The mechanisms underlying emotional alterations constitute a key research target in neuroscience. Emerging evidence indicates that these disruptions can be related to abnormal interoception (i.e., the sensing of visceral feelings), as observed in patients with cardiodynamic deficits. To directly assess these links, we performed the first multicenter study on emotion recognition and interoception in patients with hypertensive heart disease (HHD). Participants from two countries completed a facial emotion recognition test, and a subsample additionally underwent an interoception protocol based on a validated heartbeat detection task. HHD patients from both countries presented deficits in the recognition of overall and negative emotions. Moreover, interoceptive performance was impaired in the HHD group. In addition, a significant association between interoceptive performance and emotion recognition was observed in the control group, but this relation was abolished in the HHD group. All results survived after covariance with cognitive status measures, suggesting they were not biased by general cognitive deficits in the patients. Taken together, these findings suggest that emotional recognition alterations could represent a sui generis deficit in HHD, and that it may be partially explained by the disruption of mechanisms subserving the integration of neuro-visceral signals.

Background: Amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) is the most common preclinical stage of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A strategy to reduce the impact of AD is the early aMCI diagnosis and clinical intervention. Neuroimaging, neurobiological, and genetic markers have proved to be sensitive and specific for the early diagnosis of AD. However, the high cost of these procedures is prohibitive in low-income and middle-income countries (LIMCs). The neuropsychological assessments currently aim to identify cognitive markers that could contribute to the early diagnosis of dementia. Objective: Compare machine learning (ML) architectures classifying and predicting aMCI and asset the contribution of cognitive measures including binding function in distinction and prediction of aMCI. Methods: We conducted a two-year follow-up assessment of a sample of 154 subjects with a comprehensive multidomain neuropsychological battery. Statistical analysis was proposed using complete ML architectures to compare subjects’ performance to classify and predict aMCI. Additionally, permutation importance and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) routines were implemented for feature importance selection. Results: AdaBoost, gradient boosting, and XGBoost had the highest performance with over 80%success classifying aMCI, and decision tree and random forest had the highest performance with over 70%success predictive routines. Feature importance points, the auditory verbal learning test, short-term memory binding tasks, and verbal and category fluency tasks were used as variables with the first grade of importance to distinguish healthy cognition and aMCI. Conclusion: Although neuropsychological measures do not replace biomarkers’ utility, it is a relatively sensitive and specific diagnostic tool for aMCI. Further studies with ML must identify cognitive performance that differentiates conversion from average MCI to the pathological MCI observed in AD.

in 2017. A descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in a sample of 361 students, with an average age of 21 (16-40) years. A sociodemographic survey was conducted, and blood samples and lipid profiles were obtained. The participants were predominantly female (77%), single (92.5%), and young adults (62.3%) and with an average socioeconomic level (55.1%). The overall prevalence of hyperlipidemia was 33.8%, with the following risk values: triglyceride (TG), 12.8%; hypercholesterolemia, 16.1%; high density lipoprotein cholesterol (cHDL), 15.0%; and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (cLDL), 42.2%. Using the theory of the logistic regression models and chi-square likelihood ratio tests, the factors that were significantly associated with the risk of hyperlipidemia were male sex and consumption of alcoholic beverages (P-value < 0.05). In the two-way ANOVA, it was observed that the interaction of these two factors for TG was significant (P-value < 0.05), being higher in men who consume intoxicating beverages (Tukey's test, P value <0.05). Regarding cHDL and cLDL, only sex presented a significant effect on their values (P-value < 0.05), while for total cholesterol, none was significant (P-value > 0.05). The results obtained indicate the importance of early detection of blood lipid levels in young people to prevent the early development of noncommunicable diseases.

Introducción: El cáncer ginecológico impacta psicológicamente a la mujer. En este proceso las Estrategias de Afrontamiento-EA, al parecer, se asocian con la Calidad de Vida relacionada con la Salud-CvRS; sin embargo, se desconoce el valor predictivo de las EA sobre la CvRS. Este artículo tiene como finalidad identificar las diferencias y la naturaleza de la relación entre la CvRS y las EA respecto al apoyo psicológico, así como identificar si las EA predicen la CvRS. Método: Se efectuó un diseño no-experimental con 55 mujeres entre 27 y 69 años, M = 42.3, DE = 10.1, diagnosticadas con cáncer ginecológico. La CvRS se evaluó con el FACT-Cx y el SF-36; las EA, con el CAEPO. Resultados: las mujeres con asistencia psicológica tienen mejor CvRS y EA, igualmente, la CvRS se correlacionó con las EA positivas. La dimensión de salud general también es explicada por las EA positivas e inversamente por las EA negativas. Las EA que mejor predicen las CvRS son: Enfrentamiento y Lucha Activa, y Autocontrol y Control Emocional, mientras que las EA negativas afectan la CvRS. Conclusión: Los resultados resaltan la necesidad de acompañamiento psicológico que promueva EA positivas y beneficien la CvRS en mujeres con cáncer ginecológico.

The various activities that university students face generate stress and variation in healthy habits, producing alterations such as an increase in blood lipids, a risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases. The purpose of this research is to identify the relationship between academic stress and dyslipidemia in students of the Faculty of Health of the Santiago de Cali University, Colombia. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out with simple random sampling. The sample was of 212 students, average age of 21 years, range between 16 and 40; from which a blood sample was extracted to quantify lipid levels. Likewise, the General Stress Appreciation Scale was applied. The statistical analysis was carried out with the R program version 3.5.1. Among the results, 26.4% of the population presents stress levels between medium, high and very high, being related to HDL-C> 40. There were no changes in cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL-C with stress. It is concluded that there is a low relationship between academic stress and lipid alteration, however, at low levels of stress, HDL-C was normal.