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Carla D Guantay,1,2 Laura Mena-García,1 Miguel Ángel Tola-Arribas,3,4 María José Garea García-Malvar,3 María Isabel Yugueros Fernández,3 Agustín Mayo-Iscar,1,5 José Carlos Pastor1,2 1Instituto Universitario de Oftalmobiología Aplicada (IOBA Eye Institute), Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain; 2Red de Investigación Cooperativa Orientada a Resultados en Salud (RICORS), Red de Enfermedades Inflamatorias (REI), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; 3Department of Neurology, Hospital Universitario Río Hortega, Valladolid, Spain; 4Centro de Investigación en Red en Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (CIBER-BBN), Madrid, Spain; 5Department of Statistics and Operational Research and IMUVa, Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, SpainCorrespondence: Carla D Guantay, Instituto Universitario de Oftalmobiología Aplicada (IOBA Eye Institute), Universidad de Valladolid, Paseo de Belén 17, Valladolid, 47011, Spain, Tel +34 983 42 35 59, Email cdguantays@ioba.med.uva.esPurpose: To characterize ocular motility disturbances through Microperimetry (MP) in patients with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) trying to detect those capable of influencing the disability to improve the accuracy of assessing visual impact in EDSS scale. MP results were compare with some structural parameters obtained by OCT.Patients and Methods: Cross-sectional analytical and correlational case-control study approved by Ethical Committee. A total of 82 eyes (41 patients) and 30 healthy eyes (15 subjects) were enrolled after informed consent. All participants underwent ophthalmological evaluation with MP and OCT. Variables included MS disease duration, Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score; in OCT: central macular thickness (CMT), ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer thickness (GCIPL), and peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer thickness (pRNFL); and in MP: test duration, reaction time, average macular threshold (AT), and 4 fixation stability indexes (P1, P2, BCEA63, BCEA95).Results: MS group showed a significant decrease in GCIPL (p < 0.001) and pRNFL thickness (p < 0.001) compared to the control group. Furthermore, patients demonstrated a longer examination (p < 0.001) and reaction (p < 0.001) times, reduced AT (p < 0.001), more unstable fixation indexes (P1 p < 0.004, P2 p = 0.018, BCEA63 p = 0.005 and BCEA95 p = 0.007), measured by MP. In addition, patients with a history of ON (n=16) demonstrated longer examination times in MP (p = 0.049) compared to MS patients without ON, but they were not correlations with OCT measurements, EDSS score correlated with the CMT (p = 0.023, r = − 0.25), MP duration (p = 0.043, r = 0.22), and fixation indexes (P1 p = 0.049, r = − 0.22, BCEA63 p = 0.041, r = 0.23, BCEA95 p = 0.049, r = 0.22).Conclusion: Our study emphasizes the complementary utility of MP and OCT in assessing MS patients. Additionally, it highlights that using MP for objective measurements of oculomotor dysfunction could improves accuracy in disability assessment on the EDSS scale.Keywords: ocular movement anomalies, expanded disability status scale, neurodegenerative diseases, fixation instability, retinal sensitivity

Fundamento: El elevado consumo de antibióticos sistémicos en nuestro país hace necesario el estudio de aquellos factores que determinen su distribución. Diversos parámetros están implicados en el reparto desigual de su consumo, entre ellos: a) la epidemiología de los procesos infecciosos, b) los factores dependientes de la población y c) factores dependientes de los médicos prescriptores. En el presente trabajo pretendemos realizar un análisis de aquellos determinantes dependientes de la población (tipo de población y edad). Métodos: Estudio longitudinal retrospectivo con datos de consumo de antibióticos de uso sistémico proporcionados por la compañía International Marketing Services (IMS) entre el 1 de enero de 1996 y el 31 de diciembre del 2000. El indicador de consumo utilizado fue el número de dosis diaria definida por 1000 habitantes y día (DHD). Se consideraron seis áreas geográficas en la provincia de Valladolid, tres de ellas de carácter urbano y otras tres predominantemente rurales. Resultados: El consumo global por área fue el siguiente: Medina del Campo (25,9DHD), Valladolid capital (23,4DHD), Laguna de Duero (22,6DHD), Área Norte (22,4DHD), Área Sur (21,4DHD) y en último lugar el Área Centro (20,2DHD). El consumo específico por áreas determinó un mayor consumo de amoxicilina en las tres áreas urbanas, amoxicilina-clavulánico y los principales macrólidos en Medina del Campo, quinolonas en el Área Norte y tetraciclinas y sulfamidas en Valladolid capital Conclusiones: Observamos diferencias globales de consumo importantes entre áreas, con unos máximos en las áreas urbanas. Estas diferencias fueron más marcadas al estudiar la distribución geográfica del consumo de los principales principios activos.

State-of-the-art eye trackers provide valuable information for diagnosing reading problems by measuring and interpreting people’s gaze paths as they read through text. Abnormal conditions such as visual field defects, however, can seriously confound most of today’s existing methods for interpreting reading gaze patterns. Our objective was to research how visual field defects impact reading gaze path patterns, so the effects of such neurological pathologies can be explicitly incorporated into more comprehensive reading diagnosis methodologies. A cross-sectional, non-randomized, pilot clinical study including 45 patients with various neurologic disorders and 30 normal controls was designed. Participants underwent ophthalmologic/neuropsychologic and eye-tracker examinations using two reading tests of words and numbers. The results showed that the use of the eye tracker showed that patients with brain damage and an altered visual field require more time to complete a reading-text test by fixating a greater number of times (p < 0.001); with longer fixations (p = 0.03); and a greater number of saccades in these patients (p = 0.04). Our study showed objective differences in eye movement characteristics in patients with neurological diseases and an altered visual field who complained of reading difficulties. These findings should be considered as a bias factor and deserve further investigation.

The immune system is affected by the dietary products humans intake. Immune system regulation by nutrition has uses in the clinical context, but it can also benefit healthy populations by delaying or preventing the emergence of immune-mediated chronic illnesses. In this study, the purpose was to describe and compare the modulator effects on the immune system of the routine ingestion of fresh vs. pasteurized yogurt. A unicentral, prospective, randomized, double-blind, parallel group 8-week nutritional study was carried out comparing the ingestion of 125 g of the products in healthy adults three times a day. A complete battery of in vitro tests on the activity of the immune system, processes and phenomena was performed. Exclusive immune-modulatory effects of fresh yogurt with respect to base line were found in terms of increased systemic IgM (primary immune responses), increased synthesis of IFN-gamma upon stimulation (Th1) and increased peripheral T cells (mainly “naive” CD4s). In the three interventions, we observed an increased phagocytic activity and burst test in granulocytes, together with increased secretion of IL-6, IL-1 β and IL-8 (pro-inflammatory) and increased CD16 expression (FcR favoring phagocytosis) in granulocytes. Overall, it is concluded that regardless of bacteria being alive or thermally inactivated, yogurt has common effects on the innate system, but the presence of live bacteria is necessary to achieve a potentiating effect on the specific immune response.

BackgroundThe lockdown imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic led to social isolation and prevented patients with dementia from receiving a suite of non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) that prevent cognitive decline. This discontinuation of NPIs could substantially affect the mental health status of people with dementia in social care settings, such as adult day care centers (ADCs).ProposeThe study aimed to evaluate the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on mental health and cognitive impairment in patients with dementia who could not attend their usual ADCs and did not receive our NPIs, based on World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines.MethodsObservational, longitudinal, retrospective study carried out in an adult day center in Spain and reported it in accordance with the Strengthening Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement. Cognitive status was assessed using the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) in 80 patients attending the ADC of the “Leonese Association of Dementia Patients” (León, Spain), who had been evaluated with this instrument before the COVID-19 lockdown.ResultsWe observed a 0.4-point decrease in MMSE score/month (IQR = 1.4) during lockdown versus a 0.1-point decrease/month (IQR = 0.3) before this period (p = 0.038). Notably, this translated to >10-point decreases in MMSE score/year in 33.8% of participants during lockdown versus 5.5% earlier (p

Resumen: Las recientes investigaciones llevadas a cabo por la neurociencia aplicadas concretamente al ámbito educativo ponen de manifiesto cómo nuestro cerebro guarda con una mayor precisión y a un mayor largo plazo aquellos acontecimientos, saberes, experiencias que se relacionan directamente con una emoción (bien sea positiva, bien sea negativa). Pretendemos, a través de este estudio, descubrir si los recuerdos y emociones adscritos a la lectura en la infancia infieren directamente en la adquisición del hábito lector. Para ello se ha efectuado una investigación mixta (a lo largo de 6 cursos académicos) entre el alumnado de cuarto curso de las facultades de educación de la Universidad de Valladolid (Campus de Valladolid y de Segovia) matriculados en las asignaturas Literatura Infantil y Conocimiento del Entorno a Través de la Literatura Infantil. La intención es discernir y mostrar qué tipos de emociones y recuerdos afectan directamente a la lectura y si estos guardan o no una relación constatada con el hábito lector actual. Abstract: The recent research carried out by neuroscience applied specifically to the educational field shows how our brain saves with greater precision and in a longer term those events, knowledge, experiences that are directly related to an emotion (either positive, or negative). We intend, through this study, to discover if the memories and emotions ascribed to reading in childhood directly infer the acquisition of the reading habit. To this end, a mixed investigation has been carried out (over 6 academic years) among fourth-year students from the faculties of education of the University of Valladolid (Valladolid and Segovia Campus) enrolled in the subject of Children's Literature and Knowledge of the Environment Through Children's Literature. The intention is to discern and show what types of emotions and memories directly affect reading and whether or not they have a proven relationship with the current reading habit.

Statistical inference based on the cluster weighted model often requires some subjective judgment from the modeler. Many features influence the final solution, such as the number of mixture components, the shape of the clusters in the explanatory variables, and the degree of heteroscedasticity of the errors around the regression lines. Moreover, to deal with outliers and contamination that may appear in the data, hyper-parameter values ensuring robust estimation are also needed. In principle, this freedom gives rise to a variety of “legitimate” solutions, each derived by a specific set of choices and their implications in modeling. Here we introduce a method for identifying a “set of good models” to cluster a dataset, considering the whole panorama of choices. In this way, we enable the practitioner, or the scientist who needs to cluster the data, to make an educated choice. They will be able to identify the most appropriate solutions for the purposes of their own analysis, in light of their stability and validity.

Clustering is one of the most widely used unsupervised learning techniques. However, it is well‐known that outliers can have a significantly adverse impact on commonly applied clustering methods. On the other hand, clustered outliers can be particularly detrimental to (even robust) statistical procedures. Therefore, it makes sense to combine concepts from Robust Statistics and Cluster Analysis to deal with both clusters and outliers simultaneously through robust clustering approaches. Among the existing robust clustering techniques, we focus on those that rely on (impartial) trimming. Trimming offers the user an easy interpretation, as standard well‐known clustering methods are applied after a fraction of the potentially most outlying observations is removed. This trimming approach, when combined with appropriate constraints on the clusters' dispersion parameters, has shown a good performance and can be implemented efficiently thorough available algorithms. This article is categorized under:Statistical Learning and Exploratory Methods of the Data Sciences > Clustering and ClassificationStatistical and Graphical Methods of Data Analysis > Robust Methods [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The immune system is affected by the dietary products humans intake. Immune system regulation by nutrition has uses in the clinical context, but it can also benefit healthy populations by delaying or preventing the emergence of immune-mediated chronic illnesses. In this study, the purpose was to describe and compare the modulator effects on the immune system of the routine ingestion of fresh vs. pasteurized yogurt. A unicentral, prospective, randomized, double-blind, parallel group 8-week nutritional study was carried out comparing the ingestion of 125 g of the products in healthy adults three times a day. A complete battery of in vitro tests on the activity of the immune system, processes and phenomena was performed. Exclusive immune-modulatory effects of fresh yogurt with respect to base line were found in terms of increased systemic IgM (primary immune responses), increased synthesis of IFN-gamma upon stimulation (Th1) and increased peripheral T cells (mainly "naive" CD4s). In the three interventions, we observed an increased phagocytic activity and burst test in granulocytes, together with increased secretion of IL-6, IL-1 β and IL-8 (pro-inflammatory) and increased CD16 expression (FcR favoring phagocytosis) in granulocytes. Overall, it is concluded that regardless of bacteria being alive or thermally inactivated, yogurt has common effects on the innate system, but the presence of live bacteria is necessary to achieve a potentiating effect on the specific immune response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State-of-the-art eye trackers provide valuable information for diagnosing reading problems by measuring and interpreting people's gaze paths as they read through text. Abnormal conditions such as visual field defects, however, can seriously confound most of today's existing methods for interpreting reading gaze patterns. Our objective was to research how visual field defects impact reading gaze path patterns, so the effects of such neurological pathologies can be explicitly incorporated into more comprehensive reading diagnosis methodologies. A cross-sectional, non-randomized, pilot clinical study including 45 patients with various neurologic disorders and 30 normal controls was designed. Participants underwent ophthalmologic/neuropsychologic and eye-tracker examinations using two reading tests of words and numbers. The results showed that the use of the eye tracker showed that patients with brain damage and an altered visual field require more time to complete a reading-text test by fixating a greater number of times (p < 0.001); with longer fixations (p = 0.03); and a greater number of saccades in these patients (p = 0.04). Our study showed objective differences in eye movement characteristics in patients with neurological diseases and an altered visual field who complained of reading difficulties. These findings should be considered as a bias factor and deserve further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Chronic musculoskeletal pain affects more than 20% of the population, and the prevalence is increasing, causing suffering, loss of quality of life, disability, and an enormous expenditure on healthcare resources. The most common location for chronic pain is the spine. Many of the treatments used are mainly passive (pharmacological and invasive) and poor outcomes. The treatments currently applied in the public health system do not comply with the recommendations of the main clinical practice guidelines, which suggest the use of educational measures and physical exercise as the first-line treatment. A protocol based on active coping strategies is described, which will be evaluated through a clinical trial and which could facilitate the transfer of the recommendations of the clinical practice guidelines to a primary care setting. Methods Randomised and multicentre clinical trials, which will be carried out in 10 Primary Care centres. The trial will compare the effect of a Pain Neuroscience Education program (six sessions, 10 h) and group physical exercise (18 sessions program carried out in six weeks, 18 h), with usual care physiotherapy treatment. Group physical exercise incorporates dual tasks, gaming, and reinforcement of contents of the educational program. The aim is to assess the effect of the intervention on quality of life, as well as on pain, disability, catastrophism, kinesiophobia, central sensitisation, and drug use. The outcome variables will be measured at the beginning of the intervention, after the intervention (week 11), at six months, and a year. Discussion Therapeutic interventions based on active coping strategies are essential for the treatment of chronic pain and the sustainability of the Public Health System. Demonstrating whether group interventions have an effect size is essential for optimising resources in such a prevalent problem. Trial registration NCT03654235 “Retrospectively registered” 31 August 2018.