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Objective To explore the associated factors for quality of life in patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). Methods A total of 218 PSP patients were included from January 2012 to December 2019. Demographic and clinical data were collected. The quality of life was evaluated by the 39⁃Item Parkinson's disease Questionnaire (PDQ⁃39). The Progressive Supranuclear Palsy Rating Scale (PSPRS) was used to assess the severity of PSP related motor and non⁃motor symptoms, while the Non⁃Motor Symptoms Scale (NMSS) was used to elevate the non⁃motor symptoms, Hamilton Depression Rating Scale⁃24 (HAMD⁃24), Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA), Lille Apathy Rating Scale (LARS), Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB), and Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) were used. The Pearson and partial correlation followed by the multiple linear regression were used to explore the correlates of the PDQ⁃39 score. Results Correlation analysis indicated that the PDQ⁃39 score was positively correlated with disease duration (r=0.301, P=0.000), Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI; r=0.147, P=0.031), levodopa equivalent daily dose (LEDD; r=0.225, P=0.001), and scores for the PSPRS (r=0.551, P=0.000), NMSS (r=0.484, P=0.000), HAMD⁃24 (r=0.515, P=0.000), HAMA (r=0.439, P=0.000) and LARS (r=0.476, P=0.000), but was negatively correlated with scores of FAB (r=⁃0.325, P=0.000) and MoCA (r=⁃0.355, P=0.000). Multiple linear stepwise regression model indicated that the PDQ⁃39 score was significantly associated with female (P=0.021), longer disease duration (P=0.026), higher LEDD (P=0.008), higher PSPRS score (P=0.000), higher NMSS score (P=0.002), higher HAMD⁃24 score (P=0.004), and higher LARS score (P=0.000). Conclusions Female, longer disease duration, higher LEDD, and more severe motor and non⁃motor symptoms contribute to the reduced quality of life in patients with PSP. Our study is beneficial to the clinical management of patients with PSP.

Early rice easily suffers from low temperature injury at seedling raising stage, resulting in yield reduction. Therefore, it is necessary to develop low temperature tolerant rice seedling substrate to ensure early rice production. The fermentation substrate made by ourselves was used in the present study. After melatonin and methyl jasmonate were added in the substrate, the rice was treated with low temperature for 3 days at seed germination stage and 7 days' growth stage. Then, to clarify the regulatory mechanism of these two phytohormones on the tolerance of early rice seedlings to low temperature stress, the germination status, physical and chemical properties, and gene expression of rice were explored. The results showed that both melatonin and methyl jasmonate could significantly improve the seed germination rate and germination potential of rice under low temperature. Both could improve the growth of rice, including plant height, root length, root number, dry matter weight, leaf age, and nutrient content. Under low temperature, melatonin and methyl jasmonate both reduced hydrogen peroxide and malondialdehyde content in rice by regulating the activities of antioxidant system enzymes, so as to alleviate the lipid peroxidation damage caused by low temperature stress. Melatonin and methyl jasmonate both increased the contents of proline and chlorophyll, and decreased the content of abscisic acid in rice under low temperature stress. Methyl jasmonate along increased GA3 content in rice under low temperature conditions. Melatonin and methyl jasmonate had different regulatory effects on cold tolerance genes expression in rice. Both of them significantly up-regulated the relative expression of OsCDPK7 and OsLti6b genes, and down-regulated the expression of OsWRKY45 gene in rice under low temperature conditions. In addition. The relative expression of OsFer1 gene was induced by melatonin alone, while the relative expression of OsTrx23 gene was up-regulated by methyl jasmonate alone in response to low temperature stress. The above results showed that both melatonin and methyl jasmonate could improve the low temperature stress tolerance of rice by regulating the enzyme activity of antioxidant system, osmotic substance content, chlorophyll content, plant hormone content and the expression of cold tolerance genes in rice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering that I GBA i , I TMEM175 i , and I SNCA i are risk genes for both LBD and PD, it is noteworthy to investigate whether I BIN1 i and I APOE i are also associated with the risk of PD. Keywords: APOE; BIN1; Parkinson's disease; rare variant EN APOE BIN1 Parkinson's disease rare variant 698 701 4 04/15/22 20220501 NES 220501 Abbreviations GWAS genome-wide association study LBD Lewy body dementia PD Parkinson's disease Dear Editor, Recently, Chia et al. identified five risk genes for Lewy body dementia (LBD) in a genome-wide association study (GWAS) [1]. Similarly, a previous study identified that the I BIN1 i variant rs13403026 was associated with later AAO in I GBA i -associated PD [4], suggesting the potential role of I BIN1 i in regulating AAO in PD. [Extracted from the article]

The long-term lack of systematic morphological characteristic descriptions and species distinctions of ihoihecium Bruch & Schimp in China resulted in the difficult taxonomy. For further understanding of the classification of this genus, in addition to the study of original literatures of the related Orthothecium species, morphological characters of types and general specimens were observed. The specimens examined were collected from the United States, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Nepal and China (Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and Xinjiang). This study confirmed this genus species distribution in China. O. intricatum (Hartm.) Schimp was newly recorded in Inner Mongolia and Xinjing, O. rufescers (Dicks. Ex Brid.) Schimp newly recorded in Sichuan. Detailed morphological descriptions, illustrations and a key of three Orthothecium species were provided, promoting for the taxonomy study of Orthothecium and Plagiotheciaceae. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) is considered a robust prognostic biomarker for predicting patient survival outcomes in many diseases. However, it remains unclear whether it can be used as a biomarker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). To correlate NLR with disease progression and survival in sporadic ALS, 1030 patients with ALS between January 2012 and December 2018 were included in this study. These patients were assigned into three groups according to their NLR values: Group 1 (NLR < 2, n = 544 [52.8%]), Group 2 (NLR = 2-3, n = 314 [30.5%]), and Group 3 (NLR > 3, n = 172 [16.7%]). All patients were followed up until April 2020. Patients in Group 3 had a significantly older onset age, a lower score on the Revised ALS Functional Rating Scale, and rapidly progressing disease conditions. Furthermore, faster disease progression rates were associated with higher NLR values (odds ratio = 1.211, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.090-1.346, P < 0.001) after adjusting for other risk factors. Compared with Groups 1 and 2, the survival time in Group 3 was significantly shorter (log-rank P = 0.002). The NLR value was considered an independent parameter for the prediction of survival in ALS patients after normalizing for all other potential parameters (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.079, 95% CI: 1.016-1.146, P = 0.014). The effects on ALS survival remained significant when adjusted for treatment (HR = 1.074, 95% CI: 1.012-1.141, P trend = 0.019) or when considering the stratified NLR value (HR = 1.115, 95% CI: 1.009-1.232, P trend = 0.033). Thus, the NLR may help to predict the rate of disease progression and survival in patients with sporadic ALS. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of West China Hospital of Sichuan University, China (approval No. 2015 (236)) on December 23, 2015., Competing Interests: None

Creatine kinase is a muscle enzyme that has been reported at various levels in different studies involving patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. In the present retrospective case-control study, we included 582 patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and 582 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. All amyotrophic lateral sclerosis participants received treatment in the Department of Neurology, West China Hospital, China, between May 2008 and December 2018. Serum creatine kinase levels in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were significantly higher than those in healthy controls. Subgroup analysis revealed that serum creatine kinase levels in men were higher than those in women in both amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients and healthy controls. Compared with patients with bulbar-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, patients with limb-onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis had higher creatine kinase levels. Spearman's correlation analysis revealed that serum creatine kinase levels were not correlated with body mass index, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale-Revised score, or progression rate. After adjusting for prognostic covariates, higher log creatine kinase values were correlated with higher overall survival in the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients. We also investigated the longitudinal changes in serum creatine kinase levels in 81 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients; serum creatine kinase levels were decreased at the second blood test, which was sampled at least 6 months after the first blood test. Together, our results suggest that serum creatine kinase levels can be used as an independent factor for predicting the prognosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients. This study received ethical approval from the Ethics Committee of West China Hospital, China (approval No. 2015(236)) on December 23, 2015., Competing Interests: None

Objective: To increase the probability of successful renal artery angiography with a three-dimensional contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography (3D CE-MRA)., Methods: 3D CE-MRA was performed in 33 patients with hypertension. To calculate the scan delay time, a testing contrast agent bolus of 2 ml was injected for single sagittal slice real-time scanning, followed by oblique coronal 3D Fast TOF SPGRE. With maximum intensity projection, a set of images was acquired., Results: Exact scan delay time was obtained in all the cases from which clear images were acquired with the exception of two cases in which failure of breath-holding occurred during the scanning., Conclusion: This examination enhances the performance by adopting elliptical-centric k-space recording for data acquisition for the center in k-space at the beginning of acquisition, and utilizing preceding testing bolus injection and signal intensity/time curve for determining the scan delay time, using slice selection and multiview image reconstruction.