Symptoms Of Lesions Research Articles

Bayesian evidence for the neural dissociation between finger and hand imitation skills

Abstract For limb apraxia ‒ a heterogeneous disorder of higher motor cognition following stroke ‒ an enduring debate has arisen regarding the existence of dissociating neural correlates for finger and hand gestures in the left hemisphere. We re-assessed this question asking whether previous attempts analysing pooled samples of patients with deficits in only one and patients with deficits in both imitation types might have led to systematically biased results. We conducted frequentist and Bayesian, voxelwise, and regionwise lesion symptom mappings on (i) the full sample (N=96) in which all patients with hand and/or finger imitation apraxia as well as without apraxia were included and (ii) three sub-samples, which excluded those patients from the full sample showing isolated hand imitation deficits, isolated finger imitation deficits or shared (finger and hand) imitation deficits. Anatomical analyses revealed a cortical dissociation of finger imitation deficits (located more anteriorly) and of hand imitation deficits (located more posteriorly). The presence of patients with shared deficits did indeed dilute associations that appeared stronger in the respective isolated samples. Also, brain regions truly associated with hand imitation deficits showed a positive bias for finger imitation deficits, when the sample contained patients with shared deficits. In addition, our frequentist parameters uncovered that some of our Bayesian evidence supported reverse associations (damage protecting from rather than increasing the deficit). Anatomo-behavioral analyses that analyse patients with shared (hand and finger) and isolated (hand or finger) imitation deficits together in one sample do indeed lead to undesirable biases. This explains why some earlier studies failed to detect the apparent neural dissociation between hand and finger imitation deficits.

First Episode Psychosis and Status Epilepticus as Presenting Symptom of FLAIR-hyperintense Lesions in Anti-MOG-associated Encephalitis with Seizures (FLAMES)

First Episode Psychosis and Status Epilepticus as Presenting Symptom of FLAIR-hyperintense Lesions in Anti-MOG-associated Encephalitis with Seizures (FLAMES)

Platelet-rich fibrin in the management of oral mucosal lesions: a scoping review

ObjectivesOral mucosal lesions are prevalent and often cause pain, thus impacting patients' quality of life. Platelet-rich fibrin (PRF) has emerged as a promising autologous biomaterial for wound healing, yet comprehensive evidence regarding its efficacy in treating oral mucosal lesions is limited. This study aims to update the current evidence on the effectiveness of PRF in treating various types of oral mucosal lesions.Materials and methodsWe conducted a literature search in PubMed, Scopus, Embase, and Web of Science databases until April 2024. The search included studies that investigated the use of PRF in treating oral mucosal lesions. Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria, comprising three case reports, three randomized controlled trials, two animal studies, three split-mouth trials, and one retrospective study. We performed data extraction according to a predefined form.ResultsPRF was applied in two forms—membranes and injectable gels—to treat a range of oral mucosal lesions, including ulcerative, red and white, pigmented, and potentially malignant or malignant lesions. Compared to control groups or conventional treatments, PRF generally demonstrated superior outcomes regarding faster healing, lesion size reduction, symptom relief, and lower recurrence rates. Histological and molecular analyses from some studies also indicated PRF's regenerative and anti-inflammatory effects.ConclusionPRF shows promise as an effective and safe alternative to current treatments for oral mucosal lesions due to its autologous nature, ease of preparation, and wound-healing capabilities. However, further research is needed to standardize PRF preparation protocols and confirm its long-term efficacy across different lesion types.

A Patient-Relevant Measurement Strategy to Assess Clinical Benefit of Novel Therapies for Non-metastatic Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma.

Although cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is the second most common type of skin cancer, research describing the patient experience is limited. This study sought to create a conceptual model of non-metastatic disease, to assess patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments commonly used in CSCC against this model, and to develop a patient-relevant measurement strategy for evaluating the benefit of new therapies. Researchers conducted a literature review, a review of patient blogs, and interviews with dermatologists to draft the conceptual model. A total of 22 patients with CSCC participated in 60-min phone interviews, which were subsequently transcribed, coded, and analyzed; the conceptual model was thenupdated. PRO instruments used in CSCC were assessed for content validity on the basis of this. The CSCC patient experience includes physical symptoms, psychological impacts, and behavior changes. Existing PRO instruments were assessed against the conceptual model using targeted subdomains considered to be relevant for assessing clinical benefit. Four modules of the FACE-Q® Skin Cancer instrument, plus de novo items developed for concepts not assessed by the FACE-Q® [lesion symptoms, negative treatment effects (including symptomatic), and experience of care], provide the best coverage for the concepts of interest hypothesized to show the benefit of novel treatments. This research provides a comprehensive understanding of the experience of patients with non-metastatic CSCC, and the effects of its treatment. It also identifies unmet needs in a subgroup of patients reporting negative treatment experiences. Further cognitive debriefing and psychometric analysis of de novo items are warranted for applications in clinical research.

A Rose by Any Other Name: Mapping Taxonomic and Thematic Naming Errors Poststroke.

Understanding the neurobiology of semantic knowledge is a major goal of cognitive neuroscience. Taxonomic and thematic semantic knowledge are represented differently within the brain's conceptual networks, but the specific neural mechanisms remain unclear. Some neurobiological models propose that the anterior temporal lobe is an important hub for taxonomic knowledge, whereas the TPJ is especially involved in the representation of thematic knowledge. However, recent studies have provided divergent evidence. In this context, we investigated the neural correlates of taxonomic and thematic confrontation naming errors in 79 people with aphasia. We used three complementary lesion-symptom mapping (LSM) methods to investigate how structure and function in both spared and impaired brain regions relate to taxonomic and thematic naming errors. Voxel-based LSM mapped brain damage, activation-based LSM mapped BOLD signal in surviving tissue, and network-based LSM mapped white matter subnetwork integrity to error type. Voxel- and network-based lesion symptom mapping provided converging evidence that damage/disruption of the left mid-to-anterior temporal lobe was associated with a greater proportion of thematic naming errors. Activation-based lesion symptom mapping revealed that higher BOLD signal in the left anterior temporal lobe during an in-house naming task was associated with a greater proportion of taxonomic errors on the Philadelphia Naming Test administered outside of the scanner. A lower BOLD signal in the bilateral angular gyrus, precuneus, and right inferior frontal cortex was associated with a greater proportion of taxonomic errors. These findings provide novel evidence that damage to the anterior temporal lobe is especially related to thematic naming errors.

Individual contralesional recruitment in the context of structural reserve in early motor reorganization after stroke

The concept of structural reserve in stroke reorganization assumes that the relevance of the contralesional hemisphere strongly depends on the brain tissue spared by the lesion in the affected hemisphere. Recent studies, however, have indicated that the contralesional hemisphere's impact exhibits region-specific variability with concurrently existing maladaptive and supportive influences. This challenges traditional views, necessitating a nuanced investigation of contralesional motor areas and their interaction with ipsilesional networks.Our study focused on the functional role of contralesional key motor areas and lesion-induced connectome disruption early after stroke.Online TMS data of twenty-five stroke patients was analyzed to disentangle interindividual differences in the functional roles of contralesional primary motor cortex (M1), dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC), and anterior interparietal sulcus (aIPS) for motor function. Connectome-based lesion symptom mapping and corticospinal tract lesion quantification were used to investigate how TMS effects depend on ipsilesional structural network properties.At group and individual levels, TMS interference with contralesional M1 and aIPS but not dPMC led to improved performance early after stroke. At the connectome level, a more disturbing role of contralesional M1 was related to a more severe disruption of the structural integrity of ipsilesional M1 in the affected motor network. In contrast, a detrimental influence of contralesional aIPS was linked to less disruption of the ipsilesional M1 connectivity.Our findings indicate that contralesional areas distinctively interfere with motor performance early after stroke depending on ipsilesional structural integrity, extending the concept of structural reserve to regional specificity in recovery of function.

5-Aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy is a safe and effective treatment for female patients with intractable vulvar lichen sclerosus

BackgroundFemale vulvar lichen sclerosus (VLS) is a chronic inflammatory skin disease of the vulva and its etiology is unknown. The main clinical symptoms are itching, burning and dyspareunia, and there is a lack of effective treatment. MethodsClinical and follow-up data of women with VLS who underwent 5-Aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) from January 2023 to December 2023 in the department of obstetrics and gynecology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, were retrospectively analyzed. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 36 patients with VLS who received ineffective conventional treatment (intractable VLS) were enrolled. Objective signs and subjective symptoms of vulvar lesions were recorded before treatment and 6 months after the end of treatment according to corresponding scoring criteria. Quality of life was evaluated using the Dermatology Life Quality Index (DLQI). ResultsAll patients received six sessions of ALA-PDT treatment and follow-up visits. After ALA-PDT treatment, 24 of 36 (66.67 %) patients' itching symptoms completely disappeared, 10 of 36 (27.78 %) patients' itching symptoms were relieved from severe to mild, and only 2 of 36 (5.56 %) patients' symptoms were not significantly relieved. 16 of 36 (44.4 %) patients' itching symptoms completely disappeared, 9 of 36 (25 %) patients' itching symptoms were relieved from severe to mild, and only 2 of 36 (5.56 %) patients still had severe pain. Compared to 22 patients with dyspareunia before treatment, only 9 patients still had dyspareunia with varying degrees of dyspareunia relief after treatment. Clinical signs improved significantly in the patients after ALA-PDT treatment. The total scores of clinical signs were (5.31 ± 1.67 vs 3.67 ± 1.71) before and after treatment. All patients showed improvement in DLQI after treatment. The main side effects of ALA-PDT were pain, erythema and swelling which were transient and tolerable. All patients were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the results of the treatment. ConclusionsALA-PDT is a safe and effective treatment for women with intractable vulva lichen sclerosus.

Management of subepithelial esophageal tumors

Abstract Subepithelial esophageal tumors (SET) are normally benign intramural esophageal lesions of mesenchymal origin. Although rare, the incidence of SET has increased in recent decades due to the more widespread use of endoscopy and diagnostic imaging. The current review aims to provide an overview of the histopathologic spectrum and the most frequent entities including leiomyoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), diagnostic workup, and multidisciplinary treatment options. Staging for SET should include endoscopy, endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS), and tissue sampling. Current consensus guidelines recommend that SET suggestive of gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) larger than 20 mm or lesions with high-risk stigmata should undergo tissue sampling. Most SET have an excellent long-term outcome, but malignancy may be present in certain subtypes. Asymptomatic SET without high-risk stigmata discovered incidentally usually do not require specific treatment. However, depending on the size and location of the lesion symptoms may occur. Therapeutic interventions range from endoscopic interventional resections to major surgical procedures. Enucleation via minimally invasive or robotic-assisted access remains the standard of care for most SET sub-entities.

More Time Spent with Clear Skin and No Itch with Upadacitinib versus Dupilumab for Atopic Dermatitis.

Atopic dermatitis (AD), with its hallmark symptoms of pruritus and skin lesions, often impairs patients' quality of life. We assessed time spent with clear/almost clear skin and no/minimal itch during upadacitinib treatment versus placebo or dupilumab among patients with moderate-to-severe AD. This analysis consisted of a post hoc analysis of Measure Up 1 (NCT03569293), Measure Up 2 (NCT03607422), and Heads Up (NCT03738397). Measure Up 1 and 2 were replicate, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 studies with patients randomized (1:1:1) to once-daily oral upadacitinib 15mg, upadacitinib 30mg, or placebo for 16weeks. Heads Up was a head-to-head, randomized, double-blind, double-dummy, phase 3b study with patients randomized (1:1) to upadacitinib 30mg or subcutaneous dupilumab 300mg for 24weeks. Skin clearance was assessed with the Eczema Area and Severity Index (EASI) at baseline, weeks 1, 2, and 4, and every 4weeks thereafter. Itch was assessed using the Worst Pruritus Numerical Rating Scale (WP-NRS) daily over 16weeks and every 2weeks thereafter to week 24 in Heads Up. This analysis included 1683 patients in Measure Up 1 and 2 and 673 patients in Heads Up. Through 16weeks in Measure Up 1 and 2, patients receiving upadacitinib spent 9.8-13.4 times as many days with an EASI 90 response and 7.0-10.3 times as many days with a WP-NRS 0/1 response versus placebo. In Heads Up, patients receiving upadacitinib spent 2.0 and 1.7 times as many days through 16 and 24weeks, respectively, with an EASI 90 response versus dupilumab. Through 16 and 24weeks, patients receiving upadacitinib spent 3.0 and 2.6 times as many days, respectively, with a WP-NRS 0/1 response versus dupilumab. Patients with moderate-to-severe AD spent more time with clear/almost clear skin and no/minimal itch with upadacitinib versus placebo or dupilumab. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier, Measure Up 1 (NCT03569293), Measure Up 2 (NCT03607422), Heads Up (NCT03738397).

Clinical Features of 17 Patients With Primary Angiitis of the Central Nervous System Confirmed by Brain Biopsy

Objective To analyze the clinical features of 17 patients with primary angiitis of the central nervous system (PACNS) and thus facilitate the early diagnosis and treatment,reduce the recurrence and mortality,and improve the prognoses of this disease. Methods We collected the data of patients with PACNS diagnosed by brain biopsy from January 2009 to June 2023 and analyzed their clinical presentations,laboratory and imaging manifestations,electrophysiological and pathological changes,and treatment regimens and prognosis. Results The 17 patients diagnosed with PACNS via brain biopsy included one child and 16 adults.The subtyping results showed that 10,2,3,2,1,and 1 patients had tumorous,spinal cord-involved,angiography-positive,rapidly progressive,hemorrhagic,and amyloid β-related PACNS,respectively.Eleven (64.7%) of the patients were complicated with secondary epilepsy.All the patients exhibited abnormal manifestations in head MRI,with 94.1% showing lesions with uneven enhancement around the lesions or in the leptomeninges. Magnetic resonance angiography revealed large vessel abnormalities in 3 patients,and spinal cord involvement was observed in 2 patients.Histopathological typing revealed 7 (43.7%) patients with lymphocytic vasculitis and 5 (31.2%) patients with necrotizing vasculitis.Eleven patients were treated with glucocorticoids and cyclophosphamide,which resulted in partial lesion disappearance and symptom amelioration in 6 patients upon reevaluation with head MRI after 3 months of maintenance therapy.Two,1,and 3 patients experienced rapid disease progression,death,and recurrence within 1 year,respectively.Three patients showed insensitivity to hormonotherapy and residual disabilities.Two patients received rituximab after relapse and remained clinically stable during a follow-up period of 0.5-1 year. Conclusion Tumorous PACNS was more prone to epilepsy,mainly occurring in males.The most common histopathological type was necrotizing vasculitis,which responded to hormonotherapy and had favorable outcomes.Therefore,for the young patients with epilepsy and intracranial tumorous lesions,the possibility of PACNS should be considered.Spinal cord involvement in PACNS was often located in the thoracic and cervical cords,suggesting a poorer prognosis.Electromyography commonly revealed neural conduction abnormalities in the anterior horn or roots,providing clues for differential diagnosis.For suspected spinal cord involvement,comprehensive electromyography is recommended.Rapidly progressive PACNS often presented infratentorial lesions,such as lesions in the pons and medulla,with a higher mortality rate.Hemorrhagic PACNS was rare,and a multifocal hemorrhagic lesion with enhancement in the intracranial region,particularly in young patients,should raise suspicion.For the patients with recurrent or progressive disease,rituximab is a recommended therapeutic option.

Ground-truth validation of uni- and multivariate lesion inference approaches.

Lesion analysis aims to reveal the causal contributions of brain regions to brain functions. Various strategies have been used for such lesion inferences. These approaches can be broadly categorized as univariate or multivariate methods. Here we analysed data from 581 patients with acute ischaemic injury, parcellated into 41 Brodmann areas, and systematically investigated the inferences made by two univariate and two multivariate lesion analysis methods via ground-truth simulations, in which we defined a priori contributions of brain areas to assumed brain function. Particularly, we analysed single-region models, with only single areas presumed to contribute functionally, and multiple-region models, with two contributing regions that interacted in a synergistic, redundant or mutually inhibitory mode. The functional contributions could vary in proportion to the lesion damage or in a binary way. The analyses showed a considerably better performance of the tested multivariate than univariate methods in terms of accuracy and mis-inference error. Specifically, the univariate approaches of Lesion Symptom Mapping as well as Lesion Symptom Correlation mis-inferred substantial contributions from several areas even in the single-region models, and also after accounting for lesion size. By contrast, the multivariate approaches of Multi-Area Pattern Prediction, which is based on machine learning, and Multi-perturbation Shapley value Analysis, based on coalitional game theory, delivered consistently higher accuracy and specificity. Our findings suggest that the tested multivariate approaches produce largely reliable lesion inferences, without requiring lesion size consideration, while the application of the univariate methods may yield substantial mis-localizations that limit the reliability of functional attributions.

Anti-obesity effects of Lactiplantibacillus plantarum BHP03 on high-fat diet mice and its regulatory function on intestinal microbiota

Obesity is defined as abnormal or excessive accumulation of body fat, which always causes serious harm to body health. In this work, an anti-obesity strain, Lactiplantibacillus plantarum BHP03 (L. plantarum), was explored. This strain showed good reproductive and acid production abilities. And its simulated intestinal fluid tolerance was better than that of Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus GG（LGG). The in vitro lipid-lowering indicators (inhibition rate of pancreatic lipase, bile-acid salt binding capacity) of L. plantarum BHP03 were at the same level as LGG, but L. plantarum BHP03 exhibited better ability to clear cholesterol. Further, L. plantarum BHP03 was used to intervene high-fat diet mice by oral administration. The results showed that high (109 CFU/day) and low (108 CFU/day) doses of L. plantarum BHP03 could alleviate excessive weight gain caused by high-fat diet and improve the symptoms of hepatorenal enlargement and liver fatty lesions. In addition, high dose L. plantarum BHP03 significantly reduced the content of the serum total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in mice. Moreover, high dose L. plantarum BHP03 enhanced the species richness of intestinal flora in mice fed with high-fat diet, decreasing the abundance of harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus and increasing the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Dubosiella, Akkermansia, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus. Therefore, it could be concluded that high dose L. plantarum BHP03 was more effective in preventing obesity and balancing gut microbiota. These findings may provide a theoretical basis for the application of lactobacilli to develop functional foods related to anti-obesity.

Fusion of transformer attention and CNN features for skin cancer detection

Melanoma is a skin cancer that spreads quickly and has serious risks. Early diagnosis is essential, but since the symptoms of skin lesions in the early stages are vague and similar, they can be difficult for specialists to detect. Therefore, machine learning-based alternative diagnostic methods can be developed in addition to existing ones. This study proposes a new deep learning model, a modified lightweight vision transformer (ViT) architecture, and a hybrid framework developed with an integrated deep learning model and an Ensemble Learning (EL) model for the early-stage diagnosis of skin lesions. The proposed deep learning model was developed based on convolution layers and transformers. The model is called multi-head attention block depthwise separable convolution network (MABSCNET). The proposed hybrid framework was developed by combining modern deep learning and EL models pre-trained with the ImageNet dataset along with the MABSCNET model. In the experimental process, the effectiveness of the proposed methods was evaluated on the ISIC 2020 dataset. Additionally, additional experiments were conducted on ISIC 2018 and a Kaggle dataset to analyze the proposed hybrid framework's classification performance. Image enhancement techniques were used in the datasets. In the ISIC 2020 dataset, the MABSCNET model reached 78.63 % accuracy, the ViT model obtained 76.50 %, and the hybrid framework reached 92.74 % accuracy. Moreover, the proposed hybrid framework achieved 100 % on the ISIC 2018 dataset and 94.24 % on the Kaggle dataset.

Effect of physical activity on the course of inflammatory bowel disease

The inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) group includes ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn's disease (CD) and microscopic enteritis. In UC, the lesions involve only the large intestine and do not cross the mucosa, while CD can involve any part of the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the anus. Inflammatory bowel disease usually occurs between the ages of 20-30, with another peak incidence in the seventh decade of life. The etiology of inflammatory bowel disease is not fully understood. Diagnosis is made on the basis of clinical evaluation, endoscopic examination with histopathological evaluation and imaging studies. Treatment involves the introduction of an appropriate diet, and pharmacological, biological and surgical treatments are used. The prognosis is inauspicious, with inflammatory lesions often recurring, even after years of remission of the disease. The purpose of this paper is to describe in detail the two most common diseases in the inflammatory bowel disease group, highlighting the differences and similarities between them at the level of lesion localization, symptoms, diagnosis and treatment. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease, due to the accompanying symptoms that make daily activities difficult, are less active than healthy people. There is ample evidence of the beneficial effects of physical activity on quality and length of life. It is recommended to conduct moderate intensity of both endurance and resistance exercises.

Left Internal Capsule Cavernoma Using the Superior Frontal Sulcus as a Surgical Corridor: Why and How to Do It: 2-Dimensional Operative Video.

Cavernous angioma is a sinusoidal dilatation covered by a single layer of endothelium, separated by a collagen matrix with elastin and smooth muscle.1 The prevalence in the general population is estimated at 0.4% to 0.9%,2 representing around 5% to 10% of all vascular malformations.3 Studies indicate 9% to 35% of cavernomas are found in deep locations such as the brainstem, thalamus, and basal ganglia.4-6 Common symptoms of these deep lesions are cranial nerve deficit, hemiparesis, and paresthesia. These lesions have high rates of rebleeding after the first episode of bleeding but present excellent results of surgical resection and modified Rankin in the long term.7-13 Internal capsule cavernomas are particularly challenging due to the important projection fibers surround them. Although the gold standard of treatment is microsurgery, there needs to be a consensus on the best approach for lesions of this topography. We present a video case of a female in her 50s with right hemiparesis and dysphasia, exhibiting grade 3/5 strength on the right side. T1 MRI revealed a high intensity, heterogeneous, multinodular signal in the left basal ganglia, with tractography showing the lesion dividing the posterior limb of the internal capsule amid fibers of the right corticospinal tract. The patient consented to the procedure and to the publication of his/her image. This study was approved by the Ethics and Research Committee of our institution. We demonstrated that the superior frontal sulcus is a safe corridor to surgically cure cavernomas of the internal capsule, with the recovery of previous deficits.

Fronto-thalamic networks and the left ventral thalamic nuclei play a key role in aphasia after thalamic stroke

Thalamic aphasia results from focal thalamic lesions that cause dysfunction of remote but functionally connected cortical areas due to language network perturbation. However, specific local and network-level neural substrates of thalamic aphasia remain incompletely understood. Using lesion symptom mapping, we demonstrate that lesions in the left ventrolateral and ventral anterior thalamic nucleus are most strongly associated with aphasia in general and with impaired semantic and phonemic fluency and complex comprehension in particular. Lesion network mapping (using a normative connectome based on fMRI data from 1000 healthy individuals) reveals a Thalamic aphasia network encompassing widespread left-hemispheric cerebral connections, with Broca’s area showing the strongest associations, followed by the superior and middle frontal gyri, precentral and paracingulate gyri, and globus pallidus. Our results imply the critical involvement of the left ventrolateral and left ventral anterior thalamic nuclei in engaging left frontal cortical areas, especially Broca’s area, during language processing.

Stable multivariate lesion symptom mapping.

Multivariate lesion-symptom mapping (MLSM) considers lesion information across the entire brain to predict impairments. The strength of this approach is also its weakness-considering many brain features together synergistically can uncover complex brain-behavior relationships but exposes a high-dimensional feature space that a model is expected to learn. Successfully distinguishing between features in this landscape can be difficult for models, particularly in the presence of irrelevant or redundant features. Here, we propose stable multivariate lesion-symptom mapping (sMLSM), which integrates the identification of reliable features with stability selection into conventional MLSM and describe our open-source MATLAB implementation. Usage is showcased with our publicly available dataset of chronic stroke survivors (N=167) and further validated in our independent public acute stroke dataset (N = 1106). We demonstrate that sMLSM eliminates inconsistent features highlighted by MLSM, reduces variation in feature weights, enables the model to learn more complex patterns of brain damage, and improves model accuracy for predicting aphasia severity in a way that tends to be robust regarding the choice of parameters for identifying reliable features. Critically, sMLSM more consistently outperforms predictions based on lesion size alone. This advantage is evident starting at modest sample sizes (N>75). Spatial distribution of feature importance is different in sMLSM, which highlights the features identified by univariate lesion symptom mapping while also implicating select regions emphasized by MLSM. Beyond improved prediction accuracy, sMLSM can offer deeper insight into reliable biomarkers of impairment, informing our understanding of neurobiology.

Orthotospovirus iridimaculaflavi (iris yellow spot virus): An emerging threat to onion cultivation and its transmission by Thrips tabaci in India

The yellow spot disease caused by the virus species Orthotospovirus iridimaculaflavi (Iris yellow spot virus-IYSV), belonging to the genus Orthotospovirus, the family Tospoviridae, order Bunyavirales and transmitted by Thrips tabaci Lindeman. At present, emerging as a major threat in onion (Allium cepa) in Tamil Nadu, India. The yellow spot disease incidence was found to be 53–73 % in six districts out of eight major onion-growing districts surveyed in Tamil Nadu during 2021–2023. Among the onion cultivars surveyed, the cultivar CO 5 was the most susceptible to IYSV. The population of thrips was nearly 5–9/plant during vegetative and flowering stages. The thrips infestation was 34–60 %. The tospovirus involved was confirmed as IYSV through DAS-ELISA, followed by molecular confirmation through RT-PCR using the nucleocapsid (N) gene. The predominant thrips species present in onion crops throughout the growing seasons was confirmed as Thrips tabaci based on the nucleotide sequence of the MtCOI gene. The mechanical inoculation of IYSV in different hosts viz., Vigna unguiculata, Gomphrena globosa, Chenopodium amaranticolor, Chenopodium quinoa and Nicotiana benthamiana resulted in chlorotic and necrotic lesion symptoms. The electron microscopic studies with partially purified sap from onion lesions revealed the presence of spherical to pleomorphic particles measuring 100–230 nm diameter. The transmission of IYSV was successful with viruliferous adult Thrips tabaci in cowpea (Cv. CO7), which matured from 1st instar larva fed on infected cowpea leaves (24 h AAP). Small brown necrotic symptoms were produced on inoculated plants after an interval of four weeks. The settling preference of non-viruliferous and viruliferous T. tabaci towards healthy and infected onion leaves resulted in the increased preference of non-viruliferous thrips towards infected (onion-61.33 % and viruliferous thrips towards healthy onion leaves (75.33 %). The study isolates shared 99–100 % identity at a nucleotide and amino acid level with Indian isolates of IYSV in the N gene. The multiple alignment of the amino acid sequence of the N gene of IYSV isolates collected from different locations and IYSV isolates from the database revealed amino acid substitution in the isolate ITPR4. All the IYSV isolates from India exhibited characteristic amino acid substitution of serine at the 6th position in the place of threonine in the isolates from Australia, Japan and USA. The phylogenetic analysis revealed the monophyletic origin of the IYSV isolates in India.

Suppression of anthracnose disease by orsellinaldehyde isolated from the mushroom Coprinus comatus.

Anthracnose caused by Colletotrichum species is one of the most devastating diseases of fruits and crops. We isolated and identified an antifungal compound from the mushroom Coprinus comatus and investigated its inhibitory potential against anthracnose disease-causing fungi with the goal of discovering natural products that can suppress anthracnose-caused plant disease. The culture filtrate of C. comatus was subjected to a bioassay-guided isolation of antifungal compounds. The active compound was identified as orsellinaldehyde (2,4-dihydroxy-6-methylbenzaldehyde) based on mass spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance analyses. Orsellinaldehyde displayed broad-spectrum inhibitory activity against different plant pathogenic fungi. Among the tested Colletotrichum species, it exhibited the lowest IC50 values on conidial germination and germ tube elongation of Colletotrichum orbiculare. The compound also showed remarkable inhibitory activity against Colletotrichum gloeosporiodes. The staining of Colletotrichum conidia with fluorescein diacetate and propidium iodide demonstrated that the compound is fungicidal. The postharvest in-vivo detached fruit assay indicated that orsellinaldehyde suppressed anthracnose lesion symptoms on mango and cucumber fruits caused by C. gloeosporioides and C. orbiculare, respectively. Orsellinaldehyde was identified as a potent antifungal compound from the culture filtrate of C. comatus. The inhibitory and fungicidal activities of orsellinaldehyde against different Colletotrichum species indicate its potential as a fungicide for protecting various fruits against anthracnose disease-causing fungi.

Skip connection information enhancement network for retinal vessel segmentation.

Many major diseases of the retina often show symptoms of lesions in the fundus of the eye. The extraction of blood vessels from retinal fundus images is essential to assist doctors. Some of the existing methods do not fully extract the detailed features of retinal images or lose some information, making it difficult to accurately segment capillaries located at the edges of the images. In this paper, we propose a multi-scale retinal vessel segmentation network (SCIE_Net) based on skip connection information enhancement. Firstly, the network processes retinal images at multiple scales to achieve network capture of features at different scales. Secondly, the feature aggregation module is proposed to aggregate the rich information of the shallow network. Further, the skip connection information enhancement module is proposed to take into account the detailed features of the shallow layer and the advanced features of the deeper network to avoid the problem of incomplete information interaction between the layers of the network. Finally, SCIE_Net achieves better vessel segmentation performance and results on the publicly available retinal image standard datasets DRIVE, CHASE_DB1, and STARE.