Empathy is crucial for communication and survival for individuals. Whether empathy in pain contagion shows sex differences and its underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we report that pain contagion can occur in stranger female rats, but not in stranger males. Blocking oxytocin receptors in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) suppressed pain contagion in female strangers, while oxytocin administration induced pain contagion in male strangers. In vitro, corticosterone reduces neuronal activation by oxytocin. During male stranger interactions, higher corticosterone decreased oxytocin receptor-positive neuronal activity in the ACC, suppressing pain contagion. These findings highlight the role of oxytocin in pain contagion and suggest that sex differences in empathy may be determined by the balance of oxytocin and corticosterone in the ACC. This study suggests an approach for the treatment of certain mental disorders associated with abnormal empathy, such as autism and depression.
Animals ; Oxytocin/pharmacology* ; Gyrus Cinguli/drug effects* ; Male ; Female ; Corticosterone/pharmacology* ; Empathy/drug effects* ; Sex Characteristics ; Receptors, Oxytocin/antagonists & inhibitors* ; Pain/psychology* ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Neurons/metabolism*

Pharmaceutical cocrystals is an advanced technology to improve the physicochemical and biological properties of drugs. However, there are few studies on the in vivo metabolism of pharmaceutical cocrystals. In this study, the pharmacokinetics of wogonin cocrystal in normal rats was further studied on the basis of the previous preparation of wogonin-aloperine cocrystal. Firstly, an ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was established for simultaneous determination of wogonin and its metabolite wogonoside in rat plasma, and to investigate the methodology. The method was applied to the pharmacokinetic study of wogonin-aloperine cocrystal (Wog-Alop) in rats. The results showed that wogonin and its metabolite wogonoside had a good linear relationship in the range of 1-800 ng·mL^-1, and the precision, accuracy, matrix effect and stability in this range met the requirements of biological analysis. Compared with direct administration of wogonin, the C_max of wogonin and its metabolite in rats increased to 7.44-fold and 9.15-fold, AUC_0-t increased to 1.67-fold and 3.72-fold, and oral bioavailability of wogonin increased to 187.66% after cocrystal administration. Wog-Alop cocrystal can significantly improve the C_max, AUC, and oral bioavailability of wogonin and its metabolite, which provides a new perspective for the clinical application of wogonin. This study was approved by the Experimental Animal Ethics Review Committee of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine (approval number: BUCM-2023032307-1148).

Objective To observe the efficacy and safety of Morinda officinalis oligosaccharides in the continuation treatment of mild and moderate depression.Methods An open,single-arm,multi-center design was adopted in our study.Adult patients with mild and moderate depression who had received acute treatment of Morinda officinalis oligosaccharides were enrolled and continue to receive Morinda officinalis oligosaccharides capsules for 24 weeks,the dose remained unchanged during continuation treatment.The remission rate,recurrence rate,recurrence time,and the change from baseline to endpoint of Hamilton Depression Scale(HAMD),Hamilton Anxiety Scale(HAMA),Clinical Global Impression-Severity(CGI-S)and Arizona Sexual Experience Scale(ASEX)were evaluated.The incidence of treatment-related adverse events was reported.Results The scores of HAMD-17 at baseline and after treatment were 6.60±1.87 and 5.85±4.18,scores of HAMA were 6.36±3.02 and 4.93±3.09,scores of CGI-S were 1.49±0.56 and 1.29±0.81,scores of ASEX were 15.92±4.72 and 15.57±5.26,with significant difference(P＜0.05).After continuation treatment,the remission rate was 54.59％(202 cases/370 cases),and the recurrence rate was 6.49％(24 cases/370 cases),the recurrence time was(64.67±42.47)days.The incidence of treatment-related adverse events was 15.35％(64 cases/417 cases).Conclusion Morinda officinalis oligosaccharides capsules can be effectively used for the continuation treatment of mild and moderate depression,and are well tolerated and safe.

Objective To propose an attention mechanism-based YOLOv5 algorithm to relieve the wrong or missed diagnosis due to the complexity and variability of trauma conditions.Methods A YOLOv5-attention algorithm was constructed with YOLOv5 algorithm as the basic framework,which introduced the convolutional attention mechanism module into the feature fusion network and embedded the self-attention module at the end of the feature extraction network and the feature fusion network,respectively.The YOLOv5-attention algorithm was trained and validated on the Kaggle platform and compared with Fast-RCNN and YOLOv5 algorithms for determining fracture sites.Results The YOLOv5-attention algorithm achieved an average presicion of 0.859 8 for fracture site determination,which behaved better than Fast-RCNN algorithm with an average presicion of 0.697 5 and YOLOv5 algorithm with an average presicion of 0.847 1.Conclusion The YOLOv5-attention algorithm with high accuracy and robustness can identify and locate trauma conditions effectively and accurately.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2024,45(9):1-6]

Objective To investigate the population characteristics,distribution of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)syndromes and influencing factors of long-term prognosis of diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome(IBS-D),and to provide evidence for the formulation of intervention program for IBS-D patients.Methods A total of 124 patients with IBS-D admitted to the medical institutions of the project team members from July 2020 to August 2022 were selected.According to the scoring results of IBS Quality of Life Measure(IBS-QOL),the patients were divided into the good prognosis group(81 cases)and the poor prognosis group(43 cases).The distribution of TCM syndromes in patients with IBS-D was explored,and the difference of IBS-QOL scores of the patients between good prognosis group and poor prognosis group was compared.Univariate logistic regression analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to determine the main risk factors for poor prognosis in patients with IBS-D.Results(1)The analysis of population characteristics showed that there was no significant difference in the proportion of male and female patients with IBS-D.The patients with IBS-D were usually middle-aged,and had a large interval span of the course of disease.The severity of their symptoms was mostly moderate.All of the patients with IBS-D had various degrees of anxiety and depression,and had nutritional imbalance.(2)The distribution of TCM syndromes in the patients with IBS-D were shown as the following:78 cases were identified as liver depression and spleen deficiency type,accounting for 62.90％;26 cases were identified as spleen-qi deficiency type,accounting for 20.97％;20 cases were identified as spleen and kidney yang deficiency type,accounting for 16.13％.(3)Analysis of IBS-QOL score showed that compared with the good prognosis group,the items scores of negative emotion,physical function,behavioral disorder,health status,being fastidious about food,social function,sexual behavior and interpersonal relationship of IBS-QOL in the poor prognosis group were significantly lowered(P＜0.01).(4)The univariate analysis showed that the risk of poor prognosis in patients with IBS-D would be increased by the factors of age,education level,course of disease,severity of symptoms,anxiety state,depression state,TCM syndrome types,Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation scoring system Ⅱ(APACHE 11)score,complication of neurological diseases,hemoglobin level,albumin level and total protein level(P＜0.01).(5)The multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that the risk factors for poor prognosis of IBS-D patients involved age,education level below junior high school,the severity of symptoms being severe,Self-Rating Anxiety Scale(SAS)score,Self-Rating Depression Scale(SDS)score,TCM syndrome being liver depression and spleen deficiency type,hemoglobin level,albumin level and total protein level(P＜0.01).Conclusion Most of IBS-D patients exert long-term poor prognosis,and their long-term prognosis is affected by the factors of age,education level,severity of symptoms,anxiety and depression state,nutritional imbalance and TCM syndrome being liver depression and spleen deficiency type.The identification of the risk factors of poor prognosis will provide evidence for the formulation and adjustment of clinical intervention programs.

Objective To understand the disease acceptance status and related factors in human immunodeficiency virus(HIV)-infected/acquired immunodeficiency syndrom(AIDS)patients,so as to guide the clinical development of intervention measures,and to provide empirical evidence for improving clinical outcomes.Methods Convenience sampling method was used to select 555 HIV-infected/AIDS patients who received treatment in the designated AIDS treatment clinic of a hospital.General data,disease acceptance,disease self-management efficacy and clinical out-comes(such as quality of life,CD4+T lymphocyte count and HIV viral load)of the studied subjects were collected.Results The average disease acceptance of HIV-infected/AIDS patients was(26.08±5.34)points.Multiple linear regression analysis showed that religious belief and self-management efficacy were related factors affecting the di-sease acceptance of patients(both P＜0.05),which could explain the 30.4％variation in disease acceptance of HIV-infected/AIDS patients,and the disease acceptance of patients was closely related to their quality of life(P＜0.001).Conclusion HIV-infected/AIDS patients have a moderate level of disease acceptance.Medical staff should fully consider patients'religious beliefs and self-management efficacy,so as to formulate targeted intervention mea-sures to improve patients'acceptance of disease,and further promote patients'quality of life.

Objective: To investigate the effect of the AML1-ETO (AE) fusion gene on the biological function of U937 leukemia cells by establishing a leukemia cell model that induces AE fusion gene expression. Methods: The doxycycline (Dox) -dependent expression of the AE fusion gene in the U937 cell line (U937-AE) were established using a lentivirus vector system. The Cell Counting Kit 8 methods, including the PI and sidanilide induction, were used to detect cell proliferation, cell cycle-induced differentiation assays, respectively. The effect of the AE fusion gene on the biological function of U937-AE cells was preliminarily explored using transcriptome sequencing and metabonomic sequencing. Results: ①The Dox-dependent Tet-on regulatory system was successfully constructed to regulate the stable AE fusion gene expression in U937-AE cells. ②Cell proliferation slowed down and the cell proliferation rate with AE expression (3.47±0.07) was lower than AE non-expression (3.86 ± 0.05) after inducing the AE fusion gene expression for 24 h (P<0.05). The proportion of cells in the G(0)/G(1) phase in the cell cycle increased, with AE expression [ (63.45±3.10) %) ] was higher than AE non-expression [ (41.36± 9.56) %] (P<0.05). The proportion of cells expressing CD13 and CD14 decreased with the expression of AE. The AE negative group is significantly higher than the AE positive group (P<0.05). ③The enrichment analysis of the transcriptome sequencing gene set revealed significantly enriched quiescence, nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells, interferon-α/γ, and other inflammatory response and immune regulation signals after AE expression. ④Disorder of fatty acid metabolism of U937-AE cells occurred under the influence of AE. The concentration of the medium and short-chain fatty acid acylcarnitine metabolites decreased in cells with AE expressing, propionyl L-carnitine, wherein those with AE expression (0.46±0.13) were lower than those with AE non-expression (1.00±0.27) (P<0.05). The metabolite concentration of some long-chain fatty acid acylcarnitine increased in cells with AE expressing tetradecanoyl carnitine, wherein those with AE expression (1.26±0.01) were higher than those with AE non-expression (1.00±0.05) (P<0.05) . Conclusion: This study successfully established a leukemia cell model that can induce AE expression. The AE expression blocked the cell cycle and inhibited cell differentiation. The gene sets related to the inflammatory reactions was significantly enriched in U937-AE cells that express AE, and fatty acid metabolism was disordered.
Humans ; U937 Cells ; RUNX1 Translocation Partner 1 Protein ; Leukemia/genetics* ; Core Binding Factor Alpha 2 Subunit/genetics* ; Oncogene Proteins, Fusion/genetics* ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute/genetics*

Objective: Using Meta-analysis to evaluate the vaccine effectiveness of 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) against invasive Streptococcus pneumoniae disease (IPD) caused by serotype 19A in children <5 years old. Methods: "Streptococcus pneumoniae infection""invasive pneumococcal disease""13-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine""PCV13""effectiveness""infant""child" and related terms were searched from China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), WANFANG DATA, PubMed, SCOPUS and Web of science with no limited on language, region and research institution. The retrieval time was limited from January 2010 to February 2023 and cohort study, case-control study and randomized controlled trial were included. Data were extracted from eligible studies by two independent reviewers, and after study quality assessment by NOS scale, Meta-analysis was completed using Stata 16.0 software. Results: A total of 2 340 related literatures were searched, and 10 literatures were finally included, including 5 case-control studies and 5 indirect cohort studies, which showed good literature quality. The vaccine effectiveness against serotype 19A IPD of PCV13 in children was 83.91% (95%CI: 78.92%-88.89%), and the subgroup analysis (P=0.240) showed there was no significant difference among the case-control study (VE=87.34%, 95%CI:79.74%-94.94%) and the indirect cohort study (VE=81.30%, 95%CI:74.69%-87.92%). The funnel plot and Egger test suggested that the possibility of publication bias was small. Conclusion: The present evidence indicates that PCV13 has a good vaccine effectiveness against serotype 19A IPD in children, and it is recommended to further increase the vaccination rate of PCV13 to reduce the disease burden of IPD in children <5 years old.
Child ; Humans ; Child, Preschool ; Case-Control Studies ; Cohort Studies ; Serogroup ; Vaccines, Conjugate/therapeutic use* ; China ; Pneumococcal Infections/prevention & control*

Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive malignant brain tumor in adults and is poorly controlled. Previous studies have shown that both macrophages and angiogenesis play significant roles in GBM progression, and co-targeting of CSF1R and VEGFR is likely to be an effective strategy for GBM treatment. Therefore, this study developed a novel and selective inhibitor of CSF1R and VEGFR, SYHA1813, possessing potent antitumor activity against GBM. SYHA1813 inhibited VEGFR and CSF1R kinase activities with high potency and selectivity and thus blocked the cell viability of HUVECs and macrophages and exhibited anti-angiogenetic effects both in vitro and in vivo. SYHA1813 also displayed potent in vivo antitumor activity against GBM in immune-competent and immune-deficient mouse models, including temozolomide (TMZ) insensitive tumors. Notably, SYHA1813 could penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and prolong the survival time of mice bearing intracranial GBM xenografts. Moreover, SYHA1813 treatment resulted in a synergistic antitumor efficacy in combination with the PD-1 antibody. As a clinical proof of concept, SYHA1813 achieved confirmed responses in patients with recurrent GBM in an ongoing first-in-human phase I trial. The data of this study support the rationale for an ongoing phase I clinical study (ChiCTR2100045380).