Deep learning radiomic analysis of DCE-MRI combined with clinical characteristics predicts pathological complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in breast cancer

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to develop and validate a deep learning-based radiomic (DLR) model combined with clinical characteristics for predicting pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in breast cancer. For early prediction of pCR, the DLR model was based on pre-treatment and early treatment dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) data.Materials and methodsThis retrospective study included 95 women (mean age, 48.1 years; range, 29–77 years) who underwent DCE-MRI before (pre-treatment) and after two or three cycles of NAC (early treatment) from 2018 to 2021. The patients in this study were randomly divided into a training cohort (n=67) and a validation cohort (n=28) at a ratio of 7:3. Deep learning and handcrafted features were extracted from pre- and early treatment DCE-MRI contoured lesions. These features contribute to the construction of radiomic signature RS1 and RS2 representing information from different periods. Mutual information and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression were used for feature selection. A combined model was then developed based on the DCE-MRI features and clinical characteristics. The performance of the models was assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and compared using the DeLong test.ResultsThe overall pCR rate was 25.3% (24/95). One radiomic feature and three deep learning features in RS1, five radiomic features and 11 deep learning features in RS2, and five clinical characteristics remained in the feature selection. The performance of the DLR model combining pre- and early treatment information (AUC=0.900) was better than that of RS1 (AUC=0.644, P=0.068) and slightly higher that of RS2 (AUC=0.888, P=0.604) in the validation cohort. The combined model including pre- and early treatment information and clinical characteristics showed the best ability with an AUC of 0.925 in the validation cohort.ConclusionThe combined model integrating pre-treatment, early treatment DCE-MRI data, and clinical characteristics showed good performance in predicting pCR to NAC in patients with breast cancer. Early treatment DCE-MRI and clinical characteristics may play an important role in evaluating the outcomes of NAC by predicting pCR

Identification and Transformation Difficulty in Problem Solving: Electrophysiological Evidence from Chunk Decomposition

A wealth of studies have investigated how to overcome experience-based constraints in creative problem solving. One such experience-based constraint is the tendency for people to view tightly organized visual stimuli as single, unified percepts, even when decomposition of those stimuli into component parts (termed chunk decomposition) would facilitate problem solving. The current study investigates the neural underpinnings of chunk decomposition in creative problem solving by analyzing event-related potentials. In two experiments, participants decomposed Chinese characters into the character’s component elements and then used the base elements to form a new valid character. The action could require decomposing a “tight” chunk, meaning that the component elements intersected spatially, or a “loose” chunk, in which the component elements did not overlap in space. Behaviorally, individuals made more errors and responded slower to trials involving tight chunks relative to loose chunks. Analysis of the ERPs revealed that relative to loose chunks, the electrophysiological response to tight chunks contained an increased N2, an increased N400, and a decreased late positive complex. Taken together, these results suggest that chunk tightness is a principle determinant of the difficulty of chunk decomposition, and that chunk tightness provokes neural conflict and semantic violations, factors known to influence the N2 and N400 ERP components

Transcriptomic analysis reveals ethylene signal transduction genes involved in pistil development of pumpkin

Development of female flowers is an important process that directly affects the yield of Cucubits. Little information is available on the sex determination and development of female flowers in pumpkin, a typical monoecious plant. In the present study, we used aborted and normal pistils of pumpkin for RNA-Seq analysis and determined the differentially expressed genes (DEGs) to gain insights into the molecular mechanism underlying pistil development in pumpkin. A total of 3,817 DEGs were identified, among which 1,341 were upregulated and 2,476 were downregulated. The results of transcriptome analysis were confirmed by real-time quantitative RT-PCR. KEGG enrichment analysis showed that the DEGs were significantly enriched in plant hormone signal transduction and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis pathway. Eighty-four DEGs were enriched in the plant hormone signal transduction pathway, which accounted for 12.54% of the significant DEGs, and most of them were annotated as predicted ethylene responsive or insensitive transcription factor genes. Furthermore, the expression levels of four ethylene signal transduction genes in different flower structures (female calyx, pistil, male calyx, stamen, leaf, and ovary) were investigated. The ethyleneresponsive DNA binding factor, ERDBF3, and ethylene responsive transcription factor, ERTF10, showed the highest expression in pistils and the lowest expression in stamens, and their expression levels were 78- and 162-times more than that in stamens, respectively. These results suggest that plant hormone signal transduction genes, especially ethylene signal transduction genes, play an important role in the development of pistils in pumpkin. Our study provides a theoretical basis for further understanding of the mechanism of regulation of ethylene signal transduction genes in pistil development and sex determination in pumpkin

Fabrication of Asymmetric Polysaccharide Composite Membranes as Guided Bone Regeneration Materials

Periodontal regeneration can be achieved by guided tissue and guided bone regeneration (GTR/GBR) membranes, which act as a physical barrier to exclude migration of connective and epithelium, favoring the repopulation of periodontal ligament cells. Asymmetric polysaccharide GBR membranes with two different surfaces were developed in this study. Positive chitosan (CS), negative hyluronaic acid (HA) and konjac glucomannan (KGM) were composited by electrostatic interaction, forming smooth and dense membranes as upper surface to inhibit the ingrowth of cells from gingiva. The lower porous and coarse surface was obtained by gel freeze-drying and mineralization to improve the regeneration of the bone tissue. The performance of the membranes was characterized by Infrared Radiation (IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), tensile strength and biological evaluation. It was found that the composite membranes with chitosan content of 56.7 wt%in the dry state possess the highest tensile strength, with elongation 10 times more higher than that of the pure CS ones. Additionaly, open pores with diameter of 10-100 µm and homogenouse distributed nano-hydroxyapatite (HAP) were investigated on the coarse part. Cell studies demonstrated that the porous surface promoted the growth of the preosteoblast. Overall, the composite membranes may be useful for regeneration of periodontal regeneration

A Chromatin-Mediated Reversible Drug-Tolerant State in Cancer Cell Subpopulations

SummaryAccumulating evidence implicates heterogeneity within cancer cell populations in the response to stressful exposures, including drug treatments. While modeling the acute response to various anticancer agents in drug-sensitive human tumor cell lines, we consistently detected a small subpopulation of reversibly “drug-tolerant” cells. These cells demonstrate >100-fold reduced drug sensitivity and maintain viability via engagement of IGF-1 receptor signaling and an altered chromatin state that requires the histone demethylase RBP2/KDM5A/Jarid1A. This drug-tolerant phenotype is transiently acquired and relinquished at low frequency by individual cells within the population, implicating the dynamic regulation of phenotypic heterogeneity in drug tolerance. The drug-tolerant subpopulation can be selectively ablated by treatment with IGF-1 receptor inhibitors or chromatin-modifying agents, potentially yielding a therapeutic opportunity. Together, these findings suggest that cancer cell populations employ a dynamic survival strategy in which individual cells transiently assume a reversibly drug-tolerant state to protect the population from eradication by potentially lethal exposures.PaperCli

A Review of the Performance of Artifact Filtering Algorithms for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation

Various filtering strategies have been adopted and investigated to suppress the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) artifact. In this article, two types of artifact removal methods are reviewed: one is the method that removes CPR artifact using only ECG signals, and the other is the method with additional reference signals, such as acceleration, compression depth and transthoracic impedance. After filtering, the signal-to-noise ratio is improved from 0 dB to greater than 2.8 dB, the sensitivity is increased to > 90% as recommended by the American Heart Association, whereas the specificity was far from the recommended 95%, which is considered to be the major drawback of the available artifact removal methods. The overall performance of the adaptive filtering methods with additional reference signal outperforms the methods using only ECG signals. Further research should focus on the refinement of artifact filtering methods and the improvement of shock advice algorithms with the presence of CPR

Different Electrophysiological Responses to Informative Value of Feedback Between Children and Adults

The ability to learn from feedback is important for children’s adaptive behavior and school learning. Feedback has two main components, informative value and valence. How to disentangle these two components and what is the developmental neural correlates of using the informative value of feedback is still an open question. In this study, 23 children (7–10 years old) and 19 adults (19–22 years old) were asked to perform a rule induction task, in which they were required to find a rule, based on the informative value of feedback. Behavioral results indicated that the likelihood of correct searching behavior under negative feedback was low for children. Event-related potentials showed that (1) the effect of valence was processed in a wide time window, particularly in the N2 component; (2) the encoding process of the informative value of negative feedback began later for children than for adults; (3) a clear P300 was observed for adults; for children, however, P300 was absent in the frontal region; and (4) children processed the informative value of feedback chiefly in the left sites during the P300 time window, whereas adults did not show this laterality. These results suggested that children were less sensitive to the informative value of negative feedback possibly because of the immature brain

Electrophysiological Response to the Informative Value of Feedback Revealed in a Segmented Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

Feedback has two main components. One is valence that indicates the wrong or correct behavior, and the other is the informative value that refers to what we can learn from feedback. Aimed to explore the neural distinction of these two components, we provided participants with a segmented Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, in which they received either positive or negative feedback at different steps. The informative value was manipulated in terms of the order of feedback presentation. The results of event-related potentials time-locked to the feedback presentation confirmed that valence of feedback was processed in a broad epoch, especially in the time window of feedback-related negativity (FRN), reflecting detection of correct or wrong card sorting behavior. In contrast, the informative value of positive and negative feedback was mainly processed in the P300, possibly reflecting information updating or hypothesis revision. These findings provide new evidence that informative values of feedback are processed by cognitive systems that differ from those of feedback valence

Clinical efficacy and safety of two concentrations of intravenous nicardipine hydrochloride for nicardipine-related phlebitis in patients with preeclampsia

To evaluate the effect of two concentrations of intravenous administration of nicardipine hydrochloride on nicardipine-related phlebitis in patients with preeclampsia. A total of 100 preeclampsia patients were administered with nicardipine hydrochloride and divided into the low-concentration (LC) and high-concentration (HC) groups. The incidence and severity of phlebitis, time from treatment to onset of phlebitis, skin temperature, visual analogue scale (VAS) score, induration and systemic adverse reactions were compared between two groups. The incidence rate of phlebitis in the LC group was 20.00% (10/50), significantly lower than 42.00% (21/50) in the HC group (PThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author