Plos One
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Previous imaging studies on functional dyspepsia (FD) have focused on abnormal brain functions during special tasks, while few studies concentrated on the resting-state abnormalities of FD patients, which might be potentially valuable to provide us with direct information about the neural basis of FD. The main purpose of the current study was thereby to characterize the distinct patterns of resting-state function between FD patients and healthy controls (HCs). ⋯ These findings indicated that significantly distinct patterns existed between FD patients and HCs during the resting-state, which could expand our understanding of the neural basis of FD. Meanwhile, our results possibly showed potential feasibility of functional magnetic resonance imaging diagnostic assay for FD.
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Spinal cord injury (SCI) and other neurological disorders involve complex biological and functional changes. Well-characterized preclinical models provide a powerful tool for understanding mechanisms of disease; however managing information produced by experimental models represents a significant challenge for translating findings across research projects and presents a substantial hurdle for translation of novel therapies to humans. In the present work we demonstrate a novel 'syndromic' information-processing approach for capitalizing on heterogeneous data from diverse preclinical models of SCI to discover translational outcomes for therapeutic testing. ⋯ The findings revealed that each individual endpoint provides a different view of the SCI syndrome, and that considering any single outcome measure in isolation provides a misleading, incomplete view of the SCI syndrome. This limitation was overcome by taking a novel multivariate integrative approach for leveraging complex data from preclinical models of neurological disease to identify therapies that target multiple outcomes. We suggest that applying this syndromic approach provides a roadmap for translating therapies for SCI and other complex neurological diseases.
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In 2005, the nutritional content of children's school lunches in England was widely criticised, leading to a major policy change in 2006. Food and nutrient-based standards were reintroduced requiring primary schools to comply by September 2008. We aimed to determine the effect of the policy on the nutritional content at lunchtime and in children's total diet. ⋯ Implementation of school food policy standards was associated with significant improvements in the nutritional content of school lunches; this was reflected in children's total diet. School food- and nutrient-based standards can play an important role in promoting dietary health and may contribute to tackling childhood obesity. Similar policy measures should be considered for other environments influencing children's diet.
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Patients admitted to the intensive care unit with alcohol use disorders have increased morbidity and mortality. The purpose of this study was to determine how chronic alcohol ingestion alters the host response to sepsis in mice. ⋯ When subjected to the same septic insult, mice with chronic alcohol ingestion have increased mortality. Alterations in intestinal integrity, the host immune response, and pancreatic metabolomics may help explain this differential response.
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Propensity score matching is a method to reduce bias in non-randomized and observational studies. Propensity score matching is mainly applied to two treatment groups rather than multiple treatment groups, because some key issues affecting its application to multiple treatment groups remain unsolved, such as the matching distance, the assessment of balance in baseline variables, and the choice of optimal caliper width. The primary objective of this study was to compare propensity score matching methods using different calipers and to choose the optimal caliper width for use with three treatment groups. ⋯ The matching ratio, relative bias, and mean squared error (MSE) of the estimate between groups in different propensity score-matched samples were also reported. The results of Monte Carlo simulations indicate that matching using a caliper width of 0.2 of the pooled standard deviation of the logit of the propensity score affords superior performance in the estimation of treatment effects. This study provides practical solutions for the application of propensity score matching of three treatment groups.