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Background: In this study, the international affective picture system was used to evoke emotion, and then the corresponding signals were collected. The features from different points of brainwaves, frequency, and entropy were used to identify normal, moderately, and markedly ill schizophrenic patients., Methods: The signals were collected and preprocessed. Then, the signals were separated according to three types of emotions and five frequency bands. Finally, the features were calculated using three different methods of entropy. For classification, the features were divided into different sections and classification using support vector machine (principal components analysis on 95%). Finally, simple regression and correlation analysis between the total scores of positive and negative syndrome scale and features were used., Results: At first, we observed that to classify normal and markedly ill schizophrenic patients, the identification result was as high as 81.5%, and therefore, we further explored moderately and markedly ill schizophrenic patients. Second, the identification rate in both moderately and markedly ill schizophrenic patient was as high as 79.5%, which at the Fz point signal in high valence low arousal fragments was calculated using the ApEn methods. Finally, the total scores of positive and negative syndrome scale were used to analyze the correlation with the features that were the five frequency bands at the Fz point signal. The results show that the p value was less than .001 at the beta wave in the 15-18 Hz frequency range.

Background: Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) and sorafenib are the therapeutic standard for intermediate and advanced stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients respectively. High costs with adverse events (AE) of sorafenib might limit sorafenib dosage, further affecting therapeutic response. To attain greatest benefit, we evaluated the efficacy of different doses and effect of TACE during and after sorafenib discontinuation in patients representing Child-Pugh Classification Class A with venous or extra-hepatic invasion., Methods: A total 156 patients met the criteria and were divided into Groups I (n = 52) accepting 800 mg/day; II (n = 58) accepting 800 mg/day and reduced to 400 mg/day owing to AE; and III (n = 46) accepting 400 mg/day. TACE was performed during and after sorafenib discontinuation and therapeutic response bimonthly to four-monthly was rated thereafter., Results: Median duration of sorafenib treatment and patients' survival were 4.00 ± 0.45 and 7.50 ± 1.44 months in all cases; 2.50 ± 0.90 and 5.00 ± 1.10 months in Group I; 5.50 ± 1.27 and 16.50 ± 1.86 months in Group II; 4.00 ± 0.94 and 6.50 ± 2.49 months in Group III. Group II presented the best response and survival benefit (p = 0.010 and p = 0.011 respectively). Child-Pugh Classification score 5 (Hazard Ratio = 0.492, p = 0.049), absent AE (3.423, p = 0.015), tumor numbers ≤ 3 (0.313, p = 0.009), sorafenib duration ≤ 1 cycle (3.694, p = 0.004), and absent TACE (3.197, p = 0.008) significantly correlated with patient survival. TACE benefit appeared in separate and total cases during (p = 0.002, p = 0.595, p = 0.074, p = 0.002 respectively) and after discontinuation of sorafenib administration (p = 0.001, p = 0.034, p = 0.647, p = 0.001 respectively)., Conclusions: Low-dosage sorafenib not only appeared tolerable and lowered economic pressure but also provided satisfactory results. TACE benefited patient's survival during and after sorafenib discontinuation.

Background: Electrical biopsy illustrates a tissue's electrical properties by electrical impedance spectroscopy. However, electrical biopsy parameters are different from conventional morphological-based examinations. The correlation between electrical biopsy and the morphological observation has not been checked. Considering the tissue responses to injury, extracellular resistance should be most sensitive with the accumulation of fluid in tissue, and it is expected to increase the ratio of optical low staining area on histological images. In this study, we calculated the ratio of optical low staining area of sampled histological images and compared with the results of electrical biopsy to verify the hypothesis of that the extracellular resistance of electrical biopsy most highly correlates with the ratio of optical low staining area on histological images., Methods: The irradiated intestinal tissues of rats after different latent period were used for study. The sampled tissues were measured by electrical impedance spectroscopy for electrical biopsy and the microscopic images were acquired. The sampled histological images were transformed into the Hue-Saturation-Density (HSD) colour model to decouple the stain density. The ratio of optical low staining area on histological images was computed to quantify the morphological changes. The results were related to the parameters from electrical biopsy according to three element circuit model by Spearman's rank correlation test., Results: The ratio of optical low staining area varied as well as the tissue's electrical parameters. The extracellular resistance (Re) and intracellular resistance (Ri) by electrical biopsy tended to increase with the ratio of low staining area decreasing. The membrane capacitance (Cm) by electrical biopsy tended to increase with the ratio of optical low staining area increasing. The extracellular resistance (Re) of electrical biopsy was the parameter most highly correlated with the ratio of optical low staining area with a correlation coefficient of -0.757 (p < 0.001)., Conclusions: The results of this report confirm the hypothesis and support the idea that electrical biopsy results reflect the changes in tissues seen in conventional histological findings in a sense of conventional histological knowledge, and this approach may have a great potential for augmenting the pathological diagnosis of tissues.

Background: We aimed to explore relations between symptomatic remission and functionality evaluation in schizophrenia patients treated with paliperidone extended-release (ER), as seen in a normal day-to-day practice, using flexible dosing regimens of paliperidone ER. We explored symptomatic remission rate in patients treated with flexibly dosed paliperidone ER by 8 items of Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and change of Personal and Social Performance (PSP) scale., Method: This was a 12-week multicenter, open-label, prospective clinical study conducted in in-patient and out-patient populations. Flexible dosing in the range 3-12 mg/day was used throughout the study. All subjects attended clinic visits on weeks 0, 4, 8, and 12 as usual clinical practice for the 12-week observation period. Data were summarized with respect to demographic and baseline characteristics, efficacy measurement with PANSS scale, PSP, and social functioning score, and safety observations. Descriptive statistics were performed to identify the retention rate at each visit as well as the symptomatic remission rate. Summary statistics of average doses the subjects received were based on all subjects participating in the study., Results: A total of 480 patients were enrolled. Among them, 426 patients (88.8%) had evaluation at week 4 and 350 (72.9%) completed the 12-week evaluation. Patients with at least moderate severity of schizophrenia were evaluated as "mild" or better on PANSS scale by all 8 items after 12 weeks of treatment with paliperidone ER. There was significant improvement in patients' functionality as measured by PSP improvement and score changes. Concerning the other efficacy parameters, PANSS total scale, PSP total scale, and social functioning total scale at the end of study all indicated statistically significant improvement by comparison with baseline. The safety profile also demonstrated that paliperidone ER was well-tolerated without clinically significant changes after treatment administration., Conclusions: Although the short-term nature of this study may limit the potential for assessing improvements in function, it is noteworthy that in the present short-term study significant improvements in patient personal and social functioning with paliperidone ER treatment were observed, as assessed by PSP scale., Trial Registration: Clinical Trials. PAL-TWN-MA3.

Background: The electrical signals measuring method is recommended to examine the relationship between neuronal activities and measure with the event related potentials (ERPs) during an auditory and a visual oddball paradigm between schizophrenic patients and normal subjects. The aim of this study is to discriminate the activation changes of different stimulations evoked by auditory and visual ERPs between schizophrenic patients and normal subjects., Methods: Forty-three schizophrenic patients were selected as experimental group patients, and 40 healthy subjects with no medical history of any kind of psychiatric diseases, neurological diseases, or drug abuse, were recruited as a control group. Auditory and visual ERPs were studied with an oddball paradigm. All the data were analyzed by SPSS statistical software version 10.0., Results: In the comparative study of auditory and visual ERPs between the schizophrenic and healthy patients, P300 amplitude at Fz, Cz, and Pz and N100, N200, and P200 latencies at Fz, Cz, and Pz were shown significantly different. The cognitive processing reflected by the auditory and the visual P300 latency to rare target stimuli was probably an indicator of the cognitive function in schizophrenic patients., Conclusions: This study shows the methodology of application of auditory and visual oddball paradigm identifies task-relevant sources of activity and allows separation of regions that have different response properties. Our study indicates that there may be slowness of automatic cognitive processing and controlled cognitive processing of visual ERPs compared to auditory ERPs in schizophrenic patients. The activation changes of visual evoked potentials are more regionally specific than auditory evoked potentials.

The effects of fractionated oxidized low density lipoproteins (oxidized LDL) on the growth of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and their relationship to the formation of lysophosphatidylcholine (lyso-PC) as well as the activation of protein kinase C (PKC) were studied. VSMC were isolated from porcine aorta by explant culture. LDL was isolated from porcine blood by sequential ultracentrifugation and oxidized LDL was obtained by incubating LDL with 5 microM CuSO(4) at 37 degrees C for various lengths of time. Our results showed that LDL oxidized for 12 h and eluted from fast protein liquid chromatography at 43 min inhibited the growth of VSMC, and that LDL oxidized for longer than 48 h and eluted at 48 min stimulated the growth of VSMC. The formation of lyso-PC in the oxidized LDL correlated well with its stimulatory effect, suggesting that lyso-PC is responsible for the mitogenic effect of oxidized LDL. This stimulatory effect of oxidized LDL was inhibited by staurosporine, a PKC inhibitor. Treatment with oxidized LDL increased the activity of membrane PKC, but it decreased that of cytosolic PKC, suggesting the translocation of PKC from cytosol to the membrane in the presence of oxidized LDL. These results suggested that the oxidized LDL-stimulated VSMC growth was mediated by the formation of lyso-PC and the activation of PKC.