Gender differences in premorbid, entry, treatment, and outcome characteristics in a treated epidemiological sample of 661 patients with first episode psychosis.

OBJECTIVES: Gender differences in psychotic disorder have been observed in terms of illness onset and course; however, past research has been limited by inconsistencies between studies and the lack of epidemiological representative of samples assessed. Thus, the aim of this study was to elucidate gender differences in a treated epidemiological sample of patients with first episode psychosis (FEP). METHODS: A medical file audit was used to collect data on premorbid, entry, treatment and 18-month outcome characteristics of 661 FEP consecutive patients treated at the Early Psychosis Prevention and Intervention Centre (EPPIC), Melbourne, Australia. RESULTS: Prior to onset of psychosis, females were more likely to have a history of suicide attempts (p=.011) and depression (p=.001). At service entry, females were more likely to have depressive symptoms (p=.007). Conversely, males had marked substance use problems that were evident prior to admission (p<.001) and persisted through treatment (p<.001). At service entry, males also experienced more severe psychopathology (p<.001) and lower levels of functioning (GAF, p=.008; unemployment/not studying p=.004; living with family, p=.003). Treatment non-compliance (p<.001) and frequent hospitalisations (p=.047) were also common for males with FEP. At service discharge males had significantly lower levels of functioning (GAF, p=.008; unemployment/not studying p=.040; living with family, p=.001) compared to females with FEP. CONCLUSIONS: Gender differences are evident in illness course of patients with FEP, particularly with respect to past history of psychopathology and functioning at presentation and at service discharge. Strategies to deal with these gender differences need to be considered in early intervention programs.

Adverse life events among community-dwelling persons aged 65-70 years: gender differences in occurrence and perceived psychological consequences.

OBJECTIVES: To describe the occurrence of selected adverse life events in young-old men and women, as well as their perceived psychological consequences. METHODS: In 2005, 1,422 participants in the Lausanne Cohort 65+ study, born in 1934-1938, self-reported whether they experienced any of 26 life events during the preceding year. Most participants (N = 1,309, 92%) completed the geriatric adverse life events scale during a face-to-face interview, by rating the level of stress associated with each event, as well as its impact on their psychological well-being. RESULTS: Overall, 72% of the participants experienced at least one of the 26 events in the preceding year (range 1-9). Disease affecting the respondent (N = 525) or a close relative (N = 276) was most frequent, as well as the death of a friend or non-close relative (N = 274). Women indicated a higher frequency of events (mean 2.1 vs. 1.7 events, P < 0.001), as well as a higher level of stress and a stronger negative impact on well-being than men. In multivariate analyses adjusting for self-rated health, depressive symptoms and comorbidity, female gender remained significantly associated with the level of stress and negative impact on psychological well-being. CONCLUSION: This exploratory study shows that several types of adverse life events frequently occur at age 65-70, with gender differences both in the frequency of reporting and consequences of these events. However, information on this topic is limited and studies based on different populations and designs are needed to better understand the impact of such events.

Differences Between Posterior and Anterior Acute Ischaemic Circulation Strokes in 1449 Consecutive Patients

Background: The current data comparing posterior and anterior circulation strokes with regards to clinical, etiological, radiological and outcome factors are conflicting. We searched for distinguishing features between both territories in 1'449 consecutive acute ischemic stroke patients. Methods: All consecutive patients with acute ischemic stroke admitted to a single stroke unit from January 2003 to July 2008 were included in a prospective registry. Territory of acute stroke was determined by a combination of neuroimaging (MRI and / CT / CTP) and clinical symptoms and signs. Patients with uncertain localisation and patients with simultaneous strokes in the anterior and posterior circulation were excluded from this analysis. Results: Of a total of 1728 patients, 466 (17.0%) had had posterior, 983 (56.8%) anterior, 136 (7.9%) unknown territory, and 43 (2.5%) simultaneous posterior and anterior territory stroke. Of 39 variables that were compared, 29 differed significantly in univariate analysis, including less dependency (OR_0.50) and mortality (OR_0.56) at 3 months in posterior stroke. In multivariate analysis (see table), male gender, lacunar mechanism, arterial dissection and endovascular recanalisation were more frequent in posterior stroke, and admission NIHSS and IV-thrombolysis rate were lower. Significant acute arterial pathology (_50% stenosis) was less frequently found on acute imaging in posterior stroke (OR_0.33). Of 633 patients with significant arterial pathology, it was more frequently present intracranially in posterior (OR_1.62) and extracranially in anterior stroke (OR _ 0.87). In 610 patients where recanalisation was assessed at 24 hours, intracranial (OR_0.26), extracranial (OR_0.25) and overall recanalisation (OR_0.34) was less frequent in the posterior circulation. Conclusions: Acute posterior strokes are less severe and recover better, despite lower IV thrombolysis and recanalisation rates. They are more frequently due to lacunes and dissections and have less arterial pathology burden then anterior circulation strokes.

Connectivity differences in brain networks.

The scenario considered here is one where brain connectivity is represented as a network and an experimenter wishes to assess the evidence for an experimental effect at each of the typically thousands of connections comprising the network. To do this, a univariate model is independently fitted to each connection. It would be unwise to declare significance based on an uncorrected threshold of α=0.05, since the expected number of false positives for a network comprising N=90 nodes and N(N-1)/2=4005 connections would be 200. Control of Type I errors over all connections is therefore necessary. The network-based statistic (NBS) and spatial pairwise clustering (SPC) are two distinct methods that have been used to control family-wise errors when assessing the evidence for an experimental effect with mass univariate testing. The basic principle of the NBS and SPC is the same as supra-threshold voxel clustering. Unlike voxel clustering, where the definition of a voxel cluster is unambiguous, 'clusters' formed among supra-threshold connections can be defined in different ways. The NBS defines clusters using the graph theoretical concept of connected components. SPC on the other hand uses a more stringent pairwise clustering concept. The purpose of this article is to compare the pros and cons of the NBS and SPC, provide some guidelines on their practical use and demonstrate their utility using a case study involving neuroimaging data.

Content-specific gender differences in emotion ratings from early to late adulthood.

The investigation of gender differences in emotion has attracted much attention given the potential ramifications on our understanding of sexual differences in disorders involving emotion dysregulation. Yet, research on content-specific gender differences across adulthood in emotional responding is lacking. The aims of the present study were twofold. First, we sought to investigate to what extent gender differences in the self-reported emotional experience are content specific. Second, we sought to determine whether gender differences are stable across the adult lifespan. We assessed valence and arousal ratings of 14 picture series, each of a different content, in 94 men and 118 women aged 20 to 81. Compared to women, men reacted more positively to erotic images, whereas women rated low-arousing pleasant family scenes and landscapes as particularly positive. Women displayed a disposition to respond with greater defensive activation (i.e., more negative valence and higher arousal), in particular to the most arousing unpleasant contents. Importantly, significant interactions between gender and age were not found for any single content. This study makes a novel contribution by showing that gender differences in the affective experiences in response to different contents persist across the adult lifespan. These findings support the "stability hypothesis" of gender differences across age.

Physiological differences between cycling and running

This review compares the differences in systemic responses (VO2max, anaerobic threshold, heart rate and economy) and in underlying mechanisms of adaptation (ventilatory and hemodynamic and neuromuscular responses) between cycling and running. VO2max is specific to the exercise modality. Overall, there is more physiological training transfer from running to cycling than vice-versa. Several other physiological differences between cycling and running are discussed: HR is different between the two activities both for maximal and sub-maximal intensities. The delta efficiency is higher in running. Ventilation is more impaired in cycling than running due to mechanical constraints. Central fatigue and decrease in maximal strength are more important after prolonged exercise in running than in cycling.

Recent human evolution has shaped geographical differences in susceptibility to disease

Background: Searching for associations between genetic variants and complex diseases has been a very active area of research for over two decades. More than 51,000 potential associations have been studied and published, a figure that keeps increasing, especially with the recent explosion of array-based Genome-Wide Association Studies. Even if the number of true associations described so far is high, many of the putative risk variants detected so far have failed to be consistently replicated and are widely considered false positives. Here, we focus on the world-wide patterns of replicability of published association studies.Results: We report three main findings. First, contrary to previous results, genes associated to complex diseases present lower degrees of genetic differentiation among human populations than average genome-wide levels. Second, also contrary to previous results, the differences in replicability of disease associated-loci between Europeans and East Asians are highly correlated with genetic differentiation between these populations. Finally, highly replicated genes present increased levels of high-frequency derived alleles in European and Asian populations when compared to African populations. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the heterogeneous nature of the genetic etiology of complex disease, confirm the importance of the recent evolutionary history of our species in current patterns of disease susceptibility and could cast doubts on the status as false positives of some associations that have failed to replicate across populations.

Methodology for studying the numerical speed of sound in finite differences schemes

The space and time discretization inherent to all FDTD schemesintroduce non-physical dispersion errors, i.e. deviations ofthe speed of sound from the theoretical value predicted bythe governing Euler differential equations. A generalmethodologyfor computing this dispersion error via straightforwardnumerical simulations of the FDTD schemes is presented.The method is shown to provide remarkable accuraciesof the order of 1/1000 in a wide variety of twodimensionalfinite difference schemes.

Gender differences in paediatric patients of the swiss inflammatory bowel disease cohort study.

PURPOSE: Gender differences in paediatric patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are frequently reported as a secondary outcome and the results are divergent. To assess gender differences by analysing data collected within the Swiss IBD cohort study database since 2008, related to children with IBD, using the Montreal classification for a systematic approach. METHODS: Data on gender, age, anthropometrics, disease location at diagnosis, disease behaviour, and therapy of 196 patients, 105 with Crohn's disease (CD) and 91 with ulcerative or indeterminate colitis (UC/IC) were retrieved and analysed. RESULTS: THE CRUDE GENDER RATIO (MALE : female) of patients with CD diagnosed at <10 years of age was 2.57, the adjusted ratio was 2.42, and in patients with UC/IC it was 0.68 and 0.64 respectively. The non-adjusted gender ratio of patients diagnosed at ≥10 years was 1.58 for CD and 0.88 for UC/IC. Boys with UC/IC diagnosed <10 years of age had a longer diagnostic delay, and in girls diagnosed with UC/IC >10 years a more important use of azathioprine was observed. No other gender difference was found after analysis of age, disease location and behaviour at diagnosis, duration of disease, familial occurrence of IBD, prevalence of extra-intestinal manifestations, complications, and requirement for surgery. CONCLUSION: CD in children <10 years affects predominantly boys with a sex ratio of 2.57; the impact of sex-hormones on the development of CD in pre-pubertal male patients should be investigated.

Demographic and geographic vascular risk factor differences in European young adults with ischemic stroke: the 15 cities young stroke study.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: We compared among young patients with ischemic stroke the distribution of vascular risk factors among sex, age groups, and 3 distinct geographic regions in Europe. METHODS: We included patients with first-ever ischemic stroke aged 15 to 49 years from existing hospital- or population-based prospective or consecutive young stroke registries involving 15 cities in 12 countries. Geographic regions were defined as northern (Finland, Norway), central (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Switzerland), and southern (Greece, Italy, Turkey) Europe. Hierarchical regression models were used for comparisons. RESULTS: In the study cohort (n=3944), the 3 most frequent risk factors were current smoking (48.7%), dyslipidemia (45.8%), and hypertension (35.9%). Compared with central (n=1868; median age, 43 years) and northern (n=1330; median age, 44 years) European patients, southern Europeans (n=746; median age, 41 years) were younger. No sex difference emerged between the regions, male:female ratio being 0.7 in those aged <34 years and reaching 1.7 in those aged 45 to 49 years. After accounting for confounders, no risk-factor differences emerged at the region level. Compared with females, males were older and they more frequently had dyslipidemia or coronary heart disease, or were smokers, irrespective of region. In both sexes, prevalence of family history of stroke, dyslipidemia, smoking, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, coronary heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and atrial fibrillation positively correlated with age across all regions. CONCLUSIONS: Primary preventive strategies for ischemic stroke in young adults-having high rate of modifiable risk factors-should be targeted according to sex and age at continental level.

Sleep deprivation effects on circadian clock gene expression in the cerebral cortex parallel electroencephalographic differences among mouse strains.

Sleep deprivation (SD) results in increased electroencephalographic (EEG) delta power during subsequent non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREMS) and is associated with changes in the expression of circadian clock-related genes in the cerebral cortex. The increase of NREMS delta power as a function of previous wake duration varies among inbred mouse strains. We sought to determine whether SD-dependent changes in circadian clock gene expression parallel this strain difference described previously at the EEG level. The effects of enforced wakefulness of incremental durations of up to 6 h on the expression of circadian clock genes (bmal1, clock, cry1, cry2, csnk1epsilon, npas2, per1, and per2) were assessed in AKR/J, C57BL/6J, and DBA/2J mice, three strains that exhibit distinct EEG responses to SD. Cortical expression of clock genes subsequent to SD was proportional to the increase in delta power that occurs in inbred strains: the strain that exhibits the most robust EEG response to SD (AKR/J) exhibited dramatic increases in expression of bmal1, clock, cry2, csnkIepsilon, and npas2, whereas the strain with the least robust response to SD (DBA/2) exhibited either no change or a decrease in expression of these genes and cry1. The effect of SD on circadian clock gene expression was maintained in mice in which both of the cryptochrome genes were genetically inactivated. cry1 and cry2 appear to be redundant in sleep regulation as elimination of either of these genes did not result in a significant deficit in sleep homeostasis. These data demonstrate transcriptional regulatory correlates to previously described strain differences at the EEG level and raise the possibility that genetic differences underlying circadian clock gene expression may drive the EEG differences among these strains.