Plos One
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The increasing recognition that the gut microbiota plays a central role in behavior and cognition suggests that the manipulation of microbial taxa through diet may provide a means by which behavior may be altered in a reproducible and consistent manner in order to achieve a beneficial outcome for the host. Resistant starch continues to receive attention as a dietary intervention that can benefit the host through mechanisms that include altering the intestinal microbiota. Given the interest in dietary approaches to improve health, the aim of this study was to investigate whether the use of dietary resistant starch in mice to alter the gut microbiota also results in a change in behavior. ⋯ These results indicate that diets based on resistant starch can be utilized to produce quantifiable changes in the gut microbiota and should be useful to "dial-in" a specific microbiome that is unique to a particular starch composition. However, undesirable effects can also be associated with resistant starch, including lack of weight gain and increased anxiety-like behaviors. These observations warrant careful consideration when developing diets rich in resistant starch in humans and animal models.
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The aim of this study was to investigate variant patterns of cortical venous oxygenation during status epilepticus (SE) using susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI). ⋯ SWI-related hyper- and deoxygenation patterns resemble ictal and postictal CBF changes within a range from globally increased to focally decreased perfusion. In all 26 patients the SWI patterns were in keeping with ictal hyperperfusion (hyperoxygenation patterns) or postictal hypoperfusion (deoxygenation patterns) respectively. A new finding of this study is that cortical venous patterns in SWI can be not only focally, but globally attenuated. SWI may thus be considered as an alternative contrast-free MR sequence to identify perfusion changes related to ictal or postictal conditions.
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Although several computer-aided computed tomography (CT) analysis methods have been reported to objectively assess the disease severity and progression of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), it is unclear which method is most practical. A universal severity classification system has not yet been adopted for IPF. ⋯ The measurement of NL% by threshold-based volumetric CT analysis may help improve IPF staging.
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Some researchers have raised concerns that pictorial health warning labels (HWLs) on cigarette packages may lead to message rejection and reduced effectiveness of HWL messages. This study aimed to determine how state reactance (i.e., negative affect due to perceived manipulation) in response to both pictorial and text-only HWLs is associated with other types of HWL responses and with subsequent cessation attempts. ⋯ Reactance towards HWLs does not appear to interfere with quitting, which is consistent with its being an indicator of concern, not a systematic effort to avoid HWL message engagement.
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Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) released from cancerous tissues has been found to harbor tumor-associated alterations and to represent the molecular composition of the tumor. Recent advances in technologies, especially in next-generation sequencing, enable the analysis of low amounts of cfDNA from body fluids. We analyzed the exomes of tumor tissue and matched serum samples to investigate the molecular representation of the tumor exome in cfDNA. ⋯ Although not all tissue variants could be confirmed in the matched serum, up to 57% of the tumor variants were reflected in matched cfDNA with mutations in PIK3CA, ALK, and PTEN as well as variants at COSMIC annotated sites in all six patients analyzed. Moreover, cfDNA revealed a mutation in MTOR, which was not detected in the matched tissue, potentially from an untested region of the heterogeneous primary tumor or from a distant metastatic clone. WES of cfDNA may provide additional complementary molecular information about clinically relevant mutations and the clonal heterogeneity of the tumors.