Low-Theta Electroencephalography Coherence Predicts Cigarette Craving in Nicotine Addiction

Addicts are often vulnerable to drug use in the presence of drug cues, which elicit significant drug cue reactivity. Mounting neuroimaging evidence suggests an association between functional magnetic resonance imaging connectivity networks and smoking cue reactivity; however, there is still little understanding of the electroencephalography (EEG) coherence basis of smoking cue reactivity. We therefore designed two independent experiments wherein nicotine-dependent smokers performed a smoking cue reactivity task during EEG recording. Experiment I showed that a low-theta EEG coherence network occurring 400–600 ms after onset during long-range (mainly between frontal and parieto-occipital) scalp regions, which was involved in smoking cue reactivity. Moreover, the average coherence of this network was significantly correlated with participants’ level of cigarette craving. In experiment II, we tested an independent group of smokers and demonstrated that the low-theta coherence network significantly predicted changes in individuals’ cigarette craving. Thus, the low-theta EEG coherence in smokers’ brains might be a biomarker of smoking cue reactivity and can predict addiction behavior

A Renal Cell Carcinoma with Biallelic Somatic TSC2 Mutation: Clinical Study and Literature Review.

OBJECTIVES: To elucidate the effect of the biallelic somatic TSC2 mutations, identified in one adolescent patient, in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). METHODS: Mutation analyses, immunohistochemistry and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were conducted. RESULTS: Two novel somatic mutations of TSC2 in unilateral and solitary RCC samples from a 14-year-old female were identified. The pathological features suggest the tumor as a clear-cell renal cell carcinoma. In addition, immunohistochemistry revealed elevated levels of phosphorylated S6K1. Results from in vitro cellular experiments suggest that the mutant TSC2 proteins were quickly degraded and they failed to repress the phosphorylation of S6K1 and STAT3, which leads to constitutive activation of mTORC1 pathway and ultimately cause the development of RCC. CONCLUSIONS: Detecting TSC2 mutation in patients with early RCC onset would be beneficial and mTOR inhibitor could be a therapeutic option for TSC2 mutation-induced RCC

A makro-TSH diagnosztikus és terápiás jelentősége Hashimoto-thyreoiditises betegekben | Diagnostic and therapeutical significance of macro-TSH in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis

Absztrakt: Bevezetés: A makro-TSH szerkezete, incidenciája és klinikai szerepe pajzsmirigybetegekben nem tisztázott. Célkitűzés: A makro-TSH előfordulási gyakoriságának, tulajdonságainak meghatározása Hashimoto-thyreoiditises betegek savójában. Módszer: A Hashimoto-thyreoiditises betegek vérmintáiban a makro-TSH-t meghatározták polietilén-glikol precipitációs módszerrel és protein G agaróz abszorpciós, illetve gélfiltrációs kromatográfiával. A makro-TSH biológiai aktivitását TSH-receptorral transzfektált CHO bioassay módszerével mérték. A betegek L-tiroxin-kezelésben részesültek (átlagosan 66,5 µg/nap), a betegek fele pedig szelént is kapott (átlagosan 60 µg/nap). Eredmények: 880 Hashimoto-thyreoiditises beteget (728 nő, átlagéletkor 44,8 év) vontak be a vizsgálatba. A makro-TSH-t 41 betegben (4,6%) mutatták ki, az átlagos TSH-szint a PEG-precipitáció előtt 185,4 ± 35 IU/l volt, a precipitáció után pedig 5,55 ± 1,8 IU/l. Az anti-TPO-szint 445 ± 51 IU/l volt és fokozatosan csökkent 212 ± 51 IU/l-re egyéves tiroxin- és szelénkezelés után. Mind a PEG-precipitációs, mind a protein G abszorpciós módszerrel, illetve gélkromatográfiás eljárással a TSH elleni antitest jelenlétét mutatták ki a makro-TSH-immunkomplexben. A makro-TSH biológialag inaktívnak bizonyult, mivel a CHO-sejteket nem stimulálta. A makro-TSH a szelénnel nem kezelt csoportban 18 ± 3,2 hónapig, a szelénnel kezeltben 12 ± 1,9 hónapig volt kimutatható. Következtetés: A TSH elleni antitestek fő komponensei a makro-TSH-nak és diagnosztikus, illetve terápiás nehézségeket okozhatnak. A PEG-precipitációs eljárás alkalmas szűrőmódszer a makro-TSH bizonyítására. A szelén képes nemcsak az anti-TPO-, hanem a makro-TSH-szint csökkentésére egyaránt. Amikor a TSH-szint 40,0 IU/l feletti a hypothyreosis jelei nélkül, gondolnunk kell a makro-TSH jelenlétére. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(34): 1346–1350. | Abstract: Introduction: Structure, importance and incidence and clinical role of macro-TSH not clarified in thyroid diseases. Aim: This study was undertaken to determine the incidence and biological role of macro-TSH in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Method: Blood samples taken from patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis were screened for the presence of macro-TSH with the polyethylene glycol method and confirmed with protein G agarose absorption test and gel filtration chromatography. Stimulatory capacity of macro-TSH was measured by CHO cells bio-assay. Patients were treated with L-thyroxine (mean 66.5 µg/day) and half of them with selenium (mean 60 µg/day), respectively. Results: 880 patients (728 female, aged 44.8 yr) with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis was involved in the study. Macro-TSH was found in the serum of 41 patients (4.6%), the mean TSH 185.4 ± 35 IU/l was before PEG precipitations and after 5.55 ± 1.8 IU/l. Titre of anti-TPO proved to be 445 ± 51 IU/l and gradulally decreased to 212 ± 51 IU/l after one year therapy. Both the precipitation, protein G absorption and gel chromatography supported the presence of anti-TSH antibody in the macro-TSH complex. Stimulatory capacity of macro-TSH on CHO bio-assay was not proved. The macro-TSH was detected in the selenium not treated group for 18 ± 3.2 months, selenium-treated for 12 ± 1.9 months. Conclusion: It is concluded that anti-human TSH autoantibodies are a major components of macro-TSH and may cause diagnostic and therapeutical difficulties. The PEG precipitation is a suitable screening method for detection of macro-TSH. Selenium is able to decrease of anti-TPO antibodies and macro-TSH, respectively. When the TSH level is greater than 40.0 IU/l, without the signs of hypothyroidism, the presence of macro-TSH is to be considered. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(34): 1346–1350

Safety evaluation of employing temporal interference transcranial alternating current stimulation in human studies

Temporal interference transcranial alternating current stimulation (TI-tACS) is a new technique of noninvasive brain stimulation. Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of TI-tACS in stimulating brain areas in a selective manner. However, its safety in modulating human brain neurons is still untested. In this study, 38 healthy adults were recruited to undergo a series of neurological and neuropsychological measurements regarding safety concerns before and after active (2 mA, 20/70 Hz, 30 min) or sham (0 mA, 0 Hz, 30 min) TI-tACS. The neurological and neuropsychological measurements included electroencephalography (EEG), serum neuron-specific enolase (NSE), the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), the Purdue Pegboard Test (PPT), an abbreviated version of the California Computerized Assessment Package (A-CalCAP), a revised version of the Visual Analog Mood Scale (VAMS-R), a self-assessment scale (SAS), and a questionnaire about adverse effects (AEs). We found no significant difference between the measurements of the active and sham TI-tACS groups. Meanwhile, no serious or intolerable adverse effects were reported or observed in the active stimulation group of 19 participants. These results support that TI-tACS is safe and tolerable in terms of neurological and neuropsychological functions and adverse effects for use in human brain stimulation studies under typical transcranial electric stimulation (TES) conditions (2 mA, 20/70 Hz, 30 min)

High Expression of Testes-Specific Protease 50 Is Associated with Poor Prognosis in Colorectal Carcinoma

Testes-specific protease 50 (TSP50) is normally expressed in testes and abnormally expressed in breast cancer, but whether TSP50 is expressed in colorectal carcinoma (CRC) and its clinical significance is unclear. We aimed to detect TSP50 expression in CRC, correlate it with clinicopathological factors, and assess its potential diagnostic and prognostic value. = 0.009).Our data demonstrate that TSP50 is a potential effective indicator of poor survival for CRC patients, especially for those with early-stage tumors

Supervised Multi-Layer Conditional Variational Auto-Encoder for Process Modeling and Soft Sensor

Variational auto-encoders (VAE) have been widely used in process modeling due to the ability of deep feature extraction and noise robustness. However, the construction of a supervised VAE model still faces huge challenges. The data generated by the existing supervised VAE models are unstable and uncontrollable due to random resampling in the latent subspace, meaning the performance of prediction is greatly weakened. In this paper, a new multi-layer conditional variational auto-encoder (M-CVAE) is constructed by injecting label information into the latent subspace to control the output data generated towards the direction of the actual value. Furthermore, the label information is also used as the input with process variables in order to strengthen the correlation between input and output. Finally, a neural network layer is embedded in the encoder of the model to achieve online quality prediction. The superiority and effectiveness of the proposed method are demonstrated by two real industrial process cases that are compared with other methods

Relationship between Apparent Diffusion Coefficient and Tumour Cellularity in Lung Cancer

<div><p>Background and objective</p><p>To prospectively investigate the relationship between the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) and cellularity in lung cancer.</p><p>Methods</p><p>Sixty patients histopathologically confirmed with lung cancer (41 men, 19 women) underwent diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging of the chest (with <i>b values</i> of 50 and 1000 s/mm²). The median mean ADC (ADCmean) value and median minimum ADC (ADCmin) value within each primary tumour were calculated and compared with the median nucleo-cytoplasmic ratio (NCR), which was selected to represent the cellularity. The correlation between the NCR and ADCmean/ADCmin was calculated with SPSS 18.0 software.</p><p>Results</p><p>The mean ADCmean values, ADCmin values and median NCR were (1.07±0.12)×10⁻³ mm²/s, (0.86±0.14)×10⁻³ mm²/s, and (14.9±2.6) %, respectively, in adenocarcinoma; (0.88±0.10)×10⁻³ mm²/s, (0.73±0.12)×10⁻³ mm²/s, and (20.6±4.4) %, respectively, in squamous cell carcinoma; and (0.89±0.13)×10⁻³ mm²/s, (0.67±0.13)×10⁻³ mm²/s, and (18.3±3.5) %, respectively in small cell lung cancer. The NCR of squamous cell carcinoma and small cell lung cancer is greater than that of adenocarcinoma (P<0.01 and P = 0.002, respectively). There was an inverse relationship between ADCmean/NCR and ADCmin/NCR (r = −0.60, P = 0.001 and r = −0.47, P<0.001, respectively).</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>There is a significant inverse relationship between tumour cellularity and ADC in lung cancer. However, tumour cellularity most likely is not the sole determinant of the ADC.</p></div