As a common emotional and psychogenic disorder, anxiety disorder seriously threats the human physical and mental health. Ventral tegmental area (VTA) is the canter of the mesocortical limbic circuit, with extensive bidirectional connections to forebrain areas, and plays important role in regulating reward, motivation, cognition, and disgust. Besides, VTA is involved in anxiety regulation by forming functional connections with multiple brain regions and connecting external stimulus information and feedback output behaviours. This article briefly summarizes the different cell subsets of VTA and its involvement in anxiety-related neural circuits.

Soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is a highly heterogeneous group of malignant tumors originating from mesenchymal tissues. The most common sites of STS are limbs (45%), viscera (21%) and retroperitoneum (17%). The incidence of head and neck soft tissue sarcomas (HNSTS) is the lowest (5%) compared with other areas of the body. Due to numerous functional organs and delicate and complex anatomical structures of the head and neck, it is often difficult to perform radical surgical treatment. Therefore, radiotherapy plays an important role in the treatment of HNSTS. Due to its low incidence, radiotherapy for HNSTS has been rarely studied and captivated little attention. In this article, the present situation and clinical evidence of radiotherapy for HNSTS were summarized, aiming to provide reference for clinical practice.

Objective:To explore how to enhance the strength of science and technology of research-oriented hospital using goal management, thereby effectively promoting the construction and development of research hospitals.Methods:This paper studies the goal management measures and their effectiveness through data analysis, analyzes the problems of scientific research, goal management measures and changes in scientific research before and after the implementation measures over the years.Results:The goal management significantly enhances the scientific and technological strength. Total amount of research funding kept increasing year by year. Goal accountability management effectively improve the participation in individual scientific research activities. The implementation of high-quality papers goal management has a significant role in promoting the researchers to publish their achievements in domestic journals with international influence.Conclusions:Goal management plays an important role in the improvement of the scientific and technological strength of the hospital, which can effectively promote the construction and development of the research-oriented hospitals connotation. Goal management can serve as a powerful grasper for the research-oriented hospital to improve the scientific research capacity.

OBJECTIVE: To screen for LDLR gene mutations in 9 patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (FH). METHODS: All exons of the LDLR gene and flanking intronic sequences were amplified by PCR and subjected to automatic DNA sequencing. For patients with homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations, parental DNA sequencing or T cloning sequencing was carried out to determine the parental origin of the mutant alleles. RESULTS: Direct sequencing of PCR products revealed 8 LDLR variants in 7 patients, which included c.259T>G, c.513delC, c.530C>T, c.682G>T, c.763C>T, c.1187-10G>A, c.1948delG, and c.1730G>A, among which c.1948delG was novel. Four patients have carried heterozygous mutations, two carried homozygous mutations, and one carried compound heterozygous mutations. The patients with biallelic mutations presented with a more severe phenotype compared those carrying heterozygous mutations. CONCLUSION LDLR mutations were identified in 7 out of 9 patients with FH. Among the 8 identified LDLR mutations, c.1948delG was firstly reported. Above findings have expanded the mutation spectrum of LDLR gene.
DNA Mutational Analysis ; Genetic Testing ; Humans ; Hyperlipoproteinemia Type II ; genetics ; Mutation ; Phenotype ; Receptors, LDL ; genetics

AIM: To investigate the effect of zacopride, an inward rectifier potassium channel agonist, on ouabain-induced arrhythmias in adult rats, and to explore the underlying electrophysiological mechanism.METHODS: Using ouabain to establish in vitro and in vivo arrhythmic rat models, the effects of zacopride on ouabain-induced arrhythmias were observed.The technique of whole-cell patch clamp was used to observe the effects of zacopride on inward rectifier potassium current (IK1), resting membrane potential (RMP) and delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) in single rat ventricular myocyte.RESULTS: Zacopride at 1 μmol/L significantly reduced total number of premature ventricular beats, and the duration and incidence of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation induced by ouabain in rat hearts in vitro (P<0.05).In anesthetized rats, zacopride at 15 μg/kg significantly reduced total number of premature ventricular beats, and the duration and incidence of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation induced by ouabain (P<0.05).IK1 was significantly inhibited by ouabain (P<0.05), which was partially and even completely reversed by zacopride at 0.1~10 μmol/L.RMP value was significantly reduced by ouabain (P<0.05), and then increased to different levels after treatment with zacopride (0.1~10 μmol/L).Zacopride at 1 μmol/L showed its maximal effect and RMP was restored to normal level.Moreover, zacopride at 1 μmol/L markedly suppressed ouabain-induced DADs in single rat ventricular myocyte.The incidence of DADs decreased from 91.67% to 12.50% after zacopride was applied (P<0.05), and this effect was abolished by 1 μmol/L BaCl2.CONCLUSION: Inward rectifier potassium channel agonist zacopride significantly inhibits ouabain-induced ventricular arrhythmias in adult rats.The mechanism is related to increased RMP level and inhibition of DADs by activation of IK1 channel.

Aim To observe the effect of antibody NCX-3F10 on the main ion current of rat ventricular myocytes and its effect on arrhythmias induced by ischemia/reperfusion(I/R).Methods ① The whole-cell patch clamp technique was employed to record the Na+/Ca2+ exchange current(INa/Ca) and other major ion currents in rat ventricular myocytes.② The rat models of arrhythmia induced by ischemia/reperfusion were established by ligating the left coronary artery to in vivo and in vitro.Then the effects of antibody on the arrhythmia were observed.③ The IonOptix ion imaging system was used to observe the effect of antibody on calcium transients in single ventricular myocytes.Results ① The antibody NCX-3F10 dose-dependently inhibited INa/Ca from 5 to 40 mg·L-1.The IC50 for outward and inward currents was 11.15 and 11.69 mg·L-1, and the maximum inhibitory rates were 61% and 62%, respectively.The antibody also had an inhibitory effect on calcium current(ICa-L), and had no significant effect on inward rectifier potassium current(IK1), transient outward potassium current(Ito) and sodium current(INa).② In the isolated rat heart group I/R, 100% rats showed ventricular tachycardia, and 88.89% rats had ventricular fibrillation.After administration of antibody NCX-3F10(10 mg·L-1) 5 min before reperfusion, the incidence of ventricular tachycardia decreased to 44.43%(P<0.05), and the duration of ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation was also shortened remarkably(P<0.05).③ In the anesthetized rats after administration of antibody NCX-3F10(50 μg·kg-1) 5 min before reperfusion, the incidence and duration of ventricular tachycardia,the incidence and duration of ventricular fibrillation, and total number of ventricular premature beats were significantly decreased(P<0.05).④ From 5 to 40 mg·L-1, NCX-3F10 antibody decreased calcium transient amplitude in rat single ventricular myocytes dose-dependently(P<0.05).Conclusions The NCX-3F10 antibody shows significant arrhythmic effects on ischemia-reperfusion induced arrhythmia in rats both in vitro and in vivo, the underlying mechanism of which is related to NCX and L-type calcium current inhibition and calcium overload reduction by the NCX antibody.

Vigilance is defined as the ability to maintain attention for prolonged periods of time. In order to explore the variation of brain vigilance in work process, we designed addition and subtraction experiment with numbers of three digits to induce the vigilance to change, combined it with psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) to measure this process of electroencephalogram (EEG), extracted and analyzed permutation entropy (PE) of 11 cases of subjects' EEG and made a brief comparison with nonlinear parameter sample entropy (SE). The experimental results showed that: PE could well reflect the dynamic changes of EEG when vigilance decreases, and has advantages of fast arithmetic speed, high noise immunity, and low requirements for EEG length. This can be used as a measure of the brain vigilance indicators.
Attention ; Brain ; physiology ; Electroencephalography ; Entropy ; Humans ; Mathematics

We applied Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) combined with brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM) to study the change of alertness under sleep deprivation in our research. Ten subjects were involved in 36 hours sleep deprivation (SD), during which spontaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments and auditory evoked EEG experiments-Oddball were recorded once every 6 hours. Spontaneous and evoked EEG data were calculated and BEAMs were structured. Results showed that during the 36 hours of SD, alertness could be divided into three stages, i. e. the first 12 hours as the high stage, the middle 12 hours as the rapid decline stage and the last 12 hours as the low stage. During the period SD, LZC of Spontaneous EEG decreased over the whole brain to some extent, but remained consistent with the subjective scales. By BEAMs of event related potential, LZC on frontal cortex decreased, but kept consistent with the behavioral responses. Therefore, LZC can be effective to reflect the change of brain alertness. At the same time LZC could be used as a practical index to monitor real-time alertness because of its simple computation and fast calculation.
Attention ; physiology ; Brain Mapping ; Electroencephalography ; Evoked Potentials ; Humans ; Nonlinear Dynamics ; Sleep Deprivation

Objective To study the efficacy and complications of reconstruction of failed urethro-plasty for hypospadias with pedicle flap , bladder mucosa , buccal mucosa , and biological patch . Methods 23 patients were enrolled from Jul .2005 to Dec.2011.8 patients, with good local skin condition , were performed with pedicle flap urethroplasty .The other 15 patients, with bad local skin condition or with long segment urethral stricture , were performed with free grafts , including 6 bladder mucosa , 7 buccal muco-sal and 2 biological patch. Results Of the 23 cases, 7 cases were cured by one phase operation .There were 16 (16/25) cases had complications.3 (3/16) cases were failed because of serious infection (2 pedi-cle flap, 1 bladder mucosa ) .The failed cases were implemented with urethroplasty 6 months later by the buccal mucosa installments operation .4 (4/16) cases had solitary urethral fistula (1 pedicle flap, 2 bladder mucosa, and 1 buccal mucosal), who were successfully treated with simple fistula repair 3 to 6 months later. 9 ( 9/16) cases had urethral stricture ( 2 pedicle flap , 3 bladder mucosa , 3 buccal mucosal , and 1 biologi-cal patch graft ) , who were treated with urethral sound and got good result .We had reconstructed the urethra using mucosa graft onlay urethroplasty .All of the 23 patients were followed up with an average of 14.5 ( 6-24) months.23 cases were satisfied with the stretched penis , urination and no need to expand the urethra more than 6 months.3 cases were not satisfied with penile appearance .After communication, these patients did not require a further penis orthopedic surgery . Conclusions Pedicle flap, bladder mucosa , buccal mucosa and biological patch can be used in urethral repair and construction of failed urethroplasty for hypos -padias.Urethral sound dilation plays an important role in hypospadias repair .

Model organism zebrafish was used to study metabolism of asperosaponin VI from Dipsacus asper Wall. ex Henry for the first time. Metabolic components of asperosaponin VI after exposing to zebrafish for 24 h were identified by high performance liquid chromatography--electrospray mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS), the separation was performed with a Zorbax C18 column using a binary gradient elution of 0.05% formic acetonitrile--0.05% formic acid water. The quasi-molecular ions of compounds in both negative and positive mode were observed for molecule mass information, and the potential structures were identified by attentive study on the deglycosylation metabolites and one hydroxylation metabolite of asperosaponin VI. The results were highly in consistent with metabolism of asperosaponin VI in rat. It can be concluded that zebrafish model can wonderfully imitate current metabolic model with advantages of small amount of lower cost, far less amount compound, higher efficiency and more simple, and can reflect integrated metabolism results of in vivo method. Zebrafish metabolic model may become a novel organism model for quick predication on metabolism of even mircoamount compound, which can enrich the available models greatly.