Background
The therapeutic approach to myofascial TMD should focus on pain relief and rehabilitation of function.
Objective
This study investigated whether pressure release technique (PRT) is ...effective for reducing pain in people with chronic myofascial temporomandibular disorders (TMD).
Methods
A single‐blinded randomised parallel‐group trial, with 3 months follow‐up was conducted. A total of 72 patients were randomly allocated to receive PRT or sham PRT. Primary outcome was pain assessed with a visual analogue scale (VAS). Secondary outcomes included pressure pain thresholds (PPTs), range of opening of the mouth (ROM), Neck Disability Index (NDI), Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK‐11), State–Trait Anxiety Index (STAI) and State–Trait Depression Index (ST‐DEP). All parameters were assessed at baseline, at the end of the treatment and at 3 months follow‐up. Statistical analysis was performed by ANOVA.
Results
There were significant main effects of time, group and interaction between time and group (F ≥ 21.92; p < .001) on VAS pain. Post hoc tests showed a significant reduction in VAS pain scores in the PRT group (≥31.9%; p < .001). Effect sizes were moderate in the PRT group at all follow‐up periods (≥1.25 Cohen's d). Also, there were significant effects of time in secondary outcomes (F ≥ 9.65; p < .001), and there were also interactions between time and group (F ≥ 3.82; p < .002) with better effects in the PRT group.
Conclusions
The inclusion of PRT to conventional management with occlusal splints and self‐care management appears to be effective to improve self‐reported levels of pain in patients with chronic myofascial TMD pain. Retrospectively registered (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03619889).
The inclusion of PRT to conventional management with occlusal splints and self‐care management appears to be effective to improve self‐reported levels of pain in with chronic myofascial patients TMD pain. The combined treatment of the cervical and masticatory muscles significantly improved the opening of the mouth and cervical functionality as well as a clear improvement in the parameters of kinesiophobia, which could in turn improve motor behavior. In addition, PRT significantly improved the psychosocial factors of catastrophization, anxiety and depression.
The wellbeing of nursing professionals can be affected by emotionally challenging situations. Emotional intelligence (EI) is a recognised ability to manage stress, reduce work overload, and improve ...clinical relationships and decision making. Therefore, these emotional skills should be identified and developed throughout nursing education.
The aim of this study is to create an observer-based emotional measurement tool to assess the level of emotional skills in university students.
This is a cross-sectional study.
Complutense University in Madrid, Spain.
A total of 415 first- and fourth-year nursing students participated.
The Situational Emotional Response Scale (ERES) is a questionnaire for observing emotional competence in nursing practice. It underwent content validation using the Delphi method with 6 experts, resulting in a final version of 34 items. Focus group sessions were conducted with nursing students to ensure readability and appropriateness. Participants completed the ERES after viewing two clinical interaction videos, resulting in two sets of responses. Half of the responses were used for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and half for confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
A total of 415 nursing students participated in the study. Four factors were extracted, explaining 55.1 % of the variance. The CFA was conducted with 208 students, yielding a total of 4 factors and a variance of 55.1 %. The internal consistency of the scale was high, with Cronbach's α and McDonald's ω coefficients of 0.947 and 0.949, respectively. Test-retest reliability showed a moderate intra-class correlation coefficient of 0.604 (95 % CI: 0.503-0.688) over a 15-day interval.
The ERES questionnaire is well grounded in the theoretical framework of emotional competence as manifested in clinical practice. The empirical evidence provided by this study suggests that the ERES is a reliable, valid, useful, and innovative instrument for measuring emotional competence in university students.
Metastatic breast cancer is the leading cause of death by malignancy in women worldwide. Tumor metastasis is a multistep process encompassing local invasion of cancer cells at primary tumor site, ...intravasation into the blood vessel, survival in systemic circulation, and extravasation across the endothelium to metastasize at a secondary site. However, only a small percentage of circulating cancer cells initiate metastatic colonies. This fact, together with the inaccessibility and structural complexity of target tissues has hampered the study of the later steps in cancer metastasis. In addition, most data are derived from in vivo models where critical steps such as intravasation/extravasation of human cancer cells are mediated by murine endothelial cells. Here, we developed a new mouse model to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying late steps of the metastatic cascade. We have shown that a network of functional human blood vessels can be formed by co-implantation of human endothelial cells and mesenchymal cells, embedded within a reconstituted basement membrane-like matrix and inoculated subcutaneously into immunodeficient mice. The ability of circulating cancer cells to colonize these human vascularized organoids was next assessed in an orthotopic model of human breast cancer by bioluminescent imaging, molecular techniques and immunohistological analysis. We demonstrate that disseminated human breast cancer cells efficiently colonize organoids containing a functional microvessel network composed of human endothelial cells, connected to the mouse circulatory system. Human breast cancer cells could be clearly detected at different stages of the metastatic process: initial arrest in the human microvasculature, extravasation, and growth into avascular micrometastases. This new mouse model may help us to map the extravasation process with unprecedented detail, opening the way for the identification of relevant targets for therapeutic intervention.
Introducción. Los entornos virtuales de aprendizaje permiten crear espacios dinámicos y facilitadores del aprendizaje. Investigar el uso dado por los estudiantes puede identificar patrones de ...comportamiento y detectar tempranamente alumnos en riesgo de abandono, y se han descrito correlaciones entre su uso y el rendimiento académico. Materiales y métodos. Se estudiaron siete espacios virtualizados correspondientes a cuatro asignaturas de tres grados de Ciencias de la Salud impartidas en los cursos 2017/2018 y 2018/2019, con un total de 517 estudiantes. Previamente se extrajeron, depuraron y anonimizaron los registros de cada espacio. Las variables analizadas fueron: número de visitas al campus virtual, de accesos a recursos y a URL, y uso del foro. Se aplicó un análisis de correspondencias múltiples, seguido de un análisis de conglomerados jerárquico. Resultados. Se obtuvieron cuatro clústeres, con tamaños de entre el 20,9 y el 29,4% de los estudiantes, caracterizados por comportamientos diferenciales en cuanto al uso del campus virtual, y se establecieron relaciones con las calificaciones finales, las notas teóricas y las prácticas de las asignaturas. Se observa que, a menor interacción en el campus virtual, menor rendimiento académico, mientras que, a mayor actividad registrada, mejores calificaciones. Conclusiones. Nuestro estudio revela grupos de estudiantes con comportamientos homogéneos según su uso del campus virtual y establece relaciones con el rendimiento académico.
6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) is a dopaminergic neurotoxin putatively involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). Its neurotoxicity has been related to the production of reactive oxygen ...species. In this study we examine the effects of the antioxidants ascorbic acid (AA), glutathione (GSH), cysteine (CySH), and N-acetyl-CySH (NAC) on the autoxidation and neurotoxicity of 6-OHDA. In vitro, the autoxidation of 6-OHDA proceeds rapidly with the formation of H2O2 and with the participation of the H2O2 produced in the reaction. The presence of AA induced a reduction in the consumption of O2 during the autoxidation of 6-OHDA and a negligible presence of the p-quinone, which demonstrates the efficiency of AA to act as a redox cycling agent. The presence of GSH, CySH, and NAC produced a significant reduction in the autoxidation of 6-OHDA. In vivo, the presence of sulfhydryl antioxidants protected against neuronal degeneration in the striatum, which was particularly remarkable in the case of CySH and was attributed to its capacity to remove the H2O2 produced in the autoxidation of 6-OHDA. These results corroborate the involvement of oxidative stress as the major mechanism in the neurotoxicity of 6-OHDA and the putative role of CySH as a scavenger in relation to PD.
Aluminum and zinc have been related to the pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD), the former for its neurotoxicity and the latter for its apparent antioxidant properties. 6-Hydroxydopamine ...(6-OHDA) is an important neurotoxin putatively involved in the pathogenesis of PD, its neurotoxicity often being related to oxidative stress. The potential effect of these metals on the oxidative stress induced by 6-OHDA autoxidation and the potential of ascorbic acid (AA), cysteine, and glutathione to modify this effect were investigated. Both metals, particularly Al
3+, induced a significant reduction in
⋅OH production by 6-OHDA autoxidation. The combined action of AA and a metal caused a significant and sustained increase in
⋅OH generation, particularly with Al
3+, while the effect of sulfhydryl reductants was limited to only the first few minutes of the reaction. However, both Al
3+ and Zn
2+ provoked a decrease in the lipid peroxidation induced by 6-OHDA autoxidation using mitochondrial preparations from rat brain, assessed by TBARS formation. In the presence of AA, only Al
3+ induced a significant reduction in lipid peroxidation. After intrastriatal injections of 6-OHDA in rats, tyrosine hydroxylase immunohistochemistry revealed that Al
3+ reduces 6-OHDA-induced dopaminergic lesion in the striatum, which corroborates the involvement of lipid peroxidation in 6-OHDA neurotoxicity and appears to discard the participation of this mechanism on PD by Al
3+ accumulation. The previously reported antioxidant properties of Zn
2+ appear to be related to the induction of Zn
2+-containing proteins and not to the metal per se.
In view of the apparent controversial properties of (−)-nicotine (NIC) in relation to both oxidative stress and neuroprotection, we studied the effects of NIC on hydroxyl radical (
OH) formation, ...oxidative stress production by 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) autoxidation in the presence and absence of ascorbate, and 6-OHDA neurotoxicity. Both NIC and (−)-cotinine (COT) exhibited increased
OH production during 6-OHDA autoxidation. Although the same effect was observed in
OH generation by the Fenton reaction (H
2O
2+Fe
2+), this reaction was completely prevented with the previous incubation of Fe
2+ with NIC or COT. Furthermore, both NIC and COT demonstrated a capacity to be able to reduce the TBARS formation provoked in rat brain mitochondrial preparations by 6-OHDA autoxidation. This effect is assumed as a consequence of the action of NIC and COT on lipid peroxidation propagation. We treated with NIC (1
mg/kg, i.p.) two 6-OHDA-induced rat models of Parkinson’s disease. However, only in one of these models did we obtain clear evidence of a neuroprotective effect of NIC on nigrostriatal terminals, as revealed by immunohistochemistry against tyrosine hydroxylase. Thus, the antioxidant properties of both NIC and COT in relation to the lipid peroxidation induced by 6-OHDA autoxidation, together with their reported capacity to prevent the Fenton reaction, probably by sequestration of Fe
2+, may contribute to an understanding of its neuroprotective properties. In addition, the reported capacity of both NIC and COT to increase the production of
OH by 6-OHDA autoxidation might help explain the controversial observation found under different experimental conditions.
The genetic contributions to breast cancer development among Latinas are not well understood. Here we carry out a genome-wide association study of breast cancer in Latinas and identify a genome-wide ...significant risk variant, located 5' of the Estrogen Receptor 1 gene (ESR1; 6q25 region). The minor allele for this variant is strongly protective (rs140068132: odds ratio (OR) 0.60, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.53-0.67, P=9 × 10(-18)), originates from Indigenous Americans and is uncorrelated with previously reported risk variants at 6q25. The association is stronger for oestrogen receptor-negative disease (OR 0.34, 95% CI 0.21-0.54) than oestrogen receptor-positive disease (OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.49-0.80; P heterogeneity=0.01) and is also associated with mammographic breast density, a strong risk factor for breast cancer (P=0.001). rs140068132 is located within several transcription factor-binding sites and electrophoretic mobility shift assays with MCF-7 nuclear protein demonstrate differential binding of the G/A alleles at this locus. These results highlight the importance of conducting research in diverse populations.
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