The effect of stress on male fertility is a widespread public health issue, but less is known about the related signaling pathway. To investigate this, we established a hypercortisolism mouse model by supplementing the drinking water with corticosterone for four weeks. In the hypercortisolism mice, the serum corticosterone was much higher than in the control, and serum testosterone was significantly decreased. Moreover, corticosterone treatment induced decrease of sperm counts and increase of teratozoospermia. Increased numbers of multinucleated giant cells and apoptotic germ cells as well as downregulated meiotic markers suggested that corticosterone induced impaired spermatogenesis. Further, upregulation of macrophage-specific marker antigen F4/80 as well as inflammation-related genes suggested that corticosterone induced inflammation in the testis. Lactate content was found to be decreased in the testis and Sertoli cells after corticosterone treatment, and lactate metabolism-related genes were downregulated. In vitro phagocytosis assays showed that the phagocytic activity in corticosterone-treated Sertoli cells was downregulated and accompanied by decreased mitochondrial membrane potential, while pyruvate dehydrogenase kinase-4 inhibitor supplementation restored this process. Taken together, our results demonstrated that dysfunctional phagocytosis capacity and lactate metabolism in Sertoli cells participates in corticosterone-induced impairment of spermatogenesis.The objectives of the study were (a) to compare self-reported Quality of Life (QoL) in a 24-month follow-up of people with dementia attending day care designed for people with dementia (day-care group, DC) with people with dementia who did not attend day care (control group, CG) and (b) to explore factors associated with QoL. A quasi-experimental design with a 24-month follow-up period was used. The DC group included 181 participants recruited from 53 day-care services. The CG included 76 participants recruited from 19 municipalities with no available day care designed for people with dementia. The sample covered the four health regions of Norway and inclusion period lasted from December 2013 to July 2015. The Quality of Life in Alzheimer's Disease (QoL-AD) scale was used as the outcome measure. The differences in QoL between groups and the associations between participant characteristics and QoL, such as depressive symptoms and functional dependency, were examined using a linear mixed model. In the multiple model, the overall trend in QoL did not differ significantly between the DC and CG. However, the DC group exhibited significantly higher self-reported QoL than the CG at all time points (p less then 0.001 at T0, p = 0.018 at T12, and p = 0.006 at T24). Participants with shallow or no awareness who attended day care had significantly higher scores on QoL-AD than persons with full awareness (p = 0.017). More depressive symptoms (p less then 0.001) and higher functional dependency (p less then 0.001) were associated with lower self-reported QoL. The study revealed higher scores of self-reported QoL among people attending day care compared with those who did not attend, showing that day care might have positive impact on the lives of people with dementia.Little research has been conducted to explore the functional status of community-dwelling older adults in sub-Saharan Africa, including Ghana, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated the functional status and the health-seeking behaviour of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana. Utilising a descriptive qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from 12 eligible older adults from southern Ghana. see more With the use of NVivo (v12), descriptive and focused coding techniques were employed to analyse the data. The following five themes were identified after the data analysis (a) older adults' health status during COVID-19 pandemic, (b) feeling limited, (c) feeling of unhappiness for being inactive, (d) striving to be active and (e) seeking healthcare during COVID-19 pandemic. This study revealed the unique health and social-related needs of Ghanaian older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study's findings draw attention to the urgent need for the state to devise practical health and social-related initiatives to support older adults during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common tumor entity spreading to the brain and up to 50% of patients develop brain metastases (BMs). Detection of BMs on MRI is challenging with an inherent risk of missed diagnosis. To train and evaluate a deep learning model (DLM) for fully automated detection and 3D segmentation of BMs in NSCLC on clinical routine MRI. Retrospective. Ninety-eight NSCLC patients with 315 BMs on pretreatment MRI, divided into training (66 patients, 248 BMs) and independent test (17 patients, 67 BMs) and control (15 patients, 0 BMs) cohorts. T -/T -weighted, T -weighted contrast-enhanced (T CE; gradient-echo and spin-echo sequences), and FLAIR at 1.0, 1.5, and 3.0 T from various vendors and study centers. A 3D convolutional neural network (DeepMedic) was trained on the training cohort using 5-fold cross-validation and evaluated on the independent test and control sets. Three-dimensional voxel-wise manual segmentations of BMs by a neurosurgeon and a radiologists in NSCLC on heterogeneous scanner data while yielding a low number of FP findings. Level of Evidence 3 Technical Efficacy Stage 2.Deep learning provided a high detection sensitivity and good segmentation performance for BMs in NSCLC on heterogeneous scanner data while yielding a low number of FP findings. Level of Evidence 3 Technical Efficacy Stage 2. To compare the postoperative complications and visual outcomes of big-bubble deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty (BB-DALK) and penetrating keratoplasty (PK) for fungal keratitis (FK). This retrospective study included 94 cases of BB-DALK for FK and 161 cases of PK for FK from a tertiary ophthalmology care centre. The most common FK pathogens were Fusarium (n= 84, 32.9%) and Aspergillus (n= 67, 26.3%). The recurrence rates after BB-DALK and PK were 3.2 and 5%, respectively (p= 0.723). The follow-up duration was 31.9± 15.8months in the BB-DALK group and 33.9± 15.0months in the PK group. The immune rejection rate was significantly lower in the BB-DALK group than in the PK group (1.1 vs. 18.6%, p< 0.001), as was the incidence of secondary glaucoma (p= 0.018). Endothelial cell density in the BB-DALK group tended to be stable at postoperative month 6, whereas the PK group still attenuated at a hyper-physiological rate. Postoperative best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) significantly improved in both groups (p< 0.