Association of serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor level and early response to antipsychotic drug in first-episode patients with schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the role of Brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the psychotic symptoms in first-episode patients with schizophrenia and whether BDNF levels were associated with the improvement of psychotic symptoms after risperidone treatment. METHODS: 89 schizophrenia patients and 90 healthy controls were recruited, the schizophrenia patients were assigned into early response or early non-response groups at 2 weeks based on improvement in the positive and negative symptoms scale (PANSS) total score. All patients were treated with risperidone for 2 weeks, their serum BDNF levels were compared at baseline and after 2 weeks treatment. RESULTS: We found that patients had lower BDNF levels, compared to controls at baseline. After 2 weeks of treatment of risperidone, BDNF levels were significantly increased and psychotic symptoms were decreased in early response group. Correlation analysis showed that the change of BDNF levels after treatment was correlated with the change of PANSS total score. Further regression analysis showed that the change in BDNF levels was an independent predictor for the improvement in psychotic symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal that the level of BDNF was lower in first-episode schizophrenic patients, moreover, the changes in serum BDNF levels may have a predictive effect on the early improvement in psychotic symptoms in the first 2 weeks.

Disseminated Talaromyces marneffei Infection With STAT3-Hyper-IgE Syndrome: A Case Series and Literature Review.

Background: Little is known about the clinical characteristics of talaromycosis with hyper-immunoglobulin E syndrome (HIES). Methods: We conducted a multicenter retrospective study, which included 7 hospitals from 2016 to 2022. Five consecutive cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-negative patients with systemic Talaromyces marneffei infections due to STAT3-HIES were identified. A systematic literature review of original articles published in English identified an additional 7 cases. Clinical characteristics and laboratory parameters were collected. Results: Forty-two percent (5/12) of patients were young adults. The main symptoms of 10 patients were similar: fever (75%), cough (75%) and dyspnea (33%), but two patients mainly had gastrointestinal symptoms. Most patients had a history of infections since infancy. T marneffei was cultured from the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (50%) and 25% of patients were next-generation sequencing positive. Eight patients had significantly elevated serum immunoglobulin E, increased B cells and decreased natural killer cells. There were ten different STAT3 mutations, three of which were reported for the first time in this study. Chest computed tomography examinations showed multiple exudations with cavities in the lungs. Voriconazole combined with thymosin was effective. Despite given antifungal agents, most had poor outcomes and the case fatality rate was as high as 25%. Conclusions: STAT3-HIES is most likely a susceptibility factor for T marneffei infections among HIV-negative patients, which has a high case fatality rate. Increased awareness among clinicians is necessary to help in early diagnosis.

Sugar-Derived Isotropic Nanoscale Polycrystalline Graphite Capable of Considerable Plastic Deformation.

Obtaining large plastic deformation in polycrystalline van der Waals (vdW) materials is challenging. Achieving such deformation is especially difficult in graphite because it is highly anisotropic. The development of sugar-derived isotropic nanostructured polycrystalline graphite (SINPG) is discussed herein. The structure of this material preserves the high in-plane rigidity and out-of-plane flexibility of graphene layers and enables prominent plasticity by activating the rotation of nanoscale (5-10 nm) grains. Thus, micrometer-sized SINPG samples demonstrate enhanced compressive strengths of up to 3.0 GPa and plastic strains of 30-50%. These findings suggest a new pathway for enabling plastic deformation in otherwise brittle vdW materials. This new class of nanostructured carbon materials is suitable for use in a broad range of fields, from semiconductor to aerospace applications.

Fabrication of Large Aerogel-Like Carbon/Carbon Composites with Excellent Load-Bearing Capacity and Thermal-Insulating Performance at 1800 °C.

Carbon aerogels (CAs) are attractive candidates for the thermal protection of aerospace vehicles due to their excellent thermostability and thermal insulation. However, the brittleness and low mechanical strength severely limits their practical applications, and no significant breakthroughs in large CAs with a high strength have been made. We report a high-pressure-assisted polymerization method combined with ambient pressure drying to fabricate large, strong, crack-free carbon/carbon (C/C) composites with an excellent load-bearing capacity, thermal stability, and thermal insulation. The composites are comprised of an aerogel-like carbon matrix and a low carbon crystallinity fiber reinforcement, featuring overlapping nanoparticles, macro-mesopores, large particle contact necks, and strong fiber/matrix interfacial bonding. The resulting C/C composites with a medium density of 0.6 g cm-3 have a very high compressive strength (80 MPa), in-plane shear strength (20 MPa), and specific strength (133 MPa g-1 cm3). Moreover, the C/C composites of 7.5-12.0 mm in thickness exposed to an oxyacetylene flame at 1800 °C for 900 s display very low back-side temperatures of 778-685 °C and even better mechanical properties after the heating. This performance makes the composites ideal for the ultrahigh temperature thermal protection of aerospace vehicles where both excellent thermal-insulating and load-bearing capacities are required.

Rapid-acting antidepressants targeting modulation of the glutamatergic system: clinical and preclinical evidence and mechanisms.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a devastating mental illness that affects approximately 20% of the world's population. It is a major disease that leads to disability and suicide, causing a severe burden among communities. Currently available medications for treating MDD target the monoaminergic systems. The most prescribed medications include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors and selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors. However, these medications have serious drawbacks, such as a delayed onset requiring weeks or months to reach efficacy and drug resistance, as one-third of patients are unresponsive to the medications. Therefore, it is imperative to develop novel therapies with rapid action, high efficacy and few adverse effects. The discovery of the rapid antidepressant effect of ketamine has triggered tremendous enthusiasm for studying new antidepressants that target the glutamatergic system in the central nervous system. Many agents that directly or indirectly modulate the glutamatergic system have been shown to provide rapid and lasting antidepressant action. Among these agents, ketamine, an antagonist of metabotropic glutamate 2/3 receptors, and scopolamine, an unspecific muscarinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist, have been extensively studied. In this review, we discuss the clinical and preclinical evidence supporting the antidepressant efficacy of these agents and the current understanding of the underlying mechanisms.

Paenibacillus tianjinensis sp. nov., isolated from corridor air.

A Gram-stain-positive, facultatively anaerobic, non-motile, endospore-forming and rod-shaped bacterium, occurring singly or in pairs, designated TB2019T, was isolated from environmental monitoring samples of corridor air collected at the Tianjin Institute for Drug Control, Tianjin Province (PR China). The isolate was able to grow at 15-40 °C (optimum growth at 37 °C), pH 6.0-8.0 (pH 7.0) and in the presence of 0-2% (w/v) NaCl (0% NaCl). Comparison of 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that TB2019T was most closely related to Paenibacillus typhae CGMCC 1.11012T (98.63%), Paenibacillus albidus Q4-3T (98.19%), Paenibacillus borealis DSM 13188T (97.55%), Paenibacillus helianthi P26ET (97.33%) and Paenibacillus odorifer DSM 15391T (97.19%). The digital DNA-DNA hybridization and the average nucleotide identity values between TB2019T and the five type strains mentioned above ranged from 20.7 to 25.0% and 75.2 to 81.3%, respectively, and the genomic DNA G+C content was 49.52 mol%. The diagnostic cell-wall sugar was ribose, and the diagnostic amino acid was meso-diaminopimelic acid. The polar lipids of TB2019T included diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine, three unidentified aminophospholipids and one unidentified phospholipid. MK-7 was the predominant menaquinone, and anteiso-C15:0 (30.6%) was the major fatty acid. Based on the polyphasic taxonomic data, strain TB2019T represents a novel species of the genus Paenibacillus, for which the name Paenibacillus tianjinensis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is TB2019T (=CICC 25065T=JCM 34610T).

A case of trichotillomania with binge eating disorder: combined with N-acetylcysteine synergistic therapy.

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders (OCRDs) are a group of intractable and chronic mental disorders. Trichotillomania (TTM) is a common type of OCRDs characterized by repetitive hair pulling, driven by escalating tension before the action and during the attempts to resist it. Binge eating disorder (BED) is a common type of eating disorder characterized by recurrent compulsive episodes of binge eating. Both have common psychological processes (tension or impulsion) and pathological manifestations (out of control), but the pathological mechanisms are still unclear and the current clinical treatments are often unsatisfactory for these two disorders. CASE PRESENTATION: A 25-year-old woman with TTM comorbid BED came to our hospital for treatment. She had accepted systematic cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and also monotherapy or multidrug therapy with sertraline, fluvoxamine, bupropion, risperidone in full dosage and duration for 2 years, but all of them did not work. We treated this case with N-acetylcysteine (NAC) as a synergist on the basis of recent treatment (fluvoxamine 150 mg/day and bupropion 300 mg/day). The pathological hair plucking behavior and binge eating symptoms were both significantly and rapidly improved, and the follow-up in next 14 weeks showed that the effect was still maintained. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, this may be the first case report of using NAC as a synergist to treat TTM comorbid BED successfully, which suggest that these two disorders may have a common pathophysiological mechanism. Moreover, NAC can be one choice as a synergistic treatment for OCRDs.

Sandwich-structured C/C-SiC composites fabricated by electromagnetic-coupling chemical vapor infiltration.

Carbon fiber (CF) reinforced carbon-silicon carbide (C/C-SiC) composites are one of the most promising lightweight materials for re-entry thermal protection, rocket nozzles and brake discs applications. In this paper, a novel sandwich-structured C/C-SiC composite, containing two exterior C/SiC layers, two gradient C/C-SiC layers and a C/C core, has been designed and fabricated by two-step electromagnetic-coupling chemical vapor infiltration (E-CVI) for a 20-hour deposition time. The cross-section morphologies, interface microstructures and SiC-matrix growth characteristics and compositions of the composites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. Microstructure characterization indicates that the SiC growth includes an initial amorphous SiC zone, a gradual crystallization of SiC and grow-up of nano-crystal, and a columnar grain region. The sandwich structure, rapid deposition rate and growth characteristics are attributed to the formation of thermal gradient and the establishment of electromagnetic field in the E-CVI process. The composite possesses low density of 1.84 g/cm3, high flexural strength of 325 MPa, and low linear ablation rate of 0.38 µm/s under exposure to 5-cycle oxyacetylene flame for 1000 s at ~1700 °C.

Theoretical analysis of multiplicative-noise-induced complete synchronization in global coupled dynamical network.

In this paper, based on the theory of stochastic differential equation, we study the effect of noise on the synchronization of global coupled dynamical network, when noise presents in coupling term. The theoretical result shows that noise can really induce synchronization. To verify the theoretical result, Cellular Neural Network neural model and Rössler-like system are performed as numerical examples.

The effect of noise on the complete synchronization of two bidirectionally coupled piecewise linear chaotic systems.

In this paper, we study the synchronization of two bidirectionally coupled piecewise linear chaotic systems when the coupling strength is disturbed by the common or different noise. Based on stochastic differential equation theory, we verify that the noise can really induce the occurrence of synchronization, and the sufficient conditions of synchronization with probability 1 are established. We also find that with the common noise it is easier to induce the synchronization than with different noise. Moreover, two examples are provided and some numerical simulations are performed to verify the theoretical results.

Adaptive complete synchronization of chaotic dynamical network with unknown and mismatched parameters.

In this paper, an adaptive controller is designed to synchronize the chaotic dynamical network with unknown and mismatched parameters. Based on the invariance principle of differential equations, some generic sufficient conditions for asymptotic synchronization are obtained. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, an example is provided and numerical simulations are performed. The numerical results show that our control scheme is very effective and robust against the weak noise.