Functional near-infrared spectroscopy during a decision-making task in patients with major depressive disorder.

OBJECTIVE: Patients with major depressive disorder tend to exhibit poorer decision-making capacity than the general population, but neurobiological evidence is lacking. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy monitors changes in oxy-haemoglobin concentration in the cerebral cortex. It may provide an objective assessment of neurophysiological responses during decision-making processes. Thus, this study investigated the effect of major depressive disorder diagnosis and severity on prefrontal cortex activity during the Iowa gambling task. METHODS: Right-handed healthy controls (n = 25) and patients with major depressive disorder (n = 25) were matched for age, gender, ethnicity and years of education in this cross-sectional study. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy signals and the responses made during a computerised Iowa gambling task were recorded. In addition, demographics, clinical history and symptom severity were noted. RESULTS: Compared to healthy controls, patients with major depressive disorder had reduced haemodynamic response in several cortical regions of the frontal lobe (Hedge's g range from 0.71 to 1.52; p values range from ⩽0.001 to 0.041). Among patients, mean oxy-haemoglobin declined with major depressive disorder severity in the right orbitofrontal cortex (Pearson's r = -0.423; p = 0.024). CONCLUSION: Haemodynamic dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex during decision-making processes is associated with major depressive disorder diagnosis and severity. These neurophysiological alterations may have a role in the decision-making capacity of patients with major depressive disorder.

Comparison of RPR′s performance in syphilis screening between pregnant women and non-pregnant women / 国际检验医学杂志

Objective To study comparatively the performance of rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test in syphilis detection among pregnant women and non-pregnant women to provide reference for detecting syphilis in pregnant women.Methods The women aged 20-40 years old were selected and divided into the pregnant group and the non-pregnant group.RPR and treponema pallidum particle assay(TPPA) were simultaneously adopted to conduct the syphilis detection.The positive cases were judged by the TPPA detection results combined with the contact history,clinical symptoms and treatment situation.The results were compared with those by RPR for determining the false negative and false positive in RPR.The false negative rate and false positive rate of RPR detection results were analyzed in the two groups.Results Among 117 pregnant women,15 cases were false negative in RPR and 9 cases were false positive in RPR;among 755 non-pregnant women,there were 44 cases of false negative RPR results and 8 cases of false positive RPR results.The false negative rates in the pregnant group and non-pregnant group were 25.0% and 8.8% respectively,the difference was statistically significant(χ2=14.739,P<0.05);the false positive rates in the pregnant group and non-pregnant group were 15.7% and 3.1% respectively,the difference was statistically significant (χ2=14.722,P<0.05).Conclusion There are many factors affecting RPR for detection syphilis,pregnant women are the specific group,so higher false positive rate and false negative rate exist than non-pregnant women,the detection results should be comprehensively judged by combining with clinical symptoms and disease history,if necessary,combining with other syphilis detection method for avoiding missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis.