No Class: But Here’s Some Homework

No Class today, or until January 8.

So as not to leave you bereft and mournful before the blessed 25th, and to satisfy your epistemological hungerings, here is some homework, which if you have been Paying Attention ought to be easy.

Question 1. Paper “Greater exposure to PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ is associated with a higher BAD score: the Maastricht study“. Here is a portion of the Abstract:

To investigate the associations between exposure to ambient air pollutants and the Belin/Ambrosio Enhanced Ectasia score (BAD score), a tomographic parameter for identifying corneas at risk for ectasia. This prospective cross-sectional study uses data from the Maastricht Study, a population-based cohort of adults aged 40–75 years living in and around Maastricht, the Netherlands. Participants underwent corneal tomography with a Pentacam HR. The BADD score was used to assess keratoconus risk. The annual average concentrations of air pollutants—PM2.5, PM10, nitrogen dioxide (NO?), and soot—from the Geoscience and Health Cohort Consortium (GECCO) were used. Associations between standardized Z-scores of air pollutants and the BADD score were analysed via multiple linear regression models, adjusting for potential confounders, including age, sex, education, glucose metabolism status, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

What horrible things have gone wrong here?

Question 2: Paper “Biological sex classification with structural MRI data shows increased misclassification in transgender women“. Here is a portion of the Abstract:

Transgender individuals (TIs) show brain-structural alterations that differ from their biological sex as well as their perceived gender. To substantiate evidence that the brain structure of TIs differs from male and female, we use a combined multivariate and univariate approach. Gray matter segments resulting from voxel-based morphometry preprocessing of N?=?1753 cisgender (CG) healthy participants were used to train (N?=?1402) and validate (20% holdout N?=?351) a support-vector machine classifying the biological sex. As a second validation, we classified N?=?1104 patients with depression…Finally, we compared brain volumes of CG-men, women, and TW-pre/post treatment cross-sex hormone treatment (CHT) in a univariate analysis controlling for sexual orientation, age, and total brain volume. The application of our biological sex classifier to the transgender sample resulted in a significantly lower true positive rate (TPR-male?=?56.0%). The TPR did not differ between CG-individuals with (TPR-male?=?86.9%) and without depression (TPR-male?=?88.5%). The univariate analysis of the transgender application-sample revealed that TW-pre/post treatment show brain-structural differences from CG-women and CG-men in the putamen and insula, as well as the whole-brain analysis. Our results support the hypothesis that brain structure in TW differs from brain structure of their biological sex (male) as well as their perceived gender (female). This finding substantiates evidence that TIs show specific brain-structural alterations leading to a different pattern of brain structure than CG-individuals.

What horrible things have gone wrong here?

Question 3: Headline. “P.U. IQ! Sniffing your own farts could boost brain power, fend off Alzheimer’s: new study“. From the paper, “Protective Roles of Hydrogen Sulfide in Alzheimer’s Disease and Traumatic Brain Injury“. The Abstract:

The gaseous signaling molecule hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) critically modulates a plethora of physiological processes across evolutionary boundaries. These include responses to stress and other neuromodulatory effects that are typically dysregulated in aging, disease, and injury. H₂S has a particularly prominent role in modulating neuronal health and survival under both normal and pathologic conditions. Although toxic and even fatal at very high concentrations, emerging evidence has also revealed a pronounced neuroprotective role for lower doses of endogenously generated or exogenously administered H₂S. Unlike traditional neurotransmitters, H₂S is a gas and, therefore, is unable to be stored in vesicles for targeted delivery. Instead, it exerts its physiologic effects through the persulfidation/sulfhydration of target proteins on reactive cysteine residues. Here, we review the latest discoveries on the neuroprotective roles of H₂S in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and traumatic brain injury, which is one the greatest risk factors for AD.

Why? Why? Why? Why?

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