Treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) or dysthymic disorder (DD) in spinal cord injury (SCI) patients: a protocol for a systematic review and network meta-analysis

Introduction Although various treatments exist for depression in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI), the comparative effects and relationships between these treatments have not been clearly presented. This study aims to present comprehensive evidence for the treatment of major depressive disorder or dysthymic disorder in patients with SCI by comparing the therapeutic and adverse effects of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments through a systematic review and network meta-analysis.Methods and analysis We will search for studies in five databases (Medline, Central, Embase, PsycINFO and CHINAL) as well as clinical trial registries (US National Institutes of Health Ongoing Trials Register ClinicalTrials.gov (www.clinicaltrials.gov), WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (www.who.int/trialsearch)) and grey literature (Google Scholar). The references of the included studies, previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses will be reviewed. Study selection, data extraction and quality and risk of bias assessments will be independently performed by two authors (JMH and WSC), and disagreements will be resolved by discussion with JHK. Moreover, a Bayesian network meta-analysis will be performed using R software.Ethics and dissemination Our systematic review and network meta-analysis will be performed based on existing studies; thus, we did not seek ethical approval. Our results will be published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at both domestic and international conferences

Point defect-assisted doping mechanism and related thermoelectric transport properties in Pb-doped BiCuOTe

In this article we report point defect-assisted doping mechanism and related thermoelectric transport properties in Pb-doped BiCuOTe compounds. The substitution of trivalent Bi3+ with divalent Pb2+ led to the generation of more than one hole per single Pb atom. The origin of the extra charge carrier was discussed in terms of the formation energy of p-type native point defects, and it could be evidenced by the density functional theory calculations. Related charge transport properties indicated that control of the native point defect is critical to achieve high thermoelectric performance in BiCuOTe material system.X111513sciescopu