Plos One
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Pain catastrophising is an exaggerated cognitive attitude implemented during pain or when thinking about pain. Catastrophising was previously associated with increased pain severity, emotional distress and disability in chronic pain patients, and is also a contributing factor in the development of neuropathic pain. To investigate the neural basis of how pain catastrophising affects pain observed in others, we acquired EEG data in groups of participants with high (High-Cat) or low (Low-Cat) pain catastrophising scores during viewing of pain scenes and graphically matched pictures not depicting imminent pain. ⋯ Results suggest augmented activation of limbic cortex and higher order pain processing cortical regions during the late processing period in high pain catastrophisers viewing both types of pictures. This pattern of cortical activations is consistent with the distorted and magnified cognitive appraisal of pain threats in high pain catastrophisers. In contrast, high pain catastrophising individuals exhibit a diminished response during the mid-latency period when attentional and top-down resources are ascribed to observed pain.
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Skin grafting with the preservation of denatured dermis is a novel strategy for the treatment of burn-injured skin. Denatured dermis has the ability to restore to the morphology and function of normal skin, but the underlying molecular mechanism is elusive. MicroRNAs (miRNA) are small noncoding RNAs and regulate normal physiology as well as disease development. In this study, we assessed the potential role of miRNA-23b (miR-23b) in the regulation of cell proliferation and migration of heat-denatured fibroblasts and identified the underlying mechanism. ⋯ Our findings suggest that downregulation of miR-23b contributes to the recovery of denatured dermis, which may be valuable for treatment of skin burns.
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Respiratory rate (RR) is an important vital sign which is strongly correlated with in-hospital mortality. At the same time, RR is the most likely vital sign to be omitted when assessing a patient. We believe that one reason for this could be the difficulty in measure the RR, since it is not read off a monitor, but counted manually. Also there is the possibility of assessment bias and the inter-observer reliability becomes important. We therefore set out to investigate how the nursing staff counting the actual number of respirations per minute would agree with the nursing staff using a predefined ordinal scale. ⋯ The inter-observer agreement was high when comparing the use of the actual number of breaths per minute and substantial when comparing the use of the predefined scale. This is the largest inter-observer study on RR to date. However, further studies on the use of scaled comparisons of RR are needed.
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Observational Study
No Outbreak of Vancomycin and Linezolid Resistance in Staphylococcal Pneumonia over a 10-Year Period.
Staphylococci can cause wound infections and community- and nosocomial-acquired pneumonia, among a range of illnesses. Staphylococcus aureus and methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) have been rapidly increasing as a cause of infections worldwide in recent decades. Numerous reports indicate that S. aureus and MRSA are becoming resistant to many antibiotics, which makes them very dangerous. Therefore, this study retrospectively investigated the resistance to antimicrobial agents in all hospitalized patients suffering from community- or nosocomial-acquired pneumonia due to S. aureus and MRSA. ⋯ No development of resistance was found to vancomycin and linezolid in patients with pneumonia caused by S. aureus and MRSA.
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According to the 2014 World Population Data Sheet, Nigeria has one of the highest fertility and lowest contraceptive prevalence rates around the world. However, research suggests that national contraceptive prevalence rate overshadows enormous spatial variations in reproductive behavior in the country. ⋯ Understanding of state variations in contraceptive use is crucial to the design and implementation of family planning programs. The findings reinforce the need for state-specific family planning programs in Nigeria.