Search results for "TASK"

Associations between neuropsychological performance and appetite-regulating hormones in anorexia nervosa and healthy controls: Ghrelin's putative rol…

2019

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a severe eating disorder accompanied by alterations in endocrinological circuits and deficits in neuropsychological performance. In this study, a series of appetite-regulating hormones (ghrelin, leptin, cholecystokinin, PYY, adiponectin, and visfatin) were measured under fasting conditions in female patients with AN and female healthy controls. All of the participants also underwent a battery of neuropsychological assessment [namely the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST), and the Stroop Color and Word Test (SCWT)]. As the main finding, we found that higher ghrelin levels predict better performance in the IGT. Ghrelin may be a putative m…

The role of (E)-6-chloro-3-(3-methyl-1-phenyl-1H-pyrazol-5-yl)-2-styrylquinazolin-4(3H)-one in the modulation of cannabinoidergic system. A pilot stu…

2018

Abstract Background Compounds acting on endocannabinoid system regulate different neuronal processes through the cannabinoid receptors activation. The main aim of this study was determining whether the 2-styrylquinazolin-4(3H)-one 5, a structural analogue of rimonabant, was able to counteract the behavioural signs of the activation of the endocannabinoidergic system induced by CP 55.940. Methods Behavioural assessment was carried out using the tetrad task and the novel object recognition test. The endocannabinoidergic system activation was possible by the administration of CP 55.940 and 30 min after rats were tested in the tetrad task for the evaluation of the antinociceptive-, cataleptic-,…

Conceptual framework for precision cancer medicine in Germany: Consensus statement of the Deutsche Krebshilfe working group ‘Molecular Diagnostics an…

2020

Precision cancer medicine (PCM) holds great promises to offer more effective therapies to patients based on molecular profiling of their individual tumours. Although the PCM approach seems intuitive, multiple conceptional and structural challenges interfere with the broad implementation of PCM into clinical practice. Accordingly, concerted national and international efforts are needed to guide the further development and broad adoption of PCM in Germany. With support of the 'German Cancer Aid' (Deutsche Krebshilfe [DKH]) a task force 'Molecular Diagnostics and Therapy' was implemented. In two workshops supported by the DKH, delegates from the fourteen comprehensive cancer centresidentified …

2017

Functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is a promising neuroimaging method for investigating networks of cortical regions over time. We propose a directed effective connectivity method (TPDC) allowing the capture of both time and frequency evolution of the brain’s networks using fNIRS data acquired from healthy subjects performing a continuous finger-tapping task. Using this method we show the directed connectivity patterns among cortical motor regions involved in the task and their significant variations in the strength of information flow exchanges. Intra and inter-hemispheric connections during the motor task with their temporal evolution are also provided. Characterisation of the …

Deep Learning Architectures for DNA Sequence Classification

2017

DNA sequence classification is a key task in a generic computational framework for biomedical data analysis, and in recent years several machine learning technique have been adopted to successful accomplish with this task. Anyway, the main difficulty behind the problem remains the feature selection process. Sequences do not have explicit features, and the commonly used representations introduce the main drawback of the high dimensionality. For sure, machine learning method devoted to supervised classification tasks are strongly dependent on the feature extraction step, and in order to build a good representation it is necessary to recognize and measure meaningful details of the items to cla…

Parallel Pairwise Epistasis Detection on Heterogeneous Computing Architectures

2016

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TPDS.2015.2460247. [Abstract] Development of new methods to detect pairwise epistasis, such as SNP-SNP interactions, in Genome-Wide Association Studies is an important task in bioinformatics as they can help to explain genetic influences on diseases. As these studies are time consuming operations, some tools exploit the characteristics of different hardware accelerators (such as GPUs and Xeon Phi coprocessors) to reduce the runtime. Nevertheless, all these approaches are not able t…

Identifying Biomarkers for Biological Age: Geroscience and the ICFSR Task Force

2021

The International Conference on Frailty and Sarcopenia Research Task Force met in March 2020, in the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, to discuss strategies for advancing the interdisciplinary field of geroscience. Geroscience explores biological mechanisms of aging as targets for intervention that may delay the physiological consequences of aging, maintain function, and prevent frailty and disability. Priorities for clinical practice and research include identifying and validating a range of biomarkers of the hallmarks of aging. Potential biomarkers discussed included markers of mitochondrial dysfunction, proteostasis, stem cell dysfunction, nutrient sensing, genomic instability, telomere d…

Exploring the neural correlates of the reversed letter effect: Evidence from left and right parietal patients.

2019

To investigate the hemispheric lateralization of attentional processes during visual search tasks depending on the stimulus material embedding the target, twelve patients with unilateral left (n = 7) or right (n = 5) parietal lesions and 20 age and education matched healthy controls (HC) were recruited. We used a visual search task for a uniquely tilted oblique bar embedded in an object shape 'N' or in its mirror reversal 'И'. The accuracy and the averaged reaction times (RTs) in each stimulus type ('N' or 'И') were analysed.\ud \ud HC presented significantly longer RTs when the target bar was embedded in 'N' among its mirror reversed 'И' (p < .05). This “reversed letter effect” was also…

Adolescent and adult mice display differential sensitivity to the effects of bupropion on the acquisition of a water maze task.

2017

Abstract Background Adolescence is characterized by major neurobiological changes, and the effects of some psychoactive drugs seem to differ between adolescents and adults. Bupropion, an antidepressant that is also used to treat nicotine addiction, induces behavioral actions in both adolescent and adult rodents. However, the effects of this drug on spatial ability have not been compared in animals at different stages of their development. The present study was conducted to assess the effects of bupropion on spatial learning and memory in adolescent and adult mice. Methods Adolescent (post-natal day: PND35-36) and adult (PND >65) NMRI mice received bupropion (10, 20 and 40 mg/kg) or saline d…

A role for TASK2 channels in the human immunological synapse.

2020

The immunological synapse is a transient junction that occurs when the plasma membrane of a T cell comes in close contact with an APC after recognizing a peptide from the antigen-MHC. The interaction starts when CRAC channels embedded in the T cell membrane open, flowing calcium ions into the cell. To counterbalance the ion influx and subsequent depolarization, Kv 1.3 and KCa3.1 channels are recruited to the immunological synapse, increasing the extracellular K+ concentration. These processes are crucial as they initiate gene expression that drives T cell activation and proliferation. The T cell-specific function of the K2P channel family member TASK2 channels and their role in autoimmune p…