Objective To measure the maximum movement of the hyoid bone and ventriculus laryngis during normal swallowing. Methods Forty volunteers were selected as subjects, and an X?ray simulator was used to collect the videos of normal swallowing. Video analysis software was used to capture continuous and quick screenshots of these videos, and the maximum movement of the hyoid bone and ventriculus laryngis was measured. The difference in movement was analyzed by one?way analysis of variance. Results The mean time for swallowing in 40 volunteers was 1.13±0.28 s. During the process of swallowing, the hyoid bone and ventriculus laryngis moved upward first, then outward, and finally returned to the resting position. The maximum movement of the hyoid bone forward and backward was 0.90±0.30 cm;the maximum vertical movement of the hyoid bone was 0.93±0.36 cm. The maximum movement of the ventriculus laryngis forward and backward was 0.69± 0. 25 cm;the maximum vertical movement of the ventriculus laryngis was 1.04±0.45 cm. Further studies showed the effect of age on the time for swallowing (P=0.03), with similar results for the male and female ( P=0.13) . Sex and age had no effects on movement of the hyoid bone and ventriculus laryngis (P=0.28?0.81 and 0.20?0.88). Conclusions During normal swallowing, the hyoid bone and the ventriculus laryngis move first upward and then forward. These movements should be considered during the development of radiotherapy plan for head and neck cancer.

The construction of teaching faculty is not only a core element to carry out medical education in municipal general hospitals, but also a weak link. Constructing a performance evaluation system of teaching faculty has important significance in promoting teaching reform and innovation, and improving teachers' enthusiasm for teaching as well as their teaching quality in municipal general hospitals. Taking the Affiliated Dongguan People's Hospital of Southern Medical University as an example, this paper focused on the construction of teaching faculty and aimed to provide references for municipal general hospitals to build a performance evaluation system through the promotion of a series of measures such as teaching ability assessment, quantitative assessment of teaching work, teaching quality evaluation, and teaching contribution assessment.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of anemia and related risk factors for pregnant women in China. Method: Based on Chinese National Nutrition and Health Surveillance 2010-2012, a total of 3 501 pregnant women were investigated from 150 counties of 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in China, using a multi-stage stratified cluster randomization sampling method. General information of pregnant women, health status, and food intake during the gestation, was collected through a questionnaire investigation. 6 ml fasting venous blood was collected for the determination of hemoglobin concentration. Data were analyzed using multiple logistic regression to investigate the prevalence of anemia and the related influencing factors. Results: The 605 of 3 501 pregnant women had anemia. The prevalence of anemia was 17.2%; and mild anemia accounted for about 61.0% (369/605). Compared with the pregnant women living in the large cities, the OR (95%CI) of those living in the poor rural areas was 1.46 (1.08-1.98). Compared with the pregnant women living in the south area of China, the OR (95%CI) of those living in the north area of China was 1.39 (1.15-1.68); Compared with the pregnant women in the first trimester, the OR (95%CI) of those in the second trimester and the third trimester were 1.79 (1.33-2.43) and 2.11 (1.56-2.85), respectively. The OR (95%CI) of pregnant women who had used folic acid supplementation within the 6 months prior to gestation was 0.76 (0.63-0.93) compared with those who had not used. Conclusion From 2010 to 2012, the epidemic characteristics of anemia was mild for the pregnant women in China, and pregnant women residential areas, periods of pregnancy and whether to take folic acid were related to anemia.

Recording the highly diverse and dynamic activities in large populations of neurons in behaving animals is crucial for a better understanding of how the brain works. To meet this challenge, extensive efforts have been devoted to developing functional fluorescent indicators and optical imaging techniques to optically monitor neural activity. Indeed, optical imaging potentially has extremely high throughput due to its non-invasive access to large brain regions and capability to sample neurons at high density, but the readout speed, such as the scanning speed in two-photon scanning microscopy, is often limited by various practical considerations. Among different imaging methods, light field microscopy features a highly parallelized 3D fluorescence imaging scheme and therefore promises a novel and faster strategy for functional imaging of neural activity. Here, we briefly review the working principles of various types of light field microscopes and their recent developments and applications in neuroscience studies. We also discuss strategies and considerations of optimizing light field microscopy for different experimental purposes, with illustrative examples in imaging zebrafish and mouse brains.
Animals ; Mice ; Microscopy/methods* ; Zebrafish ; Neurons/physiology* ; Brain/physiology* ; Neurosciences

Candida albicans is the most abundant fungal species in oral cavity. As a smart opportunistic pathogen, it increases the virulence by switching its forms from yeasts to hyphae and becomes the major pathogenic agent for oral candidiasis. However, the overuse of current clinical antifungals and lack of new types of drugs highlight the challenges in the antifungal treatments because of the drug resistance and side effects. Anti-virulence strategy is proved as a practical way to develop new types of anti-infective drugs. Here, seven artemisinins, including artemisinin, dihydroartemisinin, artemisinic acid, dihydroartemisinic acid, artesunate, artemether and arteether, were employed to target at the hyphal development, the most important virulence factor of C. albicans. Artemisinins failed to affect the growth, but significantly inhibited the hyphal development of C. albicans, including the clinical azole resistant isolates, and reduced their damage to oral epithelial cells, while arteether showed the strongest activities. The transcriptome suggested that arteether could affect the energy metabolism of C. albicans. Seven artemisinins were then proved to significantly inhibit the productions of ATP and cAMP, while reduced the hyphal inhibition on RAS1 overexpression strain indicating that artemisinins regulated the Ras1-cAMP-Efg1 pathway to inhibit the hyphal development. Importantly, arteether significantly inhibited the fungal burden and infections with no systemic toxicity in the murine oropharyngeal candidiasis models in vivo caused by both fluconazole sensitive and resistant strains. Our results for the first time indicated that artemisinins can be potential antifungal compounds against C. albicans infections by targeting at its hyphal development.
Animals ; Mice ; Candida albicans ; Candidiasis, Oral/drug therapy* ; Antifungal Agents/pharmacology* ; Hyphae ; Artemisinins/pharmacology*