Topic Review
How Immune Responses Are Regulated
Most basic studies directed at how immune responses are regulated employ chemically “simple antigens”, usually purified proteins. The target antigens in many clinical situations, such as in autoimmunity, infectious diseases and cancer, are chemically “complex”, consisting of several distinct molecules, and they often are part of a replicating entity. 
  • 115
  • 19 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Assisted Robots in Therapies for Children
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have deficits that affect their social relationships, communication, and flexibility in reasoning. There are different types of treatment (pharmacological, educational, psychological, and rehabilitative). Currently, one way to address this problem is by using robotic systems to address the abilities that are altered in these children.
  • 125
  • 18 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Ontology-Based Parkinson’s Disease Monitoring and Alerting with PHKG-GNNs
In the realm of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) research, the integration of wearable sensor data with personal health records (PHR) has emerged as a pivotal avenue for patient alerting and monitoring. The complex domain of PD patient care was delved into, with a specific emphasis on harnessing the potential of wearable sensors to capture, represent and semantically analyze crucial movement data and knowledge. The primary objective is to enhance the assessment of PD patients by establishing a robust foundation for personalized health insights through the development of Personal Health Knowledge Graphs (PHKGs) and the employment of personal health Graph Neural Networks (PHGNNs) that utilize PHKGs. The objective is to formalize the representation of related integrated data, unified sensor and PHR data in higher levels of abstraction, i.e., in a PHKG, to facilitate interoperability and support rule-based high-level event recognition such as patient’s missing dose or falling. This is an extension of researchers' previous related work, presents the Wear4PDmove ontology in detail and evaluates the ontology within the development of an experimental PHKG. Furthermore, the integration and evaluation of PHKG within the implementation of a Graph Neural Network (GNN) are focused on. The importance of integrating PD-related data for monitoring and alerting patients with appropriate notifications are emphasized. These notifications offer health experts precise and timely information for the continuous evaluation of personal health-related events, ultimately contributing to enhanced patient care and well-informed medical decision-making. Finally, a novel approach for integrating personal health KGs and GNNs for PD monitoring and alerting solutions is proposed.
  • 214
  • 18 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Immunomodulatory Function of Vitamin D
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT), also known as chronic autoimmune thyroiditis, is the most prevalent organ-specific autoimmune disorder. Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) is marked by self-tissue destruction as a consequence of an alteration in the adaptive immune response that entails the evasion of immune regulation. Vitamin D carries out an immunomodulatory role that appears to promote immune tolerance.
  • 104
  • 15 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Biocidal Action of Hydrogen Peroxide Vapour and Mechanism
Disinfection is described as a process that eliminates many or all pathogenic microorganisms on inanimate objects, with the exception of bacterial endospores. Disinfection is usually carried out by chemical or physical means. Among other settings, disinfection is of utmost importance in hospital environments due to pathogens living on hospital surfaces being the direct cause for hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). However, the presence of a wide range of pathogens and biofilms, combined with the indiscriminate use of antibiotics, presents infection control teams in healthcare facilities with ongoing challenges in the selection of biocides and application methods. This necessitates the development of biocides and innovative disinfection methods that overcome the shortcomings of conventional methods. The use of hydrogen peroxide vapour to be a superior alternative to conventional methods. Hydrogen peroxide vapour to be very close to an ideal disinfectant due to its proven efficacy against a wide range of microorganisms, safety to use, lack of toxicity concerns and good material compatibility.
  • 160
  • 14 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Multiple Sclerosis and Sodium Toxicity
Salt intake is associated with multiple sclerosis; however, controversial findings that challenge this association rely primarily on methods that do not measure total sodium storage within the body, such as food surveys and urinary sodium excretion. In contrast, tissue sodium concentrations measured with sodium MRI confirm high sodium levels in multiple sclerosis, suggesting a role for sodium toxicity as a risk factor for the disease.
  • 124
  • 14 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Hypertension, Anxiety and Obstructive Sleep Apnea
Increased anxiety in these conditions may be linked to a high-salt diet through stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, which increases blood pressure while releasing catecholamines, causing a “fight or flight” response. A rostral shift of fluid overload from the lower to the upper body occurs in obstructive sleep apnea associated with COVID-19 and cardiovascular disease, and may be related to sodium and fluid retention triggered by hypertonic dehydration. Chronic activation of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system responds to salt-induced dehydration by increasing reabsorption of sodium and fluid, potentially exacerbating fluid overload. Anxiety may also be related to angiotensin II that stimulates the sympathetic nervous system to release catecholamines. 
  • 113
  • 14 Mar 2024
Topic Review
SIDS, Pulmonary Edema, and Sodium Toxicity
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) occurs unexpectedly in an otherwise healthy infant with no identifiable cause of death following a thorough investigation. A general hypervolemic state has been identified in SIDS, and fluid in the lungs suggests the involvement of pulmonary edema and hypoxia as the cause of death.
  • 123
  • 14 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Salt in Low Back Pain and Comorbid Conditions
Low back pain is the world’s leading disability, but the etiology of the majority of low back pain is non-specific with no known cause. Moreover, overuse of opioids to treat low back pain is a widespread problem. Many global populations consume excess sodium chloride, which can lead to fluid overload in hypervolemia, and cause swelling and temporary weight gain associated with low back pain. Numerous conditions comorbid with low back pain are also potentially mediated by excessive salt intake, including migraine headache, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, venous thromboembolism, liver disease, respiratory disorders, chronic kidney disease, pregnancy complications, and multiple sclerosis.
  • 126
  • 14 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Mucociliary Clearance and SARS-CoV-2 Infection
Ciliary beat frequency (CBF) within the ciliated epithelium of the nasal tract can be stimulated to a higher frequency and provide increased protection against transient exposure to airway irritants. Smokers as well as non-smokers exposed to secondhand tobacco smoke were found to have higher CBFs. However, with extended exposure to irritants, persistent upregulated CBF can damage and remodel the epithelial layer with fewer protective cilia. Additionally, mucociliary clearance (MCC), the innate defense mechanism of the respiratory system, traps particles and pathogens within the mucous layer of the epithelium and propels them out of the airways through ciliary activity. However, this mechanism becomes defective as disease progresses, increasing susceptibility to viral respiratory infections. 
  • 117
  • 14 Mar 2024
  • Page
  • of
  • 182