Structural and resting state functional connectivity of the subthalamic nucleus: identification of motor STN parts and the hyperdirect pathway

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Parkinson's disease often alleviates the motor symptoms, but causes cognitive and emotional side effects in a substantial number of cases. Identification of the motor part of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) as part of the presurgical workup could minimize these adverse effects. In this study, we assessed the STN's connectivity to motor, associative, and limbic brain areas, based on structural and functional connectivity analysis of volunteer data. For the structural connectivity, we used streamline counts derived from HARDI fiber tracking. The resulting tracks supported the existence of the so-called "hyperdirect" pathway in humans. Furthermore, we determined the connectivity of each STN voxel with the motor cortical areas. Functional connectivity was calculated based on functional MRI, as the correlation of the signal within a given brain voxel with the signal in the STN. Also, the signal per STN voxel was explained in terms of the correlation with motor or limbic brain seed ROI areas. Both right and left STN ROIs appeared to be structurally and functionally connected to brain areas that are part of the motor, associative, and limbic circuit. Furthermore, this study enabled us to assess the level of segregation of the STN motor part, which is relevant for the planning of STN DBS procedures.

Innovative Agricultural Approaches of Promoting Food Security in Eritrea: Trends, Challenges and Opportunities for Growth: Proceedings of the Workshop of the Association of Eritreans in Agricultural Sciences (AEAS)

Eritrea is a Sahel country in terms of climate, and rainfall is low and highly variable. Shortage of food is thus a recurrent problem, and food security one of the key issues in development. The present publication presents the results of a nationwide workshop organised in 2006 in Asmara, Eritrea, by the Association of Eritreans in Agricultural Sciences (AEAS). The workshop was attended by over 200 participants from government administration, academia, development circles including NGOs and UN organisations. Specifically, the present publication deals with themes such as biotechnology, non-wood forest products, spate irrigation, the role of women relating to food security, and institutional and organisational aspects of food security. It also contains a chapter with policy recommendations, as well as an extensive summary of the main findings (paper abstracts) in Tigrinya.

Dealing with bad guys: actor- and process-level determinants of the “devil shift” in policy making

Policy actors tend to misinterpret and distrust opponents in policy processes. This phenomenon, known as the “devil shift”, consists of the following two dimensions: actors perceive opponents as more powerful and as more evil than they really are. Analysing nine policy processes in Switzerland, this article highlights the drivers of the devil shift at two levels. On the actor level, interest groups, political parties and powerful actors suffer more from the devil shift than state actors and powerless actors. On the process level, the devil shift is stronger in policy processes dealing with socio-economic issues as compared with other issues. Finally, and in line with previous studies, there is less empirical evidence of the power dimension of the devil shift phenomenon than of its evilness dimension.

Current status and recommendations for use of the frozen elephant trunk technique: a position paper by the Vascular Domain of EACTS.

The implementation of new surgical techniques offers chances but carries risks. Usually, several years pass before a critical appraisal and a balanced opinion of a new treatment method are available and rely on the evidence from the literature and expert's opinion. The frozen elephant trunk (FET) technique has been increasingly used to treat complex pathologies of the aortic arch and the descending aorta, but there still is an ongoing discussion within the surgical community about the optimal indications. This paper represents a common effort of the Vascular Domain of EACTS together with several surgeons with particular expertise in aortic surgery, and summarizes the current knowledge and the state of the art about the FET technique. The majority of the information about the FET technique has been extracted from 97 focused publications already available in the PubMed database (cohort studies, case reports, reviews, small series, meta-analyses and best evidence topics) published in English.