Butyric acid and prospects for creation of new medicines based on its derivatives: a literature review.

The widespread use of antimicrobials causes antibiotic resistance in bacteria. The use of butyric acid and its derivatives is an alternative tactic. This review summarizes the literature on the role of butyric acid in the body and provides further prospects for the clinical use of its derivatives and delivery methods to the animal body. Thus far, there is evidence confirming the vital role of butyric acid in the body and the effectiveness of its derivatives when used as animal medicines and growth stimulants. Butyric acid salts stimulate immunomodulatory activity by reducing microbial colonization of the intestine and suppressing inflammation. Extraintestinal effects occur against the background of hemoglobinopathy, hypercholesterolemia, insulin resistance, and cerebral ischemia. Butyric acid derivatives inhibit histone deacetylase. Aberrant histone deacetylase activity is associated with the development of certain types of cancer in humans. Feed additives containing butyric acid salts or tributyrin are used widely in animal husbandry. They improve the functional status of the intestine and accelerate animal growth and development. On the other hand, high concentrations of butyric acid stimulate the apoptosis of epithelial cells and disrupt the intestinal barrier function. This review highlights the biological activity and the mechanism of action of butyric acid, its salts, and esters, revealing their role in the treatment of various animal and human diseases. This paper also discussed the possibility of using butyric acid and its derivatives as surface modifiers of enterosorbents to obtain new drugs with bifunctional action.

Risk and protective factors for self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analysis protocol.

INTRODUCTION: Self-harm and suicide are major public health concerns among children and adolescents. Many risk and protective factors for suicide and self-harm have been identified and reported in the literature. However, the capacity of these identified risk and protective factors to guide assessment and management is limited due to their great number. This protocol describes an ongoing systematic review and meta-analysis which aims to examine longitudinal studies of risk factors for self-harm and suicide in children and adolescents, to provide a comparison of the strengths of association of the various risk factors for self-harm and suicide and to shed light on those that require further investigation. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We perform a systematic search of the literature using the databases EMBASE, PsycINFO, Medline, CINAHL and HMIC from inception up to 28 October 2020, and the search will be updated before the systematic review publication. Additionally, we will contact experts in the field, including principal investigators whose peer-reviewed publications are included in our systematic review as well as investigators from our extensive research network, and we will search the reference lists of relevant reviews to retrieve any articles that were not identified in our search. We will extract relevant data and present a narrative synthesis and combine the results in meta-analyses where there are sufficient data. We will assess the risk of bias for each study using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and present a summary of the quantity and the quality of the evidence for each risk or protective factor. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval will not be sought as this is a systematic review of the literature. Results will be published in mental health journals and presented at conferences focused on suicide prevention. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021228212.

Determination of the Effects of Transcutaneous Auricular Vagus Nerve Stimulation on the Heart Rate Variability Using a Machine Learning Pipeline.

Background: We are all aware of day-to-day healthy stress, but, when sustained for long periods, stress is believed to lead to serious physical and mental health issues. Materials and Methods: In this study, we investigated the potential effects of transcutaneous auricular vagus nerve stimulation (taVNS) on stress processing as reflected in the electrocardiogram (ECG)-derived biomarkers of stress adaptability. Stress reflecting biomarkers included a range of heart rate variability metrics: standard deviation of N-N intervals (SDNN), root mean squared of successive differences in heartbeat intervals (RMSSD), low-frequency component, high-frequency component and their ratio (LF, HF, and LF/HF).In addition, we created a machine learning model capable of distinguishing between the stimulated and nonstimulated conditions from the ECG-derive data from various subjects and states. The model consisted of a deep convolutional neural network, which was trained on R-R interval (RRI) data extracted from ECG and time traces of LF, HF, LF/HF, SDNN, and RMSSD. Results: Only LF/HF ratio demonstrated a statistically significant change in response to stimulation. Although the LF/HF ratio is expected to increase during exposure to stress, we have observed that stimulation during exposure to stress counteracts this increase or even reduces the LF/HF ratio. This could be an indication that the vagus nerve stimulation decreases the sympathetic activation during stress inducement.Our Machine Learning model achieved an accuracy of 70% with no significant variations across the three states (baseline, stress, and recovery). However, training an analogous neural network to identify the states (baseline, stress, and recovery) proved to be unsuccessful. Conclusion: Overall, in this study, we showed further evidence of the beneficial effect of taVNS on stress processing. Importantly we have also demonstrated the promising potential of ECG metrics as a biomarker for the development of closed-loop stimulation systems.

[Alexithymia and its relation with eating disorders and obesity].

This manuscript provides a review of current literature on the relationship between overweight and alexithymia as a psychological factor associated with obesity, as well as the role of alexithymia in the development of various abnormalities and eating disorders (ED). Obesity is a multifactorial disease, and lifestyle characteristics are the most important pathogenetic links on its development, as well as a complex of genetic, epigenetic, biological and psychological factors that cause accumulation of excessive fat and prevent effective reduction and retention of body weight. One possible reason for the increased prevalence of obesity in adults is poor emotional management, which can affect healthy eating behavior and lifestyle. It was found that overweight and obese people have a high prevalence of alexithymia, and also the study shows its prognostic role in the development of ED. Alexithymia is a factor that not only predisposes to weight gain, but is also a significant predictor of inefficiency and premature termination of programs for the treatment of obesity and ED. Timely diagnosis and correction of alexithymic syndrome can help in developing the effective treatment strategies for obese patients.

Artificial Intelligence, Brains, and Beyond: Imperial College London Neurotechnology Symposium, 2020.

In this report, we give an overview of the proceedings from the online Imperial College London Neurotechnology Symposium 2020. The first part deals with the fundamentals of how artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to inform research frameworks used in the field of neurotechnology. The second part goes a level higher and shows how AI can be used in cutting-edge cellular and molecular methodologies and their applications. The final part focuses on the efforts to "decode" neural systems in brain-computer interfaces to advance neuroprosthetics.