[Predictors of the efficacy of non-drug treatments for non-dementia vascular cognitive impairment]. / Prediktory effektivnosti nelekarstvennykh metodov lecheniya nedementnykh sosudistykh kognitivnykh narushenii.

OBJECTIVE: To study the predictors of the efficacy of non-drug multimodal therapy in the treatment of mild vascular cognitive impairment. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Thirty patients with mild vascular cognitive impairment, under the supervision of their physician, received a 1-month non-drug treatment program including cognitive training, detailed recommendations for physical activity, and dietary planning. RESULTS: After the end of the course of treatment, improvements in the MoCa test were achieved by 22 patients (73%), which made up Group 1. In the remaining 8 patients, the treatment had no effect (Group 2). In Group 1, the dynamics of the MoCa test averaged 1.7±0.9, in the Group 2 it was (-0.4)±0.5. Patients of Group 1 had a significantly lower level of education (10.9±2.3) compared with Group 2 (14.9±2.0), a higher initial MoCa score, and a less pronounced white matter lesion on the Fazekas scale. After the regression analysis, the level of education (B -0.999, p<0.05) and white matter damage (B -2.761, p<0.01) were significant predictors. CONCLUSION: When using non-drug multimodal therapy in the treatment of mild vascular cognitive impairment, lower levels of education and a lower degree of white matter vascular damage are reliable predictors of treatment efficacy.

[The problem of vitamin B12 deficiency: relevance, diagnosis and targeted therapy (based on materials of an interdisciplinary expert council with international participation)]. / Problema defitsita vitamina B12: aktual'nost', diagnostika i targetnaya terapiya (po materialam mezhdistsiplinarnogo soveta ekspertov s mezhdunarodnym uchastiem).

Deficiency of vitamin B12 occurs much more often than it is commonly believed and leads to a wide range of various disorders, the emergence of primarily neurological manifestations, while there is a lack of awareness among clinicians in the field of its causes, nonspecific manifestations, diagnostic methods and effective therapy. The conference «The problem of vitamin B12 deficiency and the experience of use in Germany¼ was devoted to this urgent clinical problem, within the framework of which an interdisciplinary council of experts, at which the most pressing issues were considered, associated with B12 deficiency.

Karhunen-Loève treatment to remove noise and facilitate data analysis in sensing, spectroscopy and other applications.

Resolving weak spectral variations in the dynamic response of materials that are either dominated or excited by stochastic processes remains a challenge. Responses that are thermal in origin are particularly relevant examples due to the delocalized nature of heat. Despite its inherent properties in dealing with stochastic processes, the Karhunen-Loève expansion has not been fully exploited in measurement of systems that are driven solely by random forces or can exhibit large thermally driven random fluctuations. Here, we present experimental results and analysis of the archetypes (a) the resonant excitation and transient response of an atomic force microscope probe by the ambient random fluctuations and nanoscale photothermal sample response, and (b) the photothermally scattered photons in pump-probe spectroscopy. In each case, the dynamic process is represented as an infinite series with random coefficients to obtain pertinent frequency shifts and spectral peaks and demonstrate spectral enhancement for a set of compounds including the spectrally complex biomass. The considered cases find important applications in nanoscale material characterization, biosensing, and spectral identification of biological and chemical agents.