The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the importance of infection tracking. The role of asymptomatic, undiagnosed individuals in driving infections within this pandemic has become increasingly evident. Modern phylogenetic tools that take into account asymptomatic or undiagnosed individuals can help guide public health responses. We finetuned established phylogenetic pipelines using published SARS-CoV-2 genomic data to examine reasonable estimate transmission networks with the inference of unsampled infection sources. The system utilised Bayesian phylogenetics and TransPhylo to capture the evolutionary and infection dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. Our analyses gave insight into the transmissions within a population including unsampled sources of infection and the results aligned with epidemiological observations. We were able to observe the effects of preventive measures in Canada’s “Atlantic bubble” and in populations such as New York State. The tools also inferred the cross-species disease transmission of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from humans to lions and tigers in New York City’s Bronx Zoo. These phylogenetic tools offer a powerful approach in response to both the COVID-19 and other emerging infectious disease outbreaks.

Infectious diseases such as the COVID19 pandemic cemented the importance of disease tracking. The role of asymptomatic, undiagnosed individuals in driving infection has become evident. Their unaccountability results in ineffective prevention. We developed a pipeline using genomic data to accurately predict a population’s transmission network complete with the inference of unsampled sources. The system utilises Bayesian phylogenetics to capture evolutionary and infection dynamics of SARS-CoV-2. It identified the effectiveness of preventive measures in Canada’s Atlantic bubble and mobile populations such as New York State. Its robustness extends to the prediction of cross-species disease transmission as we inferred SARS-CoV-2 transmission from humans to lions and tigers in New York City’s Bronx Zoo. The proposed method’s ability to generate such complete transmission networks, provides a more detailed insight into the transmission dynamics within a population. This potential frontline tool will be of direct help in “the battle to bend the curve”.

Neurovascular coupling describes a series of processes that serve to match blood supply to neuronal metabolism within the central nervous system. We know that the sympathetic nervous system plays a role in several cerebrovascular control pathways, and preclinical non‐human work demonstrates that the sympathetic nervous system may play a role in neurovascular coupling. These preclinical models utilize isolated cell preparations lacking key inputs to the neurovascular unit such as that of the autonomic nervous system, or utilize anesthetics which blunt cerebrovascular regulatory pathways. Here, our objective was to provide preliminary insight into the role of sympathetic nervous system activation in neurovascular coupling by using our non‐anesthetized, non‐stressed, human, truly in vivo model. We utilized moderate lower body negative pressure (−40 mmHg) to elevate sympathetic activity without affecting mean arterial pressure. Beat‐by‐beat blood pressure was recorded via finger photoplethysmography, while cerebral blood velocity in the middle and posterior cerebral arteries was measured via transcranial Doppler. Neurovascular coupling was elicited using our standardized visual stimulus protocol and data was analyzed using our custom software. As lower body negative pressure leads to sympatho‐excitation and hyperventilation, in a subset of individuals we maintained end‐tidal carbon dioxide levels identical to baseline during lower body negative pressure. Absolute cerebral blood velocity was influenced by arterial carbon dioxide levels. Neurovascular coupling was preserved during lower body negative pressure induced sympatho‐excitation and reduced arterial carbon dioxide levels. Support or Funding Information Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Libin Cardiovascular Institute, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Compute Canada