We performed the first meta-analysis of clinical studies by investigating the effects of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy on the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder ...(PTSD), depression, anxiety, and subjective distress in PTSD patients treated during the past 2 decades.
We performed a quantitative meta-analysis on the findings of 26 randomized controlled trials of EMDR therapy for PTSD published between 1991 and 2013, which were identified through the ISI Web of Science, Embase, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature electronic databases, among which 22, 20, 16, and 11 of the studies assessed the effects of EMDR on the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and subjective distress, respectively, as the primary clinical outcome.
The meta-analysis revealed that the EMDR treatments significantly reduced the symptoms of PTSD (g = -0.662; 95% confidence interval (CI): -0.887 to -0.436), depression (g = -0.643; 95% CI: -0.864 to -0.422), anxiety (g = -0.640; 95% CI: -0.890 to -0.390), and subjective distress (g = -0.956; 95% CI: -1.388 to -0.525) in PTSD patients.
This study confirmed that EMDR therapy significantly reduces the symptoms of PTSD, depression, anxiety, and subjective distress in PTSD patients. The subgroup analysis indicated that a treatment duration of more than 60 min per session was a major contributing factor in the amelioration of anxiety and depression, and that a therapist with experience in conducting PTSD group therapy was a major contributing factor in the reduction of PTSD symptoms.
The hormone melatonin has many properties, including antioxidant, anti‐inflammatory, and immunomodulatory effects. Melatonin has been demonstrated to be beneficial in several inflammatory autoimmune ...diseases, but its effects in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remain controversial. We sought to determine how melatonin regulates inflammation in RA. We found that melatonin dose‐dependently inhibits tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) and interleukin (IL)‐1β expression through the PI3K/AKT, ERK, and NF‐κB signaling pathways. We also identified that melatonin inhibits TNF‐α and IL‐1β production by upregulating miR‐3150a‐3p expression. Synovial tissue specimens from RA patients and culture of human rheumatoid fibroblast‐like synoviocytes confirmed that the MT1 receptor is needed for the anti‐inflammatory activities of melatonin. Importantly, melatonin also significantly reduced paw swelling, cartilage degradation, and bone erosion in the collagen‐induced arthritis mouse model. Our results indicate that melatonin ameliorates RA by inhibiting TNF‐α and IL‐1β production through downregulation of the PI3K/AKT, ERK, NF‐κB signaling pathways, as well as miR‐3150a‐3p overexpression. The role of melatonin as an adjuvant treatment in patients with RA deserves further clinical studies.
In adult brain, new neurons are generated throughout adulthood in the subventricular zone and the dentate gyrus; this process is commonly known as adult neurogenesis. The regulation or modulation of ...adult neurogenesis includes various intrinsic pathways (signal transduction pathway and epigenetic or genetic modulation pathways) or extrinsic pathways (metabolic growth factor modulation, vascular, and immune system pathways). Altered neurogenesis has been identified in Alzheimer's disease (AD), in both human AD brains and AD rodent models. The exact mechanism of the dysregulation of adult neurogenesis in AD has not been completely elucidated. However, neuroinflammation has been demonstrated to alter adult neurogenesis. The presence of various inflammatory components, such as immune cells, cytokines, or chemokines, plays a role in regulating the survival, proliferation, and maturation of neural stem cells. Neuroinflammation has also been considered as a hallmark neuropathological feature of AD. In this review, we summarize current, state-of-the art perspectives on adult neurogenesis, neuroinflammation, and the relationship between these two phenomena in AD. Furthermore, we discuss the potential therapeutic approaches, focusing on the anti-inflammatory and proneurogenic interventions that have been reported in this field.
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Infertility is a major issue in human reproductive health, affecting an estimated 15% of couples worldwide. Infertility can result from disorders of sex development (DSD) or from ...reproductive endocrine disorders (REDs) with onset in infancy, early childhood or adolescence. Male infertility, accounting for roughly half of all infertility cases, generally manifests as decreased sperm count (azoospermia or oligozoospermia), attenuated sperm motility (asthenozoospermia) or a higher proportion of morphologically abnormal sperm (teratozoospermia). Female infertility can be divided into several classical types, including, but not limited to, oocyte maturation arrest, premature ovarian insufficiency (POI), fertilization failure and early embryonic arrest. An estimated one half of infertility cases have a genetic component; however, most genetic causes of human infertility are currently uncharacterized. The advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies has greatly facilitated the identification of infertility-associated gene mutations in patients over the past 20 years.
OBJECTIVE AND RATIONALE
This review aims to conduct a narrative review of the genetic causes of human infertility. Loss-of-function mutation discoveries related to human infertility are summarized and further illustrated in tables. Corresponding knockout/mutated animal models of causative genes for infertility are also introduced.
SEARCH METHODS
A search of the PubMed database was performed to identify relevant studies published in English. The term ‘mutation’ was combined with a range of search terms related to the core focus of the review: infertility, DSD, REDs, azoospermia or oligozoospermia, asthenozoospermia, multiple morphological abnormalities of the sperm flagella (MMAF), primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD), acephalic spermatozoa syndrome (ASS), globozoospermia, teratozoospermia, acrosome, oocyte maturation arrest, POI, zona pellucida, fertilization defects and early embryonic arrest.
OUTCOMES
Our search generated ∼2000 records. Overall, 350 articles were included in the final review. For genetic investigation of human infertility, the traditional candidate gene approach is proceeding slowly, whereas high-throughput sequencing technologies in larger cohorts of individuals is identifying an increasing number of causative genes linked to human infertility. This review provides a wide panel of gene mutations in several typical forms of human infertility, including DSD, REDs, male infertility (oligozoospermia, MMAF, PCD, ASS and globozoospermia) and female infertility (oocyte maturation arrest, POI, fertilization failure and early embryonic arrest). The causative genes, their identified mutations, mutation rate, studied population and their corresponding knockout/mutated mice of non-obstructive azoospermia, MMAF, ASS, globozoospermia, oocyte maturation arrest, POI, fertilization failure and early embryonic arrest are further illustrated by tables. In this review, we suggest that (i) our current knowledge of infertility is largely obtained from knockout mouse models; (ii) larger cohorts of clinical cases with distinct clinical characteristics need to be recruited in future studies; (iii) the whole picture of genetic causes of human infertility relies on both the identification of more mutations for distinct types of infertility and the integration of known mutation information; (iv) knockout/mutated animal models are needed to show whether the phenotypes of genetically altered animals are consistent with findings in human infertile patients carrying a deleterious mutation of the homologous gene; and (v) the molecular mechanisms underlying human infertility caused by pathogenic mutations are largely unclear in most current studies.
WILDER IMPLICATIONS
It is important to use our current understanding to identify avenues and priorities for future research in the field of genetic causes of infertility as well as to apply mutation knowledge to risk prediction, genetic diagnosis and potential treatment for human infertility.
For a coupled nonlinear Schrödinger system with the negative coherent coupling, which describes two orthogonally polarized pulses in a weakly birefringent fibre, we construct the Darboux dressing ...transformation and the N-th-order breather solutions with N as a positive integer. When the retarded time tends to be infinite, limits of the ratios between the N-th-order breather solutions and seed solutions are obtained. For the first-order breathers, we present the condition to distinguish the degenerate and nondegenerate cases. For the nondegenerate breathers, we analyse whether the breathers could be kink-type based on the above limits. For the second-order breathers, superregular breathers (SRBs) are derived, where each SRB could consist of two (1) kink-type, (2) single-hump or (3) double-hump quasi-Akhmediev breathers (quasi-ABs). Before and after the interaction, profiles of two quasi-ABs change for Case (1) but keep unchange for Case (2) or (3).
Bacterial infections have caused serious threats to public health due to the antimicrobial resistance in bacteria. Recently, gold nanoclusters (AuNCs) have been extensively investigated for ...biomedical applications because of their superior structural and optical properties. Great efforts have demonstrated that AuNCs conjugated with various surface ligands are promising antimicrobial agents owing to their high biocompatibility, polyvalent effect, easy modification and photothermal stability. In this review, we have highlighted the recent achievements for the utilizations of AuNCs as the antimicrobial agents. We have classified the antimicrobial AuNCs by their surface ligands including small molecules (< 900 Daltons) and macromolecules (> 900 Daltons). Moreover, the antimicrobial activities and mechanisms of AuNCs have been introduced into two main categories of small molecules and macromolecules, respectively. In accordance with the advancements of antimicrobial AuNCs, we further provided conclusions of current challenges and recommendations of future perspectives of antimicrobial AuNCs for fundamental researches and clinical applications.
How do you like your eggs? Amphiphilic carbon dots (CDs) with intense blue fluorescence have been produced from chicken eggs by treatment with plasma. They are used as effective “fluorescent carbon ...inks” for multicolor luminescent inkjet and silk‐screen printing (see image).
Inverse scattering transform for the defocusing Lakshmanan–Porsezian–Daniel equation with nonzero boundary condition is constructed via the Riemann–Hilbert approach. Since poles of the associated ...reflection coefficient are simple, N$N$‐dark soliton solutions corresponding to N$N$ simple poles are constructed. For N$N$‐dark soliton solutions, results show that the soliton amplitude and width are not affected by the strength of the higher‐order linear and nonlinear effects γ$\gamma$, but soliton velocity has a linear correlation with γ$\gamma$; the interactions between the two‐dark solitons and among the three‐dark solitons are elastic and experience phase and position shifts. Besides, asymptotic analysis of the double‐pole solutions for the focusing Lakshmanan–Porsezian–Daniel equation with nonzero boundary condition is presented. Different from N$N$‐dark soliton solutions which locate in the straight lines and experience position shift after the interaction, the double‐pole solutions diverge from each other logarithmically and experience no position shift after the interaction.
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