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Objective@#Sex differences have been observed in many aspects of schizophrenia, including cognitive deficits. Despite extensive research into the relationship between metabolic factors and cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, few studies have explored the potential sex difference in their association. @*Methods@#We recruited 358 schizophrenia patients and 231 healthy controls. The participants underwent measurements of body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, blood pressure, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and fasting blood glucose. Metabolic risk factors included abdominal obesity, hypertension, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia. A collection of these metabolic risk factors has been defined as metabolic syndrome. These diagnoses were based on the criteria of the National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adult Treatment Panel III. Cognitive performance was measured using the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS). A descriptive analysis, difference analysis, and linear regression model were used to identify the metabolic risk factors for cognitive function in schizophrenia. @*Results@#Our findings revealed sex differences in the rate of abdominal obesity and hypertension in schizophrenic patients. Additionally, we observed sex differences in the association between metabolic risk factors and cognitive impairment in schizophrenia. Specifically, hyperglycemia was associated with the immediate memory index score of RBANS in male patients, while dyslipidemia was associated with language, attention, delayed memory index scores, and RBANS total score in female patients. @*Conclusion@#Our results suggest that sex should be considered when evaluating the impact of metabolic disorders on the cognitive function of schizophrenic patients. Moreover, our study identifies hyperglycemia and dyslipidemia as potential targets for precise treatment by sex stratification, which could benefit the improvement of cognitive impairment in schizophrenic patients.
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Microglia play multiple roles in such processes as brain development, homeostasis, and pathology. Due to their diverse mechanisms of functions, the complex sub-classifications, and the large differences between different species, especially compared with humans, very different or even opposite conclusions can be drawn from studies with different research models. The choice of appropriate research models and the associated tools are thus key ingredients of studies on microglia. Mice are the most commonly used animal models. In this review, we summarize in vitro and in vivo models of mouse and human-derived microglial research models, including microglial cell lines, primary microglia, induced microglia-like cells, transgenic mice, human-mouse chimeric models, and microglial replacement models. We also summarize recent developments in novel single-cell and in vivo imaging technologies. We hope our review can serve as an efficient reference for the future study of microglia.
ABSTRACT
Despite the numerous advances in cardiovasular diseasec (CVD) prevention and control during the past decades,it remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide,which is a huge burden for global health care.Because of the high cost and side effects of the drugs,it is necessary to find novel,cost-effective and efficient inventions for CVD prevention.Unhealthy lifestyles contribute as a risk factor,such as unhealthy diet,sedentary lifestyle,tobacco,alcohol,hypertension,diabetes,dyslipidemia and psychosocial stress.To date,numerous studies have reported the benefit of meditation on health.This review discussed the effect of meditation on cardiovascular risks,including stress,blood pressure,smoking,alcohol drinking and atherosclerosis,as well as the effect on telomere.This review limited to sitting meditation alone (yoga,Qigong,and tai chi were excluded) to reduce the confounding influence of the effects of physical therapies.Overall,meditation showed possible benefits on reduction of cardiovascular risks and improved telomerase activity,although limitations on sample size,quality and methodology are included in current studies.Given its accessibility,low-cost and low-risk,meditation might serve as an adjunct to treatment and prevention of CVD.Since the limitations of current studies,further researches are needed to be established to confirm the benefit of meditation on cardiovascular disease.
ABSTRACT
Despite the numerous advances in cardiovasular diseasec(CVD) prevention and control during the past decades, it remains the leading cause of mortality and morbidity worldwide, which is a huge burden for global health care.Because of the high cost and side effects of the drugs, it is necessary to find novel, cost-effective and efficient inventions for CVD prevention.Unhealthy lifestyles contribute as a risk factor, such as unhealthy diet, sedentary lifestyle, tobacco, alcohol, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia and psychosocial stress.To date, numerous studies have reported the benefit of meditation on health.This review discussed the effect of meditation on cardiovascular risks, including stress, blood pressure, smoking, alcohol drinking and atherosclerosis, as well as the effect on telomere.This review limited to sitting meditation alone (yoga, Qigong, and tai chi were excluded) to reduce the confounding influence of the effects of physical therapies.Overall, meditation showed possible benefits on reduction of cardiovascular risks and improved telomerase activity, although limitations on sample size, quality and methodology are included in current studies.Given its accessibility, low-cost and low-risk, meditation might serve as an adjunct to treatment and prevention of CVD.Since the limitations of current studies, further researches are needed to be established to confirm the benefit of meditation on cardiovascular disease.
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OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed to compare the accuracy of Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) in the detection of manic state of bipolar disorders (BD) of single patients and multiple patients. METHODS: 21 hospitalized BD patients (14 females, average age 34.5±15.3) were recruited after admission. Spontaneous speech was collected through a preloaded smartphone. Firstly, speech features [pitch, formants, mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC), linear prediction cepstral coefficient (LPCC), gamma-tone frequency cepstral coefficients (GFCC) etc.] were preprocessed and extracted. Then, speech features were selected using the features of between-class variance and within-class variance. The manic state of patients was then detected by SVM and GMM methods. RESULTS: LPCC demonstrated the best discrimination efficiency. The accuracy of manic state detection for single patients was much better using SVM method than GMM method. The detection accuracy for multiple patients was higher using GMM method than SVM method. CONCLUSION: SVM provided an appropriate tool for detecting manic state for single patients, whereas GMM worked better for multiple patients’ manic state detection. Both of them could help doctors and patients for better diagnosis and mood state monitoring in different situations.
Subject(s)
Female , Humans , Bipolar Disorder , Diagnosis , Discrimination, Psychological , Methods , Smartphone , Support Vector MachineABSTRACT
Schizophrenia is a chronic devastating psychiatric disorder,which severely damages pub-lic mental health. The pathophysiological mechanism of schizophrenia is complex and the etiology of schizo-phrenia is still unclear. Epidemiological study,twins study and family study show that genetic factors play a substantial part in the process of schizophrenia. Previous research indicates that there is a close association between microRNA-137 and schizophrenia,and that the ablation of microRNA-137 significantly affects clini-cal symptoms and prognosis of patients with schizophrenia. So it highlights the relationship between microR-NA-137 and schizophrenia,which reveals its special role in the etiological mechanism of schizophrenia,and may provides new perspective about the treatment of patients in schizophrenia.
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Objective To investigate the changes in the expression of GABAAα1, receptors in medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in a rat model of neuropathic pain. Methods Nine male Wistar rats weighing 200-210 g were randomly divided into 3 groups ( n = 3 each): control group (group C) , sham operation group (group S) and neuropathic pain group (group P). Neuropathic pain was induced by chronic constrictive injury. The right sciatic nerve was exposed and 4 loose ligatures were placed on the sciatic nerve at 1 mm intervals with 3-0 chromic catgut. In group S, the right sciatic nerve was exposed but not ligated. The thermal and mechanical pain threshold was measured at 1 d before and 1,4,7, 10 and 14 d after operation. The animals were then sacrificed and the mPFC was removed. The expression of GABAAα1, receptors in mPFC was determined by Western blot. Results Compared with C and S groups, thermal and mechanical pain threshold were significantly decreased and the expression of GABAAα1, receptors was up-regulated in group P ( P ＜ 0.01) . There was no significant difference was in the thermal and mechanical pain threshold and expression of GABAAα1 receptors between C and S groups (P ＞ 0.05). Conclusion Up-regulation of GABAAα1 receptor expression in mPFC may be involved in the development and maintenance of neuropathic pain in rats.
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Schizophrenia is one of the most severe psychiatric disorders.Although the etiology is unknown,schizophrenia appears to be a polygenic disorder associated with environmental factors.There are evidences that intracellular signaling plays an important role in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.Canonical Wnt pathway,which is closely related to the development and function maintenance of central nervous system,have drawn wide attention.Evidences for potential disturbances of Wnt signaling pathways in schizophrenia have accumulated,which are in favour of the hypothesis that Wnt signaling alterations may be important in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia.The research advances in the relationship between canonical Wnt signaling pathway and schizophrenia are reviewed in this paper.