An optimal scheme to boost immunity and suppress viruses for HIV by combining a phased immunotherapy with the sustaining antiviral therapy.

Despite many approaches to treat HIV virus, the endeavor, due to the inability of therapy to eradicate HIV infection, has been aroused to formulate rational therapeutic strategies to establish sustained immunity to suppress viruses after stopping therapy. In this paper, incorporating the time lag of the expansion of immune cells, we propose an explicit model with continuous antiretroviral therapy (CATT) and an intermittent immunotherapy to describe an interaction of uninfected cells, HIV virus and immune response. Two kinds of bistability and the sensitivities of the amplitude and period of the periodic solution with respect to all of parameters indicate that both ε and b relating to the therapy are scheduled to propose an optimal treatment tactics. Furthermore, taking a patient performed a CATT but with an unsuccessful outcome as a example, we inset a phased immunotherapy into the above CATT and then adjust the therapeutic session as well as the inlaid time to quest the preferable therapeutic regimen. Mathematically, we alter the solution of system from the basin of the attraction of the immune-free equilibrium to the immune control balance when the treatment is ceased, meanwhile minimize the cost function through a period of combined therapy. Due to the particularity of our optimal problem, we contribute a novel optimization approach by meshing a special domain on the antiretroviral and immunotherapy parameters ε and $\bar{b}$, to catch an optimal combined treatment scheme. Simulations exhibit that early mediating immunotherapy suppresses the load of virus lower while shortening the combined treatment session does not reduce but magnify the cost function. Our results can provide some insights into the design of optimal therapeutic strategies to boost sustained immunity to quell viruses.

[Empathy for pain: A novel bio-psychosocial-behavioral laboratory animal model].

Empathy, a basic prosocial behavior, is referred to as an ability to understand and share others' emotional state. Generally, empathy is also a social-behavioral basis of altruism. In contrast, impairment of empathy development may be associated with autism, narcissism, alexithymia, personality disorder, schizophrenia and depression. Thus, study of the brain mechanisms of empathy has great importance to not only scientific and clinical advances but also social harmony. However, research on empathy has long been avoided due to the fact that it has been considered as a distinct feature of human beings from animals, leading to paucity of knowledge in the field. In 2006, a Canadian group from McGill University found that a mouse in pain could be shared by its paired cagemate, but not a paired stranger, showing decreased pain threshold and increased pain responses through emotional contagion while they were socially interacting. In 2014, we further found that a rat in pain could also be shared by its paired cagemate 30 min after social interaction, showing long-term decreased pain threshold and increased pain responses, suggesting persistence of empathy for pain (empathic memory). We also mapped out that the medial prefrontal cortex, including the anterior cingulate cortex, prelimbic cortex and infralimbic cortex, is involved in empathy for pain in rats, suggesting that a neural network may be associated with development of pain empathy in the CNS. In the present brief review, we give a brief outline of the advances and challenges in study of empathy for pain in humans and animals, and try to provide a novel bio-psychosocial-behavioral model for study of pain and its emotional comorbidity using laboratory animals.

Colorectal cancer mortality in Inner Mongolia between 2008 and 2012.

AIM: To determine the extent of colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality and the association between demographic characteristics and CRC mortality in Inner Mongolia. METHODS: Data were collected from the Death Registry System, maintained by the Inner Mongolia Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2008 to 2012. Deaths were classified according to the International Classification of Disease, 10(th) Revision. Years of life lost, average years of life lost (AYLL), and mortality were calculated over the five years between 2008 and 2012. A conditional logistic regression model was used to analyze the association between marital status, occupational status, education level, area of residence, and the risk of CRC. RESULTS: The AYLL of CRC was 17.39 years. The average mortality of CRC was 5.6/100000. People living in urban areas and having a higher education level had a significantly higher risk of CRC (OR = 1.74 and 95%CI: 1.29-2.35, P < 0.001 and OR = 2.39, 95%CI: 1.76-3.25, P < 0.001, respectively). People who were employed had a lower risk of CRC (OR = 0.64, 95%CI: 0.48-0.86, P = 0.003). The mortality of CRC was positively correlated with the education level (P < 0.001). No statistically significant association was observed between marital status and CRC risk (P = 0.259). CONCLUSION: Living in urban areas, higher education level and unemployment are associated with CRC mortality in Inner Mongolia.