Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the most common cause of chronic liver disease in the United States and is closely associated with obesity and insulin resistance (IR). Weight loss is the best treatment for NAFLD. Endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) is a promising endoscopic procedure for treatment of obesity. Our aim is to evaluate the change in IR and estimated hepatic steatosis and fibrosis after ESG.

One hundred eighteen patients with obesity and NAFLD underwent ESG and were followed for 2 years. Weight loss was evaluated as % total body weight loss. IR was evaluated using the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR). The previously validated hepatic steatosis index and NAFLD fibrosis score were used to estimate hepatic steatosis and risk of fibrosis.

Patients’ mean body mass index was 40 ± 7 kg/m

at baseline. Eighty-four percent of patients completed 2 years of follow-up. At 2 years, the mean total body weight loss was 15.5% (95% confidence interval, 13.3%-17.8%). n early and weight-independent improvement in insulin resistance, which lasted for 2 years after the procedure.

Detection and characterization of focal liver lesions (FLLs) is key for optimizing treatment for patients who may have a primary hepatic cancer or metastatic disease to the liver. This is the first study to develop an EUS-based convolutional neural network (CNN) model for the purpose of identifying and classifying FLLs.

A prospective EUS database comprising cases of FLLs visualized and sampled via EUS was reviewed. Relevant still images and videos of liver parenchyma and FLLs were extracted. Patient data were then randomly distributed for the purpose of CNN model training and testing. Once a final model was created, occlusion heatmap analysis was performed to assess the ability of the EUS-CNN model to autonomously identify FLLs. The performance of the EUS-CNN for differentiating benign and malignant FLLs was also analyzed.

A total of 210,685 unique EUS images from 256 patients were used to train, validate, and test the CNN model. Occlusion heatmap analyses demonstrated that the EUS-CNN model was successful in autonomously locating FLLs in 92.0% of EUS video assets. When evaluating any random still image extracted from videos or physician-captured images, the CNN model was 90% sensitive and 71% specific (area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUROC], 0.861) for classifying malignant FLLs. When evaluating full-length video assets, the EUS-CNN model was 100% sensitive and 80% specific (AUROC, 0.904) for classifying malignant FLLs.

This study demonstrated the capability of an EUS-CNN model to autonomously identify FLLs and to accurately classify them as either malignant or benign lesions.

This study demonstrated the capability of an EUS-CNN model to autonomously identify FLLs and to accurately classify them as either malignant or benign lesions.Multi-digit numbers are of a hierarchical nature with whole number magnitudes depending on digit magnitudes. learn more Processing of multi-digit numbers can occur in a holistic or decomposed fashion. The unit-decade compatibility effect during number comparison is often used as a measure of decomposed processing. It refers to the fact that performance is reduced when the larger number contains the smaller unit digit (e.g. 73 vs. 26). It has been demonstrated that women show a larger compatibility effect than men, which is in accordance with their general tendency towards focusing on stimulus details during processing of visual hierarchical stimuli (local processing style). Such a local processing style has been related to higher progesterone and lower testosterone levels. One method to study individual processing styles is eye-tracking. The aim of the present study was to examine whether sex and sex hormones (estradiol, progesterone, testosterone) relate to eye movement behavior in the number comparison task. Unlike previous studies we found no evidence for sex differences in the behavioral compatibility effect. Nevertheless, women look more often and longer at individual digits and show a stronger compatibility effect in fixation durations compared to men, while men show more saccades between numbers than women. Estradiol and progesterone were related to fewer fixations and shorter fixation durations and more saccades between numbers in men, but not in women. Furthermore, the compatibility effect in the number of fixations and fixation durations was negatively related to testosterone in women. In summary, this is the first study to demonstrate sex differences and sex hormone influences on eye gaze behavior during number comparison.Thermal tasting, an important type of individual variation in orosensation, is a phenomenon by which some individuals perceive thermally-induced taste sensations simply by having the tip of their tongue warmed or cooled. These individuals, known as thermal tasters, report a variety of thermally-elicited tastes (typically sweet, sour, salty, bitter, metallic) and the tastes reported can vary with the temperature regime used (warming or cooling) and location on the tongue tested. Importantly, when compared to thermal non-tasters, thermal tasters are more responsive to aqueous solutions of basic tastants and to beverages. The mechanism(s) underlying thermal tasting are not well understood and it is unknown if the increased orosensory responsiveness of thermal tasters is universal or if it is driven by a subgroup of thermal tasters. Thermal taste data from 12 previous studies was combined to obtain a large sample of thermal tasters (n = 254) who were divided into subgroups based on the type of thermally-elicited taste reported and the temperature regime/location at which it was experienced. Sweet thermal tasters (n = 77) were 9 times more likely than non-sweet thermal tasters (n = 177) to experience thermally-elicited sensations during lingual warming (p less then 0.0001). Similarly, sour thermal tasters (n = 89) were 8 times more likely than non-sour thermal tasters (n = 165) to report thermally induced tastes during cooling (p less then 0.0001). However, no differences in orosensory responsiveness based on these or other subgroups were identified, suggesting that the heightened orosensory responsiveness of thermal tasters may be centrally-mediated. We discuss how these findings inform our understanding of the mechanism(s) underlying thermal taste and the identification of thermal taste subgroups, along with practical implications of methodological differences in determining thermal taste status.