Therapeutic Targets of Probiotics in Parkinson Disease: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Introduction: Parkinson disease is the world's second most prevalent neurological disease. In this disease, intracytoplasmic neuronal inclusions are observed in enteric neurons in the gastrointestinal tract, and the composition of the intestinal microbiome is altered. These changes correlate with the motor phenotype. A systematic review was conducted to determine the effect of using probiotics in Parkinson disease. Methods: Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, ScienceDirect, and Ovid-LWW were searched until April 2021. A total of 27395 records were found according to inclusion and exclusion criteria with the following outcomes: Parkinson disease rating, oxidative stress, and gastrointestinal system markers. Data search, article selection, and data extraction assessments were performed according to the PRISMA (preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses) guidelines. The Jadad scale was used to rate the evidence's quality. Results: Our study information was gathered from 5 randomized controlled trials involving 350 individuals with Parkinson disease receiving probiotic supplements. Parkinson disease rating and non-motor symptoms test were performed in the samples. Also, oxidative stress (glutathione, malondialdehyde) and gastrointestinal system symptoms (bowel opening frequency, gut transit time, complete bowel movement, spontaneous bowel movements) were evaluated during 4-12 weeks of using probiotics in these patients. Conclusion: While all high-quality studies demonstrate improvement in disease symptoms of the patients, currently sufficient data are not available to recommend the use of probiotics for people with Parkinson disease in clinical practice.

Deep Learning-Based Artificial Intelligence Can Differentiate Treatment-Resistant and Responsive Depression Cases with High Accuracy.

Background: Although there are many treatment options available for depression, a large portion of patients with depression are diagnosed with treatment-resistant depression (TRD), which is characterized by an inadequate response to antidepressant treatment. Identifying the TRD population is crucial in terms of saving time and resources in depression treatment. Recently several studies employed various methods on EEG datasets for automatic depression detection or treatment outcome prediction. However, no previous study has used the deep learning (DL) approach and EEG signals for detecting treatment resistance. Method: 77 patients with TRD, 43 patients with non-TRD, and 40 healthy controls were compared using GoogleNet convolutional neural network and DL on EEG data. Additionally, Class Activation Maps (CAMs) acquired from the TRD and non-TRD groups were used to obtain distinctive regions for classification. Results: GoogleNet classified the healthy controls and non-TRD group with 88.43%, the healthy controls and TRD subjects with 89.73%, and the TRD and non-TRD group with 90.05% accuracy. The external validation accuracy for the TRD-non-TRD classification was 73.33%. Finally, the CAM analysis revealed that the TRD group contained dominant features in class detection of deep learning architecture in almost all electrodes. Limitations: Our study is limited by the moderate sample size of clinical groups and the retrospective nature of the study. Conclusion: These findings suggest that EEG-based deep learning can be used to classify treatment resistance in depression and may in the future prove to be a useful tool in psychiatry practice to identify patients who need more vigorous intervention.

Neurocognition across bipolar disorder phases compared to healthy subjects.

INTRODUCTION: Bipolar disorder (BD) is associated with cognitive abnormalities that may persist during euthymia and are linked to poor occupational performance. The cognitive differences between phases of BD are not well known. Therefore, a cross-sectional study with a relatively large population was conducted to evaluate the differences among BD phases in a wide range of neurocognitive parameters. METHODS: Neuropsychological profile of 169 patients with a diagnosis of BD in manic, depressive, mixed, and euthymic phases between the ages of 18 and 70 years were compared to 45 healthy individuals' between ages of 24 and 69 years. The working memory (digit-span backward test), face recognition, executive functions (verbal fluency and Stroop test), face recognition, and visual and verbal memory (immediate and delayed recall) were evaluated. For BD subgroup analyses, we used the Kruskal-Wallis (KW) test. Then, for the comparison of BD versus healthy individuals, we used the Mann-Whitney U (MWU) test. RESULTS: Analyses based on non-parametric tests showed impairments in BD for all tests. There were no significant differences between phases. CONCLUSION: Cognitive performance in patients with BD appears to be mostly unrelated to the phase of the disorder, implying that cognitive dysfunction in BD is present even during remission.

Application of Hybrid DeepLearning Architectures for Identification of Individuals with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Based on EEG Data.

Objective: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a highly common psychiatric disorder. The symptoms of this condition overlap and co-occur with those of other psychiatric illnesses, making diagnosis difficult. The availability of biomarkers could be useful for aiding in diagnosis, although prior neuroimaging studies were unable to provide such biomarkers. Method: In this study, patients with OCD were classified from healthy controls using 2 different hybrid deep learning models: one-dimensional convolutional neural networks (1DCNN) together with long-short term memory (LSTM) and gradient recurrent units (GRU), respectively. Results: Both models exhibited exceptional classification accuracies in cross-validation and external validation phases. The mean classification accuracies in the cross-validation stage were 90.88% and 85.91% for the 1DCNN-LSTM and 1DCNN-GRU models, respectively. The inferior frontal, temporal, and occipital electrodes were predominant in providing discriminative features. Conclusion: Our findings underscore the potential of hybrid deep learning architectures utilizing EEG data to effectively differentiate patients with OCD from healthy controls. This promising approach holds implications for advancing clinical decision-making by offering valuable insights into diagnostic markers for OCD.

Enhancing CAR-T cells: unleashing lasting impact potential with phytohemagglutinin activation in in vivo leukemia model.

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy holds great promise as an innovative immunotherapeutic approach for cancer treatment. To optimize the production and application of CAR-T cells, we evaluated the in vivo stability and efficacy capacities of CAR-T cells developed under different conditions. In this study, CAR-T cells were activated using Phytohemagglutinin (PHA) or anti-CD3&anti-CD28 and were compared in an in vivo CD19+B-cell cancer model in mouse groups. Our results demonstrated that CAR-T cells activated with PHA exhibited higher stability and anti-cancer efficacy compared to those activated with anti-CD3&anti-CD28. Specifically, CAR19BB-T cells activated with PHA exhibited continuous proliferation and long-term persistence without compromising their anti-cancer efficacy. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed prolonged overall survival in the CAR-T cell-treated groups compared to the only tumor group. Furthermore, specific LTR-targeted RT-PCR analysis confirmed the presence of CAR-T cells in the treated groups, with significantly higher levels observed in the CAR19BB-T (PHA) group compared to other groups. Histopathological analysis of spleen, kidney, and liver tissue sections indicated reduced inflammation and improved tissue integrity in the CAR-T cell-treated groups. Our findings highlight the potential benefits of using PHA as a co-stimulatory method for CAR-T cell production, offering a promising strategy to enhance their stability and persistence. These results provide valuable insights for the development of more effective and enduring immunotherapeutic approaches for cancer treatment. CAR-T cells activated with PHA may offer a compelling therapeutic option for advancing cancer immunotherapy in clinical applications.

Measuring the Awareness Levels of Individuals with Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders: Tertiary Prevention Standards and Development of Uskudar Result Awareness and Harm Perception Scales.

RATIONALE: Alcohol and substance use disorders are types of brain diseases that have psychological components which damage many life areas of the affected individual. Since investigating alcohol use alone is insufficient in the diagnostic evaluation process, self-awareness and the individual's long-term psychological well-being are important in the treatment process. Primary prevention is used for preventing disease in healthy people, whereas secondary prevention is used for early diagnosis of people at risk. Tertiary prevention is important to prevent the recurrence of the disease. Since substance use disorders are a chronic problems, a new need has emerged for tertiary protection in rehabilitation standards. METHODOLOGY: In this study, we aimed to develop two scales that can provide ideas about rehabilitation standards by determining the awareness of individuals with or without alcohol and substance use disorders. By so, experts in the field can have information about the risk status of their patients in the follow-up process of rehabilitation, with the data obtained from the harm perception and result awareness dimensions in the scales. The sample consisted of 1134 participants, 41 of whom had substance use disorders. RESULTS: Among the two scales developed in the study, the Uskudar Result Awareness Scale (USRAS) consisting of 25 items and 6 factors explained 58.4% of the total variance. The Uskudar Harm Perception Scale (USHPS), consisting of 36 items and 10 factors, explained 56.3% of the total variance. Confirmatory factor analysis of the two scales resulted in acceptable goodness-of-fit values. (X2/df < 3; RMSEA < 0.08; NFI > 0.90; NNFI > 0.95; CFI > 0.95; GFI > 0.90; AGFI > 0.85). DISCUSSION: Comparisons showed that the resulting awareness of the non-SUD group was moderate (X = 3.81), whereas the SUD group had a low result awareness (X = 3.20); the effect size of the difference between the two groups was found to be high (d = 1.45; >0.8). On the other hand, the harm perception of the non-SUD group was found in the low-risk group (X = 3.78); the harm perception of the SUD group was found in the moderate-risk group (X = 3.43). According to Cohen's d calculations, the effect size of the difference between the two groups is high (d = 1.43; >0.8). It was concluded that both of the scales are valid and safe. They can be included in the treatment process and future studies.

Combined use of gray matter volume and neuropsychological test performance for classification of individuals with bipolar I disorder via artificial neural network method.

Diagnosis of patients with bipolar disorder may be challenging and delayed in clinical practice. Neuropsychological impairments and brain abnormalities are commonly reported in bipolar disorder (BD); therefore, they can serve as potential biomarkers of the disorder. Rather than relying on these predictors separately, using both structural and neuropsychiatric indicators together could be more informative and increase the accuracy of the automatic disorder classification. Yet, to our information, no Artificial Intelligence (AI) study has used multimodal data using both neuropsychiatric tests and structural brain changes to classify BD. In this study, we first investigated differences in gray matter volumes between patients with bipolar I disorder (n = 37) and healthy controls (n = 27). The results of the verbal and non-verbal memory tests were then compared between the two groups. Finally, we used the artificial neural network (ANN) method to model all the aforementioned values for group classification. Our voxel-based morphometry results demonstrated differences in the left anterior parietal lobule and bilateral insula gray matter volumes, suggesting a reduction of these brain structures in BD. We also observed a decrease in both verbal and non-verbal memory scores of individuals with BD (p < 0.001). The ANN model of neuropsychiatric test scores combined with gray matter volumes has classified the bipolar group with 89.5% accuracy. Our results demonstrate that when bilateral insula volumes are used together with neuropsychological test results the patients with bipolar I disorder and controls could be differentiated with very high accuracy. The findings imply that multimodal data should be used in AI studies as it better represents the multi-componential nature of the condition, thus increasing its diagnosability.

An application of raman spectroscopy in combination with machine learning to determine gastric cancer spectroscopy marker.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Globally, gastric carcinoma (Gca) ranks fifth in terms of incidence and third in terms of mortality. Higher serum tumor markers (TMs) than those from healthy individuals, led to TMs clinical application as diagnostic biomarkers for Gca. Actually, there is no accurate blood test to diagnose Gca. METHODS: Raman spectroscopy is applied as an efficient, credible, minimally invasive technique to evaluate the serum TMs levels in blood samples. After curative gastrectomy, serum TMs levels are important in predicting the recurrence of gastric cancer, which must be detected early. The experimentally assesed TMs levels using Raman measurements and ELISA test were used to develop a prediction model based on machine learning techniques. A total of 70 participants diagnosed with gastric cancer after surgery (n = 26) and healthy (n = 44) were comrpised in this study. RESULTS: In the Raman spectra of gastric cancer patients, an additional peak at 1182 cm-1 was observed and, the Raman intensity of amide III, II, I, and CH2 proteins as well as lipids functional group was higher. Furthermore, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed, that it is possible to distinguish between the control and Gca groups using the Raman range between 800 and 1800 cm-1, as well as between 2700 and 3000 cm-1. The analysis of Raman spectra dynamics in gastric cancer and healthy patients showed, that the vibrations at 1302 and 1306 cm-1 were characteristic for cancer patients. In addition, the selected machine learning methods showed classification accuracy of more than 95%, while obtaining an AUROC of 0.98. Such results were obtained using Deep Neural Networks and the XGBoost algorithm. CONCLUSIONS: The obtained results suggest, that Raman shifts at 1302 and 1306 cm-1 could be spectroscopic markers of gastric cancer.

CAR-T Cells with Phytohemagglutinin (PHA) Provide Anti-Cancer Capacity with Better Proliferation, Rejuvenated Effector Memory, and Reduced Exhausted T Cell Frequencies.

The development of genetic modification techniques has led to a new era in cancer treatments that have been limited to conventional treatments such as chemotherapy. intensive efforts are being performed to develop cancer-targeted therapies to avoid the elimination of non-cancerous cells. One of the most promising approaches is genetically modified CAR-T cell therapy. The high central memory T cell (Tcm) and stem cell-like memory T cell (Tscm) ratios in the CAR-T cell population increase the effectiveness of immunotherapy. Therefore, it is important to increase the populations of CAR-expressing Tcm and Tscm cells to ensure that CAR-T cells remain long-term and have cytotoxic (anti-tumor) efficacy. In this study, we aimed to improve CAR-T cell therapy's time-dependent efficacy and stability, increasing the survival time and reducing the probability of cancer cell growth. To increase the sub-population of Tcm and Tscm in CAR-T cells, we investigated the production of a long-term stable and efficient cytotoxic CAR-T cell by modifications in the cell activation-dependent production using Phytohemagglutinin (PHA). PHA, a lectin that binds to the membranes of T cells and increases metabolic activity and cell division, is studied to increase the Tcm and Tscm population. Although it is known that PHA significantly increases Tcm cells, B-lymphocyte antigen CD19-specific CAR-T cell expansion, its anti-cancer and memory capacity has not yet been tested compared with aCD3/aCD28-amplified CAR-T cells. Two different types of CARs (aCD19 scFv CD8-(CD28 or 4-1BB)-CD3z-EGFRt)-expressing T cells were generated and their immunogenic phenotype, exhausted phenotype, Tcm-Tscm populations, and cytotoxic activities were determined in this study. The proportion of T cell memory phenotype in the CAR-T cell populations generated by PHA was observed to be higher than that of aCD3/aCD28-amplified CAR-T cells with similar and higher proliferation capacity. Here, we show that PHA provides long-term and efficient CAR-T cell production, suggesting a potential alternative to aCD3/aCD28-amplified CAR-T cells.

Correlation between human colon cancer specific antigens and Raman spectra. Attempting to use Raman spectroscopy in the determination of tumor markers for colon cancer.

Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. To follow up on the progression of the disease, tumor markers are commonly used. Here, we report serum analysis based on Raman spectroscopy to provide a rapid cancer diagnosis with tumor markers and two new cell adhesion molecules measured using the ELISA method. Raman spectra showed higher Raman intensities at 1447 cm-1 1560 cm-1, 1665 cm-1, and 1769 cm-1, which originated from CH2 proteins and lipids, amide II and amide I, and CO lipids vibrations. Furthermore, the correlation test showed, that only the CEA colon cancer marker correlated with the Raman spectra. Importantly, machine learning methods showed, that the accuracy of the Raman method in the detection of colon cancer was around 95 %. Obtained results suggest, that Raman shifts at 1302 cm-1 and 1306 cm-1 can be used as spectroscopy markers of colon cancer.

Effect of nutritional supports on malnutrition, cognition, function and biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review.

AIM: To summarize the nutritional supplementation on biochemical parameters, cognition, function, Alzheimer's Disease (AD) biomarkers and nutritional status. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, Korean Journal Database, Russian Science Citation Index, SciELO Citation Index, Cochrane Library and Scopus databases were searched until 16 April 2021. 22.193 records in total were reached according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Included Studies were evaluated through the Modified Jadad Scale and gathered under four subheadings. RESULTS: Forty-eight studies with a total of 7009 AD patients were included. Souvenaid, ONS (368 ± 69 kcal), Vegenat-med, 500 mg Resveratrol, ONS (200 mL) were effective nutritional supplements on promoting weight gain and protecting malnutrition status but showed conflicting results in Body mass index, Mid-Upper-Arm Circumference and Triceps Skin Fold Thickness. ONS and a lyophilized whole supplementation Vegenat-med intake made an increase in MNA scores. While all nutritional supplements showed controversial results in biochemical parameters but caused a decrease in Hcy levels which caused reductions in brain Aß plaque (increase serum Aß), p-Tau and cognitive improvement. Folic acid and vitamin D decreased serum APP, BACE1, BACE1mRNA. Resveratrol, Hericium erinaceus mycelia, vitamin D and Betaine supplements improved cognitive, functional prognosis and quality of life unlike other nutritional supplements had no effect on cognitive scales. CONCLUSIONS: Better designed trials with holistic measures are needed to investigate the effect of nutritional support on the AD biomarkers, cognitive status, biochemical parameters and functional states. Also, more beneficial results can be obtained by examining the simultaneous effects of nutritional supplements with larger sample groups.

A Class Activation Map-Based Interpretable Transfer Learning Model for Automated Detection of ADHD from fMRI Data.

Automatic detection of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) based on the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) through Deep Learning (DL) is becoming a quite useful methodology due to the curse of-dimensionality problem of the data is solved. Also, this method proposes an invasive and robust solution to the variances in data acquisition and class distribution imbalances. In this paper, a transfer learning approach, specifically ResNet-50 type pre-trained 2D-Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) was used to automatically classify ADHD and healthy children. The results demonstrated that ResNet-50 architecture with 10-k cross-validation (CV) achieves an overall classification accuracy of 93.45%. The interpretation of the results was done via the Class Activation Map (CAM) analysis which showed that children with ADHD differed from controls in a wide range of brain areas including frontal, parietal and temporal lobes.

Multi-class classification model for psychiatric disorder discrimination.

BACKGROUND: Physicians follow-up a symptom-based approach in the diagnosis of psychiatric diseases. According to this approach, a process based on internationally valid diagnostic tools such as The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or International Classification of Diseases (ICD), patient reports and the observation and experience of the physician is monitored. As in other fields of medicine, the search for biomarkers that can be used in processes related to diseases continues in psychiatry and various researches are carried out in this field. OBJECTIVES: Within the scope of this study, a dataset containing electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements of individuals diagnosed with different psychiatric diseases were analyzed by machine learning methods and the diseases were differentiated/classified with the models obtained. Thus, it was investigated whether EEG data could be a biomarker for psychiatric diseases. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In the dataset analyzed within the scope of the study, for 550 patients (81 bipolar disorder, 95 attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder - ADHD, 67 depression, 34 obsessive compulsive disorder - OCD, 75 opioid, 146 posttraumatic stress disorder - PTSD, 52 schizophrenia) and 84 healthy individuals, there are 634 samples (rows), 77 variables (columns) in total. 76 of the variables consist of absolute power values belonging to 4 frequency bands (alpha, beta, delta, theta) collected from 19 different electrodes. 80 % of the dataset was used for training the models and 20 % of the data was used for testing the performance of the models. The 5-fold cross validation (CV) method, which repeats 3 times in the training dataset, was used and with this method, the hyperparameters used in the models were also optimized. Different models have been established with the selected hyperparameters and the performance of these models has been tested with the test dataset. C5.0, random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM) and artificial neural networks (ANN) were used to build the models. RESULTS: Within the scope of the study, the absolute power values obtained from EEG measurements performed using 19 electrodes were analyzed by machine learning methods. It was concluded that classification between disease groups was feasible with a high accuracy (C5.0-0.841, SVM_radial - 0.841, RF - 0.762). It was observed that ADHD, depression and schizophrenia diseases can be differentiated better (F-score = 1, balanced accuracy = 1) once the results were evaluated on a class category basis according to the F- measure and balanced accuracy values. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: Through the medium of the analyzes made within the scope of this study, it was investigated whether EEG data could be used as a biomarker for the detection and diagnosis of psychiatric diseases. The findings obtained from this study revealed that by using EEG data as a biomarker, it can be highly predicted whether a person has a psychiatric disease or not. Once evaluated with broad strokes, it is feasible to assert that it is possible to analyze whether the person who consults a physician with a complaint is ranked among the psychiatric disease class with EEG measurement. When trying to differentiate between numerous and diverse disease categories, it may be claimed that some diseases (ADHD, depression, schizophrenia) can be distinguished better by coming to the fore on a model basis. Considering the findings, it is anticipated that the analyzes obtained as a result of this study will contribute to the studies to be conducted using machine learning in the field of psychiatry.

Comparative and Predictive Analysis of Clinical and Metabolic Features of Anorexia Nervosa and Bulimia Nervosa.

Background: Eating disorders have become increasingly prevalent over the years; the age at which they appear has decreased, and they can lead to serious illness or death. Therefore, the number of studies on the matter has increased. Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) are affected by many factors including mental illnesses that can have serious physical and psychological consequences. Accordingly, the present study aimed to compare the clinical and metabolic features of patients with AN and BN and identify potential biomarkers for distinguishing between the two disorders. Methods: Clinical data of 41 participants who sought treatment for eating disorders between 2012 and 2022, including 29 AN patients and 12 BN patients, were obtained from NPIstanbul Brain Hospital in Istanbul, Turkey. The study included the clinical variables of both outpatient and inpatient treatments. Principal component analysis (PCA) was utilized to gain insights into differentiating AN and BN patients based on clinical characteristics, while machine learning techniques were applied to identify eating disorders. Findings: The study found that thyroid hormone levels in patients with AN and BN were influenced by non-thyroidal illness syndrome (NTIS), which could be attributed to various factors, including psychiatric disorders, substance abuse, and medication use. Lipid profile comparisons revealed higher triglyceride levels in the BN group (P<0.05), indicating increased triglyceride synthesis and storage as an energy source. Liver function tests showed lower levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in BN patients (P<0.05), while higher prolactin levels (P<0.05) suggested an altered hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. Imbalances in minerals such as calcium and magnesium (P<0.05) were observed in individuals with eating disorders. PCA effectively differentiated AN and BN patients based on clinical features, and the Naïve Bayes (NB) model showed promising results in identifying eating disorders. Conclusion: The findings of the study provide important insights into AN and BN patients' clinical features and may help guide future research and treatment strategies for these conditions.

The Deep Learning Method Differentiates Patients with Bipolar Disorder from Controls with High Accuracy Using EEG Data.

Background: Bipolar disorder (BD) is a mental disorder characterized by depressive and manic or hypomanic episodes. The complexity in the diagnosis of Bipolar disorder (BD) due to its overlapping symptoms with other mood disorders prompted researchers and clinicians to seek new and advanced techniques for the precise detection of Bipolar disorder (BD). One of these methods is the use of advanced machine learning algorithms such as deep learning (DL). However, no study of BD has previously adopted DL techniques using EEG signals. Method: EEG signals of 169 BD patients and 45 controls were cleaned from the artifacts and processed using two different DL methods: a one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1D-CNN) combined with the long-short term memory (LSTM) and a two-dimensional convolutional neural network (2D-CNN). Additionally, Class Activation Maps (CAMs) acquired from the bipolar and control groups were used to obtain distinctive regions to specify a particular class in an image. Results: Group identifications were confirmed with 95.91% overall accuracy through the 2D-CNN method, demonstrating very high sensitivity and lower specificity. Also, the overall accuracy obtained from the 1D-CNN + LSTM method was 93%. We also found that F4, C3, F7, and F8 electrode activities produce predominant features to detect the bipolar group. Conclusion: To our knowledge, this study used EEG-based DL analysis for the first time in BD. Our results suggest that the raw EEG-based DL algorithm can successfully differentiate individuals with BD from controls. Class Activation Map (CAM) analysis suggests that prefrontal changes are predominant in EEG data of patients with BD.

A dimensional approach to affective disorder: The relations between Scl-90 subdimensions and QEEG parameters.

Objectives: QEEG reflects neuronal activity directly rather than using indirect parameters, such as blood deoxygenation and glucose utilization, as in fMRI and PET. The correlation between QEEG spectral power density and Symptom Check List-90-R may help identify biomarkers pertaining to brain function, associated with affective disorder symptoms. This study aims at determining whether there is a relation between QEEG spectral power density and Symptom Check List-90-R symptom scores in affective disorders. Methods: This study evaluates 363 patients who were referred for the initial application and diagnosed with affective disorders according to DSM-V, with QEEG and Scl-90-R. Spectral power density was calculated for the 18 electrodes representing brain regions. Results: Somatization scores were found to be correlated with Pz and O1 theta, O1 and O2 high beta. Whereas FP1 delta activities were correlated with anxiety, F3, F4, and Pz theta were correlated with obsession scores. Interpersonal sensitivity scores were found to be correlated with F4 delta, P3, T5, P4, T6 alpha and T5, and T6 theta activities. While depression scores were correlated with P3 and T4 delta, as well as T4 theta, there was a correlation between anger and F4, as well as T4 alpha and F8 high beta activities. Paranoia scores are correlated with FP1, F7, T6 and F8 theta, T5 and F8 delta, and O2 high beta activities. Conclusions: According to our results, anxiety, obsession, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anger, and paranoia are related to some spectral powers of QEEG. Delta-beta coupling seems to be a neural biomarker for affective dysregulation.

The association between vitamin B12 and plasma homocysteine levels with episodic memory and the volume of memory related brain structures in middle-aged individuals: a retrospective correlational study.

In previous studies, decreased vitamin B12 and increased plasma homocysteine levels were reported as risk factors for dementia. The aim of this study was to clarify this relationship in earlier ages. Twenty-one healthy middle-aged adults (9 females, 12 males) with a mean age of 46.21 ± 7.99 were retrospectively included in the study. A voxel-based morphometry analysis was performed to measure brain volume. Plasma homocysteine, vitamin B12 levels, verbal and non-verbal memory test performances were recorded. Correlation analyses showed that increased plasma homocysteine was associated with lower memory score. Decreased vitamin B12 level was found to be associated with smaller brain volume in temporal regions. These results suggest that vitamin B12 and plasma homocysteine levels are associated with brain and cognition as early as middle adulthood. Future studies are needed to clarify whether they might be utilized as early hematological biomarkers to predict cognitive decline and neural loss.

Determination of idiopathic female infertility from infrared spectra of follicle fluid combined with gonadotrophin levels, multivariate analysis and machine learning methods.

By in vitro fertilization, oocytes can be removed and the embryo can be cultured, and then trans cervically replaced when they reach cleavage or at the blastocyst stage. The characterization of the follicular fluid is important for the treatment process. Women who applied to the Academic Hospital in vitro fertilization (IVF) Center diagnosed with idiopathic female infertility (IFI) were sought in the patient group. Demographics and clinical gonadotropin measurements of the study population were recorded. Of the 116 follicular fluid samples (n=58 male-induced infertility; n=58 control) were analyzed using the FTIR system. To identify FTIR spectral characteristics of follicular fluids associated with an ovarian reserve and reproductive hormone levels from control and IFI, six machine learning methods and multivariate analysis were used. To assess the quantitative information about the total biochemical composition of a follicular fluid across various diagnoses. FTIR spectra showed a higher level of vibrations corresponding to lipids and a lower level of amide vibrations in the IFI group. Furthermore, the T square plot from Partial Last Square (PLS) analysis showed, that these vibrations can be used to distinguish IFI from the control group which was obtained by principal component analysis (PCA). Proteins and lipids play an important role in the development of IFI. The absorption dynamics of FTIR spectra showed wavenumbers with around 100% discrimination probability, which means, that the presented wavenumbers can be used as a spectroscopic marker of IFI. Also, six machine learning methods showed, that classification accuracy for the original set was from 93.75% to 100% depending on the learning algorithm used. These results can inform about IFI women's follicular fluid has biomacromolecular differentiation in their follicular fluid. By using a safe and effective tool for the characterization of changes in follicular fluid during in vitro fertilization, this study builds upon a comprehensive examination of the idiopathic female infertility remodeling process in human studies. We anticipate that this technology will be a valuable adjunct for clinical studies.

Differential of cholangiocarcinoma disease using Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a type of cancer, which 5-year survival is lower than 20 %, and which is detected mostly in advanced stage of the disease. Unfortunately, there are no diagnostic tools, which could show changes in the body indicating the development of the disease. Therefore, in this study, we investigate Raman spectroscopy as a promising analytical tool in medical diagnostics and as a method, which would allow to distinguish between healthy patients and patients suffering from cholangiocarcinoma. The obtained Raman spectra showed, that lower intensities of peaks corresponding to amino acids and proteins, as well as higher intensities of peaks originating from lipids vibrations were observed in healthy individuals in comparison with cancer patients. Moreover, Partial Last Square (PLS), Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Hierarchical Component Analysis (HCA) of Raman spectra indicate that the ranges between 800 cm-1 and 1800 cm-1, 3477 cm-1 -3322 cm-1 and 1394 cm-1 -1297 cm-1 allow to distinguish cancer patients from healthy ones. The obtained results showed, that Raman spectroscopy is a good candidate, to become in future one of the diagnostic tools of Cholangiocarcinoma.

A Proposed Brain-, Spine-, and Mental- Health Screening Methodology (NEUROSCREEN) for Healthcare Systems: Position of the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics.

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated neurological, mental health disorders, and neurocognitive issues. However, there is a lack of inexpensive and efficient brain evaluation and screening systems. As a result, a considerable fraction of patients with neurocognitive or psychobehavioral predicaments either do not get timely diagnosed or fail to receive personalized treatment plans. This is especially true in the elderly populations, wherein only 16% of seniors say they receive regular cognitive evaluations. Therefore, there is a great need for development of an optimized clinical brain screening workflow methodology like what is already in existence for prostate and breast exams. Such a methodology should be designed to facilitate objective early detection and cost-effective treatment of such disorders. In this paper we have reviewed the existing clinical protocols, recent technological advances and suggested reliable clinical workflows for brain screening. Such protocols range from questionnaires and smartphone apps to multi-modality brain mapping and advanced imaging where applicable. To that end, the Society for Brain Mapping and Therapeutics (SBMT) proposes the Brain, Spine and Mental Health Screening (NEUROSCREEN) as a multi-faceted approach. Beside other assessment tools, NEUROSCREEN employs smartphone guided cognitive assessments and quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) as well as potential genetic testing for cognitive decline risk as inexpensive and effective screening tools to facilitate objective diagnosis, monitor disease progression, and guide personalized treatment interventions. Operationalizing NEUROSCREEN is expected to result in reduced healthcare costs and improving quality of life at national and later, global scales.