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BackgroundThe use of virtual reality is popular in clinical rehabilitation, but the effects of using commercial virtual reality games in patients with stroke have been mixed. ObjectiveWe developed a depth camera–based, task-specific virtual reality game, Stomp Joy, for poststroke rehabilitation of the lower extremities. This study aims to assess its feasibility and clinical efficacy. MethodsWe carried out a feasibility test for Stomp Joy within representative user groups. Then, a clinical efficacy experiment was performed with a randomized controlled trial, in which 22 patients with stroke received 10 sessions (2 weeks) of conventional physical therapy only (control group) or conventional physical therapy plus 30 minutes of the Stomp Joy intervention (experimental group) in the clinic. The Fugl-Meyer Assessment for Lower Extremity (FMA-LE), Modified Barthel Index (MBI), Berg Balance Scale (BBS) score, single-leg stance (SLS) time, dropout rate, and adverse effects were recorded. ResultsThis feasibility test showed that Stomp Joy improved interest, pressure, perceived competence, value, and effort using the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. The clinical efficacy trial showed a significant time-group interaction effect for the FMA-LE (P=.006), MBI (P=.001), BBS (P=.004), and SLS time (P=.001). A significant time effect was found for the FMA-LE (P=.001), MBI (P

Background: Osteosarcoma represents a serious clinical challenge due to its widespread genomic alterations, tendency for drug resistance and distant metastasis. New treatment methods are urgently needed to address those treatment difficulties in osteosarcoma to improve patient prognoses. In recent years, small-molecule based anion transporter have emerged as innovative and promising therapeutic compound with various biomedical applications. However, due to a lack of efficient delivery methods, using ion transporters as therapeutic drugs in vivo remains a major challenge. Result: Herein, we developed self-assembled supramolecular drugs based on small-molecule anion transporters, which exhibited potent therapeutic effect towards osteosarcoma both in vitro and in vivo. The anion transporters can disrupt intracellular ion homeostasis, inhibit proliferation, migration, epithelial-mesenchymal transition process, and lead to osteosarcoma cell death. RNA sequencing, western blot and flow cytometry indicated reprogramming of HOS cells and induced cell death through multiple pathways. These pathways included activation of endoplasmic reticulum stress, autophagy, apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, which avoided the development of drug resistance in osteosarcoma cells. Functionalized with osteosarcoma targeting peptide, the assembled supramolecular drug showed excellent targeted anticancer therapy against subcutaneous xenograft tumor and lung metastasis models. Besides good tumor targeting capability and anti-drug resistance, the efficacy of the assembly was also attributed to its ability to regulate the tumor immune microenvironment in vivo. Conclusions: In summary, we have demonstrated for the first time that small-molecule anion transporters are capable of killing osteosarcoma cells through multiple pathways. The assemblies, OTP-BP-L, show excellent targeting and therapeutic effect towards osteosarcoma tumors. Furthermore, the supramolecular drug shows a strong ability to regulate the tumor immune microenvironment in vivo. This work not only demonstrated the biomedical value of small-molecule anion transporters in vivo, but also provided an innovative approach for the treatment of osteosarcoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Microtia is a congenital auricular malformation with a hypoplastic external ear that ranges in severity from a slightly smaller auricle to complete the absence of the auricle. The present study was conducted to identify and analyze the characteristics of microtia-related articles published from 2006 to 2020 by using bibliometric analyses. Method: Microtia-related studies published from 2006 to 2020 were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. Keywords, first author, citations, date of publication, and publication journal were extracted and quantitatively analyzed using Bibliographic Item Co-Occurrence Matrix Builder software and the Bibliometric (https://bibliometric.com/app). VOSviewer was used to visualize research and form a network map on keywords and citations. Results: A total of 1031 articles from 2006 to 2020 were included. The number of articles showed an overall trend of growth over time. The United States and China are the top 2 countries in terms of the number of microtia-related articles. From the analysis of keyword clustering, keywords could be mainly divided into 4 clusters in the field of microtia research: surgery, tissue engineering, epidemiology, and rehabilitation including hearing-related treatments, evaluation of effects, and quality of life after surgery. The top 10 most frequently cited papers from 2006 to 2020 were also extracted and analyzed. Conclusion: A bibliometric research of microtia-related articles from 2006 to 2020 was conducted. This study may be helpful to understand the current research status of microtia and find the research trends in this field, thus proposing future directions for microtia research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetes can be classified as type 1, type 2, and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). It has been reported that children born from mothers with GDM present motor impairment, however, underlying mechanisms of GDM‐induce fetal neurological diseases remain unknown. In this study, NOD (nonobese diabetic) mice were used to construct the GDM model; after 2 weeks of gestation, thalamocortical axon development of fetal was evaluated by immunofluorescence. PCR of LRRC4C was used to confirm axon development of the thalamus cortex. RNA array was used to predict possible targets affected by GDM during fetal neurodevelopment. Western blot was used to investigate the underlying mechanism, PI3K inhibitor, and MAPK inhibitor was used to determine key pathway involved in this model, in vitro axonal growth was evaluated using neural stem cells, tactile sensory behavior of offspring was assessed to confirm neurological influence further. The result shown that maternal diabetes significantly suppressed axonal development of fetal thalamus cortex, PCR array of GDM fetal brain indicated that upregulation of GLP‐1R compared with normal fetal, ELISA confirmed that GLP‐1 level was decreased in GDM maternal serum compared with that of wild type pregnant mice. In vitro study observed enhanced axonal elongation after supplements of GLP‐1 analog, GLP‐1 analog PI3K‐dependently active ROCK1 activity, IP injection of GLP‐1 analog could partly reverse GDM‐induced suppression of fetal thalamocortical axon development and improve tactile sensory behavior of GDM offspring. Our study provided a novel mechanism of GDM induced‐neurological diseases and predicted GLP‐1 as possible prevention supplement during gestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]