No abstract

determine role of age, disc area, and trabecular bone density on tolerances/risk curves under vertical loading from a controlled group of specimens. T12-S1 columns were obtained, pretest X-rays and CTs taken, load cells attached to both ends, impacts applied at S1-end using custom vertical accelerator device, and posttest X-ray, CT, and dissections done. BMD of L2-L4 vertebrae were obtained from QCT. Survival analysis-based Human Injury Probability Curves (HIPCs) were derived using proximal and distal forces. Age, area, and BMD were covariates. Forces were considered uncensored, representing the load carrying capacity. The Akaike Information Criterion was used to determine optimal distributions. The mean forces, ±95% confidence intervals, and Normalized Confidence Interval Size (NCIS) were computed. The Lognormal distribution was the optimal function for both forces. Age, area, and BMD were not significant (p > 0.05) covariates for distal forces, while only BMD was significant for proximal forces. The NCIS was the lowest for force-BMD covariate HIPC. The HIPCs for both genders at 35 and 45 years were based on population BMDs. These HIPCs serve as human tolerance criteria for automotive, military, and other applications. In this controlled group of samples, BMD is a better predictor-covariate that characterizes lumbar column injury under inferior-to-superior impacts.

Familial relatedness (FR) and population structure (PS) are two major sources for genetic correlation. In the human population, both FR and PS can further break down into additive and dominant components to account for potential additive and dominant genetic effects. In this study, besides the classical additive genomic relationship matrix, a dominant genomic relationship matrix is introduced. A link between the additive/dominant genomic relationship matrices and the coancestry (or kinship)/double coancestry coefficients is also established. In addition, a way to separate the FR and PS correlations based on the estimates of coancestry and double coancestry coefficients from the genomic relationship matrices is proposed. A unified linear mixed model is also developed, which can account for both the additive and dominance effects of FR and PS correlations as well as their possible random interactions. Finally, this unified linear mixed model is applied to analyze two study cohorts from UK Biobank.

Methods: This was a retrospective cohort analysis of consecutive patients diagnosed with toxicity related to cannabis use. Patients were seen at seven emergency departments (EDs) over a 24-month study period (November 2018-October 2020). Spanning 13 counties in Michigan, affiliated institutions included three rural medical centers, three university-affiliated hospitals, and a children's tertiary care facility. Data collected included demographics, clinical features, and treatment outcomes in patients presenting to the ED with neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) versus those experiencing other forms of cannabis toxicity. Chisquared and t-tests were used to compare these two groups across key demographic and outcome variables. One investigator performed a blinded critical review of a random sample of 10% of the charts to determine inter-rater reliability using kappa statistics.Results: During the study period, 1214 patients were evaluated for cannabis toxicity. A total of 584 patients (48.1%) had a neuropsychiatric chief complaint (NPS group) and 630 (51.9%) experienced other forms of cannabis toxicity, predominantly symptoms of intoxication (51.0%) or cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (37.5%). The NPS group presented with acute anxiety (37.5%), suicidal ideation (18.4%), depression (16.1%), hallucinations (9.5%), mania (5.9%), seizures (5.5%), psychosis (4.6%), and paranoia (4.5%). NPS patients were more likely to younger (25.3 vs 29.2 years, P<0.001), have comorbidities (15.3 vs 9.2%, P¼0.001) and a history of polysubstance abuse (13.2 vs 8.6%, P¼0.004). These patients also had a longer ED length-of-stay (7.3 vs 4.0 hours, P<0.001) and significantly more hospital admissions (41.9% vs 6.4%, P<0.001). Reliability of data collection (k ¼ 0.91) showed excellent agreement.Conclusions: Neuropsychiatric toxicity is common after acute or chronic cannabis exposures, occurring in nearly half of ED patients in this community-based study. These troublesome findings highlight the risks associated with the use of cannabis for recreational or therapeutic purposes.

No abstract