Obesity Associated With Symptomatic Remission in Clozapine-Treated Individuals With Treatment-Resistant Schizophrenia.

Background: Clozapine, indicated for use in treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS), comes with notable weight gain and metabolic side effects. Prior studies have suggested a link between weight gain and antipsychotic efficacy in schizophrenia. In this study, we seek to explore the relationship between obesity and clinical outcome in TRS on clozapine treatment.

Psychological resilience among emergency medical teams in Singapore.

Problem: Emergency medical teams (EMTs) responding to mass casualty incidents attend to casualties in a chaotic, high-pressure and resource-limited environment that is vastly different from their day-to-day work. The nature of mass casualty incidents and the work environment can impact psychological resilience, but the psychological resilience of members of EMTs has not been evaluated.

Context: In Singapore, EMTs are deployed from public hospitals, polyclinics and the Singapore Red Cross to disaster sites, where they triage, stabilize and treat casualties before evacuating them to public hospitals for further management.

Combining a diet rich in fermentable carbohydrates with metformin improves glycaemic control and reshapes the gut microbiota in people with prediabetes.

Metformin efficiently lowers blood glucose levels but leads to gastrointestinal side effects. However, whether dietary interventions can improve metformin tolerability and glucose-lowering efficacy remains unknown. Here we investigate the effects of pretreatment with a diet rich in fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols (FODMAPs) in combination with metformin on postprandial glycaemia and gut microbiota in people with prediabetes.

Neuroimaging Findings of CAR T-Cell-Associated Neurotoxicity: A Review.

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy has remarkable efficacy in treating refractory hematologic malignancies. However, CAR-T therapy may induce neurotoxic effects in some patients. Common symptoms of neurotoxicity range from early signs such as headache, confusion, delirium, and aphasia to severe manifestations such as seizures, motor weakness, increased intracranial pressure, cerebral edema, and coma.

Leveraging computational linguistics and machine learning for detection of ultra-high risk of mental health disorders in youths.

Mental illnesses often manifest through behavioral changes, with speech serving as a key medium for expressing thoughts and emotions. The use of computational linguistics on speech data in mental illnesses is a promising approach to uncover objective biomarkers for the early detection of mental illnesses. This study analyzed speech transcripts from 80 youths at ultra-high risk of psychosis (UHR) and 329 healthy controls, examining text features such as sentiment variability, cohesion, lexical sophistication, morphology, syntactic sophistication, and lexical diversity.

Coronary Artery Disease Risk Variant rs6903956 Links to Endothelial Dysfunction via Regulation.

Ischemic heart disease, particularly coronary artery disease (CAD), remain leading causes of mortality worldwide. The single nucleotide polymorphism rs6903956 on chromosome 6p24.1 has been identified as a susceptibility locus for CAD in East Asian populations through genome-wide association studies.

Urinary Inflammatory and Oxidative Stress Biomarkers as Indicators for the Clinical Management of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.

Oxidative stress and hypoxia-induced inflammation contribute to benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) progression. This study investigated the roles of urinary inflammatory and oxidative stress biomarkers in BPH patients. This prospective study enrolled 62 clinical BPH patients (33 treated medically, 29 surgically) and 20 controls.

Patient and Health Care Provider Perspectives of Cognitive Difficulties in Dialysis.

Introduction: Cognitive impairments (CIs) are common among patients on dialysis, compromising functional capacity, decision-making, and quality of life. Previous work is dominated by quantitative studies, leaving the everyday experience of these impairments and their practical implications poorly understood. This qualitative study explored patients' and providers' perspectives on the lived experience of cognitive difficulties, impacts on daily living and care delivery, and associated needs.

Atlas-scale metabolic activities inferred from single-cell and spatial transcriptomics.

Metabolism supplies energy, building blocks, and signaling molecules vital for cell function and communication, but methods to directly measure it at single-cell and/or spatial resolutions remain technically challenging and inaccessible for most researchers. Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics offer high-throughput data alternatives with a rich ecosystem of computational tools. Here, we present scCellFie, a computational framework to infer metabolic activities from human and mouse transcriptomic data at single-cell and spatial resolution.

Global Practice Variation in the Management of Infections: An International Cross-Sectional Survey of Clinicians.

Background: infections (CDIs) are associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and economic burden globally. International guidelines conflict on various aspects of management, so we conducted a clinician survey to evaluate global practice variability on CDI diagnosis, treatment, and prophylaxis to inform future clinical trials.

Methods: An anonymous online survey through REDCap was distributed through multiple channels.

Schizophrenia: Genetics, neurological mechanisms, and therapeutic approaches.

Schizophrenia is a complex psychiatric disorder marked by positive and negative symptoms, leading to mood disturbances, cognitive impairments, and social withdrawal. While anti-psychotic medications remain the cornerstone of treatment, they often fail to fully address certain symptoms. Additionally, treatment-resistant schizophrenia, affecting 30%-40% of patients, remains a substantial clinical challenge.

Metabolome-wide association identifies ferredoxin-1 (FDX1) as a determinant of cholesterol metabolism and cardiovascular risk in Asian populations.

The burden of cardiovascular disease is rising in the Asia-Pacific region, in contrast to falling cardiovascular disease mortality rates in Europe and North America. Here we perform quantification of 883 metabolites by untargeted mass spectroscopy in 8,124 Asian adults and investigate their relationships with carotid intima media thickness, a marker of atherosclerosis. Plasma concentrations of 3beta-hydroxy-5-cholestenoate (3BH5C), a cholesterol metabolite, were inversely associated with carotid intima media thickness, and Mendelian randomization studies supported a causal relationship between 3BH5C and coronary artery disease.

Presence of cortical lesions in older persons with multiple sclerosis and association with cognitive function.

Background: Cortical lesions (CL) have been reported and characterized in multiple sclerosis (MS), but their presence and association with cognitive function in older adults with MS (OAMS) have not been evaluated.

Objective: To quantify the presence of CL in OAMS and healthy controls. We hypothesized that compared to controls, OAMS would have more CL, and CL would be associated with worse cognition.

Accelerated iTBS with a personalised targeting method to treat negative symptoms of schizophrenia: A randomized controlled trial.

Background: The efficacy of non-invasive brain stimulation in ameliorating schizophrenia's negative symptoms remains to be validated. The mesocortical pathway, mostly comprising the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and prefrontal cortex, is the core neural circuit underlying negative symptoms. This study aimed to assess the clinical and biological effects of accelerated intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS) targeted to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), guided by personalised dlPFC-VTA functional connectivity (FC).

Integrated histopathology, spatial and single cell transcriptomics resolve cellular drivers of early and late alveolar damage in COVID-19.

The most common cause of death due to COVID-19 remains respiratory failure. Yet, our understanding of the precise cellular and molecular changes underlying lung alveolar damage is limited. Here, we integrate single cell transcriptomic data of COVID-19 and donor lung tissue with spatial transcriptomic data stratifying histopathological stages of diffuse alveolar damage.

Measuring the clinical dimensions of negative symptoms through the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale.

The negative symptoms of schizophrenia can determine functional outcome in patients. Despite its clinical significance, no treatment exists to date, as numerous pharmacological and non-pharmacological clinical trials have failed to demonstrate efficacy. Many of these trials evaluated negative symptoms as a single clinical construct.

Nuclear regulatory disturbances precede and predict the development of Type-2 diabetes in Asian populations.

To identify biomarkers and pathways to Type-2 diabetes (T2D), a major global disease, we completed array-based epigenome-wide association in whole blood in 5,709 Asian people. We found 323 Sentinel CpGs (from 314 genetic loci) that predict future T2D. The CpGs reveal coherent, nuclear regulatory disturbances in canonical immune activation pathways, as well as metabolic networks involved in insulin signalling, fatty acid metabolism and lipid transport, which are causally linked to development of T2D.

Predicting antipsychotic responsiveness using a machine learning classifier trained on plasma levels of inflammatory markers in schizophrenia.

We apply machine learning techniques to navigate the multifaceted landscape of schizophrenia. Our method entails the development of predictive models, emphasizing peripheral inflammatory biomarkers, which are classified into treatment response subgroups: antipsychotic-responsive, clozapine-responsive, and clozapine-resistant. The cohort comprises 146 schizophrenia patients (49 antipsychotics-responsive, 68 clozapine-responsive, 29 clozapine-resistant) and 49 healthy controls.

Utility of Digital Phenotyping Based on Wrist Wearables and Smartphones in Psychosis: Observational Study.

Background: Digital phenotyping provides insights into an individual's digital behaviors and has potential clinical utility.

Objective: In this observational study, we explored digital biomarkers collected from wrist-wearable devices and smartphones and their associations with clinical symptoms and functioning in patients with schizophrenia.

Methods: We recruited 100 outpatients with schizophrenia spectrum disorder, and we collected various digital data from commercially available wrist wearables and smartphones over a 6-month period.

Clinical evaluation of Nd:YAG capsulotomy on the light-adjustable intraocular lens.

Purpose: To investigate the safety and refractive outcomes of Nd:YAG capsulotomy in pseudophakic eyes with the light-adjustable intraocular lens (LAL) both before and after completing the light delivery device lock-in treatments.

Setting: Private practice in Orange, California.

Design: Retrospective, comparative study.

Decoding the blueprint of receptor binding by filoviruses through large-scale binding assays and machine learning.

Evidence suggests that bats are important hosts of filoviruses, yet the specific species involved remain largely unidentified. Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) is an essential entry receptor, with amino acid variations influencing viral susceptibility and species-specific tropism. Herein, we conducted combinatorial binding studies with seven filovirus glycoproteins (GPs) and NPC1 orthologs from 81 bat species.

Laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis (LASIK) surgery for a deaf patient: Communication strategies.

Purpose: To report a successful method of communication with deaf patients during topical anesthetic refractive surgery.

Observations: Nonverbal ways of communicating with deaf patients during cataract surgery have been reported. Here, we present a report of LASIK surgery for a deaf patient with topical anesthesia using similar communication methods.

Enabling tumor-specific drug delivery by targeting the Warburg effect of cancer.

Metabolic reprogramming of tumor cells is an emerging hallmark of cancer. Among all the changes in cancer metabolism, increased glucose uptake and the accumulation of lactate under normoxic conditions (the "Warburg effect") is a common feature of cancer cells. In this study, we develop a lactate-responsive drug delivery platform by targeting the Warburg effect.

Management of Spontaneous Epidural Hematoma in the Setting of Vaso-occlusive Crisis Among Pediatric Patients With Sickle Cell Disease: A Case Series and Scoping Literature Review.

Spontaneous epidural hematoma (EDH) is a rare sickle cell disease (SCD) complication. We report 3 pediatric cases with SCD and spontaneous EDH and 1 with subgaleal hematomas in the setting of vaso-occlusive crises and elaborate on their presentation and management. Through a scoping review, we identified 71 additional cases reported from 1970 to 2024 and highlighted notable features.