54 +/- 0.13, P smaller than 0.01) and to hypertensive patients IMT (817+/- 47 mu m, standardized mean difference 0.45 +/- 0.14, P smaller than 0.01). After assessing data for publication bias, only the difference between normotensive and WCH patients remained Barasertib in vivo significant. Our meta-analysis documents that common carotid IMT, a prognostically validated marker of vascular damage, is greater in WCH patients than in true normotensive individuals and is not different from sustained hypertensives. This finding supports the concept that WCH

is not an entirely benign condition. (C) 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.”
“Defective transepithelial electrolyte transport is thought to initiate cystic fibrosis

(CF) lung disease. Yet, how loss of CFTR affects electrolyte transport remains uncertain. CFTR(-/-) pigs spontaneously develop lung disease resembling human CF. At birth, their airways exhibit a bacterial host defense defect, but are not inflamed. find more Therefore, we studied ion transport in newborn nasal and tracheal/bronchial epithelia in tissues, cultures, and in vivo. CFTR(-/-) epithelia showed markedly reduced Cl(-) and HCO(3)(-) transport. However, in contrast to a widely held view, lack of CFTR did not increase transepithelial Na(+) or liquid absorption or reduce periciliary liquid depth. Like human CF, CFTR(-/-) pigs showed increased amiloride-sensitive voltage and current, but lack of apical Cl(-) conductance caused the change, not increased Na(+) transport. These results indicate that CFTR provides the predominant transcellular pathway for Cl(-) and HCO(3)(-) in porcine airway epithelia, and reduced anion permeability may initiate CF airway disease.”
“This study uses near-infrared spectroscopy in young infants in order to elucidate the nature of functional cerebral processing for speech. Previous imaging studies of infants’ speech perception revealed left-lateralized responses to native language. However, it is unclear Z-DEVD-FMK if these activations were due to language per se rather than to some low-level acoustic correlate of

spoken language. Here we compare native (L1) and non-native (L2) languages with 3 different nonspeech conditions including emotional voices, monkey calls, and phase scrambled sounds that provide more stringent controls. Hemodynamic responses to these stimuli were measured in the temporal areas of Japanese 4 month-olds. The results show clear left-lateralized responses to speech, prominently to L1, as opposed to various activation patterns in the nonspeech conditions. Furthermore, implementing a new analysis method designed for infants, we discovered a slower hemodynamic time course in awake infants. Our results are largely explained by signal-driven auditory processing. However, stronger activations to L1 than to L2 indicate a language-specific neural factor that modulates these responses.