Dataset Information

An Alternative Psychophysical Diagnostic Indicator of the Aging Eye.

ABSTRACT: Purpose:Impaired adaptation to changes in lighting levels as well as mesopic visual function is a common complaint in those over the age of 65. The use of photostress is a well-established method to test the adaption rate and the response of the visual cycle. In this study, we test visual function recovery to mesopic luminance stimuli following a long duration photostress in young and elderly subjects. If successful in strongly differentiating aging macular function, these methods may also be useful in the study of pathologies such as age-related macular degeneration. Methods:A group of 12 older normal subjects (mean age 75.1 ± 4.79) and a control group of 5 younger normal subjects (mean age 26.2 ± 4.19) were subjected to macular photostress using the OraLux photostress system. The OraLux system provides a diffuse light source bleaching 84% of cone photopigment while maintaining an exposure safety factor of 200 times less than the maximum safe exposure. After each photostressing session, macular recovery was tracked using a foveal, variable contrast, flickering stimulus of mean luminance in the high mesopic range. Recovery was tracked for 300 seconds. The endpoint was time to recovery to each individual's baseline sensitivity as determined by two static sensitivity trials prior to photostress. Results:Proportional hazards analysis of recovery time yielded a statistically significant difference between the older group and the young group (HR = 0.181; p=0.0289). The estimated hazard ratio of 0.181 indicates that older subjects return to baseline at less than one-fifth the rate of younger subjects. The hazards ratio remained statistically significant after adjusting for visual acuity (HR = 0.093; p=0.0424). Conclusion:Photostress recovery of flicker sensitivity under mesopic conditions is a strong differentiator of aging macular function. This agrees with subject-reported complaints in reduced luminance conditions after exposure to bright lights such as night driving. The qualitative similarity between the aging retina and changes in early AMD suggests that flicker recovery following photostress may be useful as a surrogate endpoint in AMD clinical trials.

SUBMITTER: Rodriguez JD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6874969 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundThe patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a worldwide pandemic infection, frequently complain of olfactory disorders. However, psychophysical olfactory tests performed by an examiner are very difficult in these highly infectious patients. This study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire for olfactory function that can be readily used to evaluate olfactory loss.MethodsFourteen smell-related questions were created based on smells familiar to Koreans. Among them, questions with a ? value of 0.6 or higher were finally selected through a test-retest reliability analysis. The correlations between the scores of the olfactory questionnaire and those of olfactory function tests (Butanol Threshold Test [BTT] and Cross Cultural Smell Identification Test [CCSIT]) were analyzed. To evaluate the predictive ability of the questionnaire and elicit cutoff values, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated.ResultsOut of the 14 questions in the questionnaire, 11 (? > 0.6) were selected for the olfactory questionnaire. We analyzed 2,273 subjects, and there was a significant correlation between the total score of the olfactory questionnaire and the BTT (r = 0.643, P < 0.001) or CCSIT (r = 0.615, P < 0.001) scores. ROC curves for the olfactory questionnaire, BTT, and CCSIT all demonstrated high predictive power to discriminate anosmia and severe hyposmia from normosmia. Regarding mild to moderate hyposmia, however, ROC curve for the olfactory questionnaire alone showed high predictive power of discrimination from normosmia. Based on the results of ROC curves among the subclasses, we suggest the classification of the total score of the questionnaire as 0-4, 5-17, 18-27, 28-41, and 42-44, for anosmia, severe hyposmia, moderate hyposmia, mild hyposmia, and normosmia, respectively.ConclusionThe total scores of the questionnaires correlated with the BTT and CCSIT scores. The symptom questionnaire for olfactory dysfunction may be useful as an alternative tool for olfactory function testing, when unavailable.

Project description:BackgroundBladder cancer is one of the most lethal malignancy in urological system, and 20-25% of bladder cancer patients are muscle invasive with unfavorable prognosis. However, the role of alternative splicing (AS) in muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) remains to be elucidated.MethodsPercent spliced in (PSI) data obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) SpliceSeq database (n = 394) were utilized to evaluate the AS events in MIBC. Prognosis-associated AS events were screened out by univariate Cox regression. LASSO Cox regression was used to identify reliable prognostic patterns in a training set and further validated in a test set. Splicing regulatory networks were constructed by correlations between PSI of AS events and RNA expression of splicing factors.ResultsAs a result, a total of 2589 prognosis-related AS events in MIBC were identified. Pathways of spliceosomal complex (FDR = 0.017), DNA-directed RNA polymerase II, core complex (FDR = 0.032), and base excision repair (FDR = 0.038) were observed to be significantly enriched. Additionally, we noticed that most of the prognosis-related AS events were favorable factors. According to the LASSO and multivariate Cox regression analyses, 15-AS-based signature was established with the area under curve (AUC) of 0.709, 0.823, and 0.857 at 1-, 3-, and 5- years, respectively. The MIBC patients were further divided into high- and low-risk groups based on median risk sores. Interestingly, we observed that the prevalence of FGFR3 with mutations and focal amplification was significantly higher in low-risk group. Functional and immune infiltration analysis suggested potential signaling pathways and distinct immune states between these two groups. Moreover, splicing correlation network displayed a regulatory mode of prognostic splicing factors (SF) in MIBC patients.ConclusionsThis study not only provided novel insights into deciphering the possible mechanism of tumorgenesis and pathogenesis but also help refine risk stratification systems and potential treatment of decision-making for MIBC.

Dataset Information

An Alternative Psychophysical Diagnostic Indicator of the Aging Eye.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets