Search results for "HM"

2017

The mammalian retina harbors a circadian clockwork that regulates vision and promotes healthiness of retinal neurons, mainly through directing the rhythmic release of the neurohormones dopamine-acting on dopamine D4 receptors-and melatonin-acting on MT1 and MT2 receptors. The gene Gnaz-a unique Gi/o subfamily member-was seen in the present study to be expressed in photoreceptors where its protein product Gαz shows a daily rhythm in its subcellular localization. Apart from subcellular localization, Gnaz displays a daily rhythm in expression-with peak values at night-in preparations of the whole retina, microdissected photoreceptors and photoreceptor-related pinealocytes. In retina, Gnaz rhyt…

Automatic detection and measurement of nuchal translucency.

2017

In this paper we propose a new methodology to support the physician both to identify automatically the nuchal region and to obtain a correct thickness measurement of the nuchal translucency. The thickness of the nuchal translucency is one of the main markers for screening of chromosomal defects such as trisomy 13, 18 and 21. Its measurement is performed during ultrasound scanning in the first trimester of pregnancy. The proposed methodology is mainly based on wavelet and multi resolution analysis. The performance of our method was analysed on 382 random frames, representing mid-sagittal sections, uniformly extracted from real clinical ultrasound videos of 12 patients. According to the groun…

Morphokinetic analysis and embryonic prediction for blastocyst formation through an integrated time-lapse system.

2015

Objective To describe the events associated with the blastocyst formation and implantation that occur in embryos during preimplantation development based on the largest sample size ever described with time-lapse monitoring. Design Observational, retrospective, single-center clinical study. Setting University-affiliated private IVF center. Patient(s) A total of 7,483 zygotes from 990 first treatments of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI; 627 of oocyte donor vs. 363 autologous oocyte cycles), of which 832 blastocysts were transferred. Intervention(s) No patient intervention. Embryos were cultured in a time-lapse monitoring system, and the embryos were transferred on day 5 after ICSI. Emb…

High HFE mutation incidence in idiopathic erythrocytosis.

2018

The TRPA1 Channel in the Cardiovascular System: Promising Features and Challenges.

2019

The transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) channel is a calcium-permeable nonselective cation channel in the plasma membrane that belongs to the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel superfamily. Recent studies have suggested that the TRPA1 channel plays an essential role in the development and progression of several cardiovascular conditions, such as atherosclerosis, heart failure, myocardial ischemia–reperfusion injury, myocardial fibrosis, arrhythmia, vasodilation, and hypertension. Activation of the TRPA1 channel has a protective effect against the development of atherosclerosis. Furthermore, TRPA1 channel activation elicits peripheral vasodilation and induces a biphasic bl…

Systematic ajmaline challenge in patients with long QT 3 syndrome caused by the most common mutation: a multicentre study

2016

Aims Overlap syndromes of long QT 3 syndrome (LQT3) and the Brugada syndrome (BrS) have been reported. Identification of patients with an overlapping phenotype is crucial before initiation of Class I antiarrhythmic drugs for LQT3. Aim of the present study was to elucidate the yield of ajmaline challenge in unmasking the Brugada phenotype in patients with LQT3 caused by the most common mutation, SCN5A-E1784K. Methods and results Consecutive families in tertiary referral centres diagnosed with LQT3 caused by SCN5A-E1784K were included in the study. Besides routine clinical work-up, ajmaline challenge was performed after informed consent. A total of 23 subjects (11 female, mean age 27 ± 14 yea…

Insufficient generation of Th17 cells in IL-23p19-deficient BALB/c mice protects against progressive cutaneous leishmaniasis

2017

Healing of leishmaniasis-a parasitic skin disease-is associated with high levels of secreted interferon (IFN)γ and IL-12 in resistant C57BL/6 mice and humans. Susceptible BALB/c mice predominantly react with a Th17/Th2/Treg-related immune response and finally succumb to infection. Previously, we showed that BALB/c IL-17A-/- mice are protected against Leishmania (L.) major infections, indicating that IL-17A-predominantly produced by Th17 cells-plays an important role for disease outcome. We now investigated DC-derived cytokines and finally identified IL-23p19 as key cytokine responsible for induction of Leishmania-specific Th17 cells that play an important role for progressive disease in sus…

Diagnostic and Therapeutic Approach to Sleep Disorders, High Blood Pressure and Cardiovascular Diseases. A Consensus Document by the Italian Society …

2021

Hypertension is a major contributor to fatal/nonfatal cardiovascular diseases, and timely identification and appropriate management of factors affecting hypertension and its control are mandatory public health issues. By inducing neurohormonal alterations and metabolic impairment, sleep disorders have an impact on a variety of cardiovascular risk factors, including hypertension, and ultimately increase the risk of cardiovascular events. There is evidence that qualitative and quantitative sleep disorders are associated with resistant hypertension and with impaired circadian blood pressure variations. However, sleep disturbances are often unrecognized, or heterogeneity exists in their managem…

Hippocampal theta phase-contingent memory retrieval in delay and trace eyeblink conditioning

2017

Hippocampal theta oscillations (3-12Hz) play a prominent role in learning. It has been suggested that encoding and retrieval of memories are supported by different phases of the theta cycle. Our previous study on trace eyeblink conditioning in rabbits suggests that the timing of the conditioned stimulus (CS) in relation to theta phase affects encoding but not retrieval of the memory trace. Here, we directly tested the effects of hippocampal theta phase on memory retrieval in two experiments conducted on adult female New Zealand White rabbits. In Experiment 1, animals were trained in trace eyeblink conditioning followed by extinction, and memory retrieval was tested by presenting the CS at t…

Penalized classification for optimal statistical selection of markers from high-throughput genotyping: application in sheep breeds

2018

The identification of individuals’ breed of origin has several practical applications in livestock and is useful in different biological contexts such as conservation genetics, breeding and authentication of animal products. In this paper, penalized multinomial regression was applied to identify the minimum number of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from high-throughput genotyping data for individual assignment to dairy sheep breeds reared in Sicily. The combined use of penalized multinomial regression and stability selection reduced the number of SNPs required to 48. A final validation step on an independent population was carried out obtaining 100% correctly classified individuals. …