Role of Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a well-known genetic disorder that affects the way a person feels, thinks, and behaves. Individuals with this disease can undergo psychotic, negative, or cognitive symptoms, which are all at a risk of being misdiagnosed. This research was conducted to determine the genes and proteins that are involved in the development of schizophrenia. Not only are people at a risk of developing schizophrenia when they have specific genes and proteins, but mutations of other genes can also cause an increased risk of developing this disease. While schizophrenia is known to be a highly hereditary disease, epigenetics also plays a key role in the development of this disease. Epigenetics is described as the study of how your environment and behaviors can affect how your genes work. These factors can lead to more complications and changes in genes and genomes, and once these genes become modified, they can be easily transferred hereditarily within their family. Most treatments for schizophrenia include antipsychotic medications and psychosocial treatments, but family and education support and assertive community treatments are also highly used. CRISPR-associated nuclease 9 is a new technological advancement that manipulates the non-coding regions in a person’s DNA and works to correct mutations in genes. With mutations in the ncRNA’s in schizophrenia, this new technology will be able to edit these mutations and be a useful tool in schizophrenia research. While new advancements have been made in determining the reason for the development of schizophrenia, there is still no known cure for the disease

Reliability

This special volume of Statistical Sciences presents some innovative, if not provocative, ideas in the area of reliability, or perhaps more appropriately named, integrated system assessment. In this age of exponential growth in science, engineering and technology, the capability to evaluate the performance, reliability and safety of complex systems presents new challenges. Today's methodology must respond to the ever-increasing demands for such evaluations to provide key information for decision and policy makers at all levels of government and industry--problems ranging from international security to space exploration. We, the co-editors of this volume and the authors, believe that scientific progress in reliability assessment requires the development of processes, methods and tools that combine diverse information types (e.g., experiments, computer simulations, expert knowledge) from diverse sources (e.g., scientists, engineers, business developers, technology integrators, decision makers) to assess quantitative performance metrics that can aid decision making under uncertainty. These are highly interdisciplinary problems. The principal role of statistical sciences is to bring statistical rigor, thinking and methodology to these problems.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/088342306000000664 in the Statistical Science (http://www.imstat.org/sts/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Development and preliminary evaluation of a novel low cost VR-based upper limb stroke rehabilitation platform using Wii technology.

Abstract Purpose: This paper proposes a novel system (using the Nintendo Wii remote) that offers customised, non-immersive, virtual reality-based, upper-limb stroke rehabilitation and reports on promising preliminary findings with stroke survivors. Method: The system novelty lies in the high accuracy of the full kinematic tracking of the upper limb movement in real-time, offering strong personal connection between the stroke survivor and a virtual character when executing therapist prescribed adjustable exercises/games. It allows the therapist to monitor patient performance and to individually calibrate the system in terms of range of movement, speed and duration. Results: The system was tested for acceptability with three stroke survivors with differing levels of disability. Participants reported an overwhelming connection with the system and avatar. A two-week, single case study with a long-term stroke survivor showed positive changes in all four outcome measures employed, with the participant reporting better wrist control and greater functional use. Activities, which were deemed too challenging or too easy were associated with lower scores of enjoyment/motivation, highlighting the need for activities to be individually calibrated. Conclusions: Given the preliminary findings, it would be beneficial to extend the case study in terms of duration and participants and to conduct an acceptability and feasibility study with community dwelling survivors. Implications for Rehabilitation Low-cost, off-the-shelf game sensors, such as the Nintendo Wii remote, are acceptable by stroke survivors as an add-on to upper limb stroke rehabilitation but have to be bespoked to provide high-fidelity and real-time kinematic tracking of the arm movement. Providing therapists with real-time and remote monitoring of the quality of the movement and not just the amount of practice, is imperative and most critical for getting a better understanding of each patient and administering the right amount and type of exercise. The ability to translate therapeutic arm movement into individually calibrated exercises and games, allows accommodation of the wide range of movement difficulties seen after stroke and the ability to adjust these activities (in terms of speed, range of movement and duration) will aid motivation and adherence - key issues in rehabilitation. With increasing pressures on resources and the move to more community-based rehabilitation, the proposed system has the potential for promoting the intensity of practice necessary for recovery in both community and acute settings.The National Health Service (NHS) London Regional Innovation Fund