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Background We aimed to describe the frequency of use and effectiveness of bezlotoxumab (BZX) and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) in patients with Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) in real-world practice. Methods This was a retrospective study conducted in a university hospital in which adult patients treated with BZX or FMT from January 2018 to April 2021 were included. The primary objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of BZX and FMT in preventing early (within 8 weeks) and late (within 1 year) CDI recurrences (rCDI). A multivariate analysis of risk factors for early recurrence was performed. Results Of 1377 consecutive CDI episodes, 117 (8.5%) received BZX or FMT, with full information available for 100 of the episodes: 51 received BZX, and 49 received FMT. BZX was used mostly in immunosuppressed patients (66.7%) and in first episodes or first recurrences in 70.6% of the cases. FMT was prescribed only in CDI recurrences. Despite the different conditions of the patients, there were no significant differences between BZX and FMT in preventing early rCDI (19.6% vs 24.5%; P = .55) or late rCDI (9.8% vs 18.4%; P = .31). In the multivariate analysis, risk factors for recurrence were presence of ≥2 previous rCDI episodes (odds ratio [OR], 2.90; 95% CI, 1.03–8.63) and use of non-CDI antibiotics (OR, 3.45; 95% CI, 1.24–9.57). Conclusions BZX and FMT were infrequently used in real-world practice. Both treatments had similar effectiveness in preventing CDI recurrence despite their application to different populations.

Despite gender is a salient feature in face recognition, the question of whether stereotyping modulates face processing remains unexplored. Event-related potentials from 40 participants (20 female) was recorded as male and female faces matched or mismatched previous gender-stereotyped statements and were compared with those elicited by faces preceded by gender-unbiased statements. We conducted linear mixed-effects models to account for possible random effects from both participants and the strength of the gender bias. The amplitude of the N170 to faces was larger following stereotyped relative to gender-unbiased statements in both male and female participants, although the effect was larger for males. This result reveals that stereotyping exerts an early effect in face processing and that the impact is higher in men. In later time windows, male faces after female-stereotyped statements elicited large late positivity potential (LPP) responses in both men and women, indicating that the violation of male stereotypes induces a post-perceptual reevaluation of a salient or conflicting event. Besides, the largest LPP amplitude in women was elicited when they encountered a female face after a female-stereotyped statement. The later result is discussed from the perspective of recent claims on the evolution of women self-identification with traditionally held female roles.

This event-related potential (ERP) study explored the behaviour of N400 and post-N400 frontal positivities (pN400FP) during the processing of emotionally biased and unbiased sentences that randomly led to highly expected or unexpected word outcomes. Unexpected outcomes (as determined by sentence completion written tests) elicited significantly larger N400 and pN400FP responses than did highly expected outcomes. Emotionally neutral outcomes triggered a significant N400 expectancy effect across all scalp locations, including frontal sites, whereas emotionally biased outcomes elicited a significant N400 effect localized to posterior scalp regions. The subsequent pN400FP effect was significant only when emotional expectations were violated and not when emotionally neutral sentences led to unexpected outcomes. This frontal effect, linked to the processing of lexically unexpected but plausible words, showed larger amplitudes for unexpected pleasant surprises than for unexpected setbacks. Our results support the view that the pN400FP response to unexpected verbal outcomes entails more than a generic reaction to a lexical ‘misprediction’. Rather, they favour the hypothesis that the affective content of the sentence being processed influences the effort needed to override a lexical prediction, such that more effort is needed to override a pessimistic prediction than an optimistic one.