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Repeated use of opioid analgesics may cause a paradoxically exacerbated pain known as opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH), which hinders effective clinical intervention for severe pain. Currently, little is known about the neural circuits underlying OIH modulation. Previous studies suggest that laterocapsular division of the central nucleus of amygdala (CeLC) is critically involved in the regulation of OIH. Our purpose is to clarify the role of the projections from infralimbic medial prefrontal cortex (IL) to CeLC in OIH. We first produced an OIH model by repeated fentanyl subcutaneous injection in male rats. Immunofluorescence staining revealed that c-Fos-positive neurons were significantly increased in the right CeLC in OIH rats than the saline controls. Then, we used calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase IIα (CaMKIIα) labeling and the patch-clamp recordings with ex vivo optogenetics to detect the functional projections from glutamate pyramidal neurons in IL to the CeLC. The synaptic transmission from IL to CeLC, shown in the excitatory postsynaptic currents (eEPSCs), inhibitory postsynaptic currents (eIPSCs) and paired-pulse ratio (PPR), was observably enhanced after fentanyl administration. Moreover, optogenetic activation of this IL-CeLC pathway decreased c-Fos expression in CeLC and ameliorated mechanical and thermal pain in OIH. On the contrary, silencing this pathway by chemogenetics exacerbated OIH by activating the CeLC. Combined with the electrophysiology results, the enhanced synaptic transmission from IL to CeLC might be a cortical gain of IL to relieve OIH rather than a reason for OIH generation. Scaling up IL outputs to CeLC may be an effective neuromodulation strategy to treat OIH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis affecting 1.1% of the population in mainland China with a higher prevalence in coastal areas.Objective: The purpose of the study was to investigate the clinical outcomes following urate-lowering therapy (ULT) in a real-world group study of primary gout patients in China.Methods: Electronic medical records of all the gout patients (n= 1588) that visited the Clinical Medical Center of Gout of the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University from September 2016 to February 2018 were analyzed in this study. The patients were treated with a standard treat-to-target (T2T) ULT strategy according to the 2016 EULAR Guidelines. Clinical data were collected in the first visit and one-month (defined as the baseline of ULT), 7-month, and 13-month follow-ups were completed.Results: Amongst the patients in the study, 92.70% accepted ULT and 82.93% completed ULT for 3 months, 63.54% for 6 months, and 40.49% (n= 643) for 12 months. Further analysis of the 643 patients included the following data: the sUA level reduced at month 7 and reduced further at month 13. The gout flares, patient global pain visual analogue score, and health assessment questionnaire score improved at month 7 but did not improve further at month 13, and the index tophus size did not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Several epidemiological studies have investigated the association between whole grains intake and digestive tract cancer risk; however, the results are still controversial. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to assess the association.Methods: Studies published before March 2020 were searched in database and other sources. The risk ratio (RR) with the 95% confidence interval (CI) were pooled using fix or random-effects models.Results: This meta-analysis included 34 articles reporting 35 studies, 18 studies of colorectal cancer, 11 studies of gastric cancer and 6 studies of esophagus cancer, involving 2,663,278 participants and 28,921 cases. Comparing the highest-intake participants with the lowest-intake participants for whole grains, we found that the intake of whole grains were inversely related to colorectal cancer (RR = 0.89, 95% CI: 0.84-0.93, P < 0.001), gastric cancer (RR = 0.64, 95% CI: 0.53-0.79, P < 0.001), esophagus cancer (RR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.44-0.67, P < 0.001), respectively. However, subgroup analysis of colorectal cancer found no significant association in the case-control studies and studies of sample size < 500, and subgroup analysis of gastric cancer found no significant association in the cohort studies and studies of American population. No study significantly affected the findings in the sensitivity analysis. No publication bias was found in the studies for colorectal cancer and esophagus cancer except in the studies for gastric cancer.Conclusion: This meta-analysis provides further evidence that whole grains intake was associated with a reduced risk of digestive tract cancer. Our result supports the dietary guidelines that increase whole grains intake to reduce the risk of digestive tract cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to effectively improve the pathological diagnosis capability and feature resolution of 3D human brain CT images, a threshold segmentation method of multi-resolution 3D human brain CT image based on edge pixel grayscale feature decomposition is proposed in this paper. In this method, first, original 3D human brain image information is collected, and CT image filtering is performed to the collected information through the gradient value decomposition method, and edge contour features of the 3D human brain CT image are extracted. Then, the threshold segmentation method is adopted to segment the regional pixel feature block of the 3D human brain CT image to segment the image into block vectors with high-resolution feature points, and the 3D human brain CT image is reconstructed with the salient feature point as center. Simulation results show that the method proposed in this paper can provide accuracy up to 100% when the signal-to-noise ratio is 0, and with the increase of signal-to-noise ratio, the accuracy provided by this method is stable at 100%. Comparison results show that the threshold segmentation method of multi-resolution 3D human brain CT image based on edge pixel grayscale feature decomposition is significantly better than traditional methods in pathological feature estimation accuracy, and it effectively improves the rapid pathological diagnosis and positioning recognition abilities to CT images. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the diagnosis and analysis ability of 3D spiral CT and to reconstruct the contour of 3D spiral CT damage image, a contour reconstruction method based on sharpening template enhancement for 3D spiral CT damage image is proposed. This method uses the active contour LasSO model to extract the contour feature of the 3D spiral CT damage image and enhances the information by sharpening the template enhancement technique and makes the noise separation of the 3D spiral CT damage image. The spiral CT image was processed with ENT, and the statistical shape model of 3D spiral CT damage image was established. The gradient algorithm is used to decompose the feature to realize the analysis and reconstruction of the contour feature of the 3D spiral CT damage image, so as to improve the adaptive feature matching ability and the ability to locate the abnormal feature points. The simulation results show that in the 3D spiral CT damage image contour reconstruction, the proposed method performs well in the feature matching of the output pixels, shortens the contour reconstruction time by 20/ms, and provides a strong ability to express the image information. The normalized reconstruction error of CES is 30%, which improves the recognition ability of 3D spiral CT damage image, and increases the signal-to-noise ratio of peak output by 40 dB over other methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to investigate the effect of timosaponin B-II (TB-II) on palmitate (PA)-induced insulin resistance and inflammation in HepG2 cells, and probe the potential mechanisms. TB-II, a main ingredient of the traditional Chinese medicine Anemarrhena asphodeloides Bunge, notably ameliorated PA-induced insulin resistance and inflammation, and significantly improved cell viability, decreased PA-induced production of tumor necrosis factor- (TNF-) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels. Further, TB-II treatment notably decreased malondialdehyde (MDA) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels, and improved superoxide dismutase (SOD) and nitric oxide (NO). TB-II also reduced HepG2 cells apoptosis. Insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS1)/phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)/Akt and inhibitor of nuclear factor -B kinase (IKK)/NF-B pathways-related proteins, and IKK, p65 phosphorylation, serine phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 (IRS-1) at S307, tyrosine phosphorylation of IRS-1, and Akt activation were determined by Western blot. Compared to model group, TB-II significantly downregulated the expression of p-NF-Bp65, p-IKK, p-IRS-1, p-PI3K and p-Akt. TB-II is a promising potential agent for the management of palmitate-induced insulin resistance and inflammation, which might be via IR/IRS-1/PI3K/Akt and IKK/NF-B pathways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which identifies the effect of serum antioxidase to chicken with different doses of Eimeria tenella. The study shows that the maleic dialdehyde (MDA) in serum decreased and increased significantly after infection with E. tenella. The study concluded that E. tenella of different dosage affects serum antioxidase.

Background and Objectives: Vitamin D receptor (VDR) genetic polymorphisms are considered to be associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but this is inconclusive. The aim of this study is to quantify the association between polymorphisms of BsmI and FokI in the VDR gene and T2DM risk through literature review.Methods and Study Design: Original articles published from 1999 to June 2014 were discovered through PubMed, ISI Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Wanfang Database, and the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database. The pooled odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated with software STATA version 12.0.Results: Twenty-three articles containing 30 case-control studies were included. The association between the BsmI polymorphism and T2DM was weak in two genetic models (Bb vs bb and BB+Bb vs bb). The subgroup analysis showed that this association was only found in the studies with a small sample size (<200). A strong association between FokI polymorphism and T2DM indicated that this gene polymorphism was possibly a risk factor for T2DM (ff vs FF: OR=1.57, 95% CI: 1.28-1.93, p<0.001; Ff vs FF: OR=1.54, 95% CI: 1.31-1.81, p<0.001; ff+Ff vs FF: OR=1.57, 95% CI: 1.35-1.83, p<0.001), especially in Chinese populations.Conclusion: More reliable conclusions about associations between VDR genetic polymorphisms and T2DM will depend on studies with larger sample size and by ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: PSGL-1, the optimal selectin ligand demonstrated by in vivo studies to date, is an essential adhesive molecule mediating the rolling of leukocytes on the endothelial cells and the recruitment of leukocytes to the inflamed tissue. Recent studies demonstrated, in addition to its direct role in capture of leukocytes from the bloodstream, PSGL-1 also functions as a signal-transducing receptor and initiates a series of intracellular signal events during the activation of leukocytes. Our present work showed antibody engagement of PSGL-1 upregulated the transcriptional activity of CSF-1 promotor and increased the endogenous expression of CSF-1 mRNA in Jurkat cell. Overexpression of wild-typed non-receptor tyrosine kinase Syk, but not kinase dead mutant of Syk, promoted the upregulation of the transcriptional activity of CSF-1 promoter caused by antibody engagement of PSGL-1. Additionally, special inhibitor of Syk Piceatannol suppressed the increase of CSF-1 mRNA caused by the engagement of PSGL-1. The results suggest that signal transducted by PSGL-1 upregulate the transcriptional activity of CSF-1, and non-receptor tyrosine kinase Syk participates in this pathway. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]