Developmental synchrony of thalamocortical circuits in the neonatal brain

10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.03.039Neuroimage116168-176GUSTO (Growing up towards Healthy Outcomes

Posterior eye shape measurement with retinal OCT compared to MRI

PURPOSE. Posterior eye shape assessment by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to study myopia. We tested the hypothesis that optical coherence tomography (OCT), as an alternative, could measure posterior eye shape similarly to MRI. METHODS. Macular spectral-domain OCT and brain MRI images previously acquired as part of the Singapore Epidemiology of Eye Diseases study were analyzed. The right eye in the MRI and OCT images was automatically segmented. Optical coherence tomography segmentations were corrected for optical and display distortions requiring biometry data. The segmentations were fitted to spheres and ellipsoids to obtain the posterior eye radius of curvature (Rc) and asphericity (Qxz). The differences in Rc and Qxz measured by MRI and OCT were tested using paired t-tests. Categorical assignments of prolateness or oblateness using Qxz were compared. RESULTS. Fifty-two subjects (67.8 ± 5.6 years old) with spherical equivalent refraction from +0.50 to -5.38 were included. The mean paired difference between MRI and original OCT posterior eye Rc was 24.03 ± 46.49 mm (P = 0.0005). For corrected OCT images, the difference in Rc decreased to -0.23 ± 2.47 mm (P = 0.51). The difference between MRI and OCT asphericity, Qxz, was -0.052 ± 0.343 (P = 0.28). However, categorical agreement was only moderate (j = 0.50). CONCLUSIONS. Distortion-corrected OCT measurements of Rc and Qxz were not statistically significantly different from MRI, although the moderate categorical agreement suggests that individual differences remained. This study provides evidence that with distortion correction, noninvasive office-based OCT could potentially be used instead of MRI for the study of posterior eye shape

Genome-Wide Association Study of Retinopathy in Individuals without Diabetes

10.1371/journal.pone.0054232PLoS ONE82

A cohort evaluation on arterial stiffness and hypertensive disorders in pregnancy

10.1186/1471-2393-12-160BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth12-BPCM

New loci associated with birth weight identify genetic links between intrauterine growth and adult height and metabolism.

Birth weight within the normal range is associated with a variety of adult-onset diseases, but the mechanisms behind these associations are poorly understood. Previous genome-wide association studies of birth weight identified a variant in the ADCY5 gene associated both with birth weight and type 2 diabetes and a second variant, near CCNL1, with no obvious link to adult traits. In an expanded genome-wide association meta-analysis and follow-up study of birth weight (of up to 69,308 individuals of European descent from 43 studies), we have now extended the number of loci associated at genome-wide significance to 7, accounting for a similar proportion of variance as maternal smoking. Five of the loci are known to be associated with other phenotypes: ADCY5 and CDKAL1 with type 2 diabetes, ADRB1 with adult blood pressure and HMGA2 and LCORL with adult height. Our findings highlight genetic links between fetal growth and postnatal growth and metabolism

Teacher led school-based surveillance can allow accurate tracking of emerging infectious diseases - evidence from serial cross-sectional surveys of febrile respiratory illness during the H1N1 2009 influenza pandemic in Singapore

10.1186/1471-2334-12-336BMC Infectious Diseases12-BIDM

Genome-wide meta-analysis of myopia and hyperopia provides evidence for replication of 11 loci

Refractive error (RE) is a complex, multifactorial disorder characterized by a mismatch between the optical power of the eye and its axial length that causes object images to be focused off the retina. The two major subtypes of RE are myopia (nearsightedness) and hyperopia (farsightedness), which represent opposite ends of the distribution of the quantitative measure of spherical refraction. We performed a fixed effects meta-analysis of genome-wide association results of myopia and hyperopia from 9 studies of European-derived populations: AREDS, KORA, FES, OGP-Talana, MESA, RSI, RSII, RSIII and ERF. One genome-wide significant region was observed for myopia, corresponding to a previously identified myopia locus on 8q12 (p = 1.25610-8), which has been reported by Kiefer et al. as significantly associated with myopia age at onset and Verhoeven et al. as significantly associated to mean spherical-equivalent (MSE) refractive error. We observed two genomewide significant association

IMI – Interventions myopia institute:Interventions for controlling myopia onset and progression report

Myopia has been predicted to affect approximately 50% of the world’s population based on trending myopia prevalence figures. Critical to minimizing the associated adverse visual consequences of complicating ocular pathologies are interventions to prevent or delay the onset of myopia, slow its progression, and to address the problem of mechanical instability of highly myopic eyes. Although treatment approaches are growing in number, evidence of treatment efficacy is variable. This article reviews research behind such interventions under four categories: optical, pharmacological, environmental (behavioral), and surgical. In summarizing the evidence of efficacy, results from randomized controlled trials have been given most weight, although such data are very limited for some treatments. The overall conclusion of this review is that there are multiple avenues for intervention worthy of exploration in all categories, although in the case of optical, pharmacological, and behavioral interventions for preventing or slowing progression of myopia, treatment efficacy at an individual level appears quite variable, with no one treatment being 100% effective in all patients. Further research is critical to understanding the factors underlying such variability and underlying mechanisms, to guide recommendations for combined treatments. There is also room for research into novel treatment options