Morehouse School of Medicine is a private co-educational medical school in Atlanta, Georgia. Originally a part of Morehouse College, the school became independent in 1981. The school abbreviates its name with its initials "MSM.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements hosted a workshop titled Advancing the Biomedical Science of Resilience: A Discussion of Measures and Metrics on September 24-25, 2024. The workshop convened NIH program staff and researchers from academia and federal agencies to propose and identify measures and metrics that capture protective factors contributing to resilience across the lifespan. Various perspectives on resilience were thoroughly discussed, including those related to cellular, physiological, psychosocial, community, and environmental domains, reflecting the complexity and multidimensionality of resilience science. Central to the workshop were discussions to examine characteristics of resilience studies across domains and to explore outcome-specific measures and metrics and study designs needed to validate those outcomes and accurately measure resilience in biomedical research. The workshop concluded with a panel discussion on the challenges of advancing the science of resilience and the need for robust frameworks for studying the concept. This article presents the proceedings from that workshop and outlines strategies for advancing and strengthening the science of resilience through greater integration across research domains. Leadership in convening diverse perspectives and fostering multidisciplinary dialogue, such as through consensus-building activities and collaborative forums, will be important for advancing shared frameworks and understanding resilience across the lifespan.
Black and Hispanic communities have been historically marginalized in medicine including gastroenterology. It is widely appreciated that inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) impacts people of all races and ethnicities. Despite this recognition, there is a paucity of high-quality research investigating these disparities. The reasons for this paucity are multifactorial, and they require innovative solutions. An added dimension which may have an unanticipated compounding effect is a disproportionately low number of Black and Hispanic learners progressing through medical and healthcare education pathways. Continued and concerted engagement of all stakeholders including patients, learners, and practitioners is a key step toward addressing the steep knowledge gap in our understanding of IBD in Hispanic or Black individuals compared with White individuals. In this commentary, we highlight advances in the understanding of genetics in diverse populations and the impact on healthcare, discuss strategies to augment research participation among Black and Hispanic individuals, emphasize the importance of equity in IBD clinical practice and highlight exceptional organizations championing diversity in gastroenterology and IBD, focus on barriers to identifying and addressing disparities in IBD treatment across diverse populations, and finally, we briefly discuss the very limited existing literature on IBD in Indigenous populations in whom much less is known or understood.
Addiction remains a substantial global health burden, driven by high relapse rates and persistent gaps in access to care. In this context, technology-based interventions (TBIs) have gained attention as potentially scalable tools to support treatment for both substance-related and behavioral addictions. This review synthesizes recent evidence across digital, immersive, AI-supported, sensor-based, and neuromodulation approaches, with emphasis on the theoretical and neurobehavioral processes these interventions appear to engage. Early web-based and SMS interventions demonstrated that core psychosocial treatments could be delivered beyond traditional clinical settings, with structured computer-based programs showing the most consistent improvements in abstinence and retention. Mobile health applications extended this model by offering real-time, context-aware support through personalization, adaptive messaging, and gamification, although clinical effects varied widely and were closely tied to engagement. Digital contingency management has shown clearer benefits because of to its ability to link remote biochemical verification with immediate reinforcement. Emerging immersive and AI-supported systems, including virtual reality cue exposure and predictive adaptive interventions, align well with contemporary learning and neurocircuitry models of addiction but remain early-stage, with limited long-term outcome data. Neuromodulation strategies aim to directly influence dysregulated frontostriatal circuits implicated in craving and decision-making, with repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) demonstrating the most consistent support for reducing craving and more variable effects on abstinence and relapse outcomes. Taken together, TBIs are increasingly positioned not only to expand access to care but also to target core mechanisms implicated in addiction. Their potential for durable clinical benefit will depend on sustained engagement, careful validation, and successful integration into real-world treatment settings.
Objective: Smartwatches with photoplethysmographic (PPG) sensors are ideal for early atrial fibrillation (AF) detection through continuous monitoring. However, prior deep learning was limited either to controlled environments, to minimize motion artifacts, or to short duration data collection. Additionally, premature atrial/ventricular contractions (PAC/PVC), which often confound AF detection algorithms, remains understudied due to limited datasets. Current state-of-the-art methods achieve only 75% sensitivity for PAC/PVC class on minimally motion artifact corrupted PPG data, despite showing 97% AF detection accuracy. Methods: We addressed the above limitations using data from the recently completed NIH-funded Pulsewatch clinical trial which collected over two weeks of smartwatch PPG data from 106 subjects. Our computationally efficient 1D bi-directional Gated Recurrent Unit deep learning model incorporated multi-modal inputs (1D PPG, accelerometer, and heart rate data) to classify normal sinus rhythm, AF, and PAC/PVC. Results: Our model achieved an unprecedented 83% sensitivity for PAC/PVC detection while maintaining a high accuracy of 97.31% for AF detection, outperforming the best retrained state-of-the-art model by 20.81% and 2.55%, respectively. It was also 14 times more computationally efficient and 2.7 times faster. Testing on two external PPG datasets collected with a different smartwatch and a fingertip PPG sensor, our model demonstrated better generalizability with macro-averaged AUROC values of 96.22% and 94.17%, respectively. Conclusion: A light-weight multimodal input deep learning model can accurately distinguish PAC/PVC from AF, reducing false positive detection of AF. Significance: Accurate AF and PAC/PVC detection with minimal false positive detection can enhance clinical and public acceptance of smartwatch-based AF monitoring.
BACKGROUND:Glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly aggressive brain tumor characterized by rapid growth, thereby resistance, and enrichment of glioma stem-like cells (GSCs). Despite advances in understanding GBM biology, the molecular mechanisms sustaining tumorigenesis and stemness remain incompletely defined. METHODS:We investigated the role of Rap1b, a small GTPase, in glioma progression using patient-derived datasets, GBM cell lines, GSC cultures, and a xenograft mouse model. Functional assays, immunoblotting, immunofluorescence, qRT-PCR, and in vivo tumor growth analysis were performed. RESULTS:Rap1b was found to be highly expressed in GSCs and played a central role in regulating Notch1 and VEGFR2 signaling. Functionally, Rap1b promoted GBM cell proliferation and invasion by inhibiting apoptosis and promoting cell cycle progression beyond the G2/M checkpoint. Furthermore, Rap1b regulated the expression of key stemness markers CD133, ALDH1, and SOX2, contributing to the maintenance of GSC phenotypes. Clinically, elevated Rap1b expression correlated with higher tumor grade and poorer overall survival in glioma patients. Mechanistically, Rap1b translocated into the nucleus upon activation, suggesting a possible role as a transcriptional regulator. In vivo, Rap1b downregulation significantly reduced glioma growth in a nude mouse xenograft model. CONCLUSIONS:Our findings uncover a previously underappreciated role of Rap1b in promoting glioma cell proliferation, stemness, and tumor growth through modulation of Notch and VEGFR2 pathways. These results suggest that Rap1b may serve as a novel therapeutic target in glioblastoma by disrupting critical signaling networks that sustain tumor progression and stem cell-like features.
