Publications by authors named "Annie Cheng"

Increases in impulsivity and negative affect (e.g., neuroticism) are common during adolescence and are both associated with risk for alcohol-use initiation and other risk behaviors.

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Objectives: Social support is associated with myriad health benefits, including recovery from alcohol use disorder (AUD). Understanding its neural features may aid in intervention development. However, most neuroimaging studies investigating social support do not consider potential neuroanatomical differences related to sex and AUD, even though both factors have been related to social support.

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Impulsivity is a multifaceted construct that typically increases during adolescence and is implicated in risk for substance use disorders that develop later in life. Here, we take a multivariate approach to identify latent dimensions of impulsivity, broadly defined, among youth enrolled in the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study and explore associations with individual differences in demographics, substance-use initiation and canonical resting state networks (N=11,872, ages ~9-10). Using principal component analysis, we identified eight latent impulsivity dimensions, the top three of which together accounted for the majority of the variance across all impulsivity assessments.

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Wildfires emit large amounts of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) into the atmosphere. As PAHs emitted from anthropogenic sources are known to accumulate in urban surface grime present on building exteriors and windows, we hypothesized that PAH-containing wildfire smoke plumes could similarly increase PAH grime loadings. To explore this hypothesis, we coupled analysis of PAHs in grime samples collected from August to November 2021 in two historically smoke-affected Canadian cities, Calgary and Kamloops, with contemporaneous field- and model-based indicators of wildfire influence.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study assesses surgical management of pediatric lower extremity vascular injuries (PLEVI) at adult versus pediatric trauma centers.
  • Between 2009 and 2022, data from 79 patients were reviewed, focusing on outcomes like amputation and fasciotomy rates.
  • Results show that although injury patterns varied between centers, overall outcomes were similar, indicating that PLEVI can be effectively treated in both types of facilities.
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The amount of SARS-CoV-2 in a sample is often measured using Ct values. However, the same Ct value may correspond to different viral loads on different platforms and assays, making them difficult to compare from study to study. To address this problem, we developed , a Python package that converts Ct values to viral loads for any RT-qPCR assay/platform.

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Article Synopsis
  • Scientists are working on using special types of stem cells called Long-term reconstituting haematopoietic stem cells (LT-HSCs) to help treat blood problems through transplants.
  • One challenge is that LT-HSCs are hard to find and don’t live long in lab conditions, but researchers have made progress in keeping them alive using special support systems.
  • They created a new game-changing environment using soft materials that help these LT-HSCs survive and even support gene editing, which could improve treatment for blood disorders!
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The effect of freeze-thaw on SARS-CoV-2 viral viability is not well established. We isolated virus from 31 split clinical samples cultured fresh or after a 7- or 17/18-day freeze. We found that freeze-thaw did not significantly affect viral culture isolation.

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Background: Pediatric lower extremity vascular injury (PLEVI) is uncommon. Though epidemiologic studies exist, the availability of granular data is sparse. Additionally, few studies compare the management between adult (ATC) and pediatric (PTC) trauma centers.

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is an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) risk gene and encodes a voltage-gated sodium channel. However, the impact of ASD-associated SCN2A variants on human neuron development is unknown. We studied SCN2A using isogenic induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and patient-derived iPSCs harboring a R607* truncating variant.

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Background: Individual differences in reward processing are central to heightened risk-taking behaviors during adolescence, but there is inconsistent evidence for the relationship between risk-taking phenotypes and the neural substrates of these behaviors.

Methods: Here, we identify latent features of reward in an attempt to provide a unifying framework linking together aspects of the brain and behavior during early adolescence using a multivariate pattern learning approach. Data (N = 8295; n male = 4190; n female = 4105) were acquired as part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study and included neuroimaging (regional neural activity responses during reward anticipation) and behavioral (e.

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Objectives: The sexually transmitted infections, (CT), (NG), (TV), and (MG), have similar risk factors and symptoms, supporting use of a quadruplex test as an efficient diagnostic modality.We assessed the clinical and analytical performance of the Abbott Alinity m STI assay to detect these pathogens.

Design And Methods: Urine and genital swabs from 142 patient samples were tested from an adult outpatient population in the Northeast United States.

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Oligonucleotide-functionalized graphene biosensors show immense promise for use as label-free point of care devices for detection of nucleic acid biomarkers at clinically relevant levels. Graphene-based nucleic acid sensors can be fabricated at low cost and have been shown to reach limits of detection in the attomolar range. Here we demonstrate devices functionalized with 22mer or 8omer DNA probes are capable of detecting full length genomic HIV-1 subtype B RNA, with a limit of detection below 1 aM in nuclease free water.

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Human neuroimaging studies have revealed a dedicated cortical system for visual scene processing. But what is a "scene"? Here, we use a stimulus-driven approach to identify a stimulus feature that selectively drives cortical scene processing. Specifically, using fMRI data from BOLD5000, we examined the images that elicited the greatest response in the cortical scene processing system, and found that there is a common "vertical luminance gradient" (VLG), with the top half of a scene image brighter than the bottom half; moreover, across the entire set of images, VLG systematically increases with the neural response in the scene-selective regions (Study 1).

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There are hundreds of risk genes associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but signaling networks at the protein level remain unexplored. We use neuron-specific proximity-labeling proteomics (BioID2) to identify protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks for 41 ASD risk genes. Neuron-specific PPI networks, including synaptic transmission proteins, are disrupted by de novo missense variants.

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Objective: To define the relationship of SARS-CoV-2 antigen, viral load determined by RT-qPCR, and viral culture detection. Presumptively, viral culture can provide a surrogate measure for infectivity of sampled individuals and thereby inform how and where to most appropriately deploy antigen and nucleic acid amplification-based diagnostic testing modalities.

Methods: We compared the antigen testing results from three lateral flow and one microfluidics assay to viral culture detection and viral load determination performed in parallel in up to 189 nasopharyngeal swab samples positive for SARS-CoV-2.

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COVID-19 symptomology may overlap with other circulating respiratory viruses that may also cause severe disease and for which there are specific and potentially life-saving treatments. The Abbott Alinity m Resp-4-Plex assay is a multiplex PCR assay that simultaneously detects and differentiates infection with SARS-CoV-2, influenza A, influenza B, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). We characterized its accuracy, precision, and analytical sensitivity.

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The continued need for molecular testing for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the potential for self-collected saliva as an alternative to nasopharyngeal (NP) swabs for sample acquisition led us to compare saliva to NP swabs in an outpatient setting without restrictions to avoid food, drink, smoking, or tooth-brushing. A total of 385 pairs of NP and saliva specimens were obtained, the majority from individuals presenting for initial evaluation, and were tested on two high-sensitivity reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) platforms, the Abbott m2000 and Abbott Alinity m (both with limits of detection [LoD] of 100 copies of viral RNA/ml). Concordance between saliva and NP swabs was excellent overall (Cohen's κ = 0.

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Despite over two decades of research on the neural mechanisms underlying human visual scene, or place, processing, it remains unknown what exactly a "scene" is. Intuitively, we are always inside a scene, while interacting with the outside of objects. Hence, we hypothesize that one diagnostic feature of a scene may be concavity, portraying "inside", and predict that if concavity is a scene-diagnostic feature, then: 1) images that depict concavity, even non-scene images (e.

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Background: Resolving the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic requires diagnostic testing to determine which individuals are infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The current gold standard is to perform reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (PCR) on nasopharyngeal samples. Best-in-class assays demonstrate a limit of detection (LoD) of approximately 100 copies of viral RNA per milliliter of transport media.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted worldwide supplies of viral transport media (VTM) due to widespread demand for SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing. In response to this ongoing shortage, we began production of VTM in-house in support of diagnostic testing in our hospital network. As our diagnostic laboratory was not equipped for reagent production, we took advantage of space and personnel that became available due to closure of the research division of our medical center.

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The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has caused a severe international shortage of the nasopharyngeal swabs that are required for collection of optimal specimens, creating a critical bottleneck in the way of high-sensitivity virological testing for COVID-19. To address this crisis, we designed and executed an innovative, radically cooperative, rapid-response translational-research program that brought together healthcare workers, manufacturers, and scientists to emergently develop and clinically validate new swabs for immediate mass production by 3D printing. We performed a rigorous multi-step preclinical evaluation on 160 swab designs and 48 materials from 24 companies, laboratories, and individuals, and shared results and other feedback via a public data repository (http://github.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted worldwide supplies of viral transport media (VTM) due to widespread demand for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reverse transcription-PCR (RT-PCR) testing. In response to this ongoing shortage, we began production of VTM in-house in support of diagnostic testing in our hospital network. As our diagnostic laboratory was not equipped for reagent production, we took advantage of space and personnel that became available due to closure of the research division of our medical center.

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