Culture
Highlights
The results of a new study support the validity of a score that considers various patient-reported outcome measures and preferences for assessing health-related quality of life in individuals with kidney failure.
The score is calculated from assessments of cognitive function, depression, fatigue, pain interference, physical functioning, sleep disturbance, and ability to participate in social roles.
What The Study Did: The association between primary care payment models and the use of telemedicine for Medicare Advantage enrollees during the COVID-19 pandemic was examined in this study.
Authors: Brian W. Powers, M.D., M.B.A., of Humana Inc. in Louisville, Kentucky, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.1597)
What The Study Did: Researchers investigated whether death, other hospital outcomes and processes of care differed between patients cared for by female and male physicians at hospitals in Canada.
Authors: Fahad Razak, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Toronto in Ontario, Canada, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.1615)
What The Study Did: National health care systems have different capacities to correctly identify people who died of COVID-19. Researchers in this study analyzed the gap between excess mortality and COVID-19 confirmed mortality in 67 countries to determine the extent to which official data on COVID-19 deaths might be considered reliable.
Authors: Davide Golinelli, M.D., Alma Mater Studiorum-University of Bologna in Italy, is the corresponding author.
Fear is an important reaction that warns and protects us from danger. But when fear responses are out of control, this can lead to persistent fears and anxiety disorders. In Europe, about 15 percent of the population is affected by anxiety disorders. Existing therapies remain largely unspecific or are not generally effective, because the detailed neurobiological understanding of these disorders is lacking.
Neuro-evolutionary robotics is an attractive approach to realize collective behaviors for swarms of robots. Despite the large number of studies that have been devoted to it and although many methods and ideas have been proposed, empirical evaluations and comparative analyses are rare.
RUDN University biologists discovered the way how macrophages (the cells of the "first line" immune response) respond to inflammation and identified how the immune response depends on their origin. It turned out that when exposed to an inflammatory stimulus, two opposing mechanisms are activated in macrophages simultaneously -- inducing and inhibiting inflammation. These data can potentially be useful in the treatment of cancer, as targeted activation of macrophages will strengthen the immune response of the organism in the fight against a tumor.
JULY 15, 2021, NEW YORK - A Ludwig Cancer Research study has found that inducing random chromosome instability (CIN) events in mice for as little as one week is enough to trigger harmful chromosomal patterns in cells that spur the formation of tumors.
Washington, DC / New Delhi, India - Researchers at CDDEP recently published 'Improving vaccination coverage and timeliness through periodic intensification of routine immunization: evidence from Mission Indradhanush' where they evaluated the performance of India's Mission Indradhanush (MI) child vaccination campaign -- a periodic intensification of the routine immunization program.
Main points
Strong evidence that patients with pre-existent mental disorders are twice as likely to die or be hospitalised after SARS-CoV-2 infection
Psychotic and mood disorders are linked with COVID-19-associated mortality, as are exposure to antipsychotic and anxiolytic treatments.
Patients with substance use disorders are at increased risk of hospitalisation.
An international research team led by YAO Zhonghua from the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGGCAS) has explained the cause of Jupiter's X-ray aurorae, a mystery that has puzzled scientists for 40 years.
The findings were published in Science Advances on July 9.
It is the first time planetary researchers have described the entire causality chain for Jupiter's X-ray auroral flares. The mechanism in producing X-ray auroral flares at Jupiter may have potential applications in X-ray astronomy.
The ability to predict and interpret modifications of ribonucleic acid (RNA) has been a welcome advance in biochemistry research.
However, existing predictive approaches have a key drawback--they can only predict a single type of RNA modification without supporting multiple types or providing insightful interpretation of their prediction results.
Researchers from Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, led by Dr Jia Meng, have addressed this issue by developing a model that supports 12 RNA modification types, greatly expanding RNA research prediction and interpretation.
Although the risk of a child being admitted to hospital due to COVID-19 is small, a new UK study has found that around 1 in 20 of children hospitalised with COVID-19 develop brain or nerve complications linked to the viral infection.
The research, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health and led by the University of Liverpool, identifies a wide spectrum of neurological complications in children and suggests they may be more common than in adults admitted with COVID-19.
A scientific review has found evidence that a disruption in blood clotting and the first line immune system could be contributing factors in the development of psychosis.
The article, a joint collaborative effort by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, Cardiff University and the UCD Conway Institute, is published in Molecular Psychiatry.
Tokyo, Japan - Primary immunodeficiencies, such as severe combined immunodeficiency disease (SCID), occur when the immune system does not work properly, leading to increased susceptibility to various infections, autoimmunity, and cancers. Most of these are inherited and have an underlying genetic causes. A team at TMDU has identified a novel disorder resulting from a mutation in a protein called AIOLOS, which functions through a previously unknown pathogenic mechanism called heterodimeric interference.