Effects of physical activity on depression, anxiety, and stress in college students: the chain-based mediating role of psychological resilience and coping styles.

Background: Physical activity can alleviate negative emotions in college students by enhancing mood and cognitive functions. Yet, the mechanisms underlying these benefits remain unclear. Purpose: This study examines the association between physical activity and negative emotions-specifically, depression, anxiety, and stress-in college students. Additionally, we explore the mediating effects of psychological resilience and coping styles to offer theoretical and practical insights for mitigating students' negative emotions. Methods: Using a stratified random sampling approach, a total of 1,380 college students, from five universities in Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Wenzhou, were included in the analysis. The survey instruments included the Physical Activity Rating Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Simple Coping Style Scale, and Depression-Anxiety Stress Scale. The data were statistically analyzed using multivariate methods with IBM SPSS 25.0 and the PROCESS V3.3 plug-in. Results: (1) College students engage in a low level of physical activity, with male students participating significantly more than female students (p < 0.001). (2) Physical activity was significantly positively correlated with psychological resilience and positive coping styles (t = 9.126, p < 0.001; t = 23.087, p < 0.001) and overall negative correlated with negative emotions in college students (t = -3.601, p < 0.001). (3) Psychological resilience and positive coping styles were found to play a chain mediating role between physical activity and negative emotions. The mediation effect consists of two paths: physical activity → psychological resilience → negative emotions (effect value: -0.0324), and physical activity → psychological resilience → positive coping → negative emotions (effect value: -0.0099). (4) Female students demonstrated higher levels of positive coping (p < 0.001), while male students exhibited more negative emotions (p < 0.001). Conclusion: Our study identifies a significant indirect link, mediated by psychological resilience and positive coping styles, between physical activity and the reduction of negative emotions. Targeted interventions addressing gender differences, such as offering special courses and providing specialized exercise programs and emotional management strategies, can enhance psychological resilience and positive coping mechanisms. Consequently, these measures can alleviate the adverse effects of negative emotions. Our findings have broader implications for both research and practical interventions in promoting mental health among college students.

Activating transcription factor 6 alleviates secondary brain injury by increasing cystathionine γ-lyase expression in a rat model of intracerebral hemorrhage.

BACKGROUND: Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) comprises primary and secondary injuries, the latter of which induces increased inflammation and apoptosis and is more severe. Activating transcription factor 6 (ATF6) is a type-II transmembrane protein in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). ATF6 target genes could improve ER homeostasis, which contributes to cryoprotection. Hence, we predict that ATF6 will have a protective effect on brain tissue after ICH. METHOD: The ICH rat model was generated through autologous blood injection into the right basal ganglia, the expression of ATF6 after ICH was determined by WB and IF. The expression of ATF6 was effectively controlled by means of intervention, and a series of measures was used to detect cell death, neuroinflammation, brain edema, blood-brain barrier and other indicators after ICH. Finally, the effects on long-term neural function of rats were measured by behavioral means. RESULT: ATF6 was significantly increased in the ICH-induced brain tissues. Further, ATF6 was found to modulate the expression of cystathionine γ-lyase (CTH) after ICH. Upregulation of ATF6 attenuated neuronal apoptosis and inflammation in ICH rats, along with mitigation of ICH-induced brain edema, blood-brain barrier deterioration, and cognitive behavior defects. Conversely, ATF6 genetic knockdown induced effects counter to those aforementioned. CONCLUSIONS: This study thereby emphasizes the crucial role of ATF6 in secondary brain injury in response to ICH, indicating that ATF6 upregulation may potentially ameliorate ICH-induced secondary brain injury. Consequently, ATF6 could serve as a promising therapeutic target to alleviate clinical ICH-induced secondary brain injuries.

Mood instability and low back pain: a mendelian randomization study.

Objective: Low back pain is a prevalent and debilitating condition worldwide, with significant implications for individuals' quality of life and productivity. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between mood instability and the risk of developing chronic low back pain, using a rigorously designed mendelian randomization methodology. Method: The study incorporated both univariate and multivariate mendelian randomization to analysis the causal relationship between mood instability and the risk of developing chronic low back pain. The data on mood instability from the Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) opened Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) project (IEU-opened GWAS project). Data on low back pain were collected from two sources: One source is the IEU open GWAS project (discovery data). Another source is a GWAS meta-analysis (replication data). Inverse variance weighted method, weighted median method, MR-Egger regression, and mendelian randomization pleiotropy residual sum and outlier method were used for mendelian randomization analysis. Result: The univariable mendelian randomization analysis shows a statistically significant correlation between mood instability and the risk of low back pain. Several methods were performed, including inverse variance weighting (discovery data: odds ratio = 3.544, 95% confidence interval = 1.785-7.039, p = 0.000; replication data: odds ratio = 3.167, 95% confidence interval = 2.476-4.052, p = 0.000), MR-Egger (discovery data: odds ratio = 7.178, 95% confidence interval = 0.057-909.525, p = 0.429; replication data: odds ratio = 2.262, 95% confidence interval = 0.580-8.825, p = 0.246), weighted median (discovery data: odds ratio = 2.730, 95% confidence interval = 1.112-6.702, p = 0.028; replication data: odds ratio = 3.243, 95% confidence interval = 2.378-4.422, p = 0.000), MR-PRESSO (discovery data: odds ratio = 3.544, 95% confidence interval = 1.785-7.039, p = 0.001; replication data: odds ratio = 3.167, 95% confidence interval = 2.476-4.052, p = 0.000) methods. The results were consistent across these methods. The results obtained from discovery data are consistent with those obtained from discovery data. In the multivariable mendelian randomization, after adjusting for various covariates such as body mass index, current tobacco smoking, alcohol intake frequency, Total body bone mineral density, and vigorous physical activity, there is a consistent correlation between mood instability and chronic low back pain. Conclusion: This study provides robust evidence supporting a causal relationship between mood instability and the development of low back pain. Our findings suggest that addressing mood instability may play a crucial role in prevention and management strategies for individuals experiencing low back pain.

Competing endogenous RNA network characterization of lymph node metastases in Leuran gastric cancer subtypes.

Gastric cancer is a kind of tumor with strong heterogeneity. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) acting as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs) play significant roles in the development of tumors. In this study, we divided all TCGA gastric cancer patients into the whole, intestinal and diffuse cohorts for further analysis, and constructed competitive endogenous RNA network and evaluated immune cells using CIBERSORTx. The support vector machines recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) was used for screening significant signatures and the support vector machines (SVM) for establishing model predicting the lymph node metastasis. The performance of SVM model was good in the intestinal and diffuse cohort, while the model in the whole cohort was relatively poor. Some important co-expression patterns between immune cells and ceRNAs network indicated significant correlation CD70 with dendritic cells and so on. Our research inferred competing endogenous RNA network of lymph node metastasis and built an excellent predicting model.

DualFlow: Generating imperceptible adversarial examples by flow field and normalize flow-based model.

Recent adversarial attack research reveals the vulnerability of learning-based deep learning models (DNN) against well-designed perturbations. However, most existing attack methods have inherent limitations in image quality as they rely on a relatively loose noise budget, i.e., limit the perturbations by L p -norm. Resulting that the perturbations generated by these methods can be easily detected by defense mechanisms and are easily perceptible to the human visual system (HVS). To circumvent the former problem, we propose a novel framework, called DualFlow, to craft adversarial examples by disturbing the image's latent representations with spatial transform techniques. In this way, we are able to fool classifiers with human imperceptible adversarial examples and step forward in exploring the existing DNN's fragility. For imperceptibility, we introduce the flow-based model and spatial transform strategy to ensure the calculated adversarial examples are perceptually distinguishable from the original clean images. Extensive experiments on three computer vision benchmark datasets (CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100 and ImageNet) indicate that our method can yield superior attack performance in most situations. Additionally, the visualization results and quantitative performance (in terms of six different metrics) show that the proposed method can generate more imperceptible adversarial examples than the existing imperceptible attack methods.

Occurrence rates and risk factors of in-hospital venous thromboembolism, major bleeding, and death in patients receiving fondaparinux after orthopedic surgery or trauma surgery.

AIM: Fondaparinux is a synthetic anticoagulant that inhibits thrombosis by suppressing factor Xa. The efficacy of fondaparinux for orthopedic surgeries has been revealed by several foreign studies; however, relevant evidence in Chinese patients is lacking. This study intended to investigate the occurrence rate and risk factors of in-hospital venous thromboembolism (VTE), major bleeding, and death in patients receiving fondaparinux after orthopedic surgery or trauma surgery. METHODS: Totally, 1258 patients who received fondaparinux after orthopedic surgery or trauma surgery were retrospectively enrolled. Meanwhile, in-hospital VTE, major bleeding, and death were obtained for assessment. Besides, adverse events were recorded. RESULTS: The occurrence rates of in-hospital VTE, major bleeding, and death were 2.5%, 21.8%, and 0.0%, respectively. The multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that only age (> 60 years vs. ≤ 60 years) (odd ratios (OR) = 3.380, P = 0.013) was independently correlated with increased risk of in-hospital VTE. Additionally, osteoarthritis diagnosis (OR = 3.826, P < 0.001), femoral head necrosis diagnosis (OR = 1.809, P = 0.034), hip replacement (vs. internal fracture fixation) (OR = 2.199, P = 0.007), knee replacement (vs. internal fracture fixation) (OR = 2.781, P = 0.002), and serum creatinine (abnormal vs. normal) (OR = 1.677, P = 0.012) were independently linked to a higher risk of in-hospital major bleeding. Moreover, the common adverse events included pain (56.6%), wound bleeding (23.0%), increased drainage (5.2%), etc. CONCLUSION: Fondaparinux realizes low occurrence rates of in-hospital VTE and major bleeding with tolerable adverse events in patients receiving orthopedic surgery or trauma surgery.

The first case series analysis on efficacy of esmolol injection for in-hospital cardiac arrest patients with refractory shockable rhythms in China.

Background: This study assessed the effects of esmolol injection in patients with in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) with refractory ventricular fibrillation (VF)/pulseless ventricular tachycardia (pVT). Methods: From January 2018 to December 2021, 29 patients with IHCA with refractory shockable rhythm were retrospectively reviewed. Esmolol was administered after advanced cardiovascular life support (ACLS)-directed procedures, and outcomes were assessed. Results: Among the 29 cases, the rates of sustained return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC), 24-h ROSC, and 72-h ROSC were 79%, 62%, and 59%, respectively. Of those patients, 59% ultimately survived to discharge. Four patients with cardiac insufficiency died. The duration from CA to esmolol infusion was significantly shorter for patients in the survival group (SG) than for patients in the dead group (DG) (12 min, IQR: 8.5-19.5 vs. 23.5 min, IQR: 14.4-27 min; p = 0.013). Of those patients, 76% (22 of 29) started esmolol administration after the second dose of amiodarone. No significant difference was observed in the survival rate between this group and groups administered an esmolol bolus simultaneously or before the second dose of amiodarone (43% vs. 64%, p = 0.403). Of those patients, 31% (9 of 29) were administered an esmolol bolus for defibrillation attempts ≤ 5, while the remaining 69% of patients received an esmolol injection after the fifth defibrillation attempt. No significant differences were observed in the rates of ≥ 24-h ROSC (67% vs. 60%, p = 0.73), ≥ 72-h ROSC (67% vs. 55%, p = 0.56), and survival to hospital discharge (67% vs. 55%, p = 0.56) between the groups administered an esmolol bolus for defibrillation attempts ≤ 5 and defibrillation attempts > 5. Conclusion: IHCA patients with refractory shockable rhythms receiving esmolol bolus exhibited a high chance of sustained ROSC and survival to hospital discharge. Patients with end-stage heart failure tended to have attenuated benefits from beta-blockers. Further large-scale, prospective studies are necessary to determine the effects of esmolol in patients with IHCA with refractory shockable rhythms.

Prognostic value of pulmonary ultrasound score combined with plasma miR-21-3p expression in patients with acute lung injury.

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to explore the value of the combination between lung ultrasound score (LUS) and the expression of plasma miR-21-3p in predicting the prognosis of patients with acute lung injury (ALI). PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 136 ALI patients were divided into survival (n = 86) and death groups (n = 50), or into low/middle-risk (n = 77) and high-risk groups (n = 59) according to APACHE II scores. Bioinformatics was used to explore the mechanism of action of miR-21-3p in humans. Real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR was used to detect the expression of miR-21-3p in plasma, and LUS was recorded. Receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve and Pearson correlation were also used. RESULTS: The LUS and expression level of plasma miR-21-3p in the death and high-risk groups were significantly higher than those in the survival and low/middle-risk groups (p < 0.01 and p < 0.05). miR-21-3p expression leads to pulmonary fibrosis and promotes the deterioration of ALI patients by regulating fibroblast growth factor and other target genes. ROC curve analysis showed that the best cutoff values for LUS and plasma miR-21-3p expression were 18.60 points and 1.75, respectively. LUS score and miR-21-3p combined predicted the death of ALI patients with the largest area under the curve (0.907, 95% CI: 0.850-0.964), with sensitivity and specificity of 91.6% and 85.2%, respectively. The expression level of plasma miR-21-3p was positively correlated with LUS in the death group (r = 0.827, p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: LUS and expression level of miR-21-3p in plasma are correlated with the severity and prognosis of ALI patients, and their combination has a high value for the prognostic assessment of ALI patients.

Mechanism of phosphate sensing and signaling revealed by rice SPX1-PHR2 complex structure.

Phosphate, a key plant nutrient, is perceived through inositol polyphosphates (InsPs) by SPX domain-containing proteins. SPX1 an inhibit the PHR2 transcription factor to maintain Pi homeostasis. How SPX1 recognizes an InsP molecule and represses transcription activation by PHR2 remains unclear. Here we show that, upon binding InsP6, SPX1 can disrupt PHR2 dimers and form a 1:1 SPX1-PHR2 complex. The complex structure reveals that SPX1 helix α1 can impose a steric hindrance when interacting with the PHR2 dimer. By stabilizing helix α1, InsP6 allosterically decouples the PHR2 dimer and stabilizes the SPX1-PHR2 interaction. In doing so, InsP6 further allows SPX1 to engage with the PHR2 MYB domain and sterically block its interaction with DNA. Taken together, our results suggest that, upon sensing the surrogate signals of phosphate, SPX1 inhibits PHR2 via a dual mechanism that attenuates dimerization and DNA binding activities of PHR2.

Predicting Progression of COVID-19 Infection to Prioritize Medical Resource Allocation: A Novel Triage Model Based on Patient Characteristics and Symptoms at Presentation.

Background: The COVID-19 global pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to health care systems all over the world. The speed of the viral spread results in a tsunami of patients, which begs for a reliable screening tool using readily available data to predict disease progression. Methods: Multicenter retrospective cohort study was performed to develop and validate a triage model. Patient demographic and non-laboratory clinical data were recorded. Using only the data from Zhongnan Hospital, step-wise multivariable logistic regression was performed, and a prognostic nomogram was constructed based on the independent variables identifies. The discrimination and calibration of the model were validated. External independent validation was performed to further address the utility of this model using data from Jinyintan Hospital. Results: A total of 716 confirmed COVID-19 cases from Zhongnan Hospital were included for model construction. Men, increased age, fever, hypertension, cardio-cerebrovascular disease, dyspnea, cough, and myalgia are independent risk factors for disease progression. External independent validation was carried out in a cohort with 201 cases from Jinyintan Hospital. The area under the curve (AUC) was 0.787 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.747-0.827) in the training group and 0.704 (95% CI: 0.632-0.777) in the validation group. Conclusions: We developed a novel triage model based on basic and clinical data. Our model could be used as a pragmatic screening aid to allow for cost efficient screening to be carried out such as over the phone, which may reduce disease propagation through limiting unnecessary contact. This may help allocation of limited medical resources.

Methylation of miR-19b-3p promoter exacerbates inflammatory responses in sepsis-induced ALI via targeting KLF7.

Sepsis-induced acute lung injury is associated with dysregulated inflammatory reactions. MiR-19b-3p level was reported to be downregulated in patients with sepsis. To evaluate the role of miR-19b-3p in sepsis, cecum ligation and puncture-induced mouse sepsis model and lpopolysaccharide (LPS)-treated pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (PMVECs) were used. For in vivo study, lung tissue was harvested for hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-1ß, and p-p65, p-IκB measuring. Cell apoptosis was assessed by TUNEL assay. For in vitro study, cell proliferation and apoptosis were detected by CCK-8 and flow cytometry, respectively. Methylation of miR-19b-3p promoter was measured by methylation-specific PCR (MSP) assay. The target of miR-19b-3p was determined by dual-luciferase reporter gene assay. The level of miR-19b-3p was determined to be downregulated in vitro and in vivo. In addition, miR-19b-3p protected mice from inflammation injury through inhibiting NF-κB signaling pathway. Overexpression of miR-19b-3p increased cell viability, decreased apoptosis, and proinflammatory cytokines secretion in LPS-treated PMVECs. Besides these, Krüppel-like factor 7 (KLF7) was confirmed as the target of miR-19b-3p. And methylation of miR-19b-3p was the reason of decreased miR-19b-3p level. In conclusion, miR-19b-3p protected cells from sepsis-induced inflammation injury via inhibiting NF-κB signaling pathway, and KLF7 was a potential target.