Ashwagandha Ethanol Extract Attenuates Sarcopenia-Related Muscle Atrophy in Aged Mice.

The investigation focused on the impact of Withania somnifera (ashwagandha) extract (WSE) on age-related mechanisms affecting skeletal muscle sarcopenia-related muscle atrophy in aged mice. Beyond evaluating muscular aspects, the study explored chronic low-grade inflammation, muscle regeneration, and mitochondrial biogenesis. WSE administration, in comparison to the control group, demonstrated no significant differences in body weight, diet, or water intake, affirming its safety profile. Notably, WSE exhibited a propensity to reduce epidermal and abdominal fat while significantly increasing muscle mass at a dosage of 200 mg/kg. The muscle-to-fat ratio, adjusted for body weight, increased across all treatment groups. WSE administration led to a reduction in the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α and IL-1ß, mitigating inflammation-associated muscle atrophy. In a 12-month-old mouse model equivalent to a 50-year-old human, WSE effectively preserved muscle strength, stabilized grip strength, and increased muscle tissue weight. Positive effects were observed in running performance and endurance. Mechanistically, WSE balanced muscle protein synthesis/degradation, promoted fiber differentiation, and enhanced mitochondrial biogenesis through the IGF-1/Akt/mTOR pathway. This study provides compelling evidence for the anti-sarcopenic effects of WSE, positioning it as a promising candidate for preventing sarcopenia pending further clinical validation.

Comparison of pharmacogenomic information for drug approvals provided by the national regulatory agencies in Korea, Europe, Japan, and the United States.

Pharmacogenomics, which is defined as the study of changes in the properties of DNA and RNA associated with drug response, enables the prediction of the efficacy and adverse effects of drugs based on patients' specific genetic mutations. For the safe and effective use of drugs, it is important that pharmacogenomic information is easily accessible to clinical experts and patients. Therefore, we examined the pharmacogenomic information provided on drug labels in Korea, Europe, Japan, and the United States (US). The selection of drugs that include pharmacogenomic information was based on the drug list that includes genetic information from the Korea Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) websites. Drug labels were retrieved from the sites of MFDS, FDA, European Medicines Agency, and Japanese Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency. Drugs were classified as per the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical code, and the biomarkers, labeling sections, and necessity of genetic tests were determined. In total, 348 drugs were selected from 380 drugs with available pharmacogenomic information in Korea and the US after applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of these drugs, 137, 324, 169, and 126 were with pharmacogenomics information in Korea, the US, Europe, and Japan, respectively. The most commonly represented drug class was antineoplastic and immunomodulating agents. Regarding the classification as per the mentioned biomarkers, the cytochrome P450 enzyme was the most frequently mentioned information, and the targeted anticancer drugs most commonly required genetic biomarker testing. The reasons for differences in drug labeling information based on country include differences in mutant alleles according to ethnicity, frequencies at which drug lists are updated, and pharmacogenomics-related guidelines. Clinical experts must continuously strive to identify and report mutations that can explain drug efficacy or side effects for safe drug use.

Central metabolites and peripheral parameters associated neuroinflammation in fibromyalgia patients: A preliminary study.

To identify central metabolites and peripheral measures associated with neuroinflammation in fibromyalgia (FM), we scanned [11C]-(R)-PK11195 positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance spectroscopy in FM patients. We measured associations between neurometabolite levels measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy and the extent of neuroinflammation inferred by the distribution volume ratios of [11C]-(R)-PK11195 positron emission tomography in 12 FM patients and 13 healthy controls. We also examined the associations between peripheral parameters, such as creatinine and C-reactive protein, and neuroinflammation. In FM patients, we found negative correlations between neuroinflammation and the creatine (Cr)/total creatine (tCr; Cr + phosphocreatine) ratios in the right (r = -0.708, P = .015) and left thalamus (r = -0.718, P = .008). In FM patients, negative correlations were apparent between neuroinflammation and the glutamate/tCr ratio in the right insula (r = -0.746, P = .005). In FM patients, we found negative correlations between neuroinflammation in the left thalamus (r = -0.601, P = .039) and left insula (r = -0.598, P = .040) and the blood creatinine levels. Additionally, we found significant correlations of other peripheral measures with neuroinflammation in FM patients. Our results suggest that both central metabolites, such as Cr and glutamate, and peripheral creatinine and other parameters are associated with neuroinflammation in patients with FM.

Development of a Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetic Model for Tegoprazan: Application for the Prediction of Drug-Drug Interactions with CYP3A4 Perpetrators.

Tegoprazan is a novel potassium-competitive acid blocker (P-CAB) developed by CJ Healthcare (Korea) for the treatment of gastroesophageal reflux disease and helicobacter pylori infections. Tegoprazan is mainly metabolized by cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A4. Considering the therapeutic indications, tegoprazan is likely to be administered in combination with various drugs. Therefore, the investigation of drug-drug interactions (DDI) between tegoprazan and CYP3A4 perpetrators is imperative. In the present study, we first aimed to develop a physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PK) model for tegoprazan and its major metabolite, M1, using PK-Sim®. This model was applied to predict the DDI between tegoprazan and CYP3A4 perpetrators. Clarithromycin, a potent inhibitor of CYP3A4, and rifampicin, a strong inducer of CYP3A4, were selected as case studies. Our results show that clarithromycin significantly increased the exposure of tegoprazan. The area under the concentration-time curve (AUC) and Cmax of tegoprazan in the steady state increased up to 4.54- and 2.05-fold, respectively, when tegoprazan (50 mg, twice daily) was coadministered with clarithromycin (500 mg, three times daily). Rifampicin significantly reduced the exposure of tegoprazan. The AUC and Cmax of tegoprazan were reduced by 5.71- and 3.51-fold when tegoprazan was coadministered with rifampicin (600 mg, once daily). Due to the high DDI potential, the comedication of tegoprazan with CYP3A4 perpetrators should be controlled. The dosage adjustment for each individual is suggested.

Developing and Aligning a Safety Event Taxonomy for Inpatient Psychiatry.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this project was to develop and align an inpatient psychiatric safety event taxonomy that would blend well-established safety events with psychiatry-specific concerns. METHODS: A hybrid inductive-deductive thematic analysis was used to generate novel descriptive safety event categories for inpatient psychiatry and align these categories with an established taxonomic framework. In the inductive phase, an initial taxonomy was developed by describing the semantic subject and context of reported safety concerns. In the deductive phase, existing literature, national standards, and local content experts were used to align our taxonomy with the safety event measurement system at our institution. RESULTS: A total of 2291 events were extracted and 483 were analyzed. After thorough review, the data was divided into 4 domains: (1) Provision of care, (2) patient actions, (3) environment/equipment, and (4) safety culture. Each domain reflects a mutually exclusive typology of events and provides a parsimonious view of safety concerns in inpatient psychiatry. Each domain was further divided into categories, subcategories, and subcategory details. CONCLUSIONS: Safety events on inpatient psychiatric units are understudied and lack the measurement infrastructure to identify care processes that result in exposure to harm. We develop and align an inpatient psychiatric safety taxonomy based on real-world data, existing literature, and measurement standards. This taxonomy can be used by psychiatric hospitals to improve their patient safety measurement systems-and ultimately-the safety of their patients and communities.

B16 melanomas evade antitumor immunity by the loss of epitope presentation and the acquisition of tumor resistance to granzyme B.

Melanomas exhibit the highest rate of heterogeneity among cancer cell types. In this study, we tested the two types of B16 melanoma cells (B16-S0-1 and B16-S1-1) showing resistance to antitumor immunity. These cells expressed Trp2 protein. Contrary to B16 and B16-S0-1 cells, B16-S1-1 cells failed to stimulate IFN-γ responses in Trp2-specific CD8+ T cells, suggesting that B16-S1-1 cells may have lost the ability to present antigen to Ag-specific CTLs in the context of MHC class I molecules. However, B16-S0-1 cells exhibited active Stat3 and decreased Bcl-2 expression, which were found to be not associated with immune escape. B16-S0-1 cells were more resistant to granzyme B-mediated caspase activation and apoptosis than B16 cells. Thus, these data show that B16 cells escape antitumor immune responses through the loss of epitope presentation to CTLs and the acquisition of tumor cell resistance to granzyme B-mediated caspase activation.

Dysfunctional energy metabolisms in fibromyalgia compared with healthy subjects.

This study aimed to investigate the levels of creatine (Cr) metabolites in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), thalamus, and insula of patients with fibromyalgia (FM) using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). The levels of Cr and phosphocreatine (PCr) relative to total Cr (tCr), which includes Cr and PCr, in the ACC, thalamus, and insula were determined using MRS in 12 patients with FM and in 13 healthy controls. The FM group had lower levels of PCr/tCr in the ACC and right insula compared to healthy controls. There was a negative correlation between Cr/tCr in the ACC and total pain levels (McGill Pain Questionnaire-Total; r = -0.579, p = 0.049) and between Cr/tCr in the left insula and affective pain levels (McGill Pain Questionnaire-Affective; r = -0.638, p = 0.047) in patients with FM. In addition, there were negative correlations between stress levels (Stress Response Inventory) and Cr/tCr in the right (r = -0.780, p = 0.005) and left thalamus (r = -0.740, p = 0.006), as well as in the right insula (r = -0.631, p = 0.028) in patients with FM. There were negative correlations between symptom levels of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD; PTSD checklist) and Cr/tCr in the right (r = -0.783, p = 0.004) and left thalamus (r = -0.642, p = 0.024) of patients with FM. These findings are paramount to understanding the decisive pathologies related to brain energy metabolism in patients with FM.

Body and Hand-Object ROI-Based Behavior Recognition Using Deep Learning.

Behavior recognition has applications in automatic crime monitoring, automatic sports video analysis, and context awareness of so-called silver robots. In this study, we employ deep learning to recognize behavior based on body and hand-object interaction regions of interest (ROIs). We propose an ROI-based four-stream ensemble convolutional neural network (CNN). Behavior recognition data are mainly composed of images and skeletons. The first stream uses a pre-trained 2D-CNN by converting the 3D skeleton sequence into pose evolution images (PEIs). The second stream inputs the RGB video into the 3D-CNN to extract temporal and spatial features. The most important information in behavior recognition is identification of the person performing the action. Therefore, if the neural network is trained by removing ambient noise and placing the ROI on the person, feature analysis can be performed by focusing on the behavior itself rather than learning the entire region. Therefore, the third stream inputs the RGB video limited to the body-ROI into the 3D-CNN. The fourth stream inputs the RGB video limited to ROIs of hand-object interactions into the 3D-CNN. Finally, because better performance is expected by combining the information of the models trained with attention to these ROIs, better recognition will be possible through late fusion of the four stream scores. The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)-Activity3D dataset was used for the experiments. This dataset contains color images, images of skeletons, and depth images of 55 daily behaviors of 50 elderly and 50 young individuals. The experimental results showed that the proposed model improved recognition by at least 4.27% and up to 20.97% compared to other behavior recognition methods.

Population Pharmacokinetic Method to Predict Within-Subject Variability Using Single-Period Clinical Data.

Sample sizes for single-period clinical trials, including pharmacokinetic studies, are statistically determined by within-subject variability (WSV). However, it is difficult to determine WSV without replicate-designed clinical trial data, and statisticians typically estimate optimal sample sizes using total variability, not WSV. We have developed an efficient population-based method to predict WSV accurately with single-period clinical trial data and demonstrate method performance with eperisone. We simulated 1000 virtual pharmacokinetic clinical trial datasets based on single-period and dense sampling studies, with various study sizes and levels of WSV and interindividual variabilities (IIVs). The estimated residual variability (RV) resulting from population pharmacokinetic methods were compared with WSV values. In addition, 3 × 3 bioequivalence results of eperisone were used to evaluate method performance with a real clinical dataset. With WSV of 40% or less, regardless of IIV magnitude, RV was well approximated by WSV for sample sizes greater than 18 subjects. RV was underestimated at WSV of 50% or greater, even with datasets having low IIV and numerous subjects. Using the eperisone dataset, RV was 44% to 48%, close to the true value of 50%. In conclusion, the estimated RV accurately predicted WSV in single-period studies, validating this method for sample size estimation in clinical trials.

Abnormal neuroinflammation in fibromyalgia and CRPS using [11C]-(R)-PK11195 PET.

PURPOSE: Fibromyalgia (FM) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) share many pathological mechanisms related to chronic pain and neuroinflammation, which may contribute to the multifactorial pathological mechanisms in both FM and CRPS. The aim of this study was to assess neuroinflammation in FM patients compared with that in patients with CRPS and healthy controls. METHODS: Neuroinflammation was measured as the distribution volume ratio (DVR) of [11C]-(R)-PK11195 positron emission tomography (PET) in 12 FM patients, 11 patients with CRPS and 15 healthy controls. RESULTS: Neuroinflammation in FM patients was significantly higher in the left pre (primary motor cortex) and post (primary somatosensory cortex) central gyri (p < 0.001), right postcentral gyrus (p < 0.005), left superior parietal and superior frontal gyri (p < 0.005), left precuneus (p < 0.01), and left medial frontal gyrus (p = 0.036) compared with healthy controls. Furthermore, the DVR of [11C]-(R)-PK11195 in FM patients demonstrated decreased neuroinflammation in the medulla (p < 0.005), left superior temporal gyrus (p < 0.005), and left amygdala (p = 0.020) compared with healthy controls. CONCLUSIONS: To the authors' knowledge, this report is the first to describe abnormal neuroinflammation levels in the brains of FM patients compared with that in patients with CRPS using [11C]-(R)-PK11195 PET. The results suggested that abnormal neuroinflammation can be an important pathological factor in FM. In addition, the identification of common and different critical regions related to abnormal neuroinflammation in FM, compared with patients with CRPS and healthy controls, may contribute to improved diagnosis and the development of effective medical treatment for patients with FM.

B16 melanoma control by anti-PD-L1 requires CD8+ T cells and NK cells: application of anti-PD-L1 Abs and Trp2 peptide vaccines.

Anti-programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) therapy has been beneficial in treating patients with certain cancers. Here, we tested whether anti-PD-L1 therapy is effective for controlling different types of tumors using animal models of TC-1, MC38 and B16. We found that, despite PD-L1 expression, anti-PD-L1 therapy showed little and some antitumor activity in the TC-1 and MC38 models. However, anti-PD-L1 therapy exhibited a more dramatic antitumor effect in the B16 model. This difference in antitumor responses was likely associated with the CD8 + T cell infiltration status of tumor tissues. In the B16 model, CD8 + T cells and to a lesser degree NK cells were found to be responsible for the antitumor response of anti-PD-L1 therapy, as determined by immune cell subset depletion. In particular, CD8 + T cells from B16-bearing mice produced an IFN-γ in response to B16 cells and citrate phosphate buffer-treated B16 cell peptide elutes but not to an immunodominant class I epitope, Trp2180-188, suggesting that CD8 + T cells that recognize neoantigens were induced in B16 tumor-bearing mice and then reactivated by anti-PD-L1 for tumor control. When B16 tumor-bearing mice were treated with anti-PD-L1 in combination with Trp2180-188 peptide vaccines, they displayed significantly more tumor control than either single therapy. Taken together, these studies show that B16 melanomas are more effectively controlled through reactivation of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes by anti-PD-L1 therapy. Moreover, combined therapy using anti-PD-L1 and Trp2 peptide vaccines is more beneficial for controlling B16 melanomas through reactivation of neoantigen-specific CD8 + T cells and induction of Trp2-specific CD8 + T cells.

Abnormal neurometabolites in fibromyalgia patients: Magnetic resonance spectroscopy study.

This study aimed to investigate distinct neurometabolites in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), right and left thalamus, and insula of patients with fibromyalgia (FM) compared with healthy controls using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS). Levels of N-acetylaspartate (NAA), N-acetylaspartylglutamate (NAAG), total NAA (tNAA = NAA + NAAG), myo-inositol (ml), glutamine (Gln), glutamate (Glu), Glx (Glu + Gln), glycerophosphocholine (GPC), total choline (tCho = GPC + phosphocholine) and glutathione (GSH) levels relative to total creatine (tCr) levels including creatine (Cr) and phosphocreatine (PCr) and relative to Cr levels were determined in the ACC, right and left thalamus, and insula in 12 patients with FM and 13 healthy controls using MRS. In the ACC, NAA/tCr (P = 0.028) and tCho/tCr (P = 0.047) were higher in patients with FM. In the right and left insula, tNAA/tCr (P = 0.019, P = 0.007, respectively) was lower in patients with FM. Patients with FM showed lower levels of ml/Cr (P = 0.037) in the right insula than healthy controls. These findings are paramount to understand decisive pathophysiological mechanisms related to abnormal features in the brain and parasympathetic nervous systems in FM. We suggest that the results presented herein may be essential to understand hidden pathological mechanisms and also life system potential as protective and recovering metabolic strategies in patients with FM.

Preliminary bioequivalence of an oral integrating film formulation containing meloxicam with a suspension formulation in beagle dogs.

The oral disintegrating film (ODF) has advantages over suspension and tablet. These include convenience of administration, patient compliance, and accurate dosing. We evaluated the bioequivalence between the ODF and the meloxicam suspension by using a crossover design with a 3-week washout period. Six healthy male beagle dogs were randomized to receive both formulations of meloxicam, 2 mg. Plasma meloxicam concentrations were measured at the same times. From the start until maximum concentration, the initial absorption of the ODF meloxicam formulation was more rapid (2.08 ± 1.56 hr) as compared to the suspension (3.33 ± 1.03 hr). Mean elimination half-lives were 28.77 ± 4.01 and 32.85 ± 9.79 hr for the ODF and the suspension, respectively. Bioequivalence of the ODF was confirmed, based on the relative ratios of geometric mean concentrations (and 90% confidence intervals within the range of 80%-125%) for a maximum concentration of 101.05% (88.59-115.25), for the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) to the last sampling time of 96.07% (87.06-115.25), and for AUC to infinity of 92.65% (86.76-98.94). The meloxicam ODF may be used as an alternative to suspension formulations in the treatment of inflammatory joint diseases and painful musculoskeletal disorders.

Highly Selective Room-Temperature Suzuki-Miyaura Coupling of Bromo-2-sulfonyloxypyridines for Unsymmetrical Diarylpyridines.

A new and mild synthetic approach has been developed for the synthesis of pharmaceutically important unsymmetrical diarylpyridines via chemoselective Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reactions of bromo-2-sulfonyloxypyridines. Most reactions allow for facile access to aryl-2-sulfonyloxypyridines at room temperature in yields of 5-99% with excellent chemoselectivity in the presence of Pd(OAc)2 (2.0 mol %) and Ad2BnP (2.4 mol %). The second arylation of the remaining tosyl or triflyl group in the monoarylpyridine derivatives obtained was successfully accomplished for the synthesis of unsymmetrical 2,3-, 2,4-, 2,5-, and 2,6-diarylpyridine derivatives. Furthermore, a one-pot synthesis of unsymmetrical diarylpyridines starting from bromo-2-sulfonyloxypyridine was accomplished to demonstrate the practical convenience. Finally, with this method, an antibacterial agent, a topoisomerase inhibitor, and etoricoxib, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, were successfully synthesized from the corresponding bromo-2-hydroxypyridines in overall yields of 80, 86, and 49%, respectively.

Au(I)-Catalyzed Cyclization of Epoxyalkynes to Allylic Alcohol Containing Spiroketals and Application to the Total Synthesis of (-)-Alotaketal A.

A gold-catalyzed tandem spiroketalization of epoxyalkynes accompanied by epoxide rearrangement into the corresponding allylic alcohol was developed for the construction of functionalized spiroketals. This new synthetic methodology for unsaturated spiroketals warranted a facile total synthesis of alotaketal A from carvone via a corresponding epoxyalkyne precursor.

Deep neural networks with a set of node-wise varying activation functions.

In this study, we present deep neural networks with a set of node-wise varying activation functions. The feature-learning abilities of the nodes are affected by the selected activation functions, where the nodes with smaller indices become increasingly more sensitive during training. As a result, the features learned by the nodes are sorted by the node indices in order of their importance such that more sensitive nodes are related to more important features. The proposed networks learn input features but also the importance of the features. Nodes with lower importance in the proposed networks can be pruned to reduce the complexity of the networks, and the pruned networks can be retrained without incurring performance losses. We validated the feature-sorting property of the proposed method using both shallow and deep networks as well as deep networks transferred from existing networks.

Disruption of Homeostasis Based on the Right and Left Hemisphere in Patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome.

OBJECTIVE: Although the clinical features and pathophysiology of complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) have been studied in the peripheral and central nervous systems, few plausible pathological interactions are known among the metabolites in these systems. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate abnormal relationships and interactions between peripheral metabolites and central neurometabolites in patients with CRPS. METHODS: Various metabolites and molecules were measured in the peripheral blood, and central neurometabolites in the right and left thalamus using proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in 12 patients with CRPS and 11 healthy controls. Interactions between peripheral metabolites in blood and central neurometabolites in the right and left thalamus were also investigated. RESULTS: The interactions between peripheral and central metabolites were different in the right and left hemispheres of healthy subjects, suggesting the presence of right hemisphere-dependent energy homeostasis and left hemisphere-dependent acid-base homeostasis that enables effective functioning. The interactions between central and peripheral metabolites in CRPS patients were distinct from those in healthy individuals, supporting the possibility of abnormal interactions and disrupted homeostasis between peripheral and central metabolites, which may result from neuroinflammation and immune system dysfunction. CONCLUSION: To the authors' knowledge, this is the first report describing abnormal metabolic dysfunction and disrupted homeostasis in interactions between metabolites of the peripheral and central nervous systems in CRPS. The approach used to uncover hidden pathophysiologies will improve understanding of how chronic pain can disrupt homeostasis in interactions between two systems and how alternative metabolites can be activated to recover and compensate for pathological dysfunctions in patients with CRPS.

Comparison of analytical performance of i-Smart 300 and pHOx ultra for the accurate determination of pleural fluid pH.

BACKGROUND: Pleural fluid pH is an essential test for diagnosing complicated parapneumonic effusion. We evaluated the performance of two blood gas analyzers in measuring pleural fluid pH. METHODS: The i-STAT G3+ (Abbott) was used as a reference analyzer to evaluate the pH values obtained from other methods: the i-Smart 300 (i-SENS), the pHOx Ultra (Nova Biomedical), using a clot catcher to filter off microclot, and pH indicator paper. Within-device precision was performed using quality control materials. We compared pleural fluid pH (n = 86) by the above methods and analyzed the concordance rate at the level of the medical decision point, pH 7.2. RESULTS: The within-device coefficient of variations of pH were below 0.1% for all blood gas analyzers tested. The slopes of the regression equations for the i-Smart 300, pHOx Ultra, and pH indicator paper against the reference analyzer were 0.850 (95% confidence interval, CI, 0.800-0.896), 0.714 (95% CI, 0.671-0.766), and 1.105 (95% CI, 0.781-1.581), respectively. The kappa values for the i-Smart 300, pHOx Ultra, and pH indicator paper against the reference analyzer were 0.883 (95% CI, 0.656-1.110), 0.739 (95% CI, 0.393-1.084), and 0.464 (95% CI, 0.102-0.826), respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The i-Smart 300 and pHOx Ultra demonstrated good analytical performance and diagnostic accuracy when determining pleural fluid pH compared with that by the i-STAT G3+, whereas the pH indicator paper showed unsatisfactory results.

Comparison of complex regional pain syndrome and fibromyalgia: Differences in beta and gamma bands on quantitative electroencephalography.

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) and fibromyalgia (FM) share many features. Both can cause severe pain and are considered to have a mechanism of action, including dysfunction of the sympathetic nervous system. However, they have clinical differences in pain range and degree. The present study aimed to find neurophysiologic differences between CRPS and FM using quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG). Thirty-eight patients with CRPS and 33 patients with FM were included in the analysis. Resting-state QEEG data were grouped into frontal, central, and posterior regions to analyze for regional differences. General linear models were utilized to test for group differences in absolute and relative powers. As a result, the CRPS group relative to FM group showed lower total absolute powers in the beta band (F = 5.159, P < .05), high beta (F = 14.120, P < .05), and gamma band (F = 15.034, P < .05). There were no significant differences between 2 groups in the delta, theta, and alpha bands. The present findings show that the CRPS and FM groups differ mainly in the high frequency, which may reflect their distinct pathophysiology and symptomatology. Our study suggests that the QEEG differences can be clinically useful in assessing brain function in patients with CRPS and FM.

Facial Attribute Recognition by Recurrent Learning With Visual Fixation.

This paper presents a recurrent learning-based facial attribute recognition method that mimics human observers' visual fixation. The concentrated views of a human observer while focusing and exploring parts of a facial image over time are generated and fed into a recurrent network. The network makes a decision concerning facial attributes based on the features gleaned from the observer's visual fixations. Experiments on facial expression, gender, and age datasets show that applying visual fixation to recurrent networks improves recognition rates significantly. The proposed method not only outperforms state-of-the-art recognition methods based on static facial features, but also those based on dynamic facial features.