ABSTRACT
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine dysfunction in women of childbearing age. It is considered to be a heterogeneous, multi-faceted disease with polycystic ovarian changes, hyperandrogenism, and endocrine. Clinical features such as dysfunction and metabolic syndrome, due to the presence of ovulation dysfunction, seriously affect the fertility of women with PCOS. With the increase of age, the fertility decline of females is mainly related to factors such as the decrease in the number and quality of follicles, the decrease in the number of available embryos, the decrease in transplant rate and the increase in abortion rate. The existing literature does not agree on the fertility window of elderly PCOS patients. This paper reviews several literatures and discusses the reproductive window problems of elderly PCOS patients.
ABSTRACT
With the global warming, the incidence of heat stroke was significantly higher than before. Severe heat stroke has a high mortality, high morbidity and consolidated central nervous system injury characteristics. The main features of severe heat stroke cerebral injury include cognitive impairment, delirium, convulsions and coma. Its mechanism is related with heat shock induced cerebral tissue ischemia and hypoxia, vascular dysfunction, secondary cascade inflammation and so on. Currently, the main treatment of heat stroke cerebral injury is the hypothermia therapy, dehydration for the reduction of intracranial pressure, naloxone and other cerebral protection and nutrition treatments. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is effective in treating brain injury. HBOT can alleviate tissue ischemia and hypoxia, improve circulation, reduce cerebral edema, and anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative damage, anti-apoptosis and other molecular biological effects. HBOT also play a wake up-promoting effect of nerve repair in the cerebral injury. The treatment of cerebral injury has been the difficulty and weakness of heat stroke research. Therefore, this article reviewed the epidemiology, pathogenesis, the therapeutic effect and mechanism of hyperbaric oxygen on cerebral injury in severe heat stroke to clarify the advantages of HBOT and to provide experimental basis for further research.
ABSTRACT
The JFK Coma Recovery Scale-Revised (JFK CRS-R), a behavioral scale, is often used for clinical assessments of patients with disorders of consciousness (DOC), such as patients in a vegetative state. However, there has been a high rate of clinical misdiagnosis with the JFK CRS-R because patients with severe brain injures cannot provide sufficient behavioral responses. It is particularly difficult to evaluate the communication function in DOC patients using the JFK CRS-R because a higher level of behavioral responses is needed for communication assessments than for many other assessments, such as an auditory startle assessment. Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which provide control and communication by detecting changes in brain signals, can be used to evaluate patients with DOC without the need of behavioral expressions. In this paper, we proposed an audiovisual BCI system to supplement the JFK CRS-R in assessing the communication ability of patients with DOC. In the graphic user interface of the BCI system, two word buttons ("Yes" and "No" in Chinese) were randomly displayed in the left and right sides and flashed in an alternating manner. When a word button flashed, its corresponding spoken word was broadcast from an ipsilateral headphone. The use of semantically congruent audiovisual stimuli improves the detection performance of the BCI system. Similar to the JFK CRS-R, several situation-orientation questions were presented one by one to patients with DOC. For each question, the patient was required to provide his/her answer by selectively focusing on an audiovisual stimulus (audiovisual "Yes" or "No"). As a case study, we applied our BCI system in a patient with DOC who was clinically diagnosed as being in a minimally conscious state (MCS). According to the JFK CRS-R assessment, this patient was unable to communicate consistently. However, he achieved a high accuracy of 86.5% in our BCI experiment. This result indicates his reliable communication ability and demonstrates the effectiveness of our system.
Subject(s)
Consciousness Disorders , Brain-Computer Interfaces , Coma/diagnosis , Consciousness Disorders/diagnosis , Female , Humans , Male , Persistent Vegetative StateABSTRACT
AIM: To investigate the signaling mechanisms involved in the priming effects of lipopolysaccharide(LPS) on heat killed Staphylococcus aureus(HKSa)-induced nitric oxide(NO) production in macrophages.METHODS: Murine macrophage RAW264.7 was used in the experiment.Griess reagent was used to measure the content of nitrite in culture medium.Real-time PCR and Western blot was utilized to examine the mRNA and protein levels of toll-like receptor 2(TLR2),respectively.Dual luciferase reporter assay was used to assess the transcriptional activity of nuclear factor of activated T cells(NF-AT).RESULTS: The RAW264.7 cells pretreated with LPS for 24 h significantly enhanced NO production induced by HKSa,suggesting that LPS primed the macrophages and increased the reactivity of the cells to HKSa.LPS increased the mRNA and protein levels of TLR2 in a dose-dependent manner in RAW264.7 cells.The RAW264.7 cells pretreated with LPS enhanced NO production induced by peptidoglycan,one of the specific ligand of TLR2.The priming effect of LPS on HKSa-induced NO production was partly blocked by TLR2 neutralizing antibody.LPS significantly enhanced the transcriptional activity of NF-AT,which was inhibited by BAPTA/AM(a cell-permeable cytosolic calcium chelator) and cyclosporine A(CsA,an inhibitor for calcineurin).Both BAPTA/AM and CsA inhibited the priming effect of LPS on HKSa-induced NO production in RAW264.7 cells.CONCLUSION: The present study confirms the priming effect of LPS on the reactivity of RAW264.7 cells to HKSa.Pattern recognition receptor TLR2 and calcium/calcineurin/NF-AT signaling pathway may be involved in the priming process initiated by LPS.
