High-resolution Chromosomal Microarray with Diagnostic Potential for Detecting Exon-level Copy Number Variations Using Targeted and Non-targeted Approaches.

Background: Copy number variations (CNVs) play an important role in human genetic disorders. Detection of exon-level CNVs is crucial for accurate clinical diagnosis. The CytoScan XON Array, a high-resolution microarray, was recently developed to detect exonic CNVs of various genes.

Interfractional body surface monitoring using daily cone-beam computed tomography imaging for pediatric adaptive proton therapy.

Background And Purpose: A novel method was developed to detect body surface changes on daily cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) and estimate the impact on proton plan quality for pediatric patients.

Materials And Methods: Simulation CT, daily CBCT, and repeat CT images were collected for 21 pediatric non-central nervous system (CNS) patients. Changes in the body surface in the proton beam path (ΔSurface) were calculated for each spot by comparing simulation CT with daily CBCT.

Predictive Model of Acute Rectal Toxicity in Prostate Cancer Treated With Radiotherapy.

Purpose: To aid personalized treatment selection, we developed a predictive model for acute rectal toxicity in patients with prostate cancer undergoing radiotherapy with photons and protons.

Materials And Methods: We analyzed a prospective multi-institutional cohort of 278 patients treated from 2012 to 2023 across 10 centers. Dosimetric and nondosimetric variables were collected, and key predictors were identified using purposeful feature selection.

Transient activation of YAP/TAZ confers resistance to morusin-induced apoptosis.

Background: The Hippo signaling pathway involves a kinase cascade that controls phosphorylation of the effector proteins YAP and TAZ, leading to regulation of cell growth, tissue homeostasis, and apoptosis. Morusin, a compound extracted from Morus alba, has shown potential in cancer therapy by targeting multiple signaling pathways, including the PI3K/Akt/mTOR, JAK/STAT, MAPK/ERK, and apoptosis pathways. This study explores the effects of morusin on YAP activation and its implications for apoptosis resistance.

Investigating Disembodiment-related Brain Activation by Interaction between Perspective-shifting and the Experience of Agency in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Possible Relationship with Interoceptive Abilities.

Objective: Many studies have explored sense of self in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, few have reported on their experience of "disembodiment." This study aimed to investigate the differences in brain activity between patients with ASD and neurotypicals (NTs) under conditions causing disembodiment and to examine the correlation between their interoceptive abilities and disembodiment-related brain activity.

Methods: 18 Participants with ASD and 21 NTs completed psychological evaluations, interoceptive abilities measurement, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Monte Carlo methods for medical imaging research.

In radiation-based medical imaging research, computational modeling methods are used to design and validate imaging systems and post-processing algorithms. Monte Carlo methods are widely used for the computational modeling as they can model the systems accurately and intuitively by sampling interactions between particles and imaging subject with known probability distributions. This article reviews the physics behind Monte Carlo methods, their applications in medical imaging, and available MC codes for medical imaging research.

A nonconjugated radical polymer enables bimodal memory and in-sensor computing operation.

This study reports intrinsic multimodal memristivity of a nonconjugated radical polymer with ambient stability. Organic memristive devices represent powerful candidates for biorealistic data storage and processing. However, there exists a substantial knowledge gap in realizing the synthetic biorealistic systems capable of effectively emulating the cooperative and multimodal activation processes in biological systems.

Automated identification of thrombectomy amenable vessel occlusion on computed tomography angiography using deep learning.

Introduction: We developed and externally validated a fully automated algorithm using deep learning to detect large vessel occlusion (LVO) in computed tomography angiography (CTA).

Method: A total of 2,045 patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent CTA were included in the development of our model. We validated the algorithm using two separate external datasets: one with 64 patients (external 1) and another with 313 patients (external 2), with ischemic stroke.

Decoding Patient Heterogeneity Influencing Radiation-Induced Brain Necrosis.

Purpose: In radiotherapy (RT) for brain tumors, patient heterogeneity masks treatment effects, complicating the prediction and mitigation of radiation-induced brain necrosis. Therefore, understanding this heterogeneity is essential for improving outcome assessments and reducing toxicity.

Experimental Design: We developed a clinically practical pipeline to clarify the relationship between dosimetric features and outcomes by identifying key variables.

Multi-institutional experimental validation of online adaptive proton therapy workflows.

To experimentally validate two online adaptive proton therapy (APT) workflows using Gafchromic EBT3 films and optically stimulated luminescent dosimeters (OSLDs) in an anthropomorphic head-and-neck phantom.A three-field proton plan was optimized on the planning CT of the head-and-neck phantom with 2.0 Gy(RBE) per fraction prescribed to the clinical target volume.

A framework for in-field and out-of-field patient specific secondary cancer risk estimates from treatment plans using the TOPAS Monte Carlo system.

. To allow the estimation of secondary cancer risks from radiation therapy treatment plans in a comprehensive and user-friendly Monte Carlo (MC) framework..

The Relationship Between Brain Activation for Taking Others' Perspective and Interoceptive Abilities in Autism Spectrum Disorder: An fMRI Study.

Objectives: In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we aimed to investigate the differences in brain activation between individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) individuals during perspective taking. We also examined the association between brain activation and empathic and interoceptive abilities.

Methods: During scanning, participants from the ASD (n=17) and TD (n=22) groups were shown pain stimuli and asked to rate the level of the observed pain from both self- and other-perspectives.

PIV-MyoMonitor: an accessible particle image velocimetry-based software tool for advanced contractility assessment of cardiac organoids.

Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cardiac organoids offer a versatile platform for personalized cardiac toxicity assessment, drug screening, disease modeling, and regenerative therapies. While previous image-based contractility analysis techniques allowed the assessment of contractility of two-dimensional cardiac models, they face limitations, including encountering high noise levels when applied to three-dimensional organoid models and requiring expensive equipment. Additionally, they offer fewer functional parameters compared to commercial software.

Optically stimulated luminescence dosimeters for simultaneous measurement of point dose and dose-weighted LET in an adaptive proton therapy workflow.

Purpose: To demonstrate the suitability of optically stimulated luminescence detectors (OSLDs) for accurate simultaneous measurement of the absolute point dose and dose-weighted linear energy transfer (LET) in an anthropomorphic phantom for experimental validation of daily adaptive proton therapy.

Methods: A clinically realistic intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) treatment plan was created based on a CT of an anthropomorphic head-and-neck phantom made of tissue-equivalent material. The IMPT plan was optimized with three fields to deliver a uniform dose to the target volume covering the OSLDs.

Design of Low-Noise CMOS Image Sensor Using a Hybrid-Correlated Multiple Sampling Technique.

We present a 320 × 240 CMOS image sensor (CIS) using the proposed hybrid-correlated multiple sampling (HMS) technique with an adaptive dual-gain analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The proposed HMS improves the noise characteristics under low illumination by adjusting the ADC gain according to the incident light on the pixels. Depending on whether it is less than or greater than 1/4 of the full output voltage range from pixels, either correlated multiple sampling or conventional-correlated double sampling (CDS) is used with different slopes of the ramping signals.

L-Type Amino Acid Transporter 1 (LAT1) Promotes PMA-Induced Cell Migration through mTORC2 Activation at the Lysosome.

The mTOR signaling pathway integrates signaling inputs from nutrients, including glucose and amino acids, which are precisely regulated by transporters depending on nutrient levels. The L-type amino acid transporter 1 (LAT1) affects the activity of mTORC1 through upstream regulators that sense intracellular amino acid levels. While mTORC1 activation by LAT1 has been thoroughly investigated in cultured cells, the effects of LAT1 expression on the activity of mTORC2 has scarcely been studied.

Large anatomical changes in head-and-neck cancers - A dosimetric comparison of online and offline adaptive proton therapy.

Purpose: This work evaluates an online adaptive (OA) workflow for head-and-neck (H&N) intensity-modulated proton therapy (IMPT) and compares it with full offline replanning (FOR) in patients with large anatomical changes.

Methods: IMPT treatment plans are created retrospectively for a cohort of eight H&N cancer patients that previously required replanning during the course of treatment due to large anatomical changes. Daily cone-beam CTs (CBCT) are acquired and corrected for scatter, resulting in 253 analyzed fractions.

TOPAS-imaging: extensions to the TOPAS simulation toolkit for medical imaging systems.

. The TOol for PArticle Simulation (TOPAS) is a Geant4-based Monte Carlo software application that has been used for both research and clinical studies in medical physics. So far, most users of TOPAS have focused on radiotherapy-related studies, such as modeling radiation therapy delivery systems or patient dose calculation.

Circadian gating of light-induced arousal in sleep.

Circadian rhythms and sleep homeostasis constitute the two-process model for daily sleep regulation. However, evidence for circadian control of sleep-wake cycles has been relatively short since clock-less animals often show sleep behaviors quantitatively comparable to wild-type. Here we examine sleep behaviors under different light-dark regimes and demonstrate that circadian clocks gate light-induced arousal.

A feasibility study on deep-neural-network-based dose-neutral dual-energy digital breast tomosynthesis.

Background: Diagnostic performance based on x-ray breast imaging is subject to breast density. Although digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) is reported to outperform conventional mammography in denser breasts, mass detection and malignancy characterization are often considered challenging yet.

Purpose: As an improved diagnostic solution to the dense breast cases, we propose a dual-energy DBT imaging technique that enables breast compositional imaging at comparable scanning time and patient dose compared to the conventional single-energy DBT.

Attention to number requires magnitude-specific inhibition.

Recent studies have shown that the ability to process number in the face of conflicting dimensions of magnitude is a crucial aspect of numerosity judgments, relying in part on the inhibition of the non-numerical dimensions. Here we report, for the first time, that these inhibitory control processes are specific to the conflicting dimension of magnitude. Using a non-symbolic numerical comparison task adapted to a conflict adaptation paradigm on a group of 82 adults, we show that congruency effects between numerical and non-numerical information were reduced only when the conflicting dimension was the same in the preceding incongruent trial.

OpenKBP-Opt: an international and reproducible evaluation of 76 knowledge-based planning pipelines.

To establish an open framework for developing plan optimization models for knowledge-based planning (KBP).Our framework includes radiotherapy treatment data (i.e.

MOQUI: an open-source GPU-based Monte Carlo code for proton dose calculation with efficient data structure.

Monte Carlo (MC) codes are increasingly used for accurate radiotherapy dose calculation. In proton therapy, the accuracy of the dose calculation algorithm is expected to have a more significant impact than in photon therapy due to the depth-dose characteristics of proton beams. However, MC simulations come at a considerable computational cost to achieve statistically sufficient accuracy.