Search results for " Sleep"

2017

Moving and acting underwater within recreational or occupational activities requires intact executive functions, since they subserve higher cognitive functions such as successful self-regulation, coping with novel situations, and decision making; all of which could be influenced by nitrogen narcosis due to elevated partial pressure under water. However, specific executive functions that could provide a differentiated view on humans’ cognitive performance ability have not yet been systematically analyzed in full-water immersion, which is a research gap addressed within this approach to contribute to a better understanding of nitrogen narcosis. In this study, 20 young, healthy, and certified …

Association of basal forebrain volumes and cognition in normal aging.

2013

The basal forebrain cholinergic system (BFCS) is known to undergo moderate neurodegenerative alterations during normal aging and severe atrophy in Alzheimer's disease (AD). It has been suggested that functional and structural alterations of the BFCS mediate cognitive performance in normal aging and AD. But, it is still unclear to what extend age-associated cognitive decline can be related to BFCS in normal aging. We analyzed the relationship between BFCS volume and cognition using MRI and a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery in a cohort of 43 healthy elderly subjects spanning the age range from 60 to 85 years. Most notably, we found significant associations between general intell…

Early life stress programming of NG2+ glia transcriptome alters functional properties of voltage gated sodium (Nav) channels and cognitive performance

2020

AbstractThe precise mechanisms underlying the detrimental effects of early life stress (ELS) on adult mental health remain still elusive. To date, most studies have exclusively targeted neuronal populations and not considered neuron-glia crosstalk as a crucially important element for the integrity of stress-related brain function. Here, we have investigated the impact of ELS on a glial subpopulation with unique properties in brain homeostasis, the NG2+ cells. ELS shifted the NG2+ transcriptome towards more mature stages, and these transcriptional effects were dependent on stress-induced glucocorticoids. The functional relevance of one candidate gene, Scn7a, could be confirmed by an increase…

In partenza verso il majhul. Italiani ed egiziani in fuga per Alessandria d'Egitto

2019

This article analyzes two novels set in Alexandria. The first one is "Cortile a Cleopatra" by the Italian writer Fausta Cialente. The second one is "Nobody sleeps in Alexandria" (Lâ ahad yanâm fî'l-Iskandariyya) by Ibrahim Abdel Meguid. The analysis focus on actions that characterize the genre of travel literature in which the traveler is expected to perform two actions: leaving then returning. If the traveler does not come back to the starting point, his experience is not considered as "travel", rather as "change of residence". But it does not always work out that way. In the two novels, the protagonists leave with intentions of ever coming back. At the same time, their departure includes …

Predicting 19F NMR Chemical Shifts: A Combined Computational and Experimental Study of a Trypanosomal Oxidoreductase–Inhibitor Complex

2020

Abstract The absence of fluorine from most biomolecules renders it an excellent probe for NMR spectroscopy to monitor inhibitor–protein interactions. However, predicting the binding mode of a fluorinated ligand from a chemical shift (or vice versa) has been challenging due to the high electron density of the fluorine atom. Nonetheless, reliable 19F chemical‐shift predictions to deduce ligand‐binding modes hold great potential for in silico drug design. Herein, we present a systematic QM/MM study to predict the 19F NMR chemical shifts of a covalently bound fluorinated inhibitor to the essential oxidoreductase tryparedoxin (Tpx) from African trypanosomes, the causative agent of African sleepi…

turbinate surgery by radiofrequency for sleep-disordered breathing

2003

Obesity and intermittent hypoxia increase tumor growth in a mouse model of sleep apnea.

2012

Background: Intermittent hypoxia and obesity which are two pathological conditions commonly found in patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), potentially enhance cancer progression. Objective: To investigate whether obesity and/or intermittent hypoxia (IH) mimicking OSA affect tumor growth. Methods: A subcutaneous melanoma was induced in 40 mice [22 obese (40–45 g) and 18 lean (20–25 g)] by injecting 106 B16F10 cells in the flank. Nineteen mice (10 obese/9 lean) were subjected to IH (6 h/day for 17 days). A group of 21 mice (12 obese/9 lean) were kept under normoxia. At day 17, tumors were excised, weighed and processed to quantify necrosis and endothelial expression of vascular endothe…

Fatigue, sleep, and nocturnal complaints in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

2012

Background and purpose: Fatigue is a common symptom in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Although sleep disturbances are a candidate factor that may interfere with fatigue in patients with ALS, the role of sleep-related abnormalities in determining fatigue in ALS is unknown. Objective: To evaluate the frequency and determinants of fatigue in a group of 91 consecutive patients with ALS, with special attention to the relationship between fatigue and sleep problems. Methods: Measures included the Fatigue Severity Scale (FSS), Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS), ALS Functional Rating ScaleRevised (ALSFRS-R), and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Results: The…

2021

Background: Normal aging is associated with working memory decline. A decrease in working memory performance is associated with age-related changes in functional activation patterns in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Cognitive training can improve cognitive performance in healthy older adults. We implemented a cognitive training study to assess determinants of generalization of training gains to untrained tasks, a key indicator for the effectiveness of cognitive training. We aimed to investigate the association of resting-state functional connectivity (FC) of DLPFC with working memory performance improvement and cognitive gains after the training.Method: A sample of 60 healthy o…

A Deep Learning Model for Automatic Sleep Scoring using Multimodality Time Series

2021

Sleep scoring is a fundamental but time-consuming process in any sleep laboratory. Automatic sleep scoring is crucial and urgent to help address the increasing unmet need for sleep research. Therefore, this paper aims to develop an end-to-end deep learning architecture using raw polysomnographic recordings to automate sleep scoring. The proposed model adopts two-dimensional convolutional neural networks (2D-CNN) to automatically learn features from multi-modality signals, together with a "squeeze and excitation" block for recalibrating channel-wise feature responses. The learnt representations are finally fed to a softmax classifier to generate predictions for each sleep stage. The model pe…