Personalized analysis of pain–weather associations: a pilot study

Background and purpose – It is a wellknown belief that weather can influence human health, including pain sensation. However, the current data are controversial, which might be due to the wide range of interindividual differences. The present study aimed to characterize the individual pain– weather associations during chronic pain by utilizing several data analytical methods. Methods – The study included 3-3 patients with (P1, P3, and P4) or without (P2, P5, P6) diabetes mellitus and signs of trigeminal neuralgia or low back pain. Subjective pain scores (0–10) and 12 weather parameters (terrestrial, geomagnetic, and solar) were recorded for one month repeated three times daily. Nonparametric Spearman’s correlation (Sp), multiple regression (Mx), and principal component (PCA) analyses were performed to evaluate associations between pain and meteorological factors obtained at the day of recorded pain value, 2 days before and 2 days after the recorded pain, and the changes in these parameters (5 × 12 parameters). Complex scores were calculated based on the results of these analyses. Results – While the temperature had the highest effects on the pain levels in most of the participants, huge interindividual dif­ferences in the degree and the direction of the associations between pain and weather parameters could be obtained. The analytic methods also revealed subjectspecific results, and the synthesis of different statistical methods as total scores provided a personalized map for each patient, which showed disparate patterns across the study participants. Thus, Participants 2 and 5 had higher scores for Mx compared to Sp; furthermore, certain factors showed opposite direction in their associations with the pain level depending on the type of analysis (Sp vs Mx). In contrast, P3 had a lower score for Mx compared to Sp, which might suggest a low level of weather sensitivity on the association between the different weather parameters in this subject. Furthermore, participants P4 and P6 had a very high level of weather sensitivity, while P1 had an opposite pattern. Regarding the time point-related effects on the pain level, most patients were sensitive to parameters obtained at the same day or two days before, except the P1 subject, who had the highest sensitivity to weather parameters detected two days after. Conclusion – The present study highlights the importance of integrating different data analysis approaches to elucidate the individual connections between pain and most of the weather parameters. In conclusion, complex personalized profiling should be considered for the characterization of pain–weather associations by applying different data analytical approaches, which may provide feedback to physicians and patients

Reconstruction of Parental SSR Haplotypes from a Single Grape Seed

Microsatellite (‘single sequence repeats’, SSR) markers were widely used in the last decade for the identification of parents of a given grapevine variety or for pedigree reconstruction as well. By now the pedigree of the majority of the most important varieties is established. At the same time, knowing both of the parents gives information about which one was the mother plant and which one was the pollinator. Analyses of archaeological grapevine seeds can give new opportunities in the research of the evolution of varieties. In most of the angiosperms, the endosperm is triploid with two genome equivalents from the maternal line and one from the paternal line. Our presumption was that this numeral difference in the maternal and paternal alleles causes measureable difference in the amplification of SSR alleles from grapevine seeds. To validate our method, pre-experiments were carried out on 12 ‘Pinot gris’ seeds, which verified our theory

Land cover analysis based on descriptive statistics of Sentinel-2 time series data

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Caffeine-Induced Acute and Delayed Responses in Cerebral Metabolism of Control and Schizophrenia-like Wisket Rats

Recently, morphological impairments have been detected in the brain of a triple-hit rat schizophrenia model (Wisket), and delayed depressive effects of caffeine treatment in both control and Wisket animals have also been shown. The aims of this study were to determine the basal and caffeine-induced acute (30 min) and delayed (24 h) changes in the cerebral (18)fluorodeoxyglucose (F-18-FDG) uptake by positron emission tomography (PET) in control and Wisket rats. No significant differences were identified in the basal whole-brain metabolism between the two groups, and the metabolism was not modified acutely by a single intraperitoneal caffeine (20 mg/kg) injection in either group. However, one day after caffeine administration, significantly enhanced F-18-FDG uptake was detected in the whole brain and the investigated areas (hippocampus, striatum, thalamus, and hypothalamus) in the control group. Although the Wisket animals showed only moderate enhancements in the F-18-FDG uptake, significantly lower brain metabolism was observed in this group than in the caffeine-treated control group. This study highlights that the basal brain metabolism of Wisket animals was similar to control rats, and that was not influenced acutely by single caffeine treatment at the whole-brain level. Nevertheless, the distinct delayed responsiveness to this psychostimulant in Wisket model rats suggests impaired control of the cerebral metabolism

Inhibition studies on α-amylase using isothermal titration calorimetry

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