Vernier But Not Grating Acuity Contributes to an Early Stage of Visual Word Processing / 神经科学通报·英文版

The process of reading words depends heavily on efficient visual skills, including analyzing and decomposing basic visual features. Surprisingly, previous reading-related studies have almost exclusively focused on gross aspects of visual skills, while only very few have investigated the role of finer skills. The present study filled this gap and examined the relations of two finer visual skills measured by grating acuity (the ability to resolve periodic luminance variations across space) and Vernier acuity (the ability to detect/discriminate relative locations of features) to Chinese character-processing as measured by character form-matching and lexical decision tasks in skilled adult readers. The results showed that Vernier acuity was significantly correlated with performance in character form-matching but not visual symbol form-matching, while no correlation was found between grating acuity and character processing. Interestingly, we found no correlation of the two visual skills with lexical decision performance. These findings provide for the first time empirical evidence that the finer visual skills, particularly as reflected in Vernier acuity, may directly contribute to an early stage of hierarchical word processing.

Level of plasma homocysteine in patients with herpes zoster / 中华全科医师杂志

The plasma levels of homocysteine (Hcy),vitamin B12 and folic acid were measured in a total of 101 patients with herpes zoster (observation group) before treatment and 100 healthy controls (control group).And the plasma level of Hcy was also measured in observation group after treatment.There was a significant increase of Hcy level in observation group versus control group (P ＜0.01).And the levels of VitB12 and folic acid did not fluctuate (P ＞ 0.05).The occurrence rate of hyperhomocysteinemia and the level of Hcy differed in age group,onset site and pain severity (P ＜ 0.05).No significant differences existed between gender or onset site (P ＞ 0.05).The level of Hcy significantly decreased after treatment versus before treatment (P ＜0.01).Plasma Hcy significantly increased in patients with herpes zoster.And it was correlated with age,lesion extent and pain severity.However,there was no correlation with gender,onset site or levels of vitamin B12 and folic acid.

Association of polymorphism of V4 and T2 locus alleles in ADAM33 gene with asthma susceptibility / 中国医师杂志

Objective To verify the association of a disintegrin and metalloproteinase domain 33 (ADAM33) polymorphisms in childhood asthma susceptibility and severity in patients with moderate and severe asthma.Methods A total of 144 controls and 110 asthmatic patients were recruited for this hospitalbased case-control study.Two polymorphic sites (V4,T2) were genotyped using the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method.The gene-gene interactions were analyzed with the multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) software.Results The allele frequencies of three SNPs (V4,T2) of ADAM33 in childhood asthma group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.01,OR =2.36 ～ 2.96,95％ CI:1.56-1.78 ～ 3.56-4.94).For the SNPs V4,GC genotype frequencies of both moderate and severe groups were significantly higher from the control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the CC genotype frequencies in severe group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜ 0.05) ; the genotype GA of T2 locus in severe group and AA genotype frequencies in moderate group were significantly higher than control group (P ＜0.01 ～0.05) ; there were no significant differences for both allele and genotype frequencies of S2 locus between the childhood asthma and control group (P ＞ 0.05).By MDR analysis,the best interaction model was the four-factor model that the V4,T2 genotypes were the subgroup to predict asthma risk.Conclusions Our results highlight the role of ADAM33 as a susceptibility gene for childhood asthma,and the interactions among ADAM33 V4 and T2 are also associated with childhood asthma.