Olfactory identification impairment in early-and late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Early-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (EOCD) is a comparatively severe subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Olfactory dysfunction is a common symptom of OCD, but all previous studies have focused on late-onset OCD (LOCD). METHODS: The current study compared olfactory identification ability in EOCD patients and age-matched and sex-matched LOCD patients and healthy controls. Thirty patients with EOCD, 30 patients with LOCD and 30 healthy controls were included in the study. Olfactory function was measured using the University of Pennsylvania Smell Identification Test. The Logical Memory and Visual Reproduction components of the Revised Wechsler Memory Scale were used to evaluate verbal and visual memory. RESULTS: There were significant differences in olfactory identification ability between the three groups. EOCD patients were comparable to LOCD patients, while both patients' group showing worse olfactory identification ability than controls. Olfactory identification ability was not significantly correlated with verbal and visual memory or clinical symptoms in the EOCD group or the LOCD group. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study suggest that olfactory identification ability may be a relatively stable indicator of OCD, independent of age, duration of illness, verbal and visual memory, and severity of clinical symptoms.

The Neural Signature of Social Dominance Discrimination by Means of Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation.

Hierarchy is a pervasive feature of social organization. The ability to rapidly discriminate hierarchical information is critical for social interaction. Here, we took advantage of a special technique in electroencephalography (EEG) known as fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS). We used this technique, which captures the automatic perception of faces, to explore the neural signature of social dominance discrimination. A stream of computer-generated faces was presented at 6 Hz, i.e. six faces/second. In the experimental condition, faces alternated from high to low social dominance within a sequence, bringing about a frequency of interest of 3 Hz (6 Hz/2), i.e. three high/low dominance faces appeared in one second. In two control conditions, we presented faces which came exclusively from one of two hierarchical ranks (either lower or higher). Participants were asked to respond to information unrelated to this hierarchical information, namely pressing the spacebar when the fixation changes color. Results revealed a significant 3 Hz response for the experimental condition only. This response was located bilaterally in the occipito-temporal region, indicating discrimination of differences in social dominance. Through the use of FPVS, we provide electrophysiological evidence to show that social hierarchical information can be detected automatically.

[Study on aided diagnosis for cardiovascular diseases based on Relief algorithm].

The study was intended to introduce a novel method for aided diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases based on photoplethysmography (PPG). For this purpose, 40 volunteers were recruited in this study, of whom the physiological and pathological information was collected, including blood pressure and simultaneous PPG data on fingertips, by using a sphygmomanometer and a smart fingertip sensor. According to the PPG signal and its first and second derivatives, 52 features were defined and acquired. The Relief feature selection algorithm was performed to calculate the contribution of each feature to cardiovascular diseases. And then 10 core features which had the greatest contribution were selected as an optimal feature subset. Finally, the efficiency of the Relief feature selection algorithm was demonstrated by the results of k-nearest neighbor (kNN) and support vector machine (SVM) classifier applications of the features. The prediction accuracy of kNN model and SVM reached 66.67% and 83.33% respectively, indicating that: ① Age was the foremost feature for aided diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases; ② The optimal feature subset provided an important evaluation of cardiovascular health status. The obtained results showed that the application of the Relief feature selection algorithm provided high accuracy in aided diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases.

[Detection of carboxypeptidase H specific T cells in peripheral blood of latent autoimmune diabetic patients with carboxypeptidase antibody positivity by ELISPOT assay].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the characteristics of T cell immunity in peripheral blood of patients with carboxypeptidase-H antibody (CPH-Ab). METHODS: Forty-two latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) patients with CPH-Ab(+) alone, 20 Type 2 diabetes mellitus patients (T2DM), and 22 healthy controls were selected and their peripheral blood mononuclear cells were isolated. Human recombinant carboxypeptidase (CPH) protein was expressed and further used as a stimulant in Enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISPOT) assay to detect IFN-gamma-Th1 and IL-4-Th2 cells in the 3 groups. Th1/Th2 ratios were also calculated. CPH-Ab and glutamic acid decarboxylase antibody (GAD-Ab) were determined by radioligand assay. RESULTS: Compared with healthy controls and T2DM, IFN-gamma-Th1 and IL-4-Th2 numbers did not increase significantly in CPH-Ab(+) group, nor did the Th1/Th2 ratios (P>0.05). We further divided the CPH-Ab(+) patients into a short duration group (n=22) and a long duration subgroup (n=20) according to the duration of 3 years. CPH-IL-4-T in the short duration subgroup was significantly higher than that in T2DM and healthy controls (1.8 vs. 0.2 and 0.3, both P<0.05) and we did not find any factor that was significantly correlated with the IL-4 spots number. There were not any significant differences in T cell responses to phaseolus vulgaris agglutinin (PHA) among all groups (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: CPH does not directly involve in the cellular pathological mechanism of LADA. Anti-CPH immunity may be associated with more slowly aggressive beta cell autoimmunity.